King & Moretti Partners

Chapter One

He went down with a choked yelp, not a loud one though, and she was grateful for that. She did not need him making any unnecessary noises out there on the street, witnesses complicated these type of jobs. He exposed the base of his skull for her like a good boy and she gave him a hard love tap with her baton on the soft flesh of his neck. That was it for the big guy and he went down hard, unconscious. She looked up and down the street, scanning for anyone who had happened to get an eyeful of the action. She had gotten lucky and saw that the area was clear of any nosy people. She then unlocked her van and moved the handcuffs and duct tape that were on the interior floor to the side. She looked down and blew out a sigh at the sight of the big slab of chubby loser lying on the ground and kicked off her heels.

"Now here comes the fun part." She grunted as she pulled him closer to the van by his ankles.

He woke up with about ten minutes left into the ride. His grunting and trying to talk through the duct tape didn't annoy her, she just turned up the radio to drown him out, but when his fat ass started rocking the van at every red light, she warned him once to knock it off. The second time he did it she reached down between the seats and grabbed her cattle prod, after a dose of fifty thousand volts he settled down real fast. The rest of the drive to the suburbs went smoothly and silently.

The outer gate to the estate was being manned by a guy she did not know. That wasn't overly concerning to her, although she knew or could recognize the face of most of the men that worked for Don Salvador, there were always new thugs coming up through the ranks. The Don only had one guard at the gate most of the time, this was the suburbs of Chicago not Bogota, Colombia after all. He did not need an army of men patrolling the grounds with uzis strapped over their shoulders. She stopped the van in front of him and rolled down her window. The new guard put on his tough guy face and made a point of leaning over and showing her the nine millimeter pistol in his shoulder holster.

"What do you want?" His voice dripped with contempt as if he was an essential member of the Salvador family and she was below his prestigious position. Charming fellow. If he was half as important as he thinks he is he wouldn't be watching the gate at stupid o'clock.

"Delivery for Don Salvador." She said in an exaggeratedly pleasant voice. Kill him with kindness.

"Nobody by that name lives here."

Or just kill him. He was an idiot too, she exhaled in exasperation. "Just tell your boss

that I have the fat load of ham he wanted." He smirked at her like he was much smarter than she was and she found out that it was possible to like this guy even less than she had before. Not that she really liked many of the Don's men, but she was going to find out this particular guy's name for sure. He talked into his walkie talkie and then looked a little deflated as he ended the call and walked back to her van.

"Alright, you can go in." He opened the gate and stepped back looking slightly irritated.

"Thank you so much sunshine." She said sarcastically and peeled out, tires squealing and smoking, to try and irritate the douchebag of a guard as much as she could. She drove up the winding road to the large brick house with arched windows and doors that made it look like some place in Los Angeles where a movie producer from the fifties would live. It had to be worth a couple million dollars, she figured. It was close to the golf course and all the other houses around it were the kind of estates she imagined that they had on Dynasty. Was the Don a golfer? Tony Soprano golfed. Seeing the Don in her mind in one of those old time golf outfits with the hat that had the white puffball on top and the pants that ended at the knees with the socks pulled up made her chuckle. She drove past the main door of the estate and continued going around the back to where she always dropped off her deliveries. She saw Tony by the doors waiting for her and he gave her a nod in greeting. She returned the nod and swung the van around so that the back doors were facing him.