Kim had a full head of white hair and reading glasses; he was sporting a button up tee shirt and slacks as he sat at the table covered in cash; counting it as seven of his generals sat around smoking cigars helping and watching the small television sitting on top of the fridge. The room reeked of cigar smoke and Korean food; evident by the left over containers sprawled about the room.
“Father, this is Brendan, my new security advisor,” Rai said, as he entered; Fin shut the door when Rai’s group entered and resumed his post.
Kim finished placing a stack of cash into a bag on the floor and made notes in a notepad. The boss looked up at his son without any emotion then at Brendan and nodded, “Take a seat,” he said pointing to a pile of chairs mounted up against the far wall. Rai’s bodyguards made their way over and retrieved five chairs and placed them around the table.
“This the club funds?” Rai asked.
Kim nodded, “The night spots nearly rival our gun trade.”
“Good thing we have both,” Rai said, impressed at how well they were doing. His father started out with two hundred dollars, three guys, and a sword – now he had an empire.
Brendan looked around at the walls covered in Korean memorabilia, sporting heroes and other people he did not recognize.
The seven generals occasionally whispered to each other in Korean and would look at Brendan cautiously, probably wondering if he could understand them.
“Rai, my son and his pals took over The Kraken Bar Friday night,” A general with thinning white hair, smoking a cigar said, as if he wanted Rai’s praise.
“Congratulations Bok,” Rai said.
Some of the other generals shook their heads laughing at Bok’s attempt to impress the second in command of their family. The generals muttered to each other in their native language and glanced at Brendan again; Rai met them with a dirty look and they continued about their business.
“Son, this meeting with the Giuseppes is important we must make progress,” Kim said, warningly.
Brendan could sense Rai tensing up, “Of course father,” Rai said.
After a long hour with Rai, the generals, and Kim, Brendan was glad to be out of there. He took a huge breath in and out and felt happy to be alive for the first time in years. It was as though he was bleeding in a tank full of sharks and managed to stay alive under the guidance of his instructor, Rai; he had a lot to learn from him, possibly more than he could off Chuck.
He pictured Fin again, the man did not look as big and as Philip, but he was surely more menacing, “That Fin guy seems brutal,” Brendan said, casually as Rai’s hung up the phone; the van was taking them all back to Chuck’s office.
“He’s more than brutal, Fin is not someone to get on the wrong side of,” Rai warned.
“Seems to respect you though, right?” Brendan asked.
“Of course…he is loyal to my father, he killed three guys with his bare hands once,” Rai whispered, so his three bodyguards could not hear.
“Fuck,” Brendan mumbled and looked around at Rai’s three suited bodyguards and imagined Fin taking them all out with ease, it was a frightening thought.
“You know what? I actually liked Benny,” Chuck said, sighing.
Michael and Brendan looked at each other confused, “Really?” Michael asked, wondering if he just fucked up by snuffing Benny’s lights out.
“Yeah, he rose through the ranks over there on his own…you got Al as boss, Alonzo as underboss, Carlos as captain…you just about have to be born a Giuseppe to progress, but Benny got it off merit,” Chuck mused.
Brendan cleared his throat, “Everything is sorted with Detective Salks and Rai…we’re good to go.”
Chuck looked at Brendan impressed, “Good, and the other thing…the meeting?”
“I’ll be there,” Brendan said.
Chuck let out a laugh, “How the hell did you pull that off?”
Michael patted Brendan on the back excited Brendan nodded trying not to get a big head, “Rai’s head of security.”
“Fuck we got an inside man,” Chuck poured three drinks, “To business well done,” he toasted; the two lieutenants did copied.
“Want me to start moving some of my guys to the warehouse?” Michael asked.
Chuck put his glass down on the desk, “No. This is how it is going to work; Brendan and Charlie will be running all importing operations and storage. Charlie’s too much of a fucking psycho to run the streets, I love him he’s a good leader, but we need to be careful in this business. Michael I want you to take full control of all street operations and protection.”
Brendan and Michael were both flattered by the compliments of a man who rarely compliments. Chuck viewed the security footage as he did too often to check for any visitors — everything was normal as usual the two front door security guards looked bored and the gangsters dressed as office workers typed away on their assigned computers.
“Don’t fucking drop that,” Charlie said, warningly as two of his minions carried his brand new flat screen television set toward the cabinet.
Charlie stood proud in his new house; choosing where all of his new furniture was to go. It was an excuse to celebrate his new promotion and the lieutenant was setting up the house so his wife, Angela, would have to want for nothing; as he was going to be bunkering down at the Warehouse for a while. The house was in a good location behind a set of shops and stood two stories high. It was everything the ad in the property guide advertised it to be; spacious, four bedrooms, two bathrooms, two living areas, a study, double lock up garage and a small backyard.
The lieutenant already had plans for his new role as Warehouse Boss and that was saving every cent and expanding his own crew. Charlie frowned at his two soldiers as they went to walk away from the newly placed down television set. “Aren’t you going to set it up?” He was sure they both rolled their eyes as he turned around.
He could not wait to start making more money, Charlie wanted a new car and he had long resented Chuck being the flash one of the organization; Charlie was doing all the work, all the boss had to do was sit behind his comfortable fucking desk and receive money. There were times when he though about building up a big enough crew to take the boss out and pull the other lieutenants into line and under his command; they would not have the balls to go against him – he was the craziest man in the company now Philip was out, but then he would witness the stress Chuck often faced and would decide it was better to be a worker with less headaches then the boss under the spotlight.
Charlie flicked on his new kettle and let it boil as he fought a battle of loyalties in his mind. Chuck always won…even if he had turned into a bit of a prick; they had always been friends even before Chuck was apart of the Giuseppe family. The lieutenant had always tagged along with Chuck whatever the situation was and when he decided to break away from the Giuseppe’s, Charlie followed.
He pushed away all thoughts of treason against Chuck and did his best to focus on the positive points of their work life. Charlie only wished they were still close friends, ever since Chuck became boss, they spent less face time together; it was nothing personal just business.
John stood around patiently waiting for the old kettle to boil, it sounded as though it was about to blow the entire room to pieces; it reached its peak and did not. He wiped his eyes and peered outside to see that it was still dark outside. Early bird gets the Giuseppe.
Just as he poured the hot water onto the coffee sitting in a mug the toaster popped up two pieces of burnt toast, beautiful, black toast with black coffee. There was no time to attempt a second toasting; it was a quick breakfast for a quick drive down the street where John was certain his target was hiding out. After breakfast he quickly got dressed in an electrical service man’s uniform he had purchased from a trade store and armed himself with a clipboard.
The manager of the backpackers was sitting behind the desk with his usual gloomy persona reading the Contro Chronicles under the lighting of the desk lamp. “Good morning,” John said, cheerily, he wondered if all the lights were still of to save power and knowing the tight ass who ran the place he was certain it was the reason.
The man did not even look up but merely frowned, “It’s raining again,” he mumbled.
John kept on walking he knew negative people could grow on ones mind. Be thankful that no one has paid for you to be one of my targets old man; your day could be a whole lot worse. John unlocked the boot of his beat up car and checked that all of his weapons were in the right places; he looked at them proud in their neat cases and tapped the one containing the dual semi-automatics. Perhaps I should just use one, he decided as he quickly looked around the darkness to make sure he was the only one in the car park.
John drove slowly down the suburban street dimly lit by the streetlights still on. The windscreen wipers flicked from side to side as he peered through making out the cars protecting the front of the house. There were two parked either side of the street with men sleeping in each. Terrible lookouts. He parked ten houses down and began the wait until daylight was about.
Two hours ticked by and daylight was still not about only clouds and a light drizzle of rain; it did not matter though, the street lookouts were awake and so were some of the people at the safe house. John waited for a couple of the occupants of the houses nearby left for work so he could go and knock on their doors with no answers. He made sure that the lookouts and house guards witnessed him knocking on doors in his electrical tradesman uniform and clipboard and finally he worked his way down to the safe house.
John carefully observed the house as the rain drizzled down on his umbrella and noticed a covered balcony overlooking the street; five men were sitting around talking while another watched out over the street. The assassin looked around the street and as he thought before, there were no good positions to take out the target with a rifle. He moved forward and pushed open the gate and as he did so was greeted by two men in tracksuits with their arms crossed, sporting stern looks upon their faces.
“The fuck you doing?” A third man appeared from behind off the street; he was a huge overweight monster with a baldhead.
John smiled and held up a clipboard, “I’m from Contro Energy, and I’m taking readings off power boards off the residents in this neighborhood,” John sighed at his pathetic delivery of a lie; the fat man had caught him off guard.
The two younger tracksuit guys looked at the fat bald man for orders who shrugged and then raised a finger signaling for John to stay put, “Let me go and see whom we’re with.”
“By all means,” John said nervously, as the fat man proceeded to walk up the steps; the two tracksuit-wearing gangsters remained.
“Feds?” John asked the two gate guards.
They both laughed, “No.” one answered.
“Sorry, I just thought the way you guys are guarding this place,” John held up his clipboard up apologizing, “I’ve walked in on the government before, that is all,” John said.
The two young men looked at each other, “Alonzo, go see what the fuck is taking Mike so long.”
“On it Sal,” The younger of the two said, as he went up the same stairs Mike walked up.
“Sal, that short for Salvatore?” John asked.
“You ask a lot of questions my friend,” Salvatore said.
Several awkward moments passed between Sal and John; and the assassin decided to take in his surroundings. The freshly moved square shaped yard was surrounded by a perimeter of trees – some of which looked dead; John took that as a sign that people did not often stay here. The double garage was closed and had one car parked outside of it. The house was large like all of the other homes in the street. It would be impossible to take out his target here with the amount of protection Albert had in place.
“Been waiting for one of you crooks to come out here and take a fucking reading,” Albert Giuseppe said, as he approached the gate flanked by Mike, and the young man Alonzo.
Albert looked just as he did in photos he had seen though he looked a little older, John guessed he was around fifty now. The Don wore long slacks, slip on shoes and a sweater he was almost a complete opposite to Chuck.
“I assure you I am no crook sir,” John said, jokingly, “I can’t say that my employers aren’t though.”
Albert laughed, “Working for the fucking system eh?”
“Fifteen fucking years,” John shrugged, “Not many of us sport the moustache these days right?” he said brushing his own.
“Wait till yours starts going grey,” Albert said.
Salvatore got the nod of approval from Mike and opened the gate to allow the Energy man inside the yard. John walked through and stood directly in front of his target.
“Jim,” John introduced himself, as he held out a hand for Albert. Mike took a step closer to Albert. One. Another young man in similar age to one of the gate guards who was looking down cautiously from the balcony moved a little. Two.
John pulled his hand back in after Albert pretended not to notice and directed him towards the energy meter on the side of the house. He wrote down a bunch of numbers along with a couple of made up words. While Albert looked over his shoulder, and John prayed the man knew nothing about these kinds of things.
“So what’s the reading?” Albert asked.
“I’m not able to give an accurate number now, I have to take these back and get the guys in the office to work it out,” John lied.
“Nice car,” John said, pointing a finger at the black one in the driveway.
“It go’s alright,” Albert nodded.
John noticed Mike shadowed the boss with almost every step; he would certainly be present during the takedown. Albert wouldn’t drive himself, but does he sit in the front seat or back?
“Always wanted one of those,” John marveled, hoping Albert would let him take a look inside, however the Don took a cigar out of his pocket and lit it up without another word. John smiled and nodded politely as he left. Albert gave nothing away with the car on the driveway; John remembered Mike walking up behind him from off the street -- Albert's car was parked on the street.
The car was easy to spot it was jet black and was also one of the best vehicles in the street. It was parked between two of the cars occupied by Albert's lookouts. John made sure to look in the windows as he passed by. The windows were heavily tinted but something caught his eye, Newspaper on the back seat...he sits in the back.