Paranoia, paranoia everybody's coming to get me...
May 25, 2018 5:46:10 GMT -5
TheNewBreed likes this
Post by Dorling on May 25, 2018 5:46:10 GMT -5
FBI Field Office, Las Vegas. 16th May, 1600HRS.
‘So let me get this straight? My building is destroyed, people are dead, my best friend is in the hospital in a coma and you think that this wasn’t an accident?’
Dorling paced around the office. April sat concerned by the desk. Agent Esparza tried to calm him down.
‘Mr Dorling, you must not have forgotten exactly what you’ve been up to recently? You and April caused an earthquake in the organised crime in this city. It wasn’t just the Santoros you know. There are other families, other criminals. Their income streams have been affected. Their lives are fundamentally different now, and a lot of those old time criminal folk quite liked their lives the way they were.’
‘So what are you saying? We saved April, we saved Katy and for what? So that some other scum can come after me, can hurt the ones I love and try to ruin me. What are you doing about this? What is going to happen to us?’
‘We’re looking into it. Right now, the list of potential suspects is pretty long.’
‘And you didn’t think to warn me that this might happen after we helped you out with the Santoro problem? You didn’t think it would be somewhat prevalent to suggest to Katy and I that we may be in DANGER?’
‘I understand that you’re angry Mr Dorling, but…’
‘…ANGRY? You think I’m just angry? I’m fucking furious.’
He looked down at April, who was looking emotional.
‘I…I’m sorry. This is all my fault. If I’d just stayed away then your life would have been untouched. Your friend wouldn’t be fighting for her life.’
She got up and ran to the door, flinging it open.
‘April…no, come on. Please…’
She ran out into the open plan FBI office and disappeared down a stairwell. Dorling switched his attention back to Esparza. He went to speak but she cut him off.
‘Mr Dorling…’
‘Oh cut it out with the fucking ‘Mr’ stuff will you Carmen?’
‘Sorry, Dorling. Look, it’s an absolute fucking abandonment of obligation that got us here. I pushed for there to be a car outside your property at the very least but the Bureau wasn’t biting for it at all. They pushed it over to the LVPD. They weren’t keen about being told to babysit a celebrity by the big boys in DC. They resented it. It didn’t take a lot of persuasion from local sources for them to disobey.’
‘Local sources? Are you saying that the LVPD is dirty? Compromised?’
‘The organised crime racket in this city is so deeply entrenched it wouldn’t surprise me if the Shake Shack was compromised.’
‘Brilliant. So I helped you guys out and now even the fucking cops are after me?’
‘I would love to whisk you away into protected custody, but I doubt you’d go for that.’
‘You know what I do for a living. You know what’s happening in Beijing.’
‘Exactly. You’re going to have to look after yourself I’m afraid. Is there nobody that you can turn to?’
‘Someone offered actually.’
‘My advice would be to take them up on it, as long as you think you can trust them.’
‘I don’t know if I can, that’s the problem.’
‘Well that’s something you’re gonna have to decide for yourself I guess.’
‘Because the US government has set a bunch of career criminals on my back and then washed their hands of the whole thing?’
‘Look, you know it wasn’t my call, but there’s nothing I can do about it. If I were you, I’d take your friend up on their offer.’
‘He’s not my friend, I don’t even know the guy.’
Esparza shrugged. What else was she supposed to add to the conversation?
‘Fine. Look, I’m going to go find April and see if we can think of a plan of some kind.’
‘Dorling, trust me, I’ll do what I can. You know that.’
Dorling let a rueful smile creep across his face.
‘Yeah, I know.’
Spring Valley Hospital, Las Vegas. 15th May, 2000HRS.
Dorling stood at the foot of Katy’s bed. The room was filled with the sounds of whirring and beeping. Katy looked bad. Her face was bruised and swollen, her hair had been cut to allow for surgery and stitching above her hairline, and she was pale. Dorling shook his head.
‘I don’t know what I’m doing, Calloway. After all that we went through the last few weeks, everything should be better. We should all be closer than ever. But look at you, you’re stuck here and it’s all my fault. I got myself involved in something, but worse than that – I got you involved. I’ll never forgive myself if you don’t pull through this. God damn, you had better pull through this Calloway.’
He started pacing.
‘You know it wasn’t an accident what happened to you. Well, it was in a way – it should have been me. You weren’t the target. I was. Maybe April. Shit. April. She needs to be careful too – I can’t believe we hadn’t thought about that. Sure, they destroyed my building but I’m not hard to find – those in the know must be aware that April is Santoro’s daughter.
Fuck. This is a real mess, isn’t it? I know it’s not Carmen’s fault but fuck me the FBI have been useless here. I don’t know how to protect you. I don’t know how to protect anybody right now. Maybe Cable’s offer is worth looking into.
But I’m not big on trust. I’m not taking him at face value. I’m going to look into him and his work. And I’m going to find a way for us all to be together and safe again.
And on top of that – I’m going to go to fucking China and I’m going to beat on Christian Connolly for an hour of my life and I’m going to take that Intercontinental title from his hands. Hell yeah. I just wish you could be there with us.’
Luxor Casino, Las Vegas. 17th May, 2200HRS.
‘So, I’ve done a little digging and come up with some names. These guys are bad news on the local crime scene but you could argue that all of them could be mad at you for taking Santoro’s money out of the game.’
Dorling frowned at Peabody.
‘Marv, who the hell have you been talking to? You were a backstage interviewer, not Ironside for Christ’s sake. How have you got access to this information?’
‘I think maybe you were underpaying me all those years boss.’
‘Clearly I was. What’s the deal here then? Am I in trouble?’
‘Short version – probably. None of these dudes – and dudettes – are good people.’
‘Wait, there’s a woman after me?’
‘Don’t get carried away, I know what you’re like.’
‘Steady on, you sound like Petrovich. Talk me through this.’
‘Ok boss. I’ve narrowed it down to four possible aggressors.’
‘Only four? Thank goodness I didn’t piss people off too much then.’
‘This is no time for sarcasm. This is bad.’
‘Trust me, I know. Carry on.’
‘Ok – first up Viktor Tasacs. You’ve probably heard his name at some point. His family is originally from Hungary, but he was born and raised in Nevada. His speciality is guns. If you buy a gun from anyone other than a professional dealer in Vegas, chances are some of that money is going to get into Tasacs hands. He had a deal going with Santoro – you could say he was his prime customer. Taking away his biggest single source of income probably hasn’t endeared you to him.’
‘Any upsides to this?’
‘Only one I can see. He’s a family man. He also considers himself to be pretty righteous.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning that he’s unlikely to go after April. Word on the street is that you’re too blame for Santoro and April was just along for the ride. He doesn’t believe in meting out punishment via associates – if he wants to hurt you then he’ll hurt YOU, if you see what I mean.’
‘I do. But if it was him, he’s ended up doing exactly the opposite of that – he hurt Katy, not me. So, either he’s broken his usual MO, he’s terrible at what he does or it isn’t him.’
‘A fairly solid analysis I’d say. Don’t underestimate how much you’ve irritated him though.’
‘Agreed. Who else is on the list?’
‘Ok, that’s your Eastern European angle covered. Next up is your South American input.’
‘Colombians?’
‘Colombians. Isidoro Gutierrez. Izzy to his friends.’
‘I know that name.’
‘Of course you do. He’s the man responsible for flooding the streets of Vegas – and many other cities – with cocaine. He’s the man people go to for the high quality (so he says) stuff around here. Primary reason for that is because they have no choice. Gutierrez moved in to Vegas about 6 years ago – took him about 6 months to run ever other coke dealer out of town. Low level dealers either ran or pledged loyalty to him.’
‘And the high-level dealers?’
‘They didn’t get the opportunity to run. Wiped them out. Unlike Tasacs he’s not bothered about how he flushes somebody out. Some of the grislier discoveries that the LVPD have made in the last few years have been the work of him or his men. Word is that he isn’t shy about getting his hands dirty either, goes for a very ‘hands on’ leadership approach. Isn’t beyond killing his own men like a true Bond villain. Basically, he’s an all-round bad dude with anger management and sociopathic issues. Of course, he didn’t want to negotiate anything with the Santoro’s and he was one of the few people they were scared of, so instead they bought a shit load of coke from him.’
‘Ok…any upside to this?’
‘Not much of an upside. Only thing you might say about him is that if it was him he would have made sure you knew it – he’s very fond of letting people know how bad he is, including the LVPD. Clever enough not to get caught though, obviously.’
‘Brilliant, an angry psycho who’ll happily kill anyone he feels like. There must be some good news in here somewhere?’
‘Well, not really boss. Like I told you, these are all bad people. They ARE crime lords you know.’
‘Yeah, fine. Hit me with another one. I’m thinking a shoplifter called Barney, dresses in purple?’
‘No. More like a Chinese pimp and, possibly, assassin.’
‘You can be both?’
‘This is America. You can be anything you want to be.’
‘And who was it that chose to combine brothels with contract killing?’
‘Well, according to what I hear, not much is known about this woman except that she calls herself Lady May.’
‘Lady May?’
‘I know right, it sounds like she’s a charming auntie in a Japanese animated movie or something. According to my sources, she anything but.’
‘Who are your sources again?’
‘Can’t say.’
‘Fine, why does the mysterious Lady May want me dead?’
‘Well, on the face of it you’d think that she would be happy to be rid of the Santoro’s. They were her main competitors in the brothel game.’
‘So I’ve done her a favour?’
‘I don’t know about that. Santoro had a brothel busted every week, it kept the cops attention off May’s businesses and in turn she could use that to keep her prices high, what with being able to offer a substantially more superior guarantee of anonymity than Santoro.’
‘Well fuck. I can’t catch a break here.’
‘Doesn’t seem like it boss.’
‘Hang on, where does this ‘assassin’ tag come into it?’
‘It’s kind of hearsay – gossip, almost. Nobody has ever met Lady May, but talk is that she is an assassin for hire to the highest of bidders.’
‘Brilliant. So basically I might have pissed off a super talented and rich ninja assassin who may or may not exist and nobody knows what they look like.’
‘That about sums it up.’
‘I would ask if this could get any worse but I don’t really want an answer to that. Let’s run this down; I’ve annoyed the key suppliers of guns, drugs and hookers in the city? What does that leave? Supplier of tanks? Supplier of fucking dragons?’
‘It could be a whole lot worse than that.’
‘You are shitting me here Marvin? Surely?’
‘Sorry boss, but I’m not. You remember you told me what Carmen had said? About LVPD cops not being too keen on protecting you on the instructions of the FBI?’
‘Yeah, she said that they don’t take kindly to ‘Washington bigwigs’ wading into their turf and dishing out orders.’
‘Probably true to an extent, but there’s another reason why the LVPD might not be too bothered about protecting you.’
‘Oh fuck, come on! You’re talking about dirty cops aren’t you?
‘Yeah, I am. Sorry boss, but Santoro had his tentacles in everything.’
‘But you said earlier that he had a brothel busted every week!’
‘He did, but how many high-profile Vegas folk can you remember getting busted using a brothel?’
‘Well…erm…not many at all when I come to think of it. There was that lawyer – what was his name? – Tarantini. He got busted.’
‘He was also working for the prosecution when one of Santoro’s key men was on trial for murdering that…’
‘…parking attendant. Yeah, shit. I remember. So you’re saying Santoro drip fed brothels to the cops regularly to give them good, easy PR wins and occasionally made sure that their enemies got caught up in it too?’
‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. The big clients were never there when the cops were – you and I both know how many big-hitters in this town indulge.’
‘Yeah, we do. Shit. SHIT. This is bad isn’t it Marv? Either a gun running thug, a psycho drug dealer, a brothel owning assassin or an unknown number of LVPD officers want me dead.’
‘Or all of them.’
‘Thanks for that little nugget of comfort there.’
‘I aim to please boss.’
‘Well you’ve fallen wide of the mark this time.’
‘I was also going to speak to you about your other question.’
‘Cable.’
‘That’s right. You wanted me to look into the New Breed Foundation.’
‘I did. What did you find?’
‘Well, I don’t know what you expected me to find but I can tell you it all looks legit. It’s a worldwide charity. Does good work as far as I can tell.’
‘And what about his claims about access to the best doctors?’
‘A little harder to substantiate, but the dude came back from a car accident that should have killed him after 3 years, and he looks pretty good for it.’
‘Keep looking, I still don’t trust him.’
‘Will do boss.’
Smoke Ranch Road, Las Vegas. 17th May 2340HRS.
It was an interesting evening with Peabody to say the least. It had given Dorling a lot to think about, and had he been the kind of person who maintained focus on the important things, he would probably had been keeping his head on a swivel and trusting nobody.
But Dorling remained true to himself and was truly in his head, thinking about April and Katy and what the hell he was going to do next. It was almost muscle memory that was driving his red Jeep Wrangler along the side streets of Vegas as he absentmindedly stopped at red lights and went at greens.
He didn’t know what he was going to tell April to make her feel better, either. She already felt like it was all her fault and was wallowing in guilt about Katy’s injuries and the destruction of Dorling’s apartment building, and nothing he’d said so far had come close to making any difference to that. Now he had to tell her that her life was most definitely in danger if anything Marvin had said was to be believed. And believe him he did – Marvin has been bang on about everything the last few weeks. He was still busy processing exactly who Marvin was after all these years, because he was sure that nobody from the old SCW days would believe him if he was to tell them that Marvin fucking Peabody had helped him topple a crime lord and was now feeding him information about the Las Vegas underworld.
What he really needed was a moment of clarity, a moment where something came along and shocked him into some form of action. He needed a jolt to awaken something inside him and prompt him to do something. He needed a jump start to get the grey matter cogs turning so he could come up with ideas, with solutions. That’s how he worked. Whenever the adrenaline kicked up a notch and it became fight or flight it was invariably fight and he almost always solved his problems by confronting them head on. He certainly wasn’t a fan of taking a break from problems to give them a chance to blow over. He was not a ‘wait and see’ kind of guy.
It was kind of poetic then, that while he was lamenting the lack of catalyst in his turbulent private life, one pulled alongside him at the lights on Smoke Ranch and Buffalo.
It took him a moment to realise what was happening. The van pulled alongside and Dorling lazily looked across. The driver, hiding behind a baseball cap and shades, was looking intently in his direction through the open passenger’s side window. ‘Obviously a fan’ stated Dorling’s egotistic inner monologue before he became aware that the side door was opening and two men were pointing some guns at him. He had time to mutter ‘definitely not a fan’ too himself before leaping over the passenger seat and out of the jeep (the benefit of not having doors finally revealed). As he hit the tarmac, the sound of rapid fire filled the night and he could hear the impact of hundreds of rounds striking the side of his precious vehicle. A couple of cars were in the distance and, seeing this, the side door of the van closed and the driver floored it. Tyres screeched on asphalt and his would be killers sped off into the distance.
He sat on the ground, leaning against the right rear tyre of the Jeep, and gathered his breath. Checking himself for wounds and finding none, he joyously leapt into the air, only to see that the rear half of the Jeep was now fairly significantly on fire. Sensing his car was about to explode like in the movies he started sprinting along the road. He was proven right when he heard a pop, or so he thought, turning around to see that it was just a tyre exploding.
‘Haha, I knew this wouldn’t be like the mov…’
BOOOM
The force of the explosion knocked him on his arse. He sat up, looking at the fiery wreck of what used to be his pride and joy. He was still alive, but now those sons of bitches had taken his home, his car, and maybe his best friend. His moment of clarity had arrived.
Tamarus Street, Las Vegas. 18th May, 0130HRS.
BANG BANG BANG
‘OPEN UP! COME ON! I KNOW YOU’RE HOME!’
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG
‘LET ME IN WILL YOU!’
The door creaked open.
‘Jesus Christ, Dorling. What the fuck are you doing?’
‘Alright alright, put the gun down Carmen, I’m not here to hurt you.’
Carmen opened the door and let him in. She was wearing pyjamas with an FBI hoodie over the top. She looked him up and down.
‘You look like shit, what’s happened?’
‘Somebody tried to kill me again. No biggie.’
‘No biggie?! Why didn’t you call the cops? What are you doing here?!’
‘As far as I know it could have been the cops. Couldn’t call, lost my phone in the explosion.’
‘Expl…what the hell happened?’
‘Oh, you know. Somebody tried to do me like Denzel at the end of Training Day – oh if you haven’t seen that he gets shot by gangsters while he waits at the lights at the end.’
‘Yeah, I’ve seen it. Where was this?’
‘Smoke Ranch and Buffalo.’
‘Hmm. Not exactly gang turf there. Did you get a look at them?’
‘Nope. The one driving was wearing a cap and shades – and driving gloves. The two with the guns were covered head to toe.’
‘Shit, well – I’m glad you’re ok. But why have you come here? What do you think I can do?’
‘Carmen Esparza, you are the only one I can trust.’
‘Don’t be dramatic.’
‘I’m not, Peabody has been doing some digging and…’
‘…Peabody! Your source here is Marvin fucking Peabody?’
‘I hate to break to you little miss FBI, but he’s proved 100% more useful than your organisation in protecting me and mine this last couple of months.’
‘He doesn’t have paperwork to complete. What else did he say?’
‘He dropped a few names of people that might be after me. Viktor Tasacs, Isidoro Gutierrez, Lady May and, well, the LVPD.’
‘The LVPD? And Lady May? Come on. The LVPD are largely incompetent but they’re hardly trained killers. And Lady May? She’s a myth, not even the FBI have had eyes on her.’
‘Strangely, that makes me feel less comfortable.’
‘Look, he may be on to something with Tasacs and Gutierrez but the other two sound more like implausible Hollywood movies.’
‘If you’d told me a few months ago that any number of Las Vegas criminals would be in the frame for exploding my home after I had helped imprison the biggest crime family in Vegas, I would have said something similar.’
‘Ok fine, but what do you want me to do about it? I already told you, the FBI doesn’t have the resources to protect you and the LVPD aren’t interested – for whatever reason. My hands are tied here.’
‘Officially, yeah.’
‘Hang on there a minute Bravestarr – I don’t think I like where this is going. We’re under scrutiny here after the Santoro bust, I can’t go black ops on this.’
‘I’m not asking you to, but you have one thing en masse which I have nothing of at all.’
‘What?’
‘Information.’
‘Information about what?’
‘Tasacs, Gutierrez, May. I need that information if I’m going to do anything about it.’
‘Do what exactly? You’re going to take on major crime organisations without the assistance of any kind of law enforcement? Are you mad?’
‘You mean in the mentally deranged or the angry sense?’
‘The first one.’
‘Maybe. I can’t just sit around and do nothing.’
‘Yes, you can. Well, not nothing, but you’re not a fucking comic book hero Dorling.’
‘Maybe I’m not, but I can’t just sit around waiting for me or Katy or April to be on the end of one of these little ‘incidents.’ I won’t let anything else happen to anybody.’
‘You’re going to get yourself killed.’
‘That’s the spirit!’
‘I’m serious dude, these are not the people to be messing with. Just do your job. Go to Siberia and then go to China and wrestle.’
‘One, I didn’t know you took an interest in my career so we’ll be revisiting that and two, it’s not the easiest job in the world to do when you’re always looking over your shoulder.’
Dorling got up to leave.
‘Get me the information, Carmen. You got a promotion off the back of the Santoro shit, you owe me.’
She shook her head as Dorling closed the door behind him.
Luxor Casino, Las Vegas. 20th May, 1330HRS
Dorling took a sip from his beer as he sat at the bar. It only occurred to him after sitting there for 20 minutes that it was the same place where he first met April. The place where the Hungarian cop was gunned down by her father’s associates. He mused over that while waiting for Peabody. He didn’t really know if Marvin could help him any further, but he hoped that his ‘contacts’ might have heard something about what had happened to Dorling just over 48 hours previous. As Marvin appeared from between some slot machines, he nodded at Dorling. His transformation to security specialist was complete. Sharp suit, earpiece, the respect of his colleagues. A new Marvin.
‘Hey boss.’
Peabody perched himself on the stool next to Dorling and signalled for a soda water from the barmaid.
‘Sounds like you had a rough night on Thursday.’
‘You could say that. You know why I’m here my friend.’
‘Oh yeah, I have a good idea. I knew you’d show – I heard about your little incident before the sun came up on Friday.’
‘How?’
‘Security people overhear a lot of shit, and they talk to each other. The Luxor isn’t the only hotel with sketchy customers. In fact, we’ve had a lot less of that traffic since we took care of the Santoro problem.’
‘So what are the security people telling you?’
‘They’re not saying a great deal to be honest.’
‘Oh, brilliant. That’s not particularly helpful Marv.’
‘Well, it might be. If this was Gutierrez he’d have been shouting about it from the rooftops, not to mention the fact you’d probably have read some news about finding some dead Colombians somewhere.’
‘Because they failed?’
‘Because they failed.’
‘So if it ain’t him, then it must be Tasacs or May. Or the cops.’
‘Possibly. Wasn’t really May’s style – was a bit loud.’
‘Two options then. Tasacs or the cops.’
‘Would seem to be the most common theory at the moment. What are you gonna do?’
‘I guess I’m going to go see Mr Viktor Tasacs.’
‘Do you think that’s a good idea?’
‘It almost certainly is not, but I’m running out of options here.’
‘You want some help?’
‘Not on this one Marv – you know what I’m up to. If I vanish you’re in charge of finding me.’
‘Ok boss. If you’re sure? I can get some guys together?’
‘I’m going to try to be quiet on this one.’
‘Quiet? Dorling? Ok.’
Dorling grinned at Peabody as he got up from his seat.
‘Cheers for the beer Marv.’
‘I didn’t know I was paying!’
‘Lost my wallet in a house fire.’
‘You can only use that excuse for so long!’
Kuwa Club, Las Vegas. 21st May, 2230HRS.
Of all the criminals to be hiding out in a Latin club, Dorling thought the most likely would have been Gutierrez. Then again, misdirection is important if you’re going to be fooling the law, so he stood at the bar in the Kuwa club as two young and supple dancers moved across the stage with Latin fire and businessmen drank cocktails. He scanned the room, looking for any sign of Tasacs or his operation. He’d already been there a couple of hours and watched the place slowly fill up and nothing had jumped out at him. In hindsight it might have been better to have brought some men with him.
Another 30 minutes passed before he noticed a pattern was developing. There were bouncers all over the room but one in particular stood out because he was standing by a completely non-descript door which very few people approached, let alone used. He watched for a few minutes more and it seemed like the people using the door were all similar. Grey suits, short hair, gruff and stubbly faces.
Reassuringly stereotypical for Eastern European gangsters.
He made his way over to the door, thinking how he was going to play it. Carrying his drink in his hand, he waited around 10 feet away, pretending to take a call on his cell phone. He saw two men approach from across the room, they were heading for the door. This was his chance. He put his phone back in his pocket and, just as the men reached the bouncer, he started to stumble like he was drunk (not too far from the truth). The bouncer on the door let the men through and just as the door was closing, Dorling lunged forward, ‘accidentally’ spilling his drink over the bouncer. The bouncer looked up with fury in his eyes. Dorling kept the pretence going, and began fumbling all over him, attempting to rub the alcohol off his suit. The bouncer unhooked the radio from his belt, letting the door go. Dorling fell again, knocking the radio out of his hand, but carefully placing his foot in the doorway to prevent the door closing. As the bouncer bent forward to pick up his radio, Dorling leapt to his feet and jumped through the door, closing it behind him. He breathed a sigh of relief, until he turned around.
The sight that greeted him resembled that of a large warehouse. In front of him, the room was cavernous, and several tables were laid out. At each table, various tools and clamps, and a man working on a weapon. There were guns everywhere. All of the faces before him looked up and stopped working simultaneously. All he could do was stand there.
‘Hi.’
At the back of the room was an office, and a man stepped out of the open door.
‘Mr Dorling, I think you had better come here.’
Viktor Tasacs.
Dorling made his way past all of the glares of the men and women, busy working away on guns and walked to the back of the room. He didn’t take his eyes off Tasacs. Was this the man that tried to kill him? Tasacs invited him into the office and closed the door behind them. Dorling looked around for signs of his impending death but nothing leapt out of him. He took a seat on the leather chair, sitting in front of a big oak desk. Tasacs sat down the other side. He was a big, heavy set man. Rumours abound that he used to be in the Hungarian special forces or something similar. Dorling could see why those rumours could hold weight. Tasacs leant forward.
‘I know why are here.’
‘I’m beginning to doubt it myself.’
‘You want to know if I ordered for you to be killed.’
‘Well it’s certainly of interest to me, yes. Did you, by the way?’
‘I did not.’
‘Well that’s exactly what I’d expect you to say, to be fair.’
‘Mr Dorling, if I wanted you dead, you would not have made it across my factory floor.’
‘You make a compelling point.’
‘Do not misunderstand. I have no affection for you. You have annoyed me in many, many ways.’
‘It’s kind of what I do.’
‘Yes. I am prepared to offer you a deal.’
‘Why do I not like the sound of this?’
‘Because you are not in a position of strength in this discussion.’
‘You make a valid point. Fine. What’s the deal?’
‘I would like you to make a delivery for me.’
‘A delivery? To who?’
‘To Isidoro Gutierrez. You may want to speak to him about other matters anyway.’
‘Are you saying he tried to kill me?’
‘I am saying you may want to speak to him about that, yes.’
‘What am I delivering?’
‘It is a package, about so big.’
Tasacs gestured with his hands. He indicated the package would be about the size of a toaster.
‘And what’s in the package?’
‘That is not for you to know.’
‘I don’t want to get involved in any gang warfare shit here.’
‘Mr Dorling, you have destroyed the biggest crime family in Las Vegas, you have wandered into my secure manufacturing facility. You are involved.’
‘Fine. I’ll take the package. Where is it?’
‘We will get it to you. You will know when. Now, you must leave.’
‘Ok Tasacs. You sure you didn’t try to kill me?’
‘I did not.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘You are right to trust nobody.’
‘So where do I fuckin’ start eh? The best friend is in a coma, my apartment building is destroyed, my car is destroyed, somebody tried to kill me.
It might be the crazy Colombian. It might be the ex-special forces Hungarian. It might be the deadly Chinese assassin. It might be the fucking cops. And that’s before we even get to the wrestling.
Yes, the wrestling. My career. My lifeline. What a fucking week I’ve got coming up in wrestling. Yes, I do have to go to Siberia and wrestle in a falls count anywhere match for the Experts reunion show. Logistically this makes my getting to China harder, and my body may well be bruised. But you know what? Compared to my private life right now, getting thrown around a disused Siberian prison for a couple of hours is like a fucking holiday.
From Siberia I go to Beijing for the rematch of rematches.
Yes, fucking YES. I get another crack at that Intercontinental title and it’s going to take a hell of a lot more than explosions and failed assassination attempts to stop me from getting my hands on it.
I like Christian Connolly, I do. I think he is a great wrestler and he seems like a good guy. There are a lot of good guys in the business. But you know what? At this stage I really don’t care.
I talked before we fought last time about wanting and needing, and what was a stronger driver. I want the Intercontinental title, he said that he needs it. He’ll do all he can to maintain his grip on that thing and believe me, I know what that involves. I’ve seen it and felt it up close, and this guy can go. 60 minutes is going to be a hell of a long time to be facing this kind of bloody mindedness.
But face it I will. You see, Christian Connolly, life has a way of providing you with the clarity you need sometimes. I was muddled when I faced you before. I was a man fighting a fight on several different battlefields, trying to follow rules and keep everybody happy.
That is no longer the case. I’ve lost an awful lot of my life recently. I’ve been stripped back to a visceral, robotic, single minded fighter and that, for you, means danger. I’ve got nothing to lose here man! I’ve got a whole load of frustration and anger that has been sitting in the back of my mind for weeks and now I have been reduced to one single motivation – survival – I can finally exorcise those feelings from my brain and translate them into kinetic energy. That energy is going to be focussed on you, my friend.
I’m sure you’re going to be similarly motivated to keep hold of your title and you’re going to look at my words as another load of hot air but unlike last time, you know exactly what I can bring. We have 60 minutes – one hour – to find out which one of us is better and you had damned well believe I won’t be holding a single iota of my person back.
I will prevail. I WANT to prevail.
Honestly I can’t fucking wait to get in the ring in China and, not for the first time in my relatively short WGWF career, blow the roof off the arena and show everybody – EVERYBODY – in WGWF and beyond that Dorling is back, well and truly back.
Until China, my friend.
Until China.
‘So let me get this straight? My building is destroyed, people are dead, my best friend is in the hospital in a coma and you think that this wasn’t an accident?’
Dorling paced around the office. April sat concerned by the desk. Agent Esparza tried to calm him down.
‘Mr Dorling, you must not have forgotten exactly what you’ve been up to recently? You and April caused an earthquake in the organised crime in this city. It wasn’t just the Santoros you know. There are other families, other criminals. Their income streams have been affected. Their lives are fundamentally different now, and a lot of those old time criminal folk quite liked their lives the way they were.’
‘So what are you saying? We saved April, we saved Katy and for what? So that some other scum can come after me, can hurt the ones I love and try to ruin me. What are you doing about this? What is going to happen to us?’
‘We’re looking into it. Right now, the list of potential suspects is pretty long.’
‘And you didn’t think to warn me that this might happen after we helped you out with the Santoro problem? You didn’t think it would be somewhat prevalent to suggest to Katy and I that we may be in DANGER?’
‘I understand that you’re angry Mr Dorling, but…’
‘…ANGRY? You think I’m just angry? I’m fucking furious.’
He looked down at April, who was looking emotional.
‘I…I’m sorry. This is all my fault. If I’d just stayed away then your life would have been untouched. Your friend wouldn’t be fighting for her life.’
She got up and ran to the door, flinging it open.
‘April…no, come on. Please…’
She ran out into the open plan FBI office and disappeared down a stairwell. Dorling switched his attention back to Esparza. He went to speak but she cut him off.
‘Mr Dorling…’
‘Oh cut it out with the fucking ‘Mr’ stuff will you Carmen?’
‘Sorry, Dorling. Look, it’s an absolute fucking abandonment of obligation that got us here. I pushed for there to be a car outside your property at the very least but the Bureau wasn’t biting for it at all. They pushed it over to the LVPD. They weren’t keen about being told to babysit a celebrity by the big boys in DC. They resented it. It didn’t take a lot of persuasion from local sources for them to disobey.’
‘Local sources? Are you saying that the LVPD is dirty? Compromised?’
‘The organised crime racket in this city is so deeply entrenched it wouldn’t surprise me if the Shake Shack was compromised.’
‘Brilliant. So I helped you guys out and now even the fucking cops are after me?’
‘I would love to whisk you away into protected custody, but I doubt you’d go for that.’
‘You know what I do for a living. You know what’s happening in Beijing.’
‘Exactly. You’re going to have to look after yourself I’m afraid. Is there nobody that you can turn to?’
‘Someone offered actually.’
‘My advice would be to take them up on it, as long as you think you can trust them.’
‘I don’t know if I can, that’s the problem.’
‘Well that’s something you’re gonna have to decide for yourself I guess.’
‘Because the US government has set a bunch of career criminals on my back and then washed their hands of the whole thing?’
‘Look, you know it wasn’t my call, but there’s nothing I can do about it. If I were you, I’d take your friend up on their offer.’
‘He’s not my friend, I don’t even know the guy.’
Esparza shrugged. What else was she supposed to add to the conversation?
‘Fine. Look, I’m going to go find April and see if we can think of a plan of some kind.’
‘Dorling, trust me, I’ll do what I can. You know that.’
Dorling let a rueful smile creep across his face.
‘Yeah, I know.’
Spring Valley Hospital, Las Vegas. 15th May, 2000HRS.
Dorling stood at the foot of Katy’s bed. The room was filled with the sounds of whirring and beeping. Katy looked bad. Her face was bruised and swollen, her hair had been cut to allow for surgery and stitching above her hairline, and she was pale. Dorling shook his head.
‘I don’t know what I’m doing, Calloway. After all that we went through the last few weeks, everything should be better. We should all be closer than ever. But look at you, you’re stuck here and it’s all my fault. I got myself involved in something, but worse than that – I got you involved. I’ll never forgive myself if you don’t pull through this. God damn, you had better pull through this Calloway.’
He started pacing.
‘You know it wasn’t an accident what happened to you. Well, it was in a way – it should have been me. You weren’t the target. I was. Maybe April. Shit. April. She needs to be careful too – I can’t believe we hadn’t thought about that. Sure, they destroyed my building but I’m not hard to find – those in the know must be aware that April is Santoro’s daughter.
Fuck. This is a real mess, isn’t it? I know it’s not Carmen’s fault but fuck me the FBI have been useless here. I don’t know how to protect you. I don’t know how to protect anybody right now. Maybe Cable’s offer is worth looking into.
But I’m not big on trust. I’m not taking him at face value. I’m going to look into him and his work. And I’m going to find a way for us all to be together and safe again.
And on top of that – I’m going to go to fucking China and I’m going to beat on Christian Connolly for an hour of my life and I’m going to take that Intercontinental title from his hands. Hell yeah. I just wish you could be there with us.’
Luxor Casino, Las Vegas. 17th May, 2200HRS.
‘So, I’ve done a little digging and come up with some names. These guys are bad news on the local crime scene but you could argue that all of them could be mad at you for taking Santoro’s money out of the game.’
Dorling frowned at Peabody.
‘Marv, who the hell have you been talking to? You were a backstage interviewer, not Ironside for Christ’s sake. How have you got access to this information?’
‘I think maybe you were underpaying me all those years boss.’
‘Clearly I was. What’s the deal here then? Am I in trouble?’
‘Short version – probably. None of these dudes – and dudettes – are good people.’
‘Wait, there’s a woman after me?’
‘Don’t get carried away, I know what you’re like.’
‘Steady on, you sound like Petrovich. Talk me through this.’
‘Ok boss. I’ve narrowed it down to four possible aggressors.’
‘Only four? Thank goodness I didn’t piss people off too much then.’
‘This is no time for sarcasm. This is bad.’
‘Trust me, I know. Carry on.’
‘Ok – first up Viktor Tasacs. You’ve probably heard his name at some point. His family is originally from Hungary, but he was born and raised in Nevada. His speciality is guns. If you buy a gun from anyone other than a professional dealer in Vegas, chances are some of that money is going to get into Tasacs hands. He had a deal going with Santoro – you could say he was his prime customer. Taking away his biggest single source of income probably hasn’t endeared you to him.’
‘Any upsides to this?’
‘Only one I can see. He’s a family man. He also considers himself to be pretty righteous.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning that he’s unlikely to go after April. Word on the street is that you’re too blame for Santoro and April was just along for the ride. He doesn’t believe in meting out punishment via associates – if he wants to hurt you then he’ll hurt YOU, if you see what I mean.’
‘I do. But if it was him, he’s ended up doing exactly the opposite of that – he hurt Katy, not me. So, either he’s broken his usual MO, he’s terrible at what he does or it isn’t him.’
‘A fairly solid analysis I’d say. Don’t underestimate how much you’ve irritated him though.’
‘Agreed. Who else is on the list?’
‘Ok, that’s your Eastern European angle covered. Next up is your South American input.’
‘Colombians?’
‘Colombians. Isidoro Gutierrez. Izzy to his friends.’
‘I know that name.’
‘Of course you do. He’s the man responsible for flooding the streets of Vegas – and many other cities – with cocaine. He’s the man people go to for the high quality (so he says) stuff around here. Primary reason for that is because they have no choice. Gutierrez moved in to Vegas about 6 years ago – took him about 6 months to run ever other coke dealer out of town. Low level dealers either ran or pledged loyalty to him.’
‘And the high-level dealers?’
‘They didn’t get the opportunity to run. Wiped them out. Unlike Tasacs he’s not bothered about how he flushes somebody out. Some of the grislier discoveries that the LVPD have made in the last few years have been the work of him or his men. Word is that he isn’t shy about getting his hands dirty either, goes for a very ‘hands on’ leadership approach. Isn’t beyond killing his own men like a true Bond villain. Basically, he’s an all-round bad dude with anger management and sociopathic issues. Of course, he didn’t want to negotiate anything with the Santoro’s and he was one of the few people they were scared of, so instead they bought a shit load of coke from him.’
‘Ok…any upside to this?’
‘Not much of an upside. Only thing you might say about him is that if it was him he would have made sure you knew it – he’s very fond of letting people know how bad he is, including the LVPD. Clever enough not to get caught though, obviously.’
‘Brilliant, an angry psycho who’ll happily kill anyone he feels like. There must be some good news in here somewhere?’
‘Well, not really boss. Like I told you, these are all bad people. They ARE crime lords you know.’
‘Yeah, fine. Hit me with another one. I’m thinking a shoplifter called Barney, dresses in purple?’
‘No. More like a Chinese pimp and, possibly, assassin.’
‘You can be both?’
‘This is America. You can be anything you want to be.’
‘And who was it that chose to combine brothels with contract killing?’
‘Well, according to what I hear, not much is known about this woman except that she calls herself Lady May.’
‘Lady May?’
‘I know right, it sounds like she’s a charming auntie in a Japanese animated movie or something. According to my sources, she anything but.’
‘Who are your sources again?’
‘Can’t say.’
‘Fine, why does the mysterious Lady May want me dead?’
‘Well, on the face of it you’d think that she would be happy to be rid of the Santoro’s. They were her main competitors in the brothel game.’
‘So I’ve done her a favour?’
‘I don’t know about that. Santoro had a brothel busted every week, it kept the cops attention off May’s businesses and in turn she could use that to keep her prices high, what with being able to offer a substantially more superior guarantee of anonymity than Santoro.’
‘Well fuck. I can’t catch a break here.’
‘Doesn’t seem like it boss.’
‘Hang on, where does this ‘assassin’ tag come into it?’
‘It’s kind of hearsay – gossip, almost. Nobody has ever met Lady May, but talk is that she is an assassin for hire to the highest of bidders.’
‘Brilliant. So basically I might have pissed off a super talented and rich ninja assassin who may or may not exist and nobody knows what they look like.’
‘That about sums it up.’
‘I would ask if this could get any worse but I don’t really want an answer to that. Let’s run this down; I’ve annoyed the key suppliers of guns, drugs and hookers in the city? What does that leave? Supplier of tanks? Supplier of fucking dragons?’
‘It could be a whole lot worse than that.’
‘You are shitting me here Marvin? Surely?’
‘Sorry boss, but I’m not. You remember you told me what Carmen had said? About LVPD cops not being too keen on protecting you on the instructions of the FBI?’
‘Yeah, she said that they don’t take kindly to ‘Washington bigwigs’ wading into their turf and dishing out orders.’
‘Probably true to an extent, but there’s another reason why the LVPD might not be too bothered about protecting you.’
‘Oh fuck, come on! You’re talking about dirty cops aren’t you?
‘Yeah, I am. Sorry boss, but Santoro had his tentacles in everything.’
‘But you said earlier that he had a brothel busted every week!’
‘He did, but how many high-profile Vegas folk can you remember getting busted using a brothel?’
‘Well…erm…not many at all when I come to think of it. There was that lawyer – what was his name? – Tarantini. He got busted.’
‘He was also working for the prosecution when one of Santoro’s key men was on trial for murdering that…’
‘…parking attendant. Yeah, shit. I remember. So you’re saying Santoro drip fed brothels to the cops regularly to give them good, easy PR wins and occasionally made sure that their enemies got caught up in it too?’
‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. The big clients were never there when the cops were – you and I both know how many big-hitters in this town indulge.’
‘Yeah, we do. Shit. SHIT. This is bad isn’t it Marv? Either a gun running thug, a psycho drug dealer, a brothel owning assassin or an unknown number of LVPD officers want me dead.’
‘Or all of them.’
‘Thanks for that little nugget of comfort there.’
‘I aim to please boss.’
‘Well you’ve fallen wide of the mark this time.’
‘I was also going to speak to you about your other question.’
‘Cable.’
‘That’s right. You wanted me to look into the New Breed Foundation.’
‘I did. What did you find?’
‘Well, I don’t know what you expected me to find but I can tell you it all looks legit. It’s a worldwide charity. Does good work as far as I can tell.’
‘And what about his claims about access to the best doctors?’
‘A little harder to substantiate, but the dude came back from a car accident that should have killed him after 3 years, and he looks pretty good for it.’
‘Keep looking, I still don’t trust him.’
‘Will do boss.’
Smoke Ranch Road, Las Vegas. 17th May 2340HRS.
It was an interesting evening with Peabody to say the least. It had given Dorling a lot to think about, and had he been the kind of person who maintained focus on the important things, he would probably had been keeping his head on a swivel and trusting nobody.
But Dorling remained true to himself and was truly in his head, thinking about April and Katy and what the hell he was going to do next. It was almost muscle memory that was driving his red Jeep Wrangler along the side streets of Vegas as he absentmindedly stopped at red lights and went at greens.
He didn’t know what he was going to tell April to make her feel better, either. She already felt like it was all her fault and was wallowing in guilt about Katy’s injuries and the destruction of Dorling’s apartment building, and nothing he’d said so far had come close to making any difference to that. Now he had to tell her that her life was most definitely in danger if anything Marvin had said was to be believed. And believe him he did – Marvin has been bang on about everything the last few weeks. He was still busy processing exactly who Marvin was after all these years, because he was sure that nobody from the old SCW days would believe him if he was to tell them that Marvin fucking Peabody had helped him topple a crime lord and was now feeding him information about the Las Vegas underworld.
What he really needed was a moment of clarity, a moment where something came along and shocked him into some form of action. He needed a jolt to awaken something inside him and prompt him to do something. He needed a jump start to get the grey matter cogs turning so he could come up with ideas, with solutions. That’s how he worked. Whenever the adrenaline kicked up a notch and it became fight or flight it was invariably fight and he almost always solved his problems by confronting them head on. He certainly wasn’t a fan of taking a break from problems to give them a chance to blow over. He was not a ‘wait and see’ kind of guy.
It was kind of poetic then, that while he was lamenting the lack of catalyst in his turbulent private life, one pulled alongside him at the lights on Smoke Ranch and Buffalo.
It took him a moment to realise what was happening. The van pulled alongside and Dorling lazily looked across. The driver, hiding behind a baseball cap and shades, was looking intently in his direction through the open passenger’s side window. ‘Obviously a fan’ stated Dorling’s egotistic inner monologue before he became aware that the side door was opening and two men were pointing some guns at him. He had time to mutter ‘definitely not a fan’ too himself before leaping over the passenger seat and out of the jeep (the benefit of not having doors finally revealed). As he hit the tarmac, the sound of rapid fire filled the night and he could hear the impact of hundreds of rounds striking the side of his precious vehicle. A couple of cars were in the distance and, seeing this, the side door of the van closed and the driver floored it. Tyres screeched on asphalt and his would be killers sped off into the distance.
He sat on the ground, leaning against the right rear tyre of the Jeep, and gathered his breath. Checking himself for wounds and finding none, he joyously leapt into the air, only to see that the rear half of the Jeep was now fairly significantly on fire. Sensing his car was about to explode like in the movies he started sprinting along the road. He was proven right when he heard a pop, or so he thought, turning around to see that it was just a tyre exploding.
‘Haha, I knew this wouldn’t be like the mov…’
BOOOM
The force of the explosion knocked him on his arse. He sat up, looking at the fiery wreck of what used to be his pride and joy. He was still alive, but now those sons of bitches had taken his home, his car, and maybe his best friend. His moment of clarity had arrived.
Tamarus Street, Las Vegas. 18th May, 0130HRS.
BANG BANG BANG
‘OPEN UP! COME ON! I KNOW YOU’RE HOME!’
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG
‘LET ME IN WILL YOU!’
The door creaked open.
‘Jesus Christ, Dorling. What the fuck are you doing?’
‘Alright alright, put the gun down Carmen, I’m not here to hurt you.’
Carmen opened the door and let him in. She was wearing pyjamas with an FBI hoodie over the top. She looked him up and down.
‘You look like shit, what’s happened?’
‘Somebody tried to kill me again. No biggie.’
‘No biggie?! Why didn’t you call the cops? What are you doing here?!’
‘As far as I know it could have been the cops. Couldn’t call, lost my phone in the explosion.’
‘Expl…what the hell happened?’
‘Oh, you know. Somebody tried to do me like Denzel at the end of Training Day – oh if you haven’t seen that he gets shot by gangsters while he waits at the lights at the end.’
‘Yeah, I’ve seen it. Where was this?’
‘Smoke Ranch and Buffalo.’
‘Hmm. Not exactly gang turf there. Did you get a look at them?’
‘Nope. The one driving was wearing a cap and shades – and driving gloves. The two with the guns were covered head to toe.’
‘Shit, well – I’m glad you’re ok. But why have you come here? What do you think I can do?’
‘Carmen Esparza, you are the only one I can trust.’
‘Don’t be dramatic.’
‘I’m not, Peabody has been doing some digging and…’
‘…Peabody! Your source here is Marvin fucking Peabody?’
‘I hate to break to you little miss FBI, but he’s proved 100% more useful than your organisation in protecting me and mine this last couple of months.’
‘He doesn’t have paperwork to complete. What else did he say?’
‘He dropped a few names of people that might be after me. Viktor Tasacs, Isidoro Gutierrez, Lady May and, well, the LVPD.’
‘The LVPD? And Lady May? Come on. The LVPD are largely incompetent but they’re hardly trained killers. And Lady May? She’s a myth, not even the FBI have had eyes on her.’
‘Strangely, that makes me feel less comfortable.’
‘Look, he may be on to something with Tasacs and Gutierrez but the other two sound more like implausible Hollywood movies.’
‘If you’d told me a few months ago that any number of Las Vegas criminals would be in the frame for exploding my home after I had helped imprison the biggest crime family in Vegas, I would have said something similar.’
‘Ok fine, but what do you want me to do about it? I already told you, the FBI doesn’t have the resources to protect you and the LVPD aren’t interested – for whatever reason. My hands are tied here.’
‘Officially, yeah.’
‘Hang on there a minute Bravestarr – I don’t think I like where this is going. We’re under scrutiny here after the Santoro bust, I can’t go black ops on this.’
‘I’m not asking you to, but you have one thing en masse which I have nothing of at all.’
‘What?’
‘Information.’
‘Information about what?’
‘Tasacs, Gutierrez, May. I need that information if I’m going to do anything about it.’
‘Do what exactly? You’re going to take on major crime organisations without the assistance of any kind of law enforcement? Are you mad?’
‘You mean in the mentally deranged or the angry sense?’
‘The first one.’
‘Maybe. I can’t just sit around and do nothing.’
‘Yes, you can. Well, not nothing, but you’re not a fucking comic book hero Dorling.’
‘Maybe I’m not, but I can’t just sit around waiting for me or Katy or April to be on the end of one of these little ‘incidents.’ I won’t let anything else happen to anybody.’
‘You’re going to get yourself killed.’
‘That’s the spirit!’
‘I’m serious dude, these are not the people to be messing with. Just do your job. Go to Siberia and then go to China and wrestle.’
‘One, I didn’t know you took an interest in my career so we’ll be revisiting that and two, it’s not the easiest job in the world to do when you’re always looking over your shoulder.’
Dorling got up to leave.
‘Get me the information, Carmen. You got a promotion off the back of the Santoro shit, you owe me.’
She shook her head as Dorling closed the door behind him.
Luxor Casino, Las Vegas. 20th May, 1330HRS
Dorling took a sip from his beer as he sat at the bar. It only occurred to him after sitting there for 20 minutes that it was the same place where he first met April. The place where the Hungarian cop was gunned down by her father’s associates. He mused over that while waiting for Peabody. He didn’t really know if Marvin could help him any further, but he hoped that his ‘contacts’ might have heard something about what had happened to Dorling just over 48 hours previous. As Marvin appeared from between some slot machines, he nodded at Dorling. His transformation to security specialist was complete. Sharp suit, earpiece, the respect of his colleagues. A new Marvin.
‘Hey boss.’
Peabody perched himself on the stool next to Dorling and signalled for a soda water from the barmaid.
‘Sounds like you had a rough night on Thursday.’
‘You could say that. You know why I’m here my friend.’
‘Oh yeah, I have a good idea. I knew you’d show – I heard about your little incident before the sun came up on Friday.’
‘How?’
‘Security people overhear a lot of shit, and they talk to each other. The Luxor isn’t the only hotel with sketchy customers. In fact, we’ve had a lot less of that traffic since we took care of the Santoro problem.’
‘So what are the security people telling you?’
‘They’re not saying a great deal to be honest.’
‘Oh, brilliant. That’s not particularly helpful Marv.’
‘Well, it might be. If this was Gutierrez he’d have been shouting about it from the rooftops, not to mention the fact you’d probably have read some news about finding some dead Colombians somewhere.’
‘Because they failed?’
‘Because they failed.’
‘So if it ain’t him, then it must be Tasacs or May. Or the cops.’
‘Possibly. Wasn’t really May’s style – was a bit loud.’
‘Two options then. Tasacs or the cops.’
‘Would seem to be the most common theory at the moment. What are you gonna do?’
‘I guess I’m going to go see Mr Viktor Tasacs.’
‘Do you think that’s a good idea?’
‘It almost certainly is not, but I’m running out of options here.’
‘You want some help?’
‘Not on this one Marv – you know what I’m up to. If I vanish you’re in charge of finding me.’
‘Ok boss. If you’re sure? I can get some guys together?’
‘I’m going to try to be quiet on this one.’
‘Quiet? Dorling? Ok.’
Dorling grinned at Peabody as he got up from his seat.
‘Cheers for the beer Marv.’
‘I didn’t know I was paying!’
‘Lost my wallet in a house fire.’
‘You can only use that excuse for so long!’
Kuwa Club, Las Vegas. 21st May, 2230HRS.
Of all the criminals to be hiding out in a Latin club, Dorling thought the most likely would have been Gutierrez. Then again, misdirection is important if you’re going to be fooling the law, so he stood at the bar in the Kuwa club as two young and supple dancers moved across the stage with Latin fire and businessmen drank cocktails. He scanned the room, looking for any sign of Tasacs or his operation. He’d already been there a couple of hours and watched the place slowly fill up and nothing had jumped out at him. In hindsight it might have been better to have brought some men with him.
Another 30 minutes passed before he noticed a pattern was developing. There were bouncers all over the room but one in particular stood out because he was standing by a completely non-descript door which very few people approached, let alone used. He watched for a few minutes more and it seemed like the people using the door were all similar. Grey suits, short hair, gruff and stubbly faces.
Reassuringly stereotypical for Eastern European gangsters.
He made his way over to the door, thinking how he was going to play it. Carrying his drink in his hand, he waited around 10 feet away, pretending to take a call on his cell phone. He saw two men approach from across the room, they were heading for the door. This was his chance. He put his phone back in his pocket and, just as the men reached the bouncer, he started to stumble like he was drunk (not too far from the truth). The bouncer on the door let the men through and just as the door was closing, Dorling lunged forward, ‘accidentally’ spilling his drink over the bouncer. The bouncer looked up with fury in his eyes. Dorling kept the pretence going, and began fumbling all over him, attempting to rub the alcohol off his suit. The bouncer unhooked the radio from his belt, letting the door go. Dorling fell again, knocking the radio out of his hand, but carefully placing his foot in the doorway to prevent the door closing. As the bouncer bent forward to pick up his radio, Dorling leapt to his feet and jumped through the door, closing it behind him. He breathed a sigh of relief, until he turned around.
The sight that greeted him resembled that of a large warehouse. In front of him, the room was cavernous, and several tables were laid out. At each table, various tools and clamps, and a man working on a weapon. There were guns everywhere. All of the faces before him looked up and stopped working simultaneously. All he could do was stand there.
‘Hi.’
At the back of the room was an office, and a man stepped out of the open door.
‘Mr Dorling, I think you had better come here.’
Viktor Tasacs.
Dorling made his way past all of the glares of the men and women, busy working away on guns and walked to the back of the room. He didn’t take his eyes off Tasacs. Was this the man that tried to kill him? Tasacs invited him into the office and closed the door behind them. Dorling looked around for signs of his impending death but nothing leapt out of him. He took a seat on the leather chair, sitting in front of a big oak desk. Tasacs sat down the other side. He was a big, heavy set man. Rumours abound that he used to be in the Hungarian special forces or something similar. Dorling could see why those rumours could hold weight. Tasacs leant forward.
‘I know why are here.’
‘I’m beginning to doubt it myself.’
‘You want to know if I ordered for you to be killed.’
‘Well it’s certainly of interest to me, yes. Did you, by the way?’
‘I did not.’
‘Well that’s exactly what I’d expect you to say, to be fair.’
‘Mr Dorling, if I wanted you dead, you would not have made it across my factory floor.’
‘You make a compelling point.’
‘Do not misunderstand. I have no affection for you. You have annoyed me in many, many ways.’
‘It’s kind of what I do.’
‘Yes. I am prepared to offer you a deal.’
‘Why do I not like the sound of this?’
‘Because you are not in a position of strength in this discussion.’
‘You make a valid point. Fine. What’s the deal?’
‘I would like you to make a delivery for me.’
‘A delivery? To who?’
‘To Isidoro Gutierrez. You may want to speak to him about other matters anyway.’
‘Are you saying he tried to kill me?’
‘I am saying you may want to speak to him about that, yes.’
‘What am I delivering?’
‘It is a package, about so big.’
Tasacs gestured with his hands. He indicated the package would be about the size of a toaster.
‘And what’s in the package?’
‘That is not for you to know.’
‘I don’t want to get involved in any gang warfare shit here.’
‘Mr Dorling, you have destroyed the biggest crime family in Las Vegas, you have wandered into my secure manufacturing facility. You are involved.’
‘Fine. I’ll take the package. Where is it?’
‘We will get it to you. You will know when. Now, you must leave.’
‘Ok Tasacs. You sure you didn’t try to kill me?’
‘I did not.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘You are right to trust nobody.’
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‘So where do I fuckin’ start eh? The best friend is in a coma, my apartment building is destroyed, my car is destroyed, somebody tried to kill me.
It might be the crazy Colombian. It might be the ex-special forces Hungarian. It might be the deadly Chinese assassin. It might be the fucking cops. And that’s before we even get to the wrestling.
Yes, the wrestling. My career. My lifeline. What a fucking week I’ve got coming up in wrestling. Yes, I do have to go to Siberia and wrestle in a falls count anywhere match for the Experts reunion show. Logistically this makes my getting to China harder, and my body may well be bruised. But you know what? Compared to my private life right now, getting thrown around a disused Siberian prison for a couple of hours is like a fucking holiday.
From Siberia I go to Beijing for the rematch of rematches.
Yes, fucking YES. I get another crack at that Intercontinental title and it’s going to take a hell of a lot more than explosions and failed assassination attempts to stop me from getting my hands on it.
I like Christian Connolly, I do. I think he is a great wrestler and he seems like a good guy. There are a lot of good guys in the business. But you know what? At this stage I really don’t care.
I talked before we fought last time about wanting and needing, and what was a stronger driver. I want the Intercontinental title, he said that he needs it. He’ll do all he can to maintain his grip on that thing and believe me, I know what that involves. I’ve seen it and felt it up close, and this guy can go. 60 minutes is going to be a hell of a long time to be facing this kind of bloody mindedness.
But face it I will. You see, Christian Connolly, life has a way of providing you with the clarity you need sometimes. I was muddled when I faced you before. I was a man fighting a fight on several different battlefields, trying to follow rules and keep everybody happy.
That is no longer the case. I’ve lost an awful lot of my life recently. I’ve been stripped back to a visceral, robotic, single minded fighter and that, for you, means danger. I’ve got nothing to lose here man! I’ve got a whole load of frustration and anger that has been sitting in the back of my mind for weeks and now I have been reduced to one single motivation – survival – I can finally exorcise those feelings from my brain and translate them into kinetic energy. That energy is going to be focussed on you, my friend.
I’m sure you’re going to be similarly motivated to keep hold of your title and you’re going to look at my words as another load of hot air but unlike last time, you know exactly what I can bring. We have 60 minutes – one hour – to find out which one of us is better and you had damned well believe I won’t be holding a single iota of my person back.
I will prevail. I WANT to prevail.
Honestly I can’t fucking wait to get in the ring in China and, not for the first time in my relatively short WGWF career, blow the roof off the arena and show everybody – EVERYBODY – in WGWF and beyond that Dorling is back, well and truly back.
Until China, my friend.
Until China.