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“Come back later,” another cut in as he lit a cigarette, his cupped hand around the flame kicking the flicker back to his pockmarked face.
“Who got hurt,” Nate asked.
“Jimmie Gimp, Big Toms, and Smilie,” the third answered.
“I want to see Uncle.”
“He don’t want to see nobody—”
The door opened and Jimmie Gimp, Uncle’s right-hand man, leaned out. He had his suit jacket off, and his button-down untucked and tieless. There was a bloodstain on his shoulder and another on his side, the red spots a brilliant contrast to the white of his shirt.
“In,” was all he said.
Nate passed through the guards, and as he squeezed by Jimmie Gimp’s beer gut, he wondered who the hell would be so brazen.
Looked like he was going to get a couple of jobs out of this. Good thing his schedule was fucking free.
The inside of the building was stark and cheap, nothing on thewalls, the tables and chairs low-rent restaurant versions draped with simple cloths, the floor bare brick-colored tile. The only thing with any intrinsic value was the stock in the bar in the corner. The help-yourself expanse was impressive, with every spirit known to man, and some even a vampire didn’t recognize, but it was strictly self-serve-and-be-neat-about-it because shit didn’t get bussed until the morning.
“Wait,” Jimmie ordered.
The older man limped off to one of two doors, and knocked on the entry that wasn’t the loo with a couple of short raps. After a pause, he opened the way up, had a word—and turned back to motion at Nate.
Uncle’s inner sanctum was just like the outer space except smaller and with only one table without a cloth on the top. The man himself was sitting with his back to the wall, and he had a squat glass of something brown on the rocks next to a gun that no doubt had the safety off. His double-breasted jacket was still on, but it was open down the front, the pinstriped folds parting to expose a red-and-gold tie with a diamond pin halfway down. Between the fit of the suit and the middle-aged paunch, he gave a good impression of being a big guy. The true impact of him wasn’t physical, however. It was those direct eyes.
He was a lawless killer who strangled businesses for money, dealt in drugs and women, took the cash of broke gambling addicts, and demanded loyalty out of fear, not devotion.
But at least you knew what you were dealing with.
And there were no bloodstains on him. So Nate had a feeling that whatever had gone down had been done by an amateur who hadn’t waited for the target to get out of that Mercedes.
As Nate entered with Jimmie, the man smiled coldly. “Helluva night, Natty boy.”
“Glad you made it.”
That stare narrowed into slits. “They fucked up my car. I love that fucking car.”
Behind him, Jimmie shut the door, then went to stand next to Blue Bill, who was a looming mountain of tough guy in the corner. The twohumans were identical in their dark suits with their dark hair and narrowed pale eyes. Then again, like everyone, they were related and went to the same tailor.
Uncle picked up his glass of whiskey and indicated the chair across from him, his gold cuff links flashing. “You just gonna stand there all night.”
With a shrug, Nate sat down, spreading himself into a comfortable lean that the balloon-backed little chair couldn’t really handle. “We have something to talk about.”
“Yeah, we do, and it takes guts for you to come here.” Uncle took a pull off the lip of his glass. “What if we don’t let you go, huh?”
“I’m not worried about that.”
For a split second, Uncle went very still. Then he smiled, like a cobra. “You got bigger balls than me sometimes.”
As Nate shifted to put his hand into his second-best leather jacket—because the one he really liked had been burned to hell and gone, fuck him very much—he looked at Jimmie Gimp and Blue Bill.
“I’m not taking out a weapon. Relax.”
Everybody waited until Uncle nodded and g’headed the movement. At which point, Nate finished retrieving the USB that had cost a man his life the night before.
Actually, that death had been more about Mickey’s arrogance and stupidity.
Nate put the black slip in the center of the round table.
