Page 102 of Dirty Pool

Normal for Sal, even if bad.

Good for Michel tonight.

The bouncer at the front of the club didn’t even give Michel a second glance—he was a new guy because Michel didn’t recognize his face at all. He didn’t have an issue with stepping aside to let Michel enter the club without standing in line as soon as he greeted the man in Italian.

He didn’t even check Michel to see if he had a weapon on him, but he doubted the bouncer checked any of Sal’s men when they came into the business. The bouncer likely thought Michel was part of Sal’s crew, and didn’t think it would cause any harm to let him in.

He had been part of the crew once.

But not for long.

Inside the club, Michel stuck to the shadows and the crowds of people so that he couldn’t be easily picked out. On the dance floor where everyone was moving fast, the music pumped louder, and the lights overhead flashed in such a way that one couldn’t properly focus on anything around them, Michel looked for the cameras.

He had to check.

Just to be sure …

Sal’s bad habits followed through. Michel found three of the cameras easily enough, and the lack of blinking red lights told him that yes, they were all turned off, and probably would be for the rest of the night. Or at least until Sal was out of the building.

Perfetto.

Not wanting to waste anymore time, or risk the chance that one of Sal’s men might notice Michel lingering on the dance floor, he headed into the shadows of the far end of the club. Slipping down the back hallway that led to the bathrooms and a few storage rooms, Michel ducked into the storage room directly across from the men’s washroom. He didn’t bother to close the door, but he did stay just beyond the line of light that filtered in past the threshold. Here, he couldn’t be seen at all.

Which was the entire point.

A long time ago, Michel had decided that he didn’t want to be … like every other man in his family. It wasn’t because he thought he was better than them, or that he couldn’t handle the way they chose to live. He’d simply wanted to be different, and do more than just the mafia.

There was still a part of him, though, that would never change. A part of him that had been raised by a Cosa Nostra boss, with uncles who were made men, and cousins that he watched work their entire lives to be that man he chose not to be. That part of him was just like them—just as volatile, and dangerous. Just as cunning, and quick on his feet.

He simply didn’t show it.

He couldn’t when he wasn’t them.

Until now.

Michel wasn’t sure how long he waited in the darkness of the storage room—it could have been an hour, but it was probably more. Eventually, though, he heard the familiar voice shouting from the other end of the hallway that said his plan was about to come together. Oh, there were still a lot of variables, and shit could go wrong, but he didn’t think it would.

Not tonight.

“Yeah, yeah,” Michel heard Sal say to someone else, “give me a minute here to take a piss, and we’ll take a look at the details for that deal. Grab the folder from my office, yeah?”

“You got it, Sal,” someone else replied.

Michel waited.

He didn’t move.

The footsteps came closer until he could see Sal passing by the doorway where he was hiding. The man turned to enter the bathroom, and Michel smirked a bit. He knew there was no one else in the bathroom at the moment—he’d been watching it for a hot minute, now. Still, Sal opened the door and shouted for anyone in the room to get the fuck out.

When he didn’t get a response, he headed into the bathroom. Michel waited all of five seconds, just long enough that the door swung closed behind Sal, and he figured the man had crossed to the urinals to do his business.

This was low, in a way.

It didn’t offer the man any pride. He’d be found with his cock in his hands, likely. An embarrassing thing to have to explain to those who would need to be told about his death, and all. This wasn’t the way Michel would typically choose to do this kind of thing, but at the same time, it felt oddly appropriate for Sal.

After all, the man had never cared for Michel’s pride.

Certainly not his dignity, either.