“Why do we need help?”
“John,” Phil paused, “You’re a dumb
twat, but not for that reason alone, I’ll explain it in full.”
Phil was a cranky old man to begin
with but when you threw the fact that they were trying to do something illegal
on top of that. The four men sat around the old stone table at the even older
Irish pub. They could hear the trains riding the rails in the distance and the commotion
of the patrons inside to their left of their round table. It was cold out, even
for New York State. They wanted privacy and this was a good way. Phil was a
convicted felon, even if it was years ago, there was no assurance his place
still wasn’t tapped.
“You think you’re all set to break
into a fortune 500 private security company because you have a professional safe-cracker
and a stone cold killer on your side?” Phil had continued after taking a drink
from the pint in front of him. “You’ve never even done this before. Last I
heard the biggest crime you were up to was robbing old women of their pension
checks.”
John would have usually had a
sarcastic remark for that. He said nothing, because it was true. Castor was
eyeing them both waiting for Phil to get to the point. He didn’t like being
exposed like this. Castor didn’t really like Phil either, every chance he got
he referred to him as their hired killer. Killer or not, he was starting to
realize these guys were the only people he could tolerate.
“You need some inside information.”
“We have an insider,” Ryan finally
spoke up.
“Your girlfriend doesn’t fucking
count.” Phil shook his head. “When I say inside information I mean floor plans,
security details, and access codes.”
“She can get that stuff!”
“Right, well what about when Lela
gets caught and she vanishes on you, eh? She’s useless to you then, and you’re
out your girl.” He snorted. “Plus I ain’t confident she could get it done.”
“Enough.”
“Plus you started with her for her
looks, not her hacking and espionage skills I’d assume.”
“Enough,” Ryan said a second time.
“Why this chick that you’ve found
then,” John switched the subject but he was doing it out of his own curiosity.
“Varla Samson, the only person who
actually has an axe to grind with Condor Security like you do.”
“And why is that,” Castor exclaimed
in between glances around the stone patio.
“Varla Samson is a shareholder in
Condor Security. She has access to all of the things we need and a grudge
against Michael Temple, the CEO.”
“What’s her gripe?”
“Well Jonny-boy, let’s just say it
had something to do with her little sister and a bottle of lube. She fell
victim to Mr. Temple and his little soldiers.”
“Wonderful,” Ryan scoffed.
“Just keep that in mind for what
could happen if he catches little Lela.”
“That won’t happen.”
“Don’t get defensive over your
girlfriend, it could happen, anything could happen and that is why we should be
prepared.” Castor was right and Phil knew it. He had to make sure these boys
knew exactly what they were dealing with on all fronts.
“Varla could be our greatest ally or
a fearsome enemy if we aren’t careful. She’s going to expect us to try and fuck
her over, I’d imagine, so we need to make sure that we don’t give her any
reason to believe that we have.”
A young couple emerged from the side
door of the bar. They were laughing about something and the noise caused a
shush over the whole group as they stared at the intruders. The girl pulled her
jacket tighter around her, partially because of the cold but some due to
feeling exposed in front of these men.
“Let’s go over here…,” the young man’s
voice trailed off.
“You three could scare away a
corpse,” John quipped.
“Let em go find somewhere else to
screw, get back to your story old man.”
Phil finished off his pint and
nodded to Castor’s request.
“Reason I urge caution is Varla may
not seem like it but she is quite the little killer.” He looked up at the night
sky, recalling the tale. “She used to live in a penthouse down on Lexington,
nice place but not big on the security. It was pretty well known that she had
quite the nice art collection ranging from Georgia O’Keeffe to obscure Rodins.
A guy that used to be called Mick Tanner broke into her place one night with
intent to steal all of these and any petty cash he could find lying around. He
was an amateur safe cracker and a pretty shitty fence but he had managed some
decent scores and found himself a sneaky little way in through the roof.”
“Get to the point…”
“Let him finish Ryan.”
Phil paused and eyed Ryan harshly,
he hated being interrupted.
“Right, so he goes and gets a bunch
of the paintings from her main room but all the good stuff is in the bedroom
with her in a safe. He figured he’d just slip in and nip her in the back of the
head one good time and be gone before she had the chance to wake up. Seemed
like a good idea until he went in there and saw her all sprawled across the
sheets with her face planted in the pillow and nothing but a pair of black
panties on. She used to be some kind of swimsuit model or something; still
shows too after all these years. So Mick, he hesitates, really thinks he’s
screwed the pouch on this one too because the door woke her up and her tired
ass isn’t going to take too long to realize what’s going on.”
“I swear this sounds like a porno,”
John muttered.
“It kind of is. She realizes what he’s
doing but all her shit is insured and the important stuff he’s not going to be
able to fence without letting people know where it is. She’s got a little bit of
an exhibitionist in her, so she decides to let him in her, right? I guess she
thought ol’ Mick should be thrilled for the opportunity at such a pretty girl
but it wasn’t really the case. Sure, he dropped pants and went at her, enjoyed
her quite a bit I’m sure, but then he got greedy. Mick bent her over and
started going at her bum to keep that rush of dominance of whatever was getting
him off going.”
“So he raped her,” Ryan sounded
unsure of his own question.
“She may have told him to stop. I
don’t know I wasn’t there. Either way, she didn’t like it.”
“Just finish.” Castor said as he lit
another cigarette.
“Right, that’s what he did. He took
advantage of the situation and left his little kids sprayed out all over her
and her nice sheets. He took the paintings and locked her in the bedroom to
give himself some time to get them all down to his van.”
“Let me guess,” John said with a
smirk, “he was stupid enough to try to fence them here in New York? He got
caught.”
“Oh yeah, no one ever accused ol’
Mick of being overly smart or anything.” He motioned for Castor to hand him one
of the cigarettes. Castor paused, keeping count of how many he had taken with
that gap toothed smile of his. “So let’s jump ahead two weeks to when someone
makes Mick Tanner a deal he can’t refuse on the Rodin. It’s at some warehouse
over near 6th avenue. Mick thinks he’s being all safe by bringing a
friend and keeping the paintings in the van until the deal is made. When they
come in though it’s all dark and shit and both of them wind up with black hoods
over their heads.”
Phil paused to light the cigarette
before continuing.
“So Mick wakes up bent over some
crate and tied down to it. Took him a second or two probably to realize his pants
were down round his ankles.”
“Really,” John questioned with an
almost disgusted look on his face.
“Yep, there he lay all bound and
bare for Varla who stood in front of him. She didn’t say nothing though. She
just had four big guys there with foreign objects and a coupl of big dildos,
told em to pay Micky back for what he had done.”
“You said he ‘used’ to be called
Mick Tanner.”
“Right you are Ryan, Varla wasn’t
finished with him. He was standing there what blood coming out of his arse
after those boys were done with him and then she came back. She asked how he
liked it or some such and wanted to know if he had learned anything.”
Phil was a good storyteller. As he
paused to take a long puff on the cigarette John and Ryan leaned forward.
“Well, what did he say,” John said
glancing between the other three.
“Hell if I know,” Phil said letting
out a long stream of smoke. “Whatever he said she slit his throat right after
that and his body ended up in the river. His friend got dropped off somewhere
in Harlem, couldn’t do much about it either he hadn’t seen anyone’s face and
neither one of them knew the fake buyers real name.”
“Right, so she’s killed someone.”
Castor wasn’t impressed.
“And you think just cause you have
you shouldn’t be cautious, she’s vicious.”
“But you’re convinced we need her.”
“Yes Ryan. Unless you want to take
another year planning this perfectly, you need Varla Samson and I can get you a
meeting with her.”
There was a good thirty seconds of
silence before anyone spoke up, it was a big decision.
“Set it up,” Castor finally said.
Ryan looked at him for a moment. He
considered himself the kind of default leader of the group but Castor was
right, no one wanted to wait any longer to make this happen. Phil was a good
storyteller, but the three young criminals had unfortunately missed his point.
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