Rally
McCready sees Dino moving closer as well. He makes a subtle signal with his left hand and moves back, away from the copters but still fairly close (though out of earshot) to a black-and-white. He prided himself on his hearing skills, and concentrated on listening to the noises coming from the squak box while he waited for Dino to meet him.
Lion’s Den
3rd Level Parking Basement, Scarlet Arms Hotel
(ATTN: Othello)
Taking care not to be heard, Othello happens upon a startling meeting.
Several yards away, beyond the debris of the underground construction, he makes out his man. Danny “Three Rings” Tivoli. The turncoat was leaning against a sleek silver limousine. Carrying on conversation with…
None other than Linh Lao herself. whatever the two were discussing, Redman’s attention was drawn to a third party. Stepping into view was…
Weasel.
What the hell were they all doing here? If the hotel suddenly collapsed, a lot of people’s problems would be over.
But for the time being, Othello could only listen. He was too far out to do much, and the perimeter of Triads and Weasel’s good-for-nothings would have made escape too much of a challenge.
He listened instead, picking up the tail end of their conversation.
“We tighten our grasp,” Lao begins, “and crush our enemy.”
Tivoli, nervous, speaks, “Let me get this straight… you want me to stick my head out again, let the rest of the paisans come running… and pray I don’t get shot?”
Lao silently unsheathes a longsword behind her back.
Unaware, the turncoat continued, “I could just split town… I could just…”
In an instant, the woman’s blade is at his throat. “There is nowhere you can run that I cannot find you. And if you want a chance at freedom again, you will do as you are told!”
Weasel laughs, like aa snake-oil salesman. “Bring them to us. The Italians want you dead, and Darky’s sweet on you. Throw in Professor Headcase, and we’ll have cleaned up all our loose ends.”
Tivoli eventually nods, careful not to knick himself on the sharp sword. Lao slowly pulls away, as if longing to end him. She then turns her back to the thug, disgusted with his honorless ways. “If you were Triad, you would be dead already.”
She appraoches the limo, as the passenger in the back cracks the window. “We are done here,” she says politely to the mystery guest inside. A moment later she enters the other side of the vehicle.
Weasel and his men enter a series of three trademark black sedans across the way. As the groups prepare to leave, a panic stricken Tivoli makes his way back to his “borrowed” car.
Towards Othello’s position, still unaware.
Protection Pt.II
Murray Autos
(ATTN: Paulie, Julian)
Julian turns, braking momentarily, using his side of the car as a shiled to allow Paulie to climb all the way in.
“Sorry, Paulie,” he utters absent-mindedly.
Just as soon as his companion is clear, Julian hits the gas. He drives frantically, no longer conerned with the care of the vehicle he is in. He smashes into one car, pinning a Tirad to its exterior.
While laying low, hit powers down the window.
“Get it!” he shouts, referring to the AK-74 dangling off the dead man’s shoulder, just inside Paulie’s reach.
He revs the engine, ready to continue the carnage.
Heist
Roman stands at the entrance near a security guard. Roman musters as genuine a smile as one can muster when they’re probably going to kill somebody.
“Wife is running late, again.” Roman shrugs at the guard, “Women.” he offers the guard.
Roman casually surveys the positions the team is taking. Virgil in line, Frank near the offices, and Chelsea getting to work.
Roman saunters to the coffee urn and pours a healthy dose. Waiting is the worst part of this type of gig.
Rally
Dino sees McCready giving him a signal.
Well, this wasn’t in the script, but, shit, fuck it. Dino then walks towards the professor.
Heist
Virgil tries his damn best to look like a normal customer. Hard to do when you can feel almost everyone staring at your face. He takes a cigarette out of his pack and put it to his lips before an employee taps him on the shoulder and points to the “no smoking” signal.
“Sorry there sir, forgot about it.”
The cigarette goes back in the pack, Virgil goes back to waiting.
Rally
McCready waits until Dino reaches his side, and begins talking in a low voice, out of the corner of his mouth. It’s evident that he is also concentrating on the noises from the squak box.
“I was sorry to hear about your friend,” he begins. “We will get revenge, I promise. But these choppers-which have no weakness and are fuckin’ operational-present a new challenge for the both of us. As I see it we have one of two options. Leave now, and perhaps provide Roman’s team with some needed cover when these monster eagles do arrive, or we can wait and hear what the squak box over there says. Either way, we are going to need some form of transportation fairly shortly. Now. I have given this speech several times already, but let me tell you, as we have been through Hell together-though it was called Chinatown-and perhaps you will understand. You can trust me. I want revenge, but I would not betray Roman, my friend and comrade in arms, for even a free and united Ireland. It is our duty, not only to ourselves, but to our friends and our employers, and to the ones we love. For there was once a pair of brown eyes that waited once for me.”
He sighs, his breath visible on the morning air.
“I ramble, but that is all gone now. My point is, we must work together like the warriors we are. The gladiators. The men. There is something behind this all..I can feel it. And wherever black is worn, will a terrible beauty be born.”
He reaches over casually with his hand.
“Can I trust you, mate? Are we men?”
He smiles.
Dino has never told anyone, but he has cried like a baby during Mel Gibson’s freedom speech in “Braveheart.”
He feels the same after listening to McCready. The loss of Tony has been replaced by this strong-willed character.
Dino will definitely die for him.
“You can trust me,” he says as he shakes the professor’s hand.
PROTECTION, PT. II
“Sorry girls,” Paulie says to his 45s as he grabs the AK. He scoots up until he is sitting on the door frame, half out the window, the assault rifle at the ready.
“Hit it!” he shouts to Julian as he rips a burst into the Triad members.
Lion’s Den
Othello feels as though his veins have been filled with ice water. He bleeds back into the shadows and waits for Rings to pass his position. As the informant walks by he steps out and snugs the silencer deep in the man’s ear.
The words leaving his lips drip like poison from a straight razor. “Now let me get this straight. I let you go and this is how you repay me? Believe me little man, when I say that this is one darky who is anything but sweet on you. I hold your life in my hand. Give me a good reason not to apply one more pound of pressure.”
Heist
The tension, unbeknownst to the employees and patrons, is mounting. Roman watches the entrance as the door parts and a well-dressed man, early 30’s, enters. Chelsea gives Roman the signal by checking her watch; this is the bank manager. Roman’s senses shift gears the way he was taught, a rough geometry of the man is delineated and picked apart in his mind. Quickly he discerns the man, one Arthur Winters, is cocky and arrogant. His stride is determined and he ignores the gazes of his employees as if they were meaningless to him; they most assuredly are. Winters’ suit, tie, watch, shoes; all the very best money can afford. He’s trim, fit, slightly tan; probably golf on the weekends, light gym work.
Roman watches him enter his office and shut the door behind him. With barely a fleeting glance he announces to Virgil and Frank that the time has come. With that Roman stalks across the lobby and enters Winters office.
heist
Frank immediately shadows Roman, and stands outside Winters’ office as the door shuts behind his colleague.
(Superb stuff, all around guys!)
Rally
Coldstone Civic Center
(ATTN: Forbes, Dino)
“Baby Bull” arrives next to Forbes. As the meeting progresses with the governor taking the platform and the mic once more, the two look to Palooka, eyes pointed right back at them.
Without skipping a beat, Jimmy leans toward Steadman’s ear. The two look down at your position. Trying his best to be genuine, Avery smiles a tad, nodding to the two of you.
He is obviously very displaced by Forbe’s recent erratic behavior, and is trying not to stir up trouble.
A large banner is brought in by two city workers, covering most of the front of the temporary stage. A new slogan is being unveiled by the governor. “Coldstone is clean.”
Ridiculous sentiment.
As the banner passes, though, the two of you notice that Avery and Palooka are now gone, having disappeared behind the stage in the commotion.
Lion’s Den
Scarlet Arms, 3rd Parking Basement
(ATTN: Othello, Tivoli)
With the remaining crew clear, the basement parking level is now occupied by only two individuals.
The double-dealing Danny “Three Rings” Tivoli, and the vengeful Othello “The Mad Moor” Redman.
At any other moment, Redman would get a small chuckle about “Daniel” in the “Lion’s Den”. But the lions were gone, and this Daniel had a tiger to deal with. A freaking grizzly bear.
“Redman!” Tivoli shat out surprise. “W… what are you… look man,” he panics. “I was getting information… it’s what I do, you know that.”
The man sweats onto Othello’s gun barrell.
“How was I gonna find out what the plans were if I didn’t get these people to trust me? Th..they hadn’t forgotten me.”
He clears his throat. Othello’s internal “lie detector” doesn’t seem to active as he continues, despite the man’s paranoid and excited reply.
“Latisha…, nice girl. But ain’t no way she was safe with me sticking 'round. …now we can get all these monkeys off our back. Come on! I ain’t lying to you!”
He closes his eyes and is heard whispering prayers yet again.
One got the feeling that Tivoli already owed the Holy Mother quite a bit.
Protection, Pt.II
Murray Autos
(ATTN: Julian, Paulie)
After a handful of “drive-by’s” with Paulie evening the odds, Julian swerves behind the main sales office. He comes to a quick halt.
“Seat belts,” he chrips in a feminine voice, then chuckles. He reverse quickly, catching Bruce Lee’s cousin under the tires as he rolls back.
Paulie then sees what he is doing, and scrambles to get his belt on.
With a screech, the car rushes between large metal crates… the kind that carry cars overseas… and up over a loading platform. Tie freezes while the two are in midair, crossing over a metal fence.
Paulie exhales, and the car crashes to the ground with a painful thud. Things have broken underneath the vehicle.
With a curious delight in his voice, Julian chimes, “Let’s go.” He is out of the car in two shakes.
Paulie looks up to see that they are now clear of the car lot, next door. And parked (permanently) in front of ‘Ray’s Gun and Ammo’.
For a split second, Paulie saw beams of light shining from the building’s roof. It is as if Christ himself had led him to this place.
It turned out to be the sunrise coming over the building, but by then Julian had jimmied the lock open.
No sooner had a squad of Triads found the gate through the fence, and were upon the pair as they entered, firing into the glass front of the closed supply store with their machingeguns.
Heist
International Bank and Trade Building
(ATTN: Roman, Frank, Virgil, Chelsea)
Virgil perpares himself. Crowd control is not yet needed, until Roman gives the word. But he keeps a vigilant eye on the 2… now three security guards. If it comes down to it, Abrizza is going to have to make three well-placed shots. If not, he will have to corral them ino one place and disarm them.
Regardless, Virgil just doesn’t feel fully preapred.
Frank stands outside the office door, attempting to be nonchalant. Chelsea struggles not to look at him, making a solid connection with her eyes at least once while he waits. As for inside the office…
Roman makes his way into Winter’s office. The secretary is apparently out on a coffee run, or taking his kids to school…
The pompous businessman immediately looks to Roman in shock. “What the devil are you doing in my office?! You must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. Janitorial staff isn’t lookingto fill posisitons. You must leave.”
It is amazing how quickly the slightly aged man reacts. “Winters,” he barks into the phone. “Security.”
An audible ring is heard over the speaker.
Heist
Winter’s Office
Roman pulls the jack out of the phone and delivers a backhanded fist across the man’s face.
Roman’s eyes dissect the room and catch the spine of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. Roman looks at the man. “You know, it deeply offends me to see The Art of War in a businessman’s office. Do you know anything about war, Mr. Winters? I don’t think you do. See I think you and people of your ilk have played up your role in this society. Playing big shot banker is nothing like war.” Roman pulls the book from the line of assorted “How to Succeed in…whatever” line-up and throws it in the man’s face.
“Get the fuck out of here you shrimpy gook…” Roman whose voice registers slightly lower in tone without adding volume cuts off the man.
“I’m going to teach you, Mr. Winters,” Roman draws his silenced Beretta “I’m also going to be relieving you of quite a bit of this institutions financial holdings.”
The man’s eyes dart to his desk where there is most likely an emergency button for this scenario. Roman leaps the two feet between them and catches Winters by the larynx pushing him against the wall. Without a word, Roman inserts the barrel of the gun into Winters mouth.
“Another move like that and I will blow the base of your brain through the back of your head.” Roman shoves his hand into the man’s pocket producing his wallet and places it in his breast coat pocket. Roman retrieves a set of plasti-cuffs, courtesy of Othello, and binds Winter’s wrists behind his back.
Roman shoves him to the floor and then places his foot over the man’s windpipe aiming the gun at him. Roman takes his cell phone and reads Winter’s personal information to someone on the other end. Ending the call with…”If you don’t hear from me by 5pm…you know what to do.”
Roman smiles down at the man, “I’m sure you caught all that. Now let’s get what I came for.” Roman brings him to his feet and starts for the door.
heist
Frank sees the shadows through the frosted glass nearing the door. He knows what’s about to happen. Instinctively, he looks to Chelsea, while fingering the 9mms concealed in his jacket sleeves.
Lion’s Den
Scarlet Arms, 3rd Parking Basement
(ATTN: Othello, Tivoli)
Othello eases the pressure off of the trigger and removes the gun from the man’s ear but doesn’t bring it down to his side.
“And that would naturally be why you told me that you were coming down here and asked me to back you up.”
The big man shook his head.
“I stuck MY fucking neck out for you Tivoli. Risked my life and future work for the family cause I thought you deserved a second chance. By all that is holy if you are playing me I will make whatever that Chinese bitch threatened to do to you sound like an ice cream social.”
He raps the snitch lightly on the back of skull with the silencer. “Go get in the car.” He leads the man to the passenger side of the Lamborghini and puts him in. He rertrieves the metal spikes and gets in the driver’s side.
“Don’t talk I have some thinking to do.” He dials up ‘Foxy’ and tells her where she can have her car picked up. He then pulls out into traffic.
Lion’s Den
After a few moments of thuinderous silence, Othello speaks. “Who was in the limo?”