I knew he liked her. I didn’t know he would go to those extremes to further his empire. Annie was in the garden when he marched up to her and began unzipping his flies. My cameras caught it all. You wouldn’t know they were there, I’d had them positioned to monitor my property covertly.
She ran for the house and he grabbed her. He punched her until she wasn’t moving. Then he did what he came there to do and wiped himself on her scarf. He blamed it on a break in. He even broke a window, locked the back door and kicked it in. His sneering snarling face is still etched into my mind every night as I lie down to sleep two weeks later.
‘Dear oh dear, Johnny, the hooligans, you oughtta get them killed,’ he said.
I decided then what I would do. But I had to ease him into position first.
The day I took out the Franklin boys I watched him drive away, smoking a Cuban, a disease on the edge of crime.
You see the only way I could secure his death was to make sure he didn’t think I suspected him. I turned up for work, silent, grieving, and I picked off his enemies. And he trusted me even more, as you do someone you think is too dumb to know what is going on. I knew he would agree to the offer I was about to make. I was dumb enough to be trusted.
There were a few more gangs Marty wanted to get rid of, minor hustlers with no future except what awaited them in prison. But I needed his complete confidence, and I needed him on his own, away from his empire. It was training for what I intended to do to him. And I wanted to see how much control he would give me of his clubs.
The Jones boys were easy. I blew them away one night in a back alley, left them in their blood. Then there were the Murphys. They’d been making noises about going for some of Marty’s clubs. I took them for a ride with one of Marty’s bodyguards, shot them in the back of their heads out on some industrial wasteland.
Marty was happy, he gave me a lot of cash and I stayed late with him one night. He was a little drunk and I watched him unlock his safe.
The thing about Marty is he liked the racetrack, gambling was in his blood, you could say.
The following week we went to the races. I watched him blow hundreds and get that one win that made him high.
‘Feels great,’ he said, waving the money at me, blowing great smoke clouds into the air and eyeing a woman’s arse as she passed by.
I watched him in his car all the way back to his club thinking about it and when I would do it.
‘Fancy one of my waitresses Johnny?’ he said.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Still cut up about Annie?’
‘You could say that.’
‘I’ll get the hooligans who did it.’
‘No Marty I’m going to get them.’
I left him at the club.
I went home and thought about when and where.
He’d think it was a joke until it got nasty.
There was another race the following week. There was a horse trainer I knew. He owed me favours.
‘He has a scam going and you could make a fortune,’ I said to Marty.
He looked at me and said, ‘Johnny, you’re fucking great, I’m going to make you my manager.’
But I already was.
He slapped me on the back and walked away.
When we got there I told Marty the trainer wanted to meet him in some stables. I had the keys to them.
‘He should be here any minute,’ I said.
I watched him walk right in there, and got ready.
In the gents I put on my turtleneck and waistcoat, pants shoes, with gloves and rumpled fedora and I went in.
Marty was stroking the stud’s head when he turned, Cuban smoking, clenched his yellow teeth on the butt and said, ‘What the fuck?’
‘What the fuck indeed,’ I said and swiped his neck open with a machete I’d tucked inside my waistcoat.
Marty sprayed the horse with blood, it was dripping by the time I finished with him.
I leaned into him as he stared up at me with dumb eyes.
‘Marty you dumb fuck I have the keys to your kingdom. You think you can rape my wife and get away with it?’
I kicked him in the face until he wasn’t moving, and I headed out of there all the way to the club and away with the money he kept in his safe.
Marty needed to believe the people around him were dumb, which is the dumbest thing of all.
BIO:
Richard Godwin is the author of critically acclaimed novels Apostle Rising and Mr. Glamour. One Lost Summer is his third novel. It is a Noir story of fractured identity and ruined nostalgia and available at all good retailers and online here http://www.amazon.com/One-Lost-Summer-Richard-Godwin/dp/0956711340/ref=sr_1_1?s=books &ie=UTF8 &qid=1369681195 &sr=1-1 &keywords=one+lost+summer+by+richard+godwin
He is also a published poet and a produced playwright. His stories have been published in over 29 anthologies, among them his anthology of stories, Piquant: Tales Of The Mustard Man. Apostle Rising is a dark work of fiction exploring the blurred line between law and lawlessness and the motivations that lead men to kill.
Mr. Glamour is about a world of wealthy, beautiful people who can buy anything, except safety from the killer in their midst.
Richard Godwin was born in London and obtained a BA and MA in English and American Literature from King's College London, where he also lectured.
You can find out more about him at his website www.richardgodwin.net, where you can also read his Chin Wags At The Slaughterhouse, his highly popular and unusual interviews with other authors.
GRAND CENTRAL: TERMINAL By Terrence P. McCauley
James Hicks hadn’t planned on killing anyone that morning.
In fact, his schedule was pretty light. Other than his daily check-in with his operatives, the only thing on his calendar was to blackmail a new asset into working for the University. Some finance geek who hadn’t covered his embezzlement as well as he’d thought. Bad luck for him. Good luck for Hicks. The man would either agree to work for Hicks or evidence of his greed would be sent to the client from whom he’d stolen: a nasty warlord in eastern Europe with a penchant for dismemberment.
Hicks checked his watch when he reached the corner of 45th and Lexington. He’d been trained to be early for his appointments and he was early now. Lateness led to sloppiness and sloppiness got you killed. James Hicks had been in this line of work for a long time and planned on being in it much longer.
The meeting was scheduled to take place at the would-be asset’s office in the MetLife building on Park Avenue, just behind Grand Central Terminal. Plenty of time for Hicks to grab a cup of coffee at a place called Joe’s in the Terminal before he ruined yet another man’s life.
He went through the lobby of the MetLife building and rode the escalator down to the main concourse of the Terminal. There were plenty of other coffee places in midtown, but Hicks liked Joe’s strong, flavorful brew.
He liked the Terminal even more than he liked Joe’s coffee and went there whenever he could. He loved the energy of the place. The hurried people. The connectivity between trains and subways and the buses and cabs outside. Tourists taking pictures of the old building; gawking up at the grandeur of the place while the cops and the people who worked there went about their business.
The agency known as the University had stationed Hicks in New York so long ago, he couldn’t remember living anywhere else, though he’d been posted in several places all over the world. He loved how New York purified old wounds through its energetic indifference to the problems of its citizens. The flow of traffic on busy streets offered instant absolution of past sins because everyone was too busy to care about what you’d done right or what you’d done wrong. The whole city lived in the present with a healthy contempt for the past and a guarded view of the future.