Chapter Text
The air was thick, stuffy, and downright chilly, an unreasonable and unseasonable April night that seemed to bring a message to any gumbrained gumshoe who had the gumption to leave his front door: You go right the hell back inside, punk. But Patrick Sloan was certainly no mere punk, and here with him—in a small, underground room bathed in the light of a bare bulb—seated around the table, were the faces of six other such non-punks. Sloan took stock of each one of their tense-looking mugs. To his immediate left, the pile of brawn known as “Ace” Dick Dunn showered everyone with a constant barrage of scowls, and on his right, a usually impossibly tall Peter Inesco hunched over and fidgeted so quickly with his bowler hat that Sloan half-worried the friction might start a fire.
On the other side of the table, keeping its distance from the men in the filthy white coats, was the concentrated menace of the mobsters in the black hats—the Midnight Crew. Sloan burned the image of their faces into his retinas as well. Sitting on a barstool instead of a folding chair was probably the shortest mobster on earth, a spry but tiny middle-aged fellow named Clinton Duccio, who went by the moniker Clubs Deuce. Somehow wedged in next to him was the largest human Sloan had ever seen, the real muscle of the group, Heinrich Bachman, also known as Hearts Boxcars. Standing behind Deuce was the most terrifying poker face this side of the Mississippi, the second-in-command, the shark, the legend, Il Primo Numero Due, the one and only Diamonds Droog, whose real name—well, legal name anyhow— was Paolo Diamante. And in the middle of the whole group, the man of many names and just as many profanities, short-dark-and-homely, a real prickly customer with a stabby streak, the owner of basically two thirds of the city somehow, the biggest real estate magnate in the Western United States, the proprietor of three and a half of the best casinos in town, and the biggest disparity between arrests and convictions in California History, the legitimate businessman himself, José Vantas, AKA Jack Vantas, AKA Blackjack Vance, AKA Jack Noir, AKA Spades Slick—the boss of the Midnight Crew.
“So is anyone going to fucking say something or did we come here just to ogle each other because I swear to God I could be enjoying myself at the goddamn Norwegian ballet more than what's going on here,” Jack growled, expectorating across the table with each consonant.
Sloan smirked at him and nodded to Diamante.
“Gentlemen,” the tall Italian began, moving around to stand at the table between the two factions, “tomorrow night, we take the first step to becoming the true kings of this town.” He opened a manila folder and laid the contents on the table. “In this folder lie the names, photographs and identities of the known members of the criminal syndicate that runs Felton Family Entertainment. After tomorrow night, every last one of these cretins will be dead or permanently unemployed. After that we help these generous detectives take their shot at The DMK, who seems to be something of an up-and-comer these days. They scratch our back, we scratch theirs. But first, they gotta scratch our back, isn't that right, Mr. Sloan?”
“That's right, Mr. Diamante,” Patrick Sloan replied, standing up and walking to the side opposite Diamante. “We're ready to do what we gotta do, ain't we boys?”
Peter Inesco looked at his hands, spinning his hat as fast as he could. Ace just grumbled.
“I said, 'Ain't we, boys?'”
“Yes, I suppose,” Peter said quietly.
“Yeah, what of it,” Ace sighed.
“Excellent fellas, that's what I like to hear,” Patrick said.
“Fantastic,” Jack deadpanned. “Moving display of loyalty, gentlemen. I'm verklempt, really. Listen,” he continued, leaning in forward, “do any of you bozos have any idea what the hell we're up against? I'm sure you're all excited to take down the competition so we can step in and rule the city like fuckin' monkeylords, I'm sure that's what you're all here for, but do any of you pipsqueak hatfucks know the first thing about the Feltons? About Lawrie English? Hell, do you even fuckin' know what he looks like?”
“You raise an excellent point, Boss,” Diamante said, leafing through the pages on the table.
“You're being awfully fuckin' deferential today,” Jack muttered.
“Merely trying to put my best foot forward in front of the greenhorns, Boss,” Diamante replied. “As I said, our employer raises an excellent point.”
“We heard you,” Dunn grunted.
“The appearance of Lawrie English is a matter of some ambiguity,” Diamante continued, unhindered. “The man has actually not been seen for a matter of some years. About eight years ago, an exploding bank nearby one of his pool halls injured him considerably. Eyewitness testimony—what little of it we could uncover—states that his leg was blown clean off and that large portions of his face went missing and haven't turned up since.”
“Why did the bank explode?” Peter asked.
“Generally, I'd assume he might've been trying to rob the place, Pete,” said Sloan.
“Whatever the reason, he has since shunned the limelight, never out of doors during the day, never any proof of him being on the town during the night. Sightings here and there, but wounds of that magnitude would presumably leave any man disfigured for life. In any case, he doesn't look like this anymore.”
Diamante pulled out a few grainy photographs of a completely bald man—short, muscular, with a golden tooth and matching earring—not grinning at the grand opening of a pool hall, not looking placid in a mug shot, not smiling while throwing his arm around the shoulders of an older man. It was this last photograph that Diamante held up for further inspection.
“This older gentleman is the current replacement face for English and public face for The Felton Family, a former surgeon named Dr. Vincent Schath. It's rumored he's probably the reason why English is still alive after the explosion. Supposedly was one of the most brilliant surgical minds the planet has ever seen.”
“So why's a surgeon cooking books for the Feltons?” Dunn asked.
“Same reason why he's earned the nickname Vinny Shakes. It seems the good doctor developed a taste for certain medications at his former place of employment and was asked to...” he paused to find the right euphemism, “step down about a decade ago."
"Plus there's the weird surgery thing," Duccio piped in.
"The what?" Peter asked.
"That's a rumor, Deuce," Diamante said.
"Detective work lives and dies by rumor," Peter muttered.
"It's less than nothing. Science fiction. We have to deal with the facts. Facts require sources. And our sources say he's clean now, but no hospital in their right mind is going to hire back a junkie and a thief, even if people talk about him like he's the greatest mind that ever held a scalpel. He's nothing but a gangster now, and gangsters can be leveraged. And leverage is what we need. Which is why it's a shame we can't use the drugs to our advantage anymore.”
“Yeah, shame we can't exploit a recovering man's addiction,” Sloan said, fixing a stare on Diamante. “Real shame we can't ruin his life again.”
Diamante raised his eyebrows. “Mr. Sloan, I do hope that you have nothing so amateur as pity brewing in your heart. I seem to recall that you agreed to help us 'Bring the heat down hard' if I remember your words correctly. I'd trust that nothing will keep you from delivering on that promise.”
“Of course not,” Sloan replied. “But I ain't gotta like it. And we ain't gotta do anything heinous. Just get in, get the job done, right?”
“Heinous?” Jack repeated. “Heinous? He deserves a hell of a lot more than anything that's fucking coming to him. Doc Schath is the fucking devil incarnate. Worst human being I've ever had the displeasure to not stab. Hell, if I had my way, Deuce woulda shoved a grenade down his throat and blew his head off years ago.”
“So why didn't he?” Sloan asked, still locked in a staring contest with Diamante.
“The fuck's that supposed to mean?” Jack spat.
Sloan finally broke eye contact and turned to face Jack. “Why ain't you ever made a move before? You obviously got no love for the guy. Or English. Or any of the Felton Family. So why are they still in business anyway?”
“That's none of your fucking business, you self-righteous twat!” Jack stood up, quite visibly and noisily seething and raking his knife across the table with each third word he spoke.
“Well I'd say it's all of my fucking business if I'm gonna be involved in this shit!”
“Then why the hell did you come?” Boxcars roared. “I've had just about enough—”
“You clam the fuck up, Mount St. Lardass!” Patrick shouted back.
“Patrick,” Peter said, attempting to calm his friend down.
“Hank,” Deuce said, attempting the same.
“All right, that's enough!” Dunn roared above everybody. The whole room stopped shouting and turned to look at him as his voice reverberated around the walls of the Crew's sewer hideout.
Sloan stared at him, mouth open. “I had no idea you could yell like that.”
“Are we fucking done waggling our dicks around?” Dunn continued, ignoring Sloan's comment. “Because I thought we came here to discuss the plan for our raid tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” Sloan said. “We did.”
“Then let's all just sit the fuck down and talk about what the fuck we're gonna do, all right?” Dunn looked around the room. “All right? Anyone got a problem with that?”
“Not at all,” Diamante replied, as everyone else sat down. “Now then, gentlemen,” he continued, unrolling a blueprint. “Let's get to work.”