3-The Mark

3

The Mark

Sidney’s eyes fluttered as the sound of her cell phone ringing attempted to call her back from the great beyond.  Slowly, she opened her eyes and her brain began the process of becoming self-aware again.

She was in her room, in her house, in Ravenna.  It was a nice house, for which she had worked very hard to acquire and paid quite a good deal of cash.  It was also rather expensive to keep the house afloat and her part time bartending job didn’t quite cover it.

Her right hand lashed out as the phone rang again, eager to silence the infernally noisy construct.  She drew it to her fuzzy field of vision and noticed it was Tobias calling.  It was also 7:00 in the evening, only two hours after she had decided to quit casing the mark.

“You are aware that I was up all night, thanks to you and the all important job you have asked me to do for you?” She said with as much sarcasm as she could muster this close to having woken up.

She could muster quite a bit.

Tobias was skilled at ignoring such tones and did just that.  “What did you find out?  Did you see an angle?”

Sidney sighed and took the phone away from her ear before pulling herself up to sit on the edge of the bed.  She could see herself in the mirror.  She had passed out, sprawled over the top of the bed covers, still in the jogging outfit.  Her hair was down and gnarled around her shoulders.

She could hear Tobias’s eager voice asking if she was still there, and she groaned before putting the phone back to her ear.  “Yes, I’m still here.  Would you please take it down seven notches?  You sound like a cracked out four-year-old.”

“Ha ha, very funny,” Tobias responded.  “So, do we have a play or not?”

Sidney smiled for the first time since her rude awakening.  “Oh we have an angle alright. Hell, we have a cliff.”

****

Before…

Sidney sat in her car waiting for something else to happen with the house.  While she waited, she went through Robert (Bob) Stanoski’s mail.

It was a train wreck.

One bill after another.  The man had to have at least five or six maxed out credit cards.  Sidney had never actually seen someone in this kind of debt.  He had to be at least $50,000.00 in the hole, with just the bills she had in front of her.  This was something.

She couldn’t really use the credit card debt itself, it was too regulated, but she could use the desperation.  A man with this much debt had problems, problems he would probably being willing to compromise himself to get rid of.

She needed a vice.

A weakness to exploit and use.

It was at this point when she watched an old Cadillac pull up to the corner and two men get out.  The first from the passenger side, was a large, oval-shaped, white man with a bald head.  He adjusted the large pair of glasses on his nose and his face had a tight, trim goatee that gave him a menacing look.  Sidney was reminded of every serial killer she had seen, and could totally picture this man showing up on the news after eating a whole mess of babies, or something equally heinous.

The other man was black and large.  He had a broad chest and big arms and looked like he pumped iron constantly, a fact he was obviously proud of given his wife beater tee shirt, which must have been purposely bought two sizes too small.

As they approached the house, Sidney smiled.

Ask and ye shall receive.

****

The Muscle.

“I thought it sucked,” Burt said as he stepped out of the car and adjusted his glasses.

Ernie had never been a fan or Burt’s low and mostly emotionless voice, but he had gotten used to it in the three years he had worked with the strange man.  “How can you not like it?  It was perfect comic book Thor.”

Ernie argued his point as Burt walked around the car.  His walk also bothered Ernie.  It was like Burt never moved his arms and just quickly dragged his upper body with his legs.  It gave Ernie the feeling he was walking around with a horror movie freak.

“It was boring,” Burt presented his arguments on the subject.  “And how could you possibly think that the movie was comic book Thor?  They were all aliens.”

Ernie scowled and looked surprised at the same time.  “The hell they was, how do you figure it?”

Burt scowled and pushed the glasses up his nose as the two began to walk to the door, “How did you miss that?  The stupid little girl actually says it.”

Their debate about the enjoyment of the movie Thor had begun this morning and had been non-stop ever since.

“I don’t think that’s what they meant.” Ernie responded trying to think back to the movie.

“It was boring,” Burt said quietly.

“No you’re just being childish,” Ernie said as they stepped up to the front door.

Ernie knocked loudly three times, “Alright, game face.”

Burt nodded and they heard Bob inside, shuffling toward the door.

“The destroyer armor was awesome.”  Ernie decided to make a final point.

Burt did one quick nod, “Agreed.”

The door opened.

Burt’s hand went to Bob’s throat.  Bob dropped the carton of milk that he was drinking. Burt shoved him backwards into the house as the milk fell to the floor.  Bob sputtered and choked on the milk in his mouth as Burt slammed him against the wall, putting pressure on his wind pipe.

Ernie walked in behind him and gave Bob a hard eye.  “You late, dawg.”

Ernie’s speech patterns suddenly adopted that of a gangster rapper.  This was intentional.  It had a tendency to make small white men pee themselves.

“I’m… Sorry… I’m working on it….” Bob sputtered through the lack of air.

“You sorry?  You sorry?!  Sorry don’t pay your dues, man!”  Ernie yelled and got in Bob’s flustered face.

“One… Month.”  Bob managed to speak through the choking.

Ernie raised an eyebrow and feigned surprise.  “Did this motha fucka just tell me when he’s going to pay?  Sounds like he was telling me my business?”

Burt’s hand applied pressure.

Bob gasped for air and his eyes started to roll back into his head before Ernie tapped Burt’s shoulder and Burt dropped the man.  Bob crumpled to the floor, gasping for air in the fetal position.

Ernie leaned down, getting really close and personal.  “You close the deal in two weeks. Mr. Simpson doesn’t wait any longer.  Got it?”

Bob nodded desperately, doing anything not to get choked again.

Burt and Ernie turned and walked out, shutting the door behind them.  As they walked to the car, Ernie asked Burt, “Who’s next?”

“Mrs. Kowalski,” Burt said.

Ernie frowned, “That old Polish lady?”

Burt smiled and nodded as he circled to the passenger side.  “We break a finger this time.”

Ernie stared at him and his smile.  He was disgusted by the enjoyment that Burt took from his job.  “Burt, you are one sick mother fucker.”

****

Now…

“…Long story short, I followed the two meat heads until they took me back to Akron and the Corner Pocket pool-hall.” Sidney said, finishing her big reveal.

Tobias instantly put two and two together.  “Leroy Simpson?  Bob Stanoski is in with Leroy Simpson?”

“It’s much worse than that, Tobias.”  Sidney continued as she walked into the bathroom and began to pee.  “Simpson funded Bob’s buyout of your restaurant.”

Tobias’ voice seemed stressed.  “I don’t know about this, Sid.  Simpson is bad news.”

Tobias seemed to trail off, then his voice turned to frustration.  “Are you peeing?!”

The jig was up.  He had heard the echo.  “You are the one that woke me up.  That’s what I do when I wake up.  It’s all natural.”

Tobias took a deep breath.  “That doesn’t mean you do it while I’m on the phone!”

“Our friendship is bigger than pee, Bias.”  She said sarcastically, secretly taking enjoyment from his unease.

Tobias sighed and pushed through.  “So, why would Simpson have anything to do with scum like Stanoski?”

Sidney smiled, “Stanoski is a gambler.  Poker is his game of choice.”

“Shit.”  Tobias said over the other end as he did the same math Sidney had done.

“You got it, Bias.”  Sidney began.  “Bob Stanoski lost big, and he lost big with Simpson. Knowing he can’t pay it off, he offered a way to launder some of Simpson’s dirtier money.  Simpson handed him enough drug money to buy the restaurant.  Stanoski bought the restaurant for cheaper than it’s worth with the blood money, then he’s going to sell it off for the same price or more, a couple of months later.  Bob will then hand all the clean money over to Leroy Simpson.  Then Leroy will cut him loose.”

“This is dangerous, Sid.  Maybe we should walk.  I didn’t realize it was so-” Tobias was cut off by Sidney.

“Fuck that,” Sidney said abruptly.  She was eager to try to pull a job with this kind of risk.  “Don’t puss out on me now, Bias.  I have an idea and I plan of pulling this off.”

Tobias took a long moment on the other end.  “Okay.   Okay, I’m in.”

“Alright, we are going to need one more on this.  He’s got to be trustworthy and no ties to Simpson.  He’s also got to be big and good with his fists.”  Sidney spoke, all business now.

Tobias took a second then responded confidently.  “I know just the guy.”

End Episode 3