» Thu Nov 26, 2009 10:55 pm CHAPTER ONE
Rain pounded on the decaying building, seeping through the cracks and holes and dripping into the room below. A tall, slender figure wearing a black overcoat and fedora stepped into the room downstairs, a grim look etched upon his shallow face. Men gathered around him, all kinds of guns and knives in their hands.
"At ease, gentlemen," said the newcomer, raising a bony hand to dismiss their uneasiness. The biggest of the guards grunted in reply, making no move to lower his revolver.
"Who are you?" he asked in a booming voice, jerking the gun forward threateningly.
"A friend," was the reply. "May I see Mr. Salvatore?"
The guard scoffed, and again waved the revolver around as he began to speak.
"Depends. Are you bringing trouble in with you?"
"No more than you already have."
With another grunt, the towering guard stepped aside, allowing the visitor to head up the stairs.
"Keep up the good work, gentlemen," he said as he passed, before flicking a small golden coin at one of the guards. They were all unconscious by the time the man reached the top of the stairs, the small coin laying on the floor, yellowish smoke billowing out of it. Beyond the nearly collapsed stairway lay a hallway, with several doors. One in particular was at the end of the hall, and clearly had the words "The Boss" printed on a rusty plaque.
The man opened the door and walked inside to see a leather chair facing the window, facing the unending rain.
"Hello, Louis," he said, as the man began to swivel around in the chair to face the intruder.
There sat a tall, deathly pale old man. His withering hand grasped the armrest of his chair tightly as the intruder dug in his coat pocket. A breathing mask was strapped to the old man's face, which gave off a sharp noise when he inhaled and exhaled.
"To what do I owe the?huuugh?pleasure, Eddie?"
Salvatore watched with apprehension as the man before him drew a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket. At this, the old man wiped away the sweat that beaded his forehead. Eddie stuck a cigarette in his mouth, and lit it.
"Just stopped by to see how my old friend Louis was doing, you know?" said Eddie, displaying a crooked grin.
Salvatore kept his eyes trained on the dark-clothed man before him. He'd dealt with his kind before. He'd been around in this business for far too long to get whacked by some amateur.
Eddie paced the room, stopping by a bookshelf to remove his fedora and scratch his wide forehead. Eddie's hair was short and slicked back, and he had a thin, scraggly growth of a beard.
"I figured after all these years you'd be happy to see me, Louis," he said, turning back towards Salvatore. "How come you never called me up? Never let me know how things were doin, ya know?"
"You know I couldn't do that, huuugh,Eddie."
"Oh yeah? Well, things have changed, Louis," he replied. "Things have really changed. Mr. Wright's not happy. He is not happy."
"You suggesting I had something to do with that boy's death?"
Eddie took a long drag of his cigarette, and blew a long cloud of smoke.
"I don't know what I'm saying, Louis. But it's gonna be getting rough around here soon. Real rough. Orville's already started whacking men, Mordinos, Bishops, everyone. You ain't a special jewel in his eye, Louis. I'm offering you a warning. Get out while you can."
"I had no involvement in Richard Wright's demise, huuugh, I assure you of that, Edward."
"Yeah, well Mr. Wright thinks otherwise. He knows you got plenty of the stuff, and that you trade it to someone to get your weapons. We know more than you think we know. Tryin' to start a street war between us and the Mordinos? S'that it? You think just because he died of a Jet overdose, we're gonna instantly assume it was Big Jesus? No, I don't think so, Louis. I don't [censored] think so."
Salvatore narrowed his eyes and stared into the eyes of the man who had been his friend for two and half decades, the friend who helped bring him to the top. The friend who left him to go work for the goddamned Wright family.
"So what is it then, Eddie? You gonna whack me? Gonna go back to your [censored] piece of [censored] friend Wright? Man doesn't know a goddamned thing about our business, Eddie. He thinks he can make it big here in Reno by playing it fair. Now he thinks he's some sort of hotshot [censored] who can go whacking every low-life [censored] in New Reno, just because his son was murdered? You, huuugh, can't [censored], huuugh?"
"Someone got ahead of themselves didn't they?" said Eddie, smiling wickedly. "Wright's got plans," he continued, while Mr. Salvatore began to cough violently. "Big plans. He's gonna get vengeance on whoever [censored] his son up, then he's gonna hit the other families hard while New Reno is still picking up the pieces from the last war."
Salvatore stopped coughing, but continued breathing harshly. He watched Eddie's cold eyes as they looked down into his coat pocket. Eddie reached into his pocket, as Salvatore sat there, knowing what was to come. Then he slowly drew a .45 caliber handgun from the depths of his overcoat, and began screwing on a noise suppressor.
Salvatore sprang into action, leaping out of his chair, towards a metal locker that lay beside the window. He struck the ground hard, knocking the breath from his old body. With as much haste as he could muster, Louis Salvatore flung open the chest, grabbed the laser pistol the Enclave had given to him in exchange for stimulants, and pointed it at Eddie.
The man in the dark overcoat just stood there, chuckling lightly. His gun was extended, and the barrel was still smoking. Louis had felt no pain? had he really been shot? Was his body so old and weak he couldn't even feel a bullet as it flew into his skin? Then he felt it. A rush of cold air blew down his windpipe, and he tried to respond to it with breath of his own, but none came. He collapsed helplessly against the wall, his eyes frantically searching for an answer before his body permanently shut down. Louis Salvatore died without knowing what had actually killed him: three bullet holes in the tank that fed Oxygen to his breathing mask.
