Cason
One look into my father’s office and I know something’s off. Fuck. The vibe in the room feels all wrong. The usual people are here, so it’s not that, and a quick glance around the place tells me nothing’s really changed. The office looks just as meticulous as it always has. That’s one thing about Victor I still can’t figure out.
The guy’s a neat freak. Considering what he spends his days and nights involved in, you’d think a little dust and some papers laying around wouldn’t bother him.
My mind drifts to how strange he gets about even a single scrap of paper being out of place, but my attention is quickly ripped out of my thoughts and back to him when he barks, “Cason, get the fuck in here!”
I step into his office and stop as my cousin Jaxon and one of the new guys named Scotch turn to look at me. I scan their expressions for some sense of what the hell is going on but glean nothing from either of them. They look like they usually do.
Like we all do. Like guys who do the work we do.
“What’s up?” I ask in a low voice, suddenly feeling like I need to be even more serious than I usually am.
He twists his face into an ugly grimace and shakes his head. “What’s up is I have a job for you and you’re nowhere to be found. Where the fuck have you been?”
The real reason for why I’m later than usual flashes through my mind, but I don’t think explaining that I got wrapped up in some show about Jack the Ripper and lost track of the time is going to go over well right now. So I come up with a lie as quickly as I can and blurt it out.
“Sorry. After the other day, my shoulder’s still pretty stiff. I guess I stood under the hot water a little too long today.”
All three men around me nod their understanding, and I know I skated by on that question. Anyone who does what we do knows the job comes with aches and pains. Sometimes we get it back at us.
And three days ago, I got it from some asshole who thought it would be cute if he pulled a fucking gun on me in some pathetic attempt to avoid the inevitable. He caught me by surprise, which, of course, was my fault, but I wrestled the gun away from him fast. Unfortunately, the motherfucker went all kung fu fighting on me and got a few hits in before I took him out.
I did my job, but my shoulders and back took the brunt of the whole damn thing. Since then, I’ve truthfully felt like shit, but I can’t let anyone here know that. A big part of my usefulness is that I can take a beating and still do what’s necessary for the business. If I suddenly turn into some candy ass who can’t deal with a little pain, then things will change here for me, and not for the better.
My father’s sympathy runs out quickly, and he waves me closer to his desk. “Well, toughen the fuck up. I’ve got work for you to do today.”
“You give the word and I’m on it,” I say as I stop a couple feet from the corner of his desk.
“Good. That son of a bitch Harry Pinto thinks he can get away with not paying me the money he owes. You need to go to his place and show him the errors in that kind of thinking. Got it?”
I stand there stunned as he hands me a slip of paper with an address on it. Collecting money from some nobody? My father has other people to handle that low-level shit. Why is he making me take care of this?
He stares at me for a long moment and then shakes his head. “Got it? I expect an answer when I ask you a question.”
“Yeah, I guess, but why have me go over to collect money from someone like Harry? He’s penny-ante shit. Unless you’re looking for me to take care of him, I don’t see why you’d have me do this.”
“Don’t question me. Just go! And impress upon that stupid fuck that I’m not a bank. If he doesn’t pay, he doesn’t get extra charges tacked onto his account. The currency we deal in is far pricier.”
I know what he’s saying. He doesn’t have to spell it out for me. Get the money or take it out of him in a way that gives him the chance to pay it back but makes it clear things are going to get a whole lot fucking worse if that repayment doesn’t happen in the next few days.
What I don’t understand is why he’s sending a killer to do an errand boy’s task.
This isn’t my first time doing this kind of job, though. I’ve worked for the family for years, and I started out collecting money, so I know how it goes. Hurt him but don’t kill him until you get the word. I’m nothing if not a good soldier.
In fact, I’m one hell of a soldier. It’s just that I usually do the killing of a soldier.
As I turn to leave, out of the corner of my eye I catch Jaxon smiling. Curious, I stop and ask, “Something funny?”
“Just wondering if you finished watching that Jack the Ripper show you were talking about yesterday,” he asks with a chuckle.
He’s busting my ass because he knows the real reason I’m late. We’re like that with each other. The only thing is I don’t need my father knowing the truth in the mood he’s in. That doesn’t mean I can let Jaxon’s ass busting pass, though. I like giving my cousin a hard time, so I throw him the middle finger and laugh.
“Yeah, and you’d be surprised at how much information on his technique they explained. Watch yourself or you’ll get a taste of some Jack the Ripper modern-day style, fucker.”
Jaxon opens his mouth to snap back at me, but Victor barks, “What the hell is this, PBS news hour? Enough talk about Jack the Ripper! Cason, get the hell out of here and get my money from Pinto. Now!”
As I hurry out of his office, I hear Jaxon snickering behind me. I’d stay to have another verbal go-round with him, but I’ve got more important things to take care of at the moment.
Standing on Harry Pinto’s porch, a mild mid-September wind blowing against my skin, I look through the tiny window in his front door into his house. The guy’s not poor. It’s not a brand new home, but the place isn’t a shithole. He’s got nice furniture, decent rugs, and collectable plates displayed where I can see them. They aren’t any kind of things I’d want, but they show he’s got some money. Hell, I bet if he just cashed in a few of those goddamned plates he’d probably be able to pay off his debt in one fell swoop.
Instead, he drags his damn feet so we have to send someone over to see him every month for the past three months and do this same song and dance shit with him. Makes no sense to me at all.
But even more, I don’t understand why the fuck I’m stuck doing this bullshit job. Who sends a killer to get some asshole’s payment? Talk about using a cannon to get rid of a fly.
For a second time, I bang my fist against his front door. Scotch has been handling this, and he’s never had to rough up Harry in the past, as far as I know. He’s got to be in his mid-fifties, for God’s sake, and he’s small. It wouldn’t even be a challenge for somebody like Scotch, much less a fair fight for me.
Not that I’m in the business of making anything fair for the likes of him. He knew what he was getting into when he took my father’s money. As he said, he’s no fucking bank. It’s not like he didn’t know the penalties he’d face if he didn’t pay up when it was time.
Footsteps shake me out of my daydreaming about beating the hell out of Harry, and I peer in through the window to see him shuffling toward the door. He looks older than mid-fifties, and although I’m not certain he doesn’t always look sort of hunched over, his body seems curled up.
He opens the door, unsurprised to see me, and nods his grey head. “You one of Victor’s guys? I figured I’d see you sometime today.”
Before he has the chance to ask me to come in, I walk past him into his house filled with knick-knacks. “You know why I’m here, Harry. Victor isn’t going to wait forever.”
As I look around the place to make sure he isn’t going to stupidly spring something on me, I think to myself that this small talk seems unnecessary. We aren’t friends. We aren’t even acquaintances.
Harry closes the door and pauses before walking past me into the living room and its walls covered with more of those damn plates. They all have some blue design on them I can’t make out, but hell, they’re everywhere now that I look around.
For a moment, he straightens up only to have his body collapse down on itself again. It’s like his slight shoulders are too heavy for his small body.
“I just need more time. Just a little more time. A week or two, maybe.”
That right there is why I never missed leaving behind this errand boy bullshit. The excuses. The reasons that inevitably lead to the pleading. If we were close or even casual friends, I could see why someone might think that would work.
But we’re not. I’m an enforcer, muscle for the man he owes money to. I don’t judge the right or wrong of this situation. I just go where I’m told to go and do what I’m told to do.
Usually, it’s killing someone. To be honest, I prefer that. At least with that kind of job, I don’t have to put up with all this fucking chit chat.
He’s goddamned lucky I’m not here to do my usual job. Then it wouldn’t be a matter of him pleading for more time. All he’d get is a shot to the head and my day would be done.
Today, though, I’m here to get money. This isn’t difficult. Harry knows this too, I’m sure. He took money from us and promised to pay it back. That time has come.
I don’t like this little dance he’s forcing me to do. I don’t want to talk about why he needs more time or what he hopes will happen to make it possible for him to pay his debt. I don’t care. I just want to get what I came here for and leave.
“No more time, Harry. You know how this works,” I say flatly, careful to not let a hint of emotion creep into my voice.
That will only make him think he can plead his case. He can’t.
His eyes grow wide as I watch him try to come up with something that will put off the inevitable. “Just a couple weeks. That’s all I ask. Two weeks and I’ll have it all for him. No more than that.”
Goddamned people who get in over their heads.
I don’t want to have a conversation about this, but before I can stop myself, a question about all these damn plates hanging on the white walls around me slips out. “Harry, why don’t you just sell some of these plates and get this over with?”
He shakes his head like that’s the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard in his life. Or even more, the most horrifying suggestion he’s ever heard. “Sell my plates? I can’t.”
Now that we’ve started this, I can’t not ask the next logical question. Pointing to the far wall with ten plates hanging in a row about two feet from the ceiling, I say, “What’s going on with these things anyway? Why the plates all over the place?”
Smoothing his grey hair back off his face, Harry proudly stands a little taller as he explains the deal with them. “They’re Danish and German collectible plates. They’re my pride and joy.”
I narrow my eyes and take a good look at the one closest to me. It’s blue and white with a winter scene painted on it. Not beautiful but not ugly. Just nothing I’d ever want littering up my place.
Turning back to look down at him, I shrug. “Then just sell as many plates as you need to pay Victor back and we’ll be square.”
“No! I can’t do that!” Harry says, suddenly very perturbed by my suggestion. “I borrowed money off him so I could buy more. It would defeat the whole purpose if I then sold any of them to pay him back.”
My curiosity about the whole plate thing sated, I’m quickly running out of patience. Taking a step closer to Harry, I glare down at him and hope he doesn’t force me to rough up someone half my size and more than twice my age.
“Let me explain this to you. I’m here to get your payment. That’s it. I can’t renegotiate the terms of your loan with you. I’m a courier here, and you need to give me the money to take back to him. Now. Or I’m going to have to take matters into my own hands.”
From behind me, I feel someone hit me in the middle of my back. “Get away from him! He’s just an old man, for God’s sake!”
My brain registers the sound of a woman’s voice, and I spin around to see a blond girl who looks like a teenager glaring up at me. She’s at least a foot shorter than I am and tiny, like if I wanted to, I could flick her away like a bug with almost no effort. She’s also beautiful, like stunningly beautiful to the point that I doubt she could be related to Harry. Is it possible she’s got an old guy fetish and he’s banging her? Dressed in black yoga pants and a pale green T-shirt that highlights a nice rack, she’s easy on the eyes, if not on the ears.
“Don’t you touch him! Do you hear me?” she says in a voice far tougher than she looks.
Harry hurries around me and wraps his arm around the girl. “Lily, please. We don’t need to act that way. Everything’s fine.”
She doesn’t take her brown eyes off me but answers him. “It’s not fine, Daddy. Nothing’s fine, if the way this big lug was talking to you is any indication.”
Her pathetic attempt at insulting me makes me chuckle. Harry’s daughter? My eyes dart from her gorgeous face with big brown eyes and a mouth that makes me think of things I shouldn’t at the moment to Harry’s grizzled old face. Impossible. Or maybe she looks like her mother and not him?
None of it matters, although I do have to admit she’s a nice distraction for a few moments.
“Little girl, your father and I have business to attend to, so why don’t you run off and go play with dolls or something?”
Finished with her, I return my focus to her father, but she isn’t done. Stepping out of her father’s arms and toward me, she stops not a foot away and cranes her neck to look up at me.
And then she fucking pokes me right in the chest!
“Don’t talk to me like I’m a child. I’m a grown woman, and even though I’m not a giant like you, I won’t let you hurt my father. Now leave us alone!”
Stunned by her bravery, even if it is a mistake, I stare down into her eyes and see she’s deadly serious. I’m not used to people not being afraid of me. Being six foot six and as big as I am, I’m just naturally feared. It’s one of the reasons I’m so good at what I do.
But for some reason, this little slip of a woman, or so she claims, doesn’t seem frightened at all by me or my size. I’m not sure what to do about that.
Never taking my gaze off her, I lower my voice and say, “Harry, I’d warn your daughter to keep her nose out of things where it doesn’t belong.”
“I don’t need to be warned,” she snaps at me, her eyes filling with anger I’ve only seen from men.
But Harry understands the perilous position she’s put herself in and quickly pulls her back away from me. Wrapping his arms around her, he kisses her on the cheek.
“Honey, it’s okay. This man and I are just discussing business. There’s no need to get excited. Why don’t you go into the kitchen and make me some of that banana bread that I love?”
Still, she doesn’t divert her angry stare leveled at my face. “I think I should stay right where I am, Daddy.”
Fuck. Who does this little woman think she is?
I consider threatening her to get her to leave so we can get back to the business at hand, but Harry again suggests for her to go make him that bread he likes and finally she stops glaring up at me and turns to look at him.
“If you’re sure, Daddy,” she says in a wary but sweet voice I have to admit suits her much better than the snappy one she’s used since she walked into the room.
Harry kisses her on the forehead and smiles. “It’s okay, Lily. I can’t wait to have some banana bread for lunch.”
After throwing me one last nasty glance, she turns to leave. As I watch her walk away, I have to admit the body is as nice as her face.
Once she’s out of earshot, her father says in a low voice, “I’m sorry about that. She’s got her mother’s fire in her. She’s usually a very sweet girl, but you know how children can be when it comes to their parents.”
I want to tell him I have no idea about children or parents. I just want to get the damn money I came here for and go on with my life.
“Now what’s it going to be, Harry? You give me the money, or you force me to do something you don’t want me to do. To be honest, I don’t care one way or another, but you’re a little old man and I’m sure you’re going to be hurting if I do what I have to.”
He looks up at me, pleading with his eyes. “Just two more weeks. I swear I’ll have all the money then.”
We’re getting nowhere with this, and I’m tired of talking about this shit with him. I’m not against roughing up anyone, but I’ve got a better idea.
“Okay, Harry. I’ll just take a handful of your plates. That seems fair,” I say as I move toward the winter plate to grab it.
“No! Please! I need them to be able to convince the seller I’m worthy of his plates,” he cries out. “Don’t take my plates. They’re all I have, other than Lily.”
His words echo in my brain, and suddenly, I know what will get him to pay up. Nodding my agreement to his offer, I march past him. “I’ll take her then.”
Shock registers on his face and he starts to beg for me not take her, but I don’t have time to deal with his pleading anymore. Ignoring him, I walk into the kitchen and see her standing at the counter.
Turning to look at me, she gives me another one of her nasty glares. “What are you doing?”
I don’t bother answering her before I lift her up into my arms, tossing her over my shoulder. “Time to go. Say goodbye to Daddy.”
“You can’t do this!” she screams, pounding my back with her fists.
“Yeah, I can. Now behave yourself.”
I call back to her father as I head for the front door, “You have seven days, Harry. Seven days to pay up or you don’t get your daughter back.”
What’s left unspoken is what will happen to her after those seven days are up if he doesn’t pay back the money he owes. Knowing my father, those could be the last seven days of her life.
