Porter is owned by Icon and Warner Bros Pictures. All other characters are my own creation. This is just short tale set before the movie showing why nobody should mess with Porter. Especially those he has done favours for!
ALL VISIBLE OBJECTS
By TIAMAT
"Call me...e-mail" Bobby Milk paused as Tony 'Kuba' whined through the cell phones speaker. "Just get back to me. Soon!"
Bobby punched the button and the mewling Cuban disappeared. Seemingly, at the same instance, someone appeared through the mist of cigar smoke and mid-morning sunlight held at bay by the front door of Bobby's restaurant. Someone who could not read opening hours or knew Bobby 'Milk' Tonasco would be at his regular table at that time of day.
Either way Bobby was wary. Wary, sure, but fearful- no.
The Gulf grabbed the interloper by the collar as he pushed past the door and strode into the restaurant.
The Gulf was called such because he was the closest thing to a hole in the world as anyone had seen. A T-rex in black Armani, each dark thread of his suit, shirt and tie absorbing every particle of natural light that even threatened to come close to him.
"Gulf, will you put me down!" said the dangling captive. " I'll ask nicely and then I'll get nasty!"
Gulf studied the specimen between his fingers and dropped the angry bug before things turned to shit and feathers. He knew who the man was and had dropped him in equal measures of surprise as well as respect.
"By the gods of the sea and all that comes aground!" Bobby hissed as he dropped a forkful of penne rigatte and carbonara carelessly onto the plate before him. "Porter returns. When the fuck did you get out?"
"Five years too late and three years before time!" Porter spat as he adjusted his leather coat, pulling it straight across his wide shoulders.
"Gulf, frisk this motherfucker will you." Bobby added conversationally to the wall of warm muscle and attitude.
Gulf creased Porter's jacket again, despite the previous warning, and ran expert fingers over the broad muscled interloper. Three years in government security had taught him all he needed to know but just hadn't paid well enough. Gulf's finger were rumoured to be sensitive enough to detect an extra hair on a polar bear.
Porter regarded the behemoths flat face as he reached his jacket and prodded at a suspicious bulge. Porter dug into his inside pocket, slow enough to keep The Gulf from pulling his meticulously kept automatic, but quick enough to keep him from becoming suspicious.
".44 calibre wallet," Porter said as he pulled out a brass edged leather wallet clamped between his first two fingers, "probably the most dangerous shopping tool in the world. Now you're probably asking your self, did he call in at Dunkin' Donuts or Tower Records! SO the question you've got to ask yourself is; do I feel lucky? Well? Do ya?"
The Gulf gave Porter all the concern he would give an oxygen molecule and Porter realised this as the joke fell like lump of lead between their feet. Thoroughly frisked Gulf let Porter go.
"You ever do time?" Porter asked the north face of the Gulf. He waited for an answer before realising that the Gulf was not only part dinosaur but part cliff face into the bargain. "Didn't think so."
Porter kept the leather and brass lump in his hand as he looked at Bobby Milk and advanced at the older gangsters command.
"Sit, sit!" he insisted pushing out the empty chair at his table with his foot. A foot encased in Gucci below a leg sheathed in silk manhandled by proxy by tailors rumoured to outfit Gaddaffi and Clinton.
Porter approached the table his predators eyes studying the pasta dish before the well-built man before him. Bobby 'Milk'; a man well into his sixth decade but still brawling like he was hardly out of his third, with a voice like quiet thunder and more clout than an H-bomb in your ear. But with looks leaning towards Godzilla rather than Godfather. Six foot four, eyes of green, a full head of steel grey locks and a bodyguard that made the word over-kill almost an aesthetic.
Porter slipped into the offered seat and put his wallet on the tabletop next to the shredded Parmesan. Leather and cheese; he did not miss the originating irony.
"You wanna eat? Tashtego is doin' angel pasta today. Mussels in garlic? No?"
Porter shook his head and gave a uneven smile as Bobby took a pull on one of his constantly smouldering Partegas Coronas. Not many people smoked while they ate, but Bobby Milk made a point of doing both. Always. Dieing art or die-hard Porter had never figured which.
"So to what do I owe this pleasure?" Bobby said tapping ash onto a ceramic ashtray embossed with his restaurants logo.
"I want some things." Porter said meeting Bobby's eyes and crossing his elbows on the edge of the table.
"Name it, anything you want you got. I always pay my dues, Porter, and I owe you some heavy dues."
"Uh-huh. Serving a nickel bit in Ryker's in the nightmare wing should get me some heavy payback, Bobby."
"Hey, I haven't forgotten what you did for me. Taking that rap was righteous."
"Righteous!" Porter hissed, his face turning angry and his hands clamping into claws. "You set me up, and threatened to kill my wife if I didn't take it all smiling! You son of a bitch, I should be in here ripping your guts out of your throat!"
"Porter, Porter, clam down" Bobby said and tapped the angry man on his cheek feeling heat and tension. The Gulf knew the signal and silently moved in closer behind Porter. "Didn't I take care of you inside, eh? Didn't they treat you right in there? Hey, I asked the warden himself to make sure you were seen to."
"Oh yeah, and on a regular basis it seems. I've just spent five years fighting for my life in there."
"Yeah, you kinda look bigger. You using all that exercise stuff in the gyms and that?" Bobby's voice was calm and conversational- he knew he had precisely nothing to fear from Porter. Not that Porter wasn't dangerous, Bobby could remember being shocked at some of the revenge attacks he'd sent Porter on and the level of violence resulting. Porter had once walked into a bar owned by Bobby's main rival and walked away five minutes later after injuring fifteen men with a baseball bat and reducing the whole bar to matchwood with a hand grenade. Bobby was aware of Porter's capacity but he was also aware that the Gulf could break his neck before he would even feel the fingers on his skin. "One big fucking health club these prisons these days."
"More like an arena!" Porter spat. "Mr Coffin sends his regards."
Bobby frowned.
"The Dead-man? Hey I forgot he was in there. How is he?"
"Dead. And don't pretend you didn't set him on me. He talked a lot before it was all over."
Bobby's face dropped and the corona began to die in the ashtray. Gulf moved closer and his boss glanced up into the glossy back shades.
"Get me a drink," he said nodding at the bar behind him. "I'd offer you one too Porter if you weren't being such an arrogant bastard!"
"Wouldn't take it. I've swallowed enough of your piss old man. I want what's due and then I'm out of here."
Their eyes locked and even Gulf returning with Bobby's glass of Jack D couldn't break their angered link.
"We got a tough guy problem here, Mr Tonasco?" the voice of the Gulf was deeper than the colour of arterial blood.
"Not yet," Porter spat, eyes still locked to Bobby.
"Just a genial desperado, eh?" Gulf rumbled again and crossed hands the size of small shovels in front of him. "I'll warn you once Porter, you make a scene here or even attempt one I'll turn you into shark bait."
"That's my warning is it?" Porter hissed as smoke from the now dead corona floated between him and Bobby.
"First, last and final."
"Point taken," Porter broke eye contact and glared at the piece of Mount Rushmore towering above him. "Now just fuck off!"
Gulf grinned, Porter glared and Bobby ran a check on what he had put on when he had got dressed that morning.; Gucci's, Ralph Lauren, CK One and a Sig Sauer 9mm.
"Say your piece Porter, we're getting into a little situation here. A dark and stormy one. What do you want?"
"A car, one hundred grand and the whereabouts of my wife."
"Any of that negotiable?" Bobby added and Gulf laughed like an avalanche.
Porter was ready to reach across the table and strangle the old Don but knew he wouldn't get past the salt and peppershakers with the Gulf so close.
"You trying to piss me of, Bobby? You want this to go out ugly? Because if you want I'll break that ugly face of yours into pieces and they'll be feeding that pasta shit to you through a tube in your stomach."
"What kinda car you want? I don't know what I got out back."
"Anything as long as it's not got a bomb in the back seat."
Bobby tutted through his teeth, this little hot head was really steaming up Bobby's internal control panel. A past friendship counted for nothing the first time one betrayed the other and Bobby knew Porter was plenty pissed at what had happened to him, as well he should. But Bobby Milk was more surprised that he had made it out alive, as he had called in every favour and created new debts trying to have Porter wasted during the last five years. If anyone was angrier it was Bobby Milk.
"The money's no problem I can get you-"
"Then I want one-fifty," Porter snapped. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
"You motza-ball little ass-"
"Less of the commentary Bob. Mr Coffin told me a lot and I can tell the Feds both what he knew and what I certainly know. You give me what I want now or Special Agent Melville gets a phone call and a promotion."
Melville was Bobby's nemesis; a forty year veteran of the FBI with a reputation only second to Elliot Ness and an equally overpowering hard-on for busting gangsters.
"Gulf," Bobby snapped and Porter was pleased. It was the first time he had ever seen Bobby Milk close to loosing it. He was getting under his skin and he loved it, it paid the old man back for all the times he had tried to remotely put other sharper objects under Porter's skin. "Go get the Lexus from the garage. Give him the black one-"
"The one with the CD changer?" queried the big bodyguard.
"I don't care if its got a fucking chauffer and a satellite dish, get him the black one! And get him his money while your back there."
Success! Porter felt his heart lift and his pulse begin to lower, Bobby was angry and sweating like the pig he was. The cigar was dead and forgotten and the food was steadily getting cold in its bowl. If there was one thing Porter knew about the Milk-man it was that he never let a cigar go out and never let good food go to waste. Two for two so far.
"I think I will have that drink," Porter said calmly as Gulf disappeared, a smooth ripple of vacuum pushing its way across the room and through into the kitchens. "Can I get a Wild Turkey, straight."
Bobby slumped in his seat, suddenly half the man that he had been only minutes before. He growled at the tiny bar keep and very soon Porter had a large tumbler before him; ice clinking off of the glass and amber liquor clinging to the sides.
"Now where is my wife?" Porter said and lowered his voice to a hard-edged whisper. The very same voice he had used when interviewing the soon to be demised Mr Coffin as he used the hitman's own knife on him again and again.
"Newark."
"Jersey?"
"No, Alaska."
"Now now Bob, who's getting angry now?"
"Don't call me Bob. You know I can't stand it. My bank managers called Bob. It's a lame name, it's not even a name it's a noise."
"Okay, point taken," Porter sipped the firewater, the first real alcohol he'd tasted in five years. Jesus, it almost hurt, but not in a bad way. "Bob!
"Why did you kidnap them? And don't try and tell me they left home voluntarily, Lynn was sending me letters every week, pictures too."
"Well gee, guess you should have bought a camcorder with all that money I was paying you. She coulda sent you a lot more!" Bobby grumbled, his voice low, beaten down almost depressive. His eyes set firmly in the mid-distance and his hand rolling the dead cigar round the edge of the ashtray. He made no attempt to re-light it.
"Why, Bob. Why did you do it? Couldn't hurt me enough in prison so you had to go at her too? That it? That the reason, you sick bastard?"
Bobby snarled and reached for his gun, by the time he had it free Porter was ready and had caught the older mans wrist in a grip like a trap, he squeezed and Bobby felt fire engulf his whole arm and bleed into his lungs. Porter spun the Sig Sauer around his finger and admired the high tech weapon for a moment, he didn't admire it too long, the last thing he wanted was for The Gulf to come back and blast him to dog chunks when he saw a gun in his hand. Porter ejected the magazine, put it in his jacket pocket and stripped the slide from the automatic before laying it on the table next to the Parmesan and his thick wallet.
"Where is she? What's the address?"
Bobby was clasping his wrist as if it was broken, and Porter had been in half a mind to actually shatter the old mans bones when he had seized him.
"I can't write it down 'cos you just bust my writing hand," Bobby protested.
"I've got a good memory. Just tell me."
"I've a club on the strip, The Bachelor, she's there."
The Gulf came in through the front door, a gleaming black Lexus parked at the curb side behind him and a sports bags full of real cash slumped in its back seat. Gulf looked angry, no one had treated the boss so bad and got away with it, Gulf was determined to not let Porter be the first and would break the broad shouldered tough guy across his knees given the first word from Bobby. He was primed and ready to go, all Bobby had to do was signal or just give the order and Porter would be dead. Finally.
"Ah, my cab is here," Porter lifted the glass and raised it as if making a cheerful toast. " 'God hurt us all'."
"Not if I get there first," Gulf growled as the ex-con downed the bourbon in one gulp.
Porter was out of his chair and half way across the floor before Bobby spoke;
"How do you know I won't call ahead and have that bitch of yours cancelled? She could be dead before you even get out of the street."
Porter paused, seeming to consider the facts about this. Slowly he grinned and winked.
"I trust you, Bobby." Like fuck I do! "I'll just have to try and beat you at your own game I suppose."
"What's that mean? Is that a threat? After all this and you're still making threats!"
"You'll see, Bobby. I've had a plan all along. It'll be over soon enough." This said he pulled the door open and drifted across the sidewalk and climbed into the running Lexus. Nothing blew him from his seat; no snipers shot him from vantage points across the street and no thugs leapt from the back seat with a cheese wire. He gunned the engine and pulled away, glancing at the digital clock set into the luxury cars dash.
Bobby had about four minutes left to live.
As it turned out, Bobby's life was ended two minutes early; curiosity getting the better of him as he recovered from the confrontation and ordered Gulf to get him another drink. The bodyguard was all ready to pursue Porter and rip him limb from limb but Bobby said time would be the best way to get back at Porter. Let him think over what he had done and then try and hide from Milks wrath, until one day he slipped up and found himself in a ditch after a chainsaw massage.
"Gulf, have that pigs woman wasted. Give The Bachelor a call, I want her dead by the time Porter gets to the Tri-Borough Bridge." Bobby said rubbing his wrist gingerly.
"Sure thing Mr Tanasco."
"Get me a drink first though willya. A large one."
Gulf was pouring a generous measure of Jack Daniels when Bobby noticed Porter's wallet still on the table. He poked the leather cover and curled his lips as he touched the filthy belonging of the tricky convict. For someone fresh out of Joliet it seemed pretty bulky.
He pulled the tab keeping the folder closed and began to investigate Porter's belongings.
All he found was 400grammes of flattened C4 and a detonator. After that everything else was pretty much over for Bobby Milk.
Porter was stuck at the intersection when Bobby's restaurant blew into the street. He glanced back at the clock and shrugged. Bobby was nosier than he had given him credit for.
2945 words.
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ALL VISIBLE OBJECTS
By TIAMAT
"Call me...e-mail" Bobby Milk paused as Tony 'Kuba' whined through the cell phones speaker. "Just get back to me. Soon!"
Bobby punched the button and the mewling Cuban disappeared. Seemingly, at the same instance, someone appeared through the mist of cigar smoke and mid-morning sunlight held at bay by the front door of Bobby's restaurant. Someone who could not read opening hours or knew Bobby 'Milk' Tonasco would be at his regular table at that time of day.
Either way Bobby was wary. Wary, sure, but fearful- no.
The Gulf grabbed the interloper by the collar as he pushed past the door and strode into the restaurant.
The Gulf was called such because he was the closest thing to a hole in the world as anyone had seen. A T-rex in black Armani, each dark thread of his suit, shirt and tie absorbing every particle of natural light that even threatened to come close to him.
"Gulf, will you put me down!" said the dangling captive. " I'll ask nicely and then I'll get nasty!"
Gulf studied the specimen between his fingers and dropped the angry bug before things turned to shit and feathers. He knew who the man was and had dropped him in equal measures of surprise as well as respect.
"By the gods of the sea and all that comes aground!" Bobby hissed as he dropped a forkful of penne rigatte and carbonara carelessly onto the plate before him. "Porter returns. When the fuck did you get out?"
"Five years too late and three years before time!" Porter spat as he adjusted his leather coat, pulling it straight across his wide shoulders.
"Gulf, frisk this motherfucker will you." Bobby added conversationally to the wall of warm muscle and attitude.
Gulf creased Porter's jacket again, despite the previous warning, and ran expert fingers over the broad muscled interloper. Three years in government security had taught him all he needed to know but just hadn't paid well enough. Gulf's finger were rumoured to be sensitive enough to detect an extra hair on a polar bear.
Porter regarded the behemoths flat face as he reached his jacket and prodded at a suspicious bulge. Porter dug into his inside pocket, slow enough to keep The Gulf from pulling his meticulously kept automatic, but quick enough to keep him from becoming suspicious.
".44 calibre wallet," Porter said as he pulled out a brass edged leather wallet clamped between his first two fingers, "probably the most dangerous shopping tool in the world. Now you're probably asking your self, did he call in at Dunkin' Donuts or Tower Records! SO the question you've got to ask yourself is; do I feel lucky? Well? Do ya?"
The Gulf gave Porter all the concern he would give an oxygen molecule and Porter realised this as the joke fell like lump of lead between their feet. Thoroughly frisked Gulf let Porter go.
"You ever do time?" Porter asked the north face of the Gulf. He waited for an answer before realising that the Gulf was not only part dinosaur but part cliff face into the bargain. "Didn't think so."
Porter kept the leather and brass lump in his hand as he looked at Bobby Milk and advanced at the older gangsters command.
"Sit, sit!" he insisted pushing out the empty chair at his table with his foot. A foot encased in Gucci below a leg sheathed in silk manhandled by proxy by tailors rumoured to outfit Gaddaffi and Clinton.
Porter approached the table his predators eyes studying the pasta dish before the well-built man before him. Bobby 'Milk'; a man well into his sixth decade but still brawling like he was hardly out of his third, with a voice like quiet thunder and more clout than an H-bomb in your ear. But with looks leaning towards Godzilla rather than Godfather. Six foot four, eyes of green, a full head of steel grey locks and a bodyguard that made the word over-kill almost an aesthetic.
Porter slipped into the offered seat and put his wallet on the tabletop next to the shredded Parmesan. Leather and cheese; he did not miss the originating irony.
"You wanna eat? Tashtego is doin' angel pasta today. Mussels in garlic? No?"
Porter shook his head and gave a uneven smile as Bobby took a pull on one of his constantly smouldering Partegas Coronas. Not many people smoked while they ate, but Bobby Milk made a point of doing both. Always. Dieing art or die-hard Porter had never figured which.
"So to what do I owe this pleasure?" Bobby said tapping ash onto a ceramic ashtray embossed with his restaurants logo.
"I want some things." Porter said meeting Bobby's eyes and crossing his elbows on the edge of the table.
"Name it, anything you want you got. I always pay my dues, Porter, and I owe you some heavy dues."
"Uh-huh. Serving a nickel bit in Ryker's in the nightmare wing should get me some heavy payback, Bobby."
"Hey, I haven't forgotten what you did for me. Taking that rap was righteous."
"Righteous!" Porter hissed, his face turning angry and his hands clamping into claws. "You set me up, and threatened to kill my wife if I didn't take it all smiling! You son of a bitch, I should be in here ripping your guts out of your throat!"
"Porter, Porter, clam down" Bobby said and tapped the angry man on his cheek feeling heat and tension. The Gulf knew the signal and silently moved in closer behind Porter. "Didn't I take care of you inside, eh? Didn't they treat you right in there? Hey, I asked the warden himself to make sure you were seen to."
"Oh yeah, and on a regular basis it seems. I've just spent five years fighting for my life in there."
"Yeah, you kinda look bigger. You using all that exercise stuff in the gyms and that?" Bobby's voice was calm and conversational- he knew he had precisely nothing to fear from Porter. Not that Porter wasn't dangerous, Bobby could remember being shocked at some of the revenge attacks he'd sent Porter on and the level of violence resulting. Porter had once walked into a bar owned by Bobby's main rival and walked away five minutes later after injuring fifteen men with a baseball bat and reducing the whole bar to matchwood with a hand grenade. Bobby was aware of Porter's capacity but he was also aware that the Gulf could break his neck before he would even feel the fingers on his skin. "One big fucking health club these prisons these days."
"More like an arena!" Porter spat. "Mr Coffin sends his regards."
Bobby frowned.
"The Dead-man? Hey I forgot he was in there. How is he?"
"Dead. And don't pretend you didn't set him on me. He talked a lot before it was all over."
Bobby's face dropped and the corona began to die in the ashtray. Gulf moved closer and his boss glanced up into the glossy back shades.
"Get me a drink," he said nodding at the bar behind him. "I'd offer you one too Porter if you weren't being such an arrogant bastard!"
"Wouldn't take it. I've swallowed enough of your piss old man. I want what's due and then I'm out of here."
Their eyes locked and even Gulf returning with Bobby's glass of Jack D couldn't break their angered link.
"We got a tough guy problem here, Mr Tonasco?" the voice of the Gulf was deeper than the colour of arterial blood.
"Not yet," Porter spat, eyes still locked to Bobby.
"Just a genial desperado, eh?" Gulf rumbled again and crossed hands the size of small shovels in front of him. "I'll warn you once Porter, you make a scene here or even attempt one I'll turn you into shark bait."
"That's my warning is it?" Porter hissed as smoke from the now dead corona floated between him and Bobby.
"First, last and final."
"Point taken," Porter broke eye contact and glared at the piece of Mount Rushmore towering above him. "Now just fuck off!"
Gulf grinned, Porter glared and Bobby ran a check on what he had put on when he had got dressed that morning.; Gucci's, Ralph Lauren, CK One and a Sig Sauer 9mm.
"Say your piece Porter, we're getting into a little situation here. A dark and stormy one. What do you want?"
"A car, one hundred grand and the whereabouts of my wife."
"Any of that negotiable?" Bobby added and Gulf laughed like an avalanche.
Porter was ready to reach across the table and strangle the old Don but knew he wouldn't get past the salt and peppershakers with the Gulf so close.
"You trying to piss me of, Bobby? You want this to go out ugly? Because if you want I'll break that ugly face of yours into pieces and they'll be feeding that pasta shit to you through a tube in your stomach."
"What kinda car you want? I don't know what I got out back."
"Anything as long as it's not got a bomb in the back seat."
Bobby tutted through his teeth, this little hot head was really steaming up Bobby's internal control panel. A past friendship counted for nothing the first time one betrayed the other and Bobby knew Porter was plenty pissed at what had happened to him, as well he should. But Bobby Milk was more surprised that he had made it out alive, as he had called in every favour and created new debts trying to have Porter wasted during the last five years. If anyone was angrier it was Bobby Milk.
"The money's no problem I can get you-"
"Then I want one-fifty," Porter snapped. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
"You motza-ball little ass-"
"Less of the commentary Bob. Mr Coffin told me a lot and I can tell the Feds both what he knew and what I certainly know. You give me what I want now or Special Agent Melville gets a phone call and a promotion."
Melville was Bobby's nemesis; a forty year veteran of the FBI with a reputation only second to Elliot Ness and an equally overpowering hard-on for busting gangsters.
"Gulf," Bobby snapped and Porter was pleased. It was the first time he had ever seen Bobby Milk close to loosing it. He was getting under his skin and he loved it, it paid the old man back for all the times he had tried to remotely put other sharper objects under Porter's skin. "Go get the Lexus from the garage. Give him the black one-"
"The one with the CD changer?" queried the big bodyguard.
"I don't care if its got a fucking chauffer and a satellite dish, get him the black one! And get him his money while your back there."
Success! Porter felt his heart lift and his pulse begin to lower, Bobby was angry and sweating like the pig he was. The cigar was dead and forgotten and the food was steadily getting cold in its bowl. If there was one thing Porter knew about the Milk-man it was that he never let a cigar go out and never let good food go to waste. Two for two so far.
"I think I will have that drink," Porter said calmly as Gulf disappeared, a smooth ripple of vacuum pushing its way across the room and through into the kitchens. "Can I get a Wild Turkey, straight."
Bobby slumped in his seat, suddenly half the man that he had been only minutes before. He growled at the tiny bar keep and very soon Porter had a large tumbler before him; ice clinking off of the glass and amber liquor clinging to the sides.
"Now where is my wife?" Porter said and lowered his voice to a hard-edged whisper. The very same voice he had used when interviewing the soon to be demised Mr Coffin as he used the hitman's own knife on him again and again.
"Newark."
"Jersey?"
"No, Alaska."
"Now now Bob, who's getting angry now?"
"Don't call me Bob. You know I can't stand it. My bank managers called Bob. It's a lame name, it's not even a name it's a noise."
"Okay, point taken," Porter sipped the firewater, the first real alcohol he'd tasted in five years. Jesus, it almost hurt, but not in a bad way. "Bob!
"Why did you kidnap them? And don't try and tell me they left home voluntarily, Lynn was sending me letters every week, pictures too."
"Well gee, guess you should have bought a camcorder with all that money I was paying you. She coulda sent you a lot more!" Bobby grumbled, his voice low, beaten down almost depressive. His eyes set firmly in the mid-distance and his hand rolling the dead cigar round the edge of the ashtray. He made no attempt to re-light it.
"Why, Bob. Why did you do it? Couldn't hurt me enough in prison so you had to go at her too? That it? That the reason, you sick bastard?"
Bobby snarled and reached for his gun, by the time he had it free Porter was ready and had caught the older mans wrist in a grip like a trap, he squeezed and Bobby felt fire engulf his whole arm and bleed into his lungs. Porter spun the Sig Sauer around his finger and admired the high tech weapon for a moment, he didn't admire it too long, the last thing he wanted was for The Gulf to come back and blast him to dog chunks when he saw a gun in his hand. Porter ejected the magazine, put it in his jacket pocket and stripped the slide from the automatic before laying it on the table next to the Parmesan and his thick wallet.
"Where is she? What's the address?"
Bobby was clasping his wrist as if it was broken, and Porter had been in half a mind to actually shatter the old mans bones when he had seized him.
"I can't write it down 'cos you just bust my writing hand," Bobby protested.
"I've got a good memory. Just tell me."
"I've a club on the strip, The Bachelor, she's there."
The Gulf came in through the front door, a gleaming black Lexus parked at the curb side behind him and a sports bags full of real cash slumped in its back seat. Gulf looked angry, no one had treated the boss so bad and got away with it, Gulf was determined to not let Porter be the first and would break the broad shouldered tough guy across his knees given the first word from Bobby. He was primed and ready to go, all Bobby had to do was signal or just give the order and Porter would be dead. Finally.
"Ah, my cab is here," Porter lifted the glass and raised it as if making a cheerful toast. " 'God hurt us all'."
"Not if I get there first," Gulf growled as the ex-con downed the bourbon in one gulp.
Porter was out of his chair and half way across the floor before Bobby spoke;
"How do you know I won't call ahead and have that bitch of yours cancelled? She could be dead before you even get out of the street."
Porter paused, seeming to consider the facts about this. Slowly he grinned and winked.
"I trust you, Bobby." Like fuck I do! "I'll just have to try and beat you at your own game I suppose."
"What's that mean? Is that a threat? After all this and you're still making threats!"
"You'll see, Bobby. I've had a plan all along. It'll be over soon enough." This said he pulled the door open and drifted across the sidewalk and climbed into the running Lexus. Nothing blew him from his seat; no snipers shot him from vantage points across the street and no thugs leapt from the back seat with a cheese wire. He gunned the engine and pulled away, glancing at the digital clock set into the luxury cars dash.
Bobby had about four minutes left to live.
As it turned out, Bobby's life was ended two minutes early; curiosity getting the better of him as he recovered from the confrontation and ordered Gulf to get him another drink. The bodyguard was all ready to pursue Porter and rip him limb from limb but Bobby said time would be the best way to get back at Porter. Let him think over what he had done and then try and hide from Milks wrath, until one day he slipped up and found himself in a ditch after a chainsaw massage.
"Gulf, have that pigs woman wasted. Give The Bachelor a call, I want her dead by the time Porter gets to the Tri-Borough Bridge." Bobby said rubbing his wrist gingerly.
"Sure thing Mr Tanasco."
"Get me a drink first though willya. A large one."
Gulf was pouring a generous measure of Jack Daniels when Bobby noticed Porter's wallet still on the table. He poked the leather cover and curled his lips as he touched the filthy belonging of the tricky convict. For someone fresh out of Joliet it seemed pretty bulky.
He pulled the tab keeping the folder closed and began to investigate Porter's belongings.
All he found was 400grammes of flattened C4 and a detonator. After that everything else was pretty much over for Bobby Milk.
Porter was stuck at the intersection when Bobby's restaurant blew into the street. He glanced back at the clock and shrugged. Bobby was nosier than he had given him credit for.
2945 words.
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