Cold Shoulder
Early the next morning Vendetta was rudely awakened, her body jerked from a cold, hard and awkward sleep on the cement. Her back, her head and her shoulders ached, on top of her bruised side from the chair Yorkkie had threw at her.
Jade's hazel eyes rolled back in her head as the heavy curtains of her eyelids pulled upward to let her see who was the one pulling her. She found it to be the malato agent of Britain, Andy. She didn't know his last name, or what rank he wore, or even what agency he worked for; all she knew, needed to know, was that he was the one who was going to take her to England to face trial. And that after that trial, she was as good as dead.
"C'mon, lass," he said, his English accent different from her own, Irish, accent. He hauled Jade into a standing position, snapping a hard, cold pair of steel handcuffs around her slender wrists. "Ya gotta date wit' 'er majesty's court."
"Let her get to the court, Yorkkie," Frank warned his friend. He still had to deal with the Westies, Maginty and the rest of the Irish trash that were running around in his town, he didn't want to have to worry about Yorkkie, Andy and how their were treating the woman left to their care.
"Aye, Frank, ya know meh. Ah'll let justice take 'er life, Ah ain't gun do it me self," he spoke, taking a jab at Frank. He knew that Frank had seen everything that had gone on between Jade and himself last night, including when he whipped the chair at her, which resulted in bruises they could all see on her half exposed thigh and on some other, covered, parts of her body. He felt that he was allowed to make a comment like that after last night.
"Don' Ah git a say in 'is?" Jade asked, her eyes glaring towards the three men, who almost in unison growled their response.
"No."
Her eyes looked into Frank's and he could feel her inside him, her eyes were captivating. Desperate but strong beyond all reason. She wasn't afraid. She took a deep breath, her head held high as she took one last look at Frank, her eyes shimmering with some unseen knowledge, some unseen meaning. Frank didn't care, though. After all, she was a killer, a murderer for hire; had she done any of her business in his city, she wouldn't be as lucky to be taken away by two crooked cops.
When the two English men had left, headed back to England with their Irish captive in tow, Frank returned his attention to Peter Cooley, the all but forgotten nephew of Finn, the whole reason the Vendetta had been caught. Frank had decided that he would have to thank Finn personally for his assistance in putting her away, and the card came in one size: .45.
"Where's your uncle, Peter?" Frank asked, leaning over the timid Irish-American, nowhere near as tough as true Irish, Frank noted. It made his job easier, but less satisfying.
"I told you, I don't know!" Peter's voice was shakey, nervous. His knees had been shot out by the British, one of whom's father he had killed. He knew he was lucky to be alive, and that he would only be as such as long as he was of use. "If he ain't at the club, I don't know where he's gone."
"What club?" Frank asked, the business end of a 9" buck knife doing the punctuation for him.
"McGinty's. It's in the Kitchen, south side, s'all I know. I swear it." His eyes were erattic and fear filled, the eyes of a man who knew that his time was coming, and all too soon. "I swear to the Virgin, and Jesus and God him-fucking-self that's all I know!" His fervour had put him on the verge of tears.
Frank was reminded for a split second of Jade, in her cell last night, praying to the Virgin for protection, for salvation, for her life. Frank pulled out his Colt and put a quick shot into the frontal lobe of the miserable Irish wanna-be bad boy and watched it blast out the back, spattering brain matter, blood and skull fragments all over the back of the closet.
As he closed the door on the dead Mick, Frank composed his plan. Gather his guns, go kill Finn Cooley, get the River Rats and Westies, then take down Maginty. Then maybe take a vacation: Haiti sounded good.