Chapter Two
Everybody in Manhattan knows the Red Diamond. It's been around for years. It's been everything from a jazz club to a speakeasy, the themes change just as fast as the owners do. Its location may be to blame for that. It sits smack dab in-between two sky high office buildings. Or, it could be because there's no sign on the outside either. But that doesn't seem to hurt anything. Business is always good at the Red Diamond.
I'm standing across the street from it, taking my time and enjoying my smoke before I go in. Not that you can't smoke inside, I'm just watching the riffraff that's going in. Saturday nights are when all the gangsters and lowlife of the city show up, and I wish I could understand why. This place, since it's new owner took over, is a little more high class than what those scum could comprehend. But I'm not in the mood to fight right now. I'll keep my profile low, blend into the surroundings, and I should avoid confrontation.
The bouncer nods at me as I approach, his long black hair pulled back, showing off those pretty boy cheekbones. He's wearing his nightly work attire: a white shirt and black pants.
"Evenin' Casey," I nod back. "Slow night?"
Casey Jones shrugs. He's not one for conversation with me these days, ever since that little thing between me, him and that redhead. He pushes the door open, making sure to avoid eye contact with me as I pass by. I can't help but sigh. Enemies are in abundance around here.
The first thing that hits you about this place is the atmosphere. Dabbed with low red lighting, the Red Diamond pulls you in with a relaxed, scotch-in-your-hand, come-sit-by-the-fire feeling. In the far corner lays a small stage, where my favorite local jazz group plays nightly, but not tonight. The jazz music is playing through an old radio above the bar. I overhear the bartender telling someone else the bass player came down with the flu. Must be all of that rain we've been having.
I remove my coat and hat, shaking the raindrops off before hanging them up on the coat rack in the doorway. I do my best to smooth out the wrinkles in my brown blazer as I make my way to the bar, and I find my spot, on the right side, closet to the bathrooms. Not that I enjoy the smell of shit and vomit, it's the best seat for staking out the rest of the club. I can see everything that goes down from here. Police reflex, I guess.
The bartender notices me, and gets a big, goofy grin on his green face. Yep, I said green. He's another mutant turtle.
"Hey, Donnie!" he says in his usual chipper, surfer-wannabe accent that makes him sound like he's from the west coast. "Long time, no see, bro."
"Hey, Mike," I reply as he wipes down the chipped wooden bar and sets down a napkin.
"The usual?"
I look at Mike and wonder what my usual really is. " Sure Mikey. Whatever you say."
He gives me another smile, then goes to work fixing my drink, and I can't help but smile back at him. Michelangelo, Mike or Mikey, as he prefers, was another turtle caught up Shredder's evil schemes. Mike was raised by this old man, an immigrant from Japan who just happened to have ties with the Shredder. Well, to make a long story short, the guy gets fileted by two of the Shredders' goons, and Mikey's without a place to go. Leo felt bad for the kid, and took it upon himself to look after him. But after Leo died, Mikey once again found himself without a home, and I knew I couldn't take care of him. Hell, I can't even take care of myself half of the time! That's when someone else stepped up and welcomed Mikey into her house, and she took good care of him. Not since Leo did anyone have the heart to reach out to a complete stranger.
"Here ya go, bro," Mike places down a double bourbon in front of me, breaking my thoughts. I pick up the glass, swishing the alcohol around like it was a fine wine, opening up the flavor and my mouth watered as I took a swig.
"So," I finished it off and set the glass down, where Mike is waiting to refill it. "How have you been, Mikey?"
"Okay, I guess," He replaces the glass in front of me and watches intently as I swallow just as fast as the first one. "Man, you're taking it in a little too fast. You feeling bad again?"
When don't I feel bad? "Naw, I'm good. Just can't sleep, that's all."
My eyes wonder around the hushed crowd, which is actually smaller than I had expected, and I spot two strange looking guys sitting in the far corner near the stage. They're huddled together, obviously whispering, and obviously very suspicious looking.
"Hey, Mikey," I lean in over the bar and lower my voice as I nod in their direction. "Who are the weirdos sitting in the back booth?"
Mike turns around, just enough to see with his peripheral vision, and quickly gets back to me, the color drained from his face, and I know immediately something is wrong.
"It's them," Mike whispers, his hands visibly trembling with fear. "Those are the guys that bumped off my dad!"
I lean to my right side to get a better look at those guys, noting that they look more like street punks than cold blooded killers. One's black, the other white. The black guy sports a purple Mohawk, while the white guy carries a shaggy mess of blonde hair on his head. Various piercings cover their ears and faces, and their way of dressing makes them look like boot camp rejects. I start to laugh, which brings tears to Mikey's eyes.
"I'm sorry, kid," I slow my laughter. "But they don't even look like they have the intelligence to even think about killing someone."
Mike gives me this dirty look as he refills my glass, not caring that he spills half of it on the counter. "Whatever, asshole." With that, he walks away.
Geesh, what's with everyone? First Casey, now Mikey. I'm only down to one more strike. I shake off Mikes' anger and take another sip, slower this time, knowing that I may have to get the next one myself. I didn't mean to be so negative to the kid, but I know what he wants. It was the same thing Leo wanted: revenge, and lots of it. And wanting revenge that bad only brings around one thing: death, and lots of it.
As the cold glass hits my lips again, the subtle smell of roses penetrates my nose, and I can't stop my eyes from closing while I linger on the heavenly scent. A soft pat on my shoulder wakes me from my daydream and I turn to face the owner of the Red Diamond, and of that dainty hand.
"Hey, stranger," The words pass through her red lips like silk. " Haven't seen you in awhile."
I linger on her breathtaking beauty as she sits on the bar stool next to me. Her strawberry hair is curled just at the bottom, and she tosses it back with that porcelain hand. Her green eyes sparkle like the sequins on her dark blue off-the-shoulder dress, which shows off her amazing, curvy figure. Yeah, if you couldn't tell, I had a thing for her. Well, I still do, and I'm not fooling anyone. She pulls a cigarette out of my pack on the bar and motions at me for a light. I oblige, then light one for myself.
"Keepin' everyone in line, tonight, April?" I ask, not pulling my eyes away from her as I finish my drink.
She chuckles lightly in response. " I had to kick out a few people, but it's been pretty quiet tonight."
April may look delicate, but she is one tough girl. If you cause trouble in her bar, your ass is outside in five seconds flat. Leo taught her basic self defense, which is how we met, and to this day she still brags about how she could pin me on the ground with no remorse.
I continue to watch her lips curl around that cigarette, and chills run up my spine. God, I still wish she was mine. But there are too many complications for that to even be a possibility now, and one of them just happens to be sitting at the other end of the bar.
"April!" A thick, Brooklyn accent rings out. " Get yer ass over here and get me another scotch!"
My eyes shift, and I find myself looking at Raphael, Chief of Police, and April's current sugar daddy. I can tell from his slumped over posture that he's had a few too many, which is bad for everyone. When this turtle gets drunk, he gets mouthy, reason number five for not liking him.
"You can't get any fuckin' good service in this shit hole, doll," Raph slurs, his voice reaching an annoying volume. "Ya need to get some better help in here!" He slams the glass down, and I could see Mike wince, trying to hold back the tears of frustration as he hurried through the rest of his waiting customers to get to Raph's empty glass.
"Baby, calm down," April slinks up to him and rubs his shoulders, using that soft, silky voice to soothe him. "Mike's busy. He'll get you some more in a second. Just be patient."
Next comes reason number four.
"Man, why don't you just go make yerself useful and get it?" Raph grabs April's wrist and flings her around into the bar, the crunching of her ribs echoing in my ears. "And don't fuckin' touch me like that in public!"
My fist balls up under the bar, and it took everything I had to not jump up and beat the shit out of that guy. April readjusts herself, and she holds onto her aching side as she moves around the bar to the bottle of scotch on the top shelf, her hand shaking as she poured Raph his drink.
Asshole. Hope he fucking chokes on it. Now for reason number three.
Raph throws his head back, tipping the glass to his lips and swallowing it in one gulp, trickles of the hard liquor running down his face and into the lapels of his gray collared shirt. He slams the glass on the bar again, then drunkenly spins under in his seat and staggers over to a guy playing darts. He grabs the guy, who so skinny he should be invisible, and shoves his alcoholic breath into the guy's face.
"Do ya know who I am, punk?" Raphael sneers. "I own this fuckin' town, and everybody in it. You got that, scumbag?"
Yeah, I bet Skinny wishes he really was invisible. Before the guy could even answer, Raph hauls off and sends his fist into Skinny's stomach, knocking him out cold. Raph laughs, not caring that everyone is looking at him. That is, until he notices they are.
"What? What the fuck are ya starin' at? I fuckin' kick all of yer asses too!"
"Raph, honey," No, April! Don't do that!
"I said, get offa me, you stupid whore!" Raph sends April to the ground next to Skinny with a slap across the face. My blood is past its boiling point, and I can't hold myself back anymore.
"Hey, Raph," I flick my cigarette to the floor and slowly stand. "Don't you know that real men don't hit dames?"
Raph raised his burning eyes to me, and I can't help but get a little spooked by that evil look of his. "Well, well, look who it is! You decided to crawl outta yer little hole and join the real world? And if ya didn't notice, I'm a turtle, not a man."
His laughter goes right through me. God, I hate that smart ass mouth of his. But, look out, here's reason number two.
" Are ya ever gonna get over Leo, Donnie?" Raph, who's clearly not thinking at this point, saunters closer to me, the scotch weighing heavily on his tongue. "Ya can't still be mournin' that guy! It's been six fuckin' months! He ain't worth it!"
"Shut your face, Raph," I warned. " He was ten times the cop you could ever wish to be."
Raph stops, and I could tell he was processing the words I had just said. "What? You're-you're kiddin', right?" He laughs like a mad man again. "Oh, that's fuckin' rich, Donnie! Okay, if that's the case, then why the hell am I still alive and he's six feet fuckin' underground?"
I turn away, now wishing that I hadn't crawled out of my hole. "Leo died trying to do the right thing. He only wanted the city to be safe. You, on the other hand, don't give a shit about anybody. All you cared about was the publicity."
It was true. All Raph wanted was some fame. He joined up to the force about a month after I did, and it was obvious that he wanted to be where Leo was: at the top of the police food chain. Raph tried everything he could to get Leo's job, but failed, and it only made things bad for him. He was stuck being a street cop, working the beat, the one job he hated with a passion, and he blamed Leo for everything. The night we went out to stop the Shredder, and we knew we had no choice but to call for backup. Raph planned it so that he arrived just after me and Leo had been shot, making it look like he had taken Shredder's crew out all by himself while trying to save us. His face was all over the papers the next day. He was a hero, and it was a non-stop, uphill roller coaster ride to the top after that, while I went down that same roller coaster, backwards in a broken car. Now, I was working the beat, and he was moving the money around.
"Well, it worked, didn't it?" Raphael bowed his head. " I came out lookin' like the hero." His smile grew bigger as he moved into my personal space, breathing his drunken breath on me.
"Just think, Donnie. If it wasn't for me, Leo would still be alive. Funny, huh?"
What? What the hell did he just say? Raph throws his head back in laughter, but teeters backwards and loses his balance. He falls to the floor, then sits up, his eyes narrowed at April's curled up body.
"Don't just sit there! Help me up! And get my fuckin' coat! We're leavin'!"
April scrambles quickly to her feet, then yanks Raph up, throwing his arm around her shoulders. As they move to the door, April looks at me with those gorgeous, but sad green eyes of hers, and gives me a weak smile.
"It was good to see you, Don."
"Don't fuckin' talk ta him, you hussy. He ain't worth it either."
I don't respond to either one of them, just watch helplessly as April pulls Raphael along while he nibbles at her slender neck and moves his free hand up the front of her dress.
Reason number one why I hate that guy, and it looks like I've struck out for the night.
A/N: Just a quick note about that Kenny Loggins crack. That was just my weird sense of humor, and the Footloose soundtrack has nothing to do with this story. That was just the thing I was listening to at the original time I wrote this. So whoever it was that emailed me, think a little less Kevin Bacon, and a lot more 1940's jazz! Sorry about that! 0P