"We took care of him. The boys and I took him to the back room and ripped his two front teeth out. If he's smart he won't try anything again." Frank Cissero said to Pete Nico as he finished his shot.
Pete Nico looked back at him, over the pool table. He was leaning against the wall with his cue in hand, looking mighty suave. He had light brown, fairly short hair, normally slicked back. Now it was messy, pointing in all different directions. His face had trademark eyes, deep in droopy sockets. Nico was a full blooded Italian and his features showed it. He was of average height, somewhere around 5'9. He was clad in a light gray suit jacket and trousers with a white dress shirt underneath, but no tie. His tie lay on a lamp table to the side; he almost never wore it in his own home. As he stepped up to the pool table and cautiously lined his shot up, he spoke. His voice seemed to boom even if he was speaking quietly, deep and rich.
"No." He replied casually as he hit the cue ball with the cue stick and sent it crashing into the solid yellow '2' ball. The heavy sphere rolled lazily towards the corner pocket and dropped inside quickly, "They're not going to give up that easily. That guy was obviously Italian, and obviously not working for any of the small time gangs. Anyone's best guess would say it was either Sindacco or Leone. If it was Sindacco, the attack would have been more organized. Only Leone would do something this reckless. The guy probably did it on a whim, I doubt he took more than a day to plan it."
"Salvatore Leone..." Frank thought out loud, "But why would he wanna hit us?"
"I'm not sure. My theory is that he's an idiot who doesn't know how to keep his fingers out of the cookie jar. The guy's established himself in Liberty City and he would do well to focus on things that could actually be a threat. These street gangs that are popping up could hurt him more than I ever could. All he cares about is expanding, he wants to be the king of this city. While me and you are still around, he won't succeed." Pete smiled as he sunk another billiard, "I'm sure that errand boy they sent to the Starlight would like to refrain from anymore attacks, but he works for his boss and what he does is up to him. If he disagrees Salvatore will probably kill him."
"I got no problem offing a few of his lap dogs Pete, it'll be my pleasure." Frank replied as it was finally his turn to shoot after Pete was unable to sink the 8 ball. He stood up from his chair and sauntered over to the billiards table reluctantly.
Pete watched in good spirits as Frank lined up his shot, drew the stick back and then propelled it forward with his hand. The cue ball missed all the other billiards completely, banked off the rails, and came to a stop almost exactly where it had started. Frank had always been a terrible pool player. He played because Pete found it relaxing, and Frank never objected to anything that could make Pete happy.
"Nice shot." Pete laughed as he stepped back up to the pool table.
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"So then, the crazy broad comes at me with a knife. She said she was going to stab me in my 'worthless heart' and watch me bleed to death in my own fucking kitchen. I grabbed the knife and slapped her in the mouth." Sonny Forelli smiled through a haze of cigar smoke as he peered over his handful of cards.
Lips laughed heartily at his brother's story, and Paul pretended to be amused. Tommy Vercetti, however, remained completely silent. He had laid his cards down and been staring blankly for at least a few minutes.
"What's the matter Tom, you didn't like the story?" Sonny asked, his laughter dying down.
"You hit her for under cooking a steak?" Tommy replied quietly, not really looking for an answer.
"I asked for medium well, the thing's bloody. How else is she going to learn?" Sonny shot back defensively.
"She's not a fucking dog Sonny, you're not supposed to train her." Tommy said as he stood up, reaching for his coat, "Look, I'm outta here. I'll see you guys tomorrow."
"Whoa, whoa wait a minute, not so fast Mr. Righteous." Sonny yelled across the room as he stood up, nearly knocking the card table over, "You got a problem with how I do things? If you do we can settle it right now!"
"No." Tommy replied bluntly as he kept walking towards the door, "It's fine Sonny."
Sonny stood motionless, glaring at Tommy's back.
"Yeah, well… Good!" Sonny said, suddenly feeling stupid for starting an argument in the first place. He sat back down in his wooden chair slowly, and picked his face down cards back up, "You guys ever eat at that new place across town, Marco's Bistro?"
"Nah, never been there." Lips replied.
"Nope." Paul added.
"You should try it, I had the veal: delicious. They put too much pepper in the soup though."
"That's to cover up the taste of piss after they've messed with your food." Paul laughed.
"Y'know, we've been playin' poker for about 3 hours now and we still have the same hands. What the hell do we even get together to do this for?" Lips said suddenly as he laid his cards down.
Sonny and Paul both looked at Lips for a second, and then began laughing.
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Vincent Sindacco sat in the front seat of his cream colored beater. The car was a 'Manana', the standard among the gloomy ghettos of this 'wonderful' city. It costs next to nothing, and usually died after a year or two of use. The passenger side door of Vincent's was dented so badly that it wouldn't even open. On the driver's side was a long strip where the car's sickening paint job was scraped off, revealing the dull and depressing gray metal of the car's body underneath. The fake leather interior of the car was in bad shape and the scent was enough to make one nauseous. Most of the seats had multiple tears in them, from inside the gashes came the Styrofoam cushion beneath the material. It jutted out at peculiar angles. The floorboards were a sea of garbage, empty fast food cups, discarded pizza boxes, and year old empty popcorn containers.
Vincent found it a waste of time to care about his possessions. His theory was that he had got it for free, so why bother fixing it? When it's worn out, he could easily steal another one. It was an ideal system for a man like him.
In his hand was a rusted .38 snub nosed revolver that had once been silver. It fit in his rough and scarred hand like a glove. Slowly and carefully he slid each well crafted bullet into a chamber until all 6 were filled with lead. With a quick flip of his hand, the chamber retreated back into the gun and clicked into place, ready to do its job. Vincent wrestled with the faulty door handle, finally getting the thing to open after a few minutes of struggling.
As he stepped out of the car, Vincent gazed at his surroundings. The sky was a depressing gray, like usual. Vincent hadn't seen a blue sky since he went on vacation in Vice City 7 years ago. He hadn't been much for all the 'happiness' at night down there though so he never went back. By now he was used to his fair city. Apparently Liberty's air pollution is equivalent to smoking a pack a day, Vincent laughed as he thought to himself about how the city was killing him faster than he could ruin himself. He turned his head to the left, looking down the long slab of pavement that was Fifth Avenue. Many small shops adorned it, but Vincent was only interested in one.
The 24 Hr. Liquor store. Vincent loved booze, but he also loved money. Because with money, he could buy more booze. He figured he'd get the best of both worlds; take the money from the register in the liquor store and then snake a few bottles of whiskey in the process. He began trotting casually up to the front door. He shot his hand out in front of him and pushed the door open; he whirled around to face the startled cashier. The revolver was held at the end of his fully extended arm.
"Be cool, this is a robbery!"
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Vinny Leone kept his eyes on the road ahead of him, peering over the wheel of his black sentinel. It was the Leone family's car of choice. Vinny disagreed with this as any Leone car could easily be spotted, and he preferred to remain incognito and drive what ever car suited the occasion. At least this would draw more attention to them which only meant Vinny would get to shoot more people.
In the passenger seat, next to him, sat Tommy Spinelli. He was fiddling with two black pistols, checking the clips and making sure the slide wasn't going to jam. Anything to pass time on the road to the gun warehouse was good enough. In the back were two young guys, neither had ever shot anyone. Tommy supposed Salvatore wanted to work them in, or at least test them to see whether or not they would be valuable to him. Trailing Vinny and Tommy's care were two more similar cars, each loaded with four mobsters. The warehouse was up ahead. The tall, five story structure was immaculately clean. This was a rarity in Liberty City; most of the buildings didn't even have much paint on them anymore. Renovation was considered a waste of time in this day and age. There was no point in fixing what was going to be ruined in a matter of days. This building, however, was painted with a homely type of light orange. The windows were almost spotless, but they had thick curtains pulled over each one so that you couldn't see into the interior.
The small convoy of mafia cruisers all pulled to a slow stop. Vinny stepped out of his car and grabbed the heavy black machine gun that dwelled under his seat. Tommy held his compact pistols at his side. The remaining mobsters all carried guns similar to Vinny's. Tommy didn't know his guns, except that if you pulled the trigger bullets would come out. That was all he knew, and all he needed to know. He preferred precision anyway, explaining his own gun choice. Tommy turned his gaze to the back of the crowd. The young guys were named Sam and Mark. They were too inexperienced to be shoved into the frontlines. Tommy hoped they'd do ok. It was obvious they weren't very comfortable with their oversized weapons; the way their bodies sagged awkwardly to the side under the weight was a dead giveaway.
All of Leone's henchmen formed a line and aimed their guns at the front door. There were a few silent moments of high tension before all of the guns erupted at once. A furious barrage of bullets tore the door to pieces in seconds. Splinters of material sailed through the air until the door was almost completely absent. Vinny trotted up to it confidently and kicked with a forceful stomp. What was left of it broke free of the hinges and fell over.
In front of them was a normal looking apartment lobby. Apparently they hadn't converted the first floor, to fool people who didn't bother checking a floor up. In front of them was the cage, where the keys, names and information of the 'tenants' could be found in real apartment buildings. But this was deserted. The lobby was huge, all one room. It was big, but it was bare. The carpet was dull brown shag; it resembled something like oddly colored grass. All twelve mobsters cautiously walked forward with their guns in held in front of them, knowing that any second Nico's men would flood the bottom floor.
But then, all of the sudden, a bullet cut through the darkness from some unseen location and met it's target. A suited Leone mobster crumpled to the ground instantly, his blood painting the floor behind him. The mobsters frantically searched with their eyes around the room. One began firing wildly into the shadows, the others followed suit. Tommy looked on in disbelief.
"Stop shooting! Tommy pleaded, "Fuck, stop!"
Before he knew it Nico's gun inspectors had reached the bottom of the stairs. Each of them was clad in the same outfit, a dark blue long sleeve shirt, grey jeans and blue shoes. They were all armed with similar pistols, and each of them fired at the large crowd of Leone henchmen.
"This is fuckin ridiculous!" Tommy muttered to himself as he readily leveled the barrels of his guns at the crowd of Nico gun workers.
Tommy's train of thought was lost completely through the ear shattering sound of eleven automatic weapons rattling off rounds simultaneously while they took fire from Nico's pistols. Smoke quickly obstructed Tommy's view almost completely. He suddenly found himself as good as blind. His ears rang violently; it was the only sound he could hear. He dashed to the side and blindly ran for cover. The impact of the bullets slamming into the walls and floor around him were enough give him a heart attack.
Fuck Salvatore, Spinelli didn't feel like dying today after all. Squinting through the smoke filled chaos, he sought out Vinny. As he found him, he grabbed him with all his might and threw himself toward the door. The sickening air of Liberty seemed like a godsend compared to the smell of freshly discharged bullets.
This hadn't gone well at all.
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