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Winding Paths

One Year Earlier

He flicked the cigar carelessly. He preferred his smuggled Romeo & Juliet Cuban cigars to any other cigars. Cigarettes lacked body and flavor. He also liked how the smoke clung to his breath and clothing. He enjoyed the look on people's faces as the scrunched up their noses in disgust at the strong odor. His hair was scraggly, steel-grey, and was cut in the taper fade style. Flecks of white invaded the sides of his hair and suggested to any observer that he was older than he was. His frame was lean and tall, his features gaunt and serious. His clothes were tailor made and were rather expensive. His black blazer contrasted violently with the blood red handkerchief in his breast pocket. The scarlet silk tie was perfectly knotted and was striking against the midnight black of his dress shirt. His dress shoes were such highly polished black leather that they looked like mirrors in which the light from his cigar reflected. The slacks were deepest black and perfectly creased. Overall he cut a determined and wealthy figure. Anyone who saw him would have wondered what such a distinguished older man was doing smoking in an alley behind a strip joint.

The employee exit opened with a squeal of protestation and the giggling girl and the slimy club sleaze wandered out to do their thing. The cigar hit the cement as it was viciously thrown away; it rolled on the dry pavement and continued to burn. The girl's shirt was only half on and her skirt was hiked up to reveal a lack of undergarments, which the sleaze ball was taking advantage of, ignoring the fact she couldn't be a day of sixteen. The sleaze ball was all over her. His hair was greased back in the Teddy Boy cut of the 1950's England. His face was buried in her neck, being as such; she saw the intruder first and shouted unintelligibly. He wheeled around using various obscenities at the interruption.

The steel haired man disposed of the girl with a practiced ease. He felt some sadness at the waste of such a young life as he glanced down at her corpse laying helter-skelter on the ground. There was a smear of blood left on the red brick building side he'd bashed her head into and the hot fluid was leaking from her pulverized skull onto the concrete was pooling into a demented sort of halo framing her platinum blond hair staining it with its redness. The sleaze staggered back and turned to run tripping over his own two cowardly feet. The steel haired man picked up the man roughly with a black leather gloved hand and threw him against the wall with only enough force to make the sleaze cry out in a whiny voice.

Walter Mekhent blinked the pain out of his brain as a little voice inside of his head began screaming perpetually. What the hell was going on? Why was this lunatic after him? Then he saw the man's face and inwardly the screaming voice grew in volume and he began thinking his prayers. Calvin Velcher did not go talk to you unless it meant you were going to die.

The rage in Calvin Velcher's cold electric blue eyes as he stared into the now recognizing face of the sleazy little weasel Walter Mekhent.

"Do you know why I'm talking to you Walter?" Calvin had settled back leaning against the opposing wall casually. He lit a cigarette and made a face as he took a drag off of it.

"I never have liked these. Do you want it?" He was being almost chummy chummy with Walter. Walter knew what this meant. He had been the one standing behind Velcher watching such exchanges on many occasions years ago. It was unnerving to see Velcher do the same thing to him now. He knew no matter what his answer was he would be in pain. He shook his head dumbly.

"Well that's too damn bad." Velcher's lips moved into a cruel grin as he moved incredibly fast jabbing the lit cigarette into Walter's right eye, twisting it until it went out. Walter tried to scream but Velcher's spare hand was clamping his mouth shut.

"Let's not have to do that again ok Walt?" Said Calvin conversationally as he grabbed an empty wooden wine crate to sit on and pulled it about a foot beyond Walter's legs. Walter nodded dumbly. He was terrified of Velcher's wrath. He would do anything to escape death. Walter would have murdered his own mother to avoid Velcher's brand of death. Fear was something that anybody who dealt with Velcher was horribly familiar with and Walter was no exception.

Walter still remembered all of the horrors he'd seen Velcher order or perform himself. They still gave him nightmares. As Velcher shifted slightly Walter's attention switched back to him as he struggled to blink away the fog crowding his mind from shock, the cigarette, and being slammed against a wall by his old boss.

"So I see you've really moved up in the world." Velcher sneered sarcastically. "At least when you worked for me you didn't dress like a greasy sleaze and didn't screw around with sixteen year olds done up like two dollar whores in alleys. Walter went pale. He knew better than to protest ignorance.

"I'm not here to lecture you on ethics Walter. I'm here because I want information." This was a thin ray of hope for Walter. If Velcher wanted information then he had a reason to keep Walter alive, hopefully long enough for Walter to high tail it out of the hemisphere. He decided to play along.

"What information do you need?"

"You remember my dipshit son?" Velcher asked conversationally.

"…Yes."

"He's dead." This wasn't new news to Walter. Velcher had to know that. "I found out last year and I'm certain you know who killed him." Walter began sweating bullets with a fear that one of those bullets would soon kill him. Thoughts of running to New Zealand died before they'd really begun.

"You remember that girl. The one that David found, the crazy one who'd killed the guy who killed her parents?" Velcher nodded. "She went A-wall less than a month before David was murdered."

"That ungrateful little bitch." Velcher Muttered. "I knew David was wrong to take her in and not let me finish training her." Walter resisted flinching. He'd seen what the elder Velcher's training entailed. He had a different brand of training for women than for men. It was horribly brutal. He had gone nearly overboard on the girl David had brought into the fold. What had her name been? Katie or something like that, it began with a K. Kathleen! That was it; Kathleen was the girl's name. Velcher had gone insane with her. The scars he left on her body and mind were proof of that. She'd been a child then. To be honest Walter thought Velcher was being hypocritical. How could Velcher be so harsh on him for taking advantage of a sixteen year old when he'd taken advantage of Kathleen for 3 years until she was fourteen and David had gotten soft enough to intervene and save her? He had never mentioned any feelings of liking towards his son again. He'd never liked the boy to begin with, and he knew that David was determined never to give him a grandchild to twist and dement to his ends. That had been what started the rift between them and David rescuing Kathleen had given the rift an extra big tear and cemented the rivalry between father and son. David had run off to form his own mob with Kathleen paving the way for him.

The look in Velcher's cold electric blue eyes was one of fury. How dare that bitch kill his only son? That was his job. She'd beaten him to the punch on that note and for it he'd beat her to death. Nobody but nobody ever took something he wanted without paying the ultimate price and this insolent little bitch would be no different. He needed to know what she'd been up too. He would find out too.

"What has little ol' Kathleen been up too these days?" Calvin asked taking on an air of the curious southern man, making full use of his Georgian accent. Walter stared at him warily with his one good eye. When he finally spoke it was with in a slow and cautious tone.

"I'm not too sure what she's been up too. I know that David did something that drove her over the edge and she offed him for it." Velcher interrupted.

"Why do you say that David did something to trigger her?"

"Because, she didn't just kill him, she pulverized him. They only identified him from his dental work. His face was turned into a bone and brain soup. She took an insane sort of vengeful pleasure in killing him. It was brutal beyond all reason. She normally went for quick and relatively painless kills." He stopped. He could see Velcher's fist clenching so tight that the black leather looked fit to tear.

"What did he do?" It was more of an inner musing. He didn't expect Walter to answer. Walter did anyway.

"Well all I know is that she has been with a guy ever since she went A-Wall. I just assumed it had something to do with him. David was rather possessive of her." Velcher studied the nervous little slimeball sitting in front of him.

"Maybe you're right." There was an audible sigh of relief from Mekhent. "Unfortunately for you that is all I needed to know." Walter's eyes went wide. Calvin took his time with the snitch. It was clean and precise, but horribly brutal at the same time. He left what remained of Walter Mekhent lying in its place against the wall and stepped over the dead girl, pausing to put her legs together so that whoever found the bodies wouldn't be given an unnecessary view. As his expensive shoes carried him away from the seen the cigar lay, sodden as the final embers were swallowed up by the coagulating crimson.

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