The Hitman’s Tale – 1.00 The End of the Dalminetti Mafia

The Hitman’s Tale: Act One

A New Path

Imagine a sprawling city, light glistening off of skyscrapers and office blocks as the sun rises over the horizon, ushering in a new day. Cars are already beginning to beetle along the many roads and highways that criss-cross the city, the population rising and shining as they leave their homes to begin another working day. It’s a typical morning in what would be described as an unusual city.

This is The City of Light and, unlike most cities, it resides in the clouds. Or rather on a series of plates raised thousands of feet into the air by monolithic pipes. It’s a crowning achievement of structural engineering, the whole sprawling city contained on four colossal plates spanning hundreds of miles. A great glass elevator ferries traffic into the city and connects the plates, the road network stretching between the plates like cobwebs connecting branches of a tree.

The top most plate is dominated by skyscrapers, office blocks and high rises. The second plate is the brightest with its jungle of billboards and neon signs advertising the various businesses in its entertainment district; hotels, casinos and a mighty stadium lighting up the pre-dawn sky. The third and forth plates mostly contain housing, the buildings shrinking down from towering apartment blocks to suburban sprawl the further from the other two plates we get. The third plate houses the top of the elevator that leads to the rest of the world, warehouses replacing much of the housing on that side, the streets busy with deliveries of supplies any city needs to keep the population well fed and – above all – spending.

Our story begins in an unassuming apartment block on the eastern edge of the third plate, a stone’s throw away from the connecting elevator for the second plate. As the clock struck seven, one of the apartments filled with noise as an alarm clock began to blare one of the many radio stations the city had to offer.

“I was told a million times, of all the troubles in my way!“

A hand emerged from the duvet and whacked the offending noise maker until it ceased in its attempts to wake the owner of said hand and, assumedly, the apartment. It was going to be another day of the same old routine. The person inside the mound of duvet made his enthusiasm known by way of a drawn out groan.

“Aaargh-shit!”

It took a further five minutes for the arm to be joined by the torso it was attached to along with a head covered in a birds’ nest worth of blonde hair. Joe Vekowski rubbed his eyes, swore once more and slowly came around to the idea that it was time to get out of bed.

It was another unremarkable day in the life of the mafioso that had taken the moniker “Average Joe”, near identical to the one that came before it and the day that came before that. First order of business was to take care of basic hygiene and slip into the shower, Joe turning the radio up in an attempt to help wake himself properly.

“Mind you grow a little wiser, little better every day,”

Second order of business was to find some clothes fresh enough to call clean in order to dress himself. He’d been putting laundry day off for longer than he ought to have, most of his wardrobe currently on the floor or hanging on various pieces of furniture. Only one suit was currently hanging in his wardrobe; a particularly snazzy pinstripe affair complete with gold cufflinks and the shiniest leather shoes money could buy. Joe slammed the wardrobe door shut so he didn’t have to look at the thing, opting instead to pick one of his dull grey suits off of the floor and spray the garments with deodorant in an attempt to disguise any lingering odours left from whenever he last wore these particular items. The shirt badly needed an iron and there was a stain on the left knee of the trousers that looked as though he had spilled mustard down himself but they would do.

Time for a swift walk to the restaurant.

“But if I crossed a million rivers, and I rode a million miles, then I’d still be where I started, bread and butter for a smile,”

There were two options to take in order to move between plates; the monorail or the transport elevators. Three including the motorways built between the plates but that would require Joe to pay for a taxi and that was expensive. The Monorail moved a lot faster and more frequently than the elevators but would require a longer walk to and from the stations so Joe opted for the elevator. They were mostly used to ferry cars directly to the next plate but they housed an upper floor for pedestrians to sit in. Joe found himself a free seat in the corner, keeping his back to the giant window that showed the view of the section of city he was leaving.

In front of him was an electronic poster board currently displaying an advert for the Planetary Special Forces, a recruitment campaign currently in full force. A saluting soldier looked down at him, the words “Be the best that you can be and help fight the Dark Worlder threat!” in bold across the bottom of the image. The face of the soldier was absent, instead a camera feed from the small device affixed to the top of the frame imposed Joe’s face over the void where the soldier’s should have been. Joe wrinkled his nose in derision and decided to rest his eyes for a bit instead, feeling as if the poster was somehow mocking him.

“Well I sold a million mirrors, in a shopping alleyway, but I never saw my face, in any window any day,”

The Dalminetti Mafia ran their business from their legitimate business front, the inspiringly-named Dalminetti Restaurant. It was a fully-functioning eatery with chefs and waiters, and if it wasn’t for the large backroom and upstairs area designed to seat around 30-40 mobsters at any one time it would be completely normal.

The cops knew where they operated from, but finding evidence to implicate anyone within the Dalminetti mafia was almost impossible. Joe liked to compare the situation to a coveted grail guarded by a rabid pit-bull. You can try your luck getting the grail, but chances are you’ll lose your balls in the process.

The restaurant wasn’t a particularly big place. Booths lined the wall the entrance could be found on: three in total. Tables of varying sizes took up most of the floor space, very narrow walkways between them to maximise the number of customers that could be seated. It had always seemed a bit pointless to Joe as the only people who regularly ate in this place were either affiliated with the gang somehow or were a dirty cop looking for payday.

Not that cops could really be dirty in The City of Light. Everything was privatised in some way, the government only ever opening the purse strings if something was in it for them. As such, most services that traditionally relied on government funds had been forced to find other ways to maintain themselves whether it be via insurance or outright charging their clients. The wealthiest districts and neighbourhoods of the city hired private security companies to police their streets but for those that were forced to rely on the actual police force had to opt in to a sponsorship program. Small businesses could sponsor a policeman which sounded like an outright joke to the less legit organisations spread across the city. You weren’t just paying for the cops to look the other way but to also advertise your work for you at the same time! It made identifying the jobsworths and the potential allies easier as all you needed to do was look at what adverts they had stamped across their backs. The ones that were trying to stay honest would only have logos for companies that were supporting the police force as a whole on their backs but the so called “dodgy” cops could be mistaken for a walking billboard with the amount of patches sewn onto their uniform. And it was all perfectly legit!

Only in The City of Light!

It was only about eight o’clock in the morning at this point so the patrons of the restaurant only included those that either enjoyed a particularly long drinking session the night before or those desperate for a half decent breakfast. The restaurant specialised in Italian cuisine but it offered a choice of French toast or a selection of gourmet grilled sandwiches for those with a hunger before lunch service started.

Joe ordered himself a croque madame and settled himself into a booth adjacent to some of the previous night’s heavy drinkers. They were not in any particular state to hold a conversation but what they could manage was about on Joe’s level for this time in the morning, mostly consisting of grunts and the occasional complaint for whatever was currently on the radio.

“Now they say your folks are telling you, be a super star, but I tell you just be satisfied, stay right where you are,”

It was almost midday by the time someone had need of Joe. Business found him still in his booth, playing with the salt and pepper shakers, enacting out a miniature play on the table top.

“Oh I love you Lu-Lu, I can’t wait to spend the rest of our lives together!” said the salt to the pepper pot, “Well have I news for you! I’m a fickle bitch that wants cold hard cash! You’re a loser tha-”

“Joe? Stop messing about and get over here! I’ve a job for you!”

The job was simple enough: keep an eye on the newbies as they collect the Protection Money from Lanister Street. It wasn’t even a particularly long street, stretching three blocks and mostly housed a collection of cafes, boutiques and hair salons. They were all more upmarket than the types of businesses that were on the third plate but compared to the glitz and glamour of the north side, these establishments were merely quaint.

The trio of green horns Joe was to babysit were the rowdy sort; overconfident and eager to prove that they weren’t all lip. They walked a head of him, talking animatedly about what they would do to any triads they caught on their turf. Joe zoned out, focusing only on the toothpick he had inserted into his mouth and was currently playing with.

The first stop was uneventful. It was one of the many cafes that permeated the second plate, this one owned by a fifty-year-old lady that had always been rather eccentric. Pamela Clayton was her name and she had been here long before the Dalminettis had moved in. She remembered back when three seperate, smaller gangs had been regularly fighting in the streets and vandalising her business. The Dalminettis put a stop to that when they took over, Ms Clayton now of the opinion that the Dalminetti lads were good boys and well worth the protection money. She not only always paid on time but also would hand out cupcakes to those collecting from her, talking their ear off all the while they were there. You’d be lucky to leave after ten minutes.

Joe let the newbies handle her, watching as their boisterous energy dampened somewhat by the jolly dumpy lady accusing them all of wasting away and trying to force treats on them in a display of kindness.

The entertainment waning, Joe’s attention shifted to the TV mounted on the wall above the counter. Centrissal, the country The City of Light was the capital of, lacked a royal family. Instead, would-be-royalists turned their attentions to the founding families¹ of The City of Light, also known as The Pillars. Currently on TV was live footage from the wedding of one of the daughters of the Pillar known as Slateman Arms Ltd. Slateman Arms was the construction company that had built the majority of The City of Light and now owned 70% of the tenement buildings that filled the lower plates.

The Pillars were royalty in the city, the five families in possession of the majority of the wealth and were essentially the ones that told the mayor how to run the city. They were so rich that they had their own currency to measure said riches in, the kronzalt being worth 100 of the kronz notes the ordinary citizens traded with. Because of this, the wedding on the TV was the biggest event of the year, the richest of the rich in attendance and would-be royalists such as Ms Clayton eating up all the coverage. She had even bought the commemorative china plates, one such item hanging alongside many others like it on one of the walls of the cafe that had all been bought to commemorate other trillionaires marrying each other.

It wasn’t Slateman that had caught Joe’s attention however but rather the man currently being interviewed: Silverton Salmanic, CEO of Salmanic Incorporated. He was a slim gentlemen also in his fifties, his black hair slicked back, an expensive black tuxedo covering his body and a young lady on his arm that the text on the bottom of the screen identified as his daughter, Ms Silvia Salmanic. The biggest identifying feature on Silverton’s face was, in fact, the large prosthetic eye that dominated the right side of his face. It had a blue display with a long, black iris similar to a cats eye, the lens clicking as it darted to and fro, absorbing all the detail around him.

Silverton was considered a king of kings, the main support pillar everything else was built around to the point that even the other Pillars of Society obeyed his commands.

Joe was glaring at the man’s visage as he joked with the interviewer and the young lady at his side. There was a ball of hate in the pit of the gangster’s stomach that was tough to ignore. It took some effort but Vekowski eventually managed to tear his gaze away from the TV so he could take charge of the job he was here to do.

“Keep yourself alive,”

Ms Clayton eventually allowed the boys to leave, the boys continuing their rounds with minimum fuss. The next few places were the same. Go in, ask for money, the lads wearing their most serious faces, collect pay, rinse and repeat. Being part of a gang with an established reputation meant that people were easy to deal with. Most of the residents of Lanister Street were well aware that if it wasn’t for the Dalminettis then their businesses would be constantly raided by other criminals wanting to make this turf their own. Many of the residents were like ms Clayton and actually saw having their own crime family “protecting” them as mark of status. Some districts only had hoodlums wandering their streets. A mafia family kept the riff raff out.

It never occurred to most of the residents that the protection money was supposed to be to stop the Dalminettis raiding the business, they genuinely saw it as an actual service worth subscribing to. It was the City of Light mentality which left Joe both baffled and enamoured with his home city.

It wasn’t until they reached the arcade on the second block that anything noteworthy happened and even then it was only the perplexing young lady who – upon seeing four gangsters armed with knuckle dusters and the kind of grins designed to intimidate – decided to shove a petition under their noses. She eloquently explained how the water pipes in this area were dangerously in need of replacing but Aquarius Springs, the Pillar that dealt in supplying water and agriculture, were showing little interest in doing anything about it. As the lads signed the thing to get her out of their hair, Joe noted a patch on her jacket that looked like a stylised sun cresting over a triangle that represented a hill. It was the logo of New Dawn, a militant socialist faction known for using industrial espionage, bombings and other illegal activities to bring down “temples of capitalism” and right wrongs caused by big business.

Joe couldn’t help but comment on the girl’s apparent support for what was essentially a terrorist group. The girl in return gave him a withering look and pointed out that the police had bigger things to worry about than what patches she had sewn into her clothes and that if they were actually reliable then people would probably be more hesitant to pay gangsters to keep the streets clean. Joe merely shrugged, admitting that it was a fair point.

“Yeah, keep yourself alive,”

It took most of the afternoon to traipse up and down the street, collecting money from the various establishments. By the end of it, Joe’s feet were aching, he was in desperate need of a drink and he had to put up with the newbies moaning that they hadn’t spotted a single triad looking to make trouble on their patch of turf. It was a typical end to a day.

“Ooh, it’ll take you all your time and money, honey you’ll survive,”

The itinerary for when they returned to the restaurant included a meeting where Little Jim wanted to know who was going to the up coming gang conference in Casinopolis, an oil rig turned resort town and gambling den where every major crime family on Centrissal would be gathering to do the sorts of things one does in a resort town and gambling den, with the added possibility of talking gang politics at some point if they could squeeze it in.

The Business also wanted to discuss with the gang at large what the plan was for sorting out their triad problem now the mercenaries they had been hoping to pay to sort it out for them had absconded after taking the life of Big Jim along with a number of wallets belonging to the gang members that were supposed to be protecting him but instead ended up equally dead.

Joe slept through the majority of these meetings, only being roused when dinner was served.

It was the same meal he had eaten all week, the restaurant’s menu rarely changing. Spaghetti and meatballs. He only ate half of it before making his excuses and heading back to his pokey apartment where all that was waiting for him was laundry, a picture of his ex-girlfriend and the thundering sound of the nearby monorail tracks to keep him awake all night.

“Well I’ve loved a million women, in a belladonic haze, and I ate a million dinners, brought to me on silver trays,”

Eight hours later and the radio woke him up again. It received a shove onto the floor for its troubles.

“Give me everything I need, to feed my body and my soul, and I’ll grow a little bigger, maybe that can be my goal,”

The lift was held up today by demonstrators protesting the PSF. The Planetary Special Forces. Although Lusinia’s military was privately owned, the demonstrators wanted the government to suspend all the PSF’s private contracts until the war Lusinia was actually involved in – one against their nearest planetary neighbour – had been settled.

Joe wished he’d taken the monorail.

“I was told a million times, of all the people in my way, how I had to keep on trying, and get better every day,”

The chef had Joe’s breakfast ready before he had even ordered. Said he saw the protest on the news so thought he’d get it ready so he wouldn’t have to wait too long for it. Joe found himself murmuring thanks as he stared at the sandwich, the chef double checking it was what Joe wanted. After all, he’d had this same sandwich everyday for months so the chef was feeling confident it was correct. Joe didn’t have the heart to tell him anything other than thanks.

Was he really that predictable?

“But if I crossed a million rivers, and I rode a million miles, then I’d still be where I started, same as when I started,”

Business wanted him to take the newbies out again today. Said it would be good for Joe to spend some time outside. Said it would be good for the lads to get a feel for the neighbourhood with a pro in tow. Joe barely said a word in reply.

They’d be hitting Grange Road, four blocks worth of betting shops, clothes shops, food shops and a chip shop. Although most of the Dalminetti’s turf could be found on the edge of the second plate around the ferry elevator, the gang had also long ago claimed a few streets on the third plate, Grange Road being one such street. All of the properties along the street had been around long enough to have come to terms with being situated on Dalminetti turf and had developed the City of Light mindset of having a crime family in the area some how boosted your own status in the world. Mafia families kept things tidy after all.

“Keep yourself alive,”

They went into a shop, the lads put on an act to try and seem menacing, they were told to keep doing a good job, they got paid.

“Come on, keep yourself alive,”

They went in, the lads jeered and asked where the money was, they got paid.

“Ooh, it’ll take you all your time and money, honey you’ll survive,”

It was getting late by the time they returned to the restaurant. Joe handed the money over to Business and then spent the last few hours of the day drinking with Fingers. They opted to have take out for dinner in a desperate attempt to have a little bit of change from the usual. A curry with the boys barely touched the hole Joe could feel deep down.

“Keep yourself alive,”

He was late getting up. Decided to travel by monorail today in order to avoid any more protests. Another croque madame was waiting for him when he arrived at work. He ate it purely so the chef wouldn’t feel bad.

“Come on, keep yourself alive,”

Tarrow Street was on the cards today. This was in the northern most reaches of Dalminetti territory and so included some of the fancier digs. There were a few bars, some hobby stores, a bakery and a laundrette to name a few places of note. Of course, as this was on the edge of the Dalminetti’s territory, it was situated on a boundry line that regularly shifted depending on what part of the “Dalminetti Ecology” the gang was currently experiencing.

The Dalminettis were not the toughest of the crime families and the core group within the gang, also known as The Old Boys, were well aware of this fact and would encourage those that signed up with the gang to avoid gang warfare as much as possible as it was guaranteed to go badly for them.

That wouldn’t stop some of the keener underlings from trying every now and again, which in turn would cause the gang and their territory’s boarders to shrink as a result of the inevitable loses. It was such a regular occurrence that Big Jim had felt the need to give the phenomena a nickname.

Tarrow Street regularly changed hands between the Dalminettis and the Munroe Sisters, a cockney gang that claimed a large swathe of the entertainment quarter² and mostly consisted of burly gentlemen with barely a braincell between them. Smarts were a privilege reserved only for the sisters themselves, which was the main reason the Dalminettis were able to reclaim their land fairly easily once their number recovered enough.

The Dalminetti Ecology was also the reason why one of the bar owners felt the need to complain about the rates of pay they were expected to hand over to Average Joe and his little lads.

The lads, eager to inject a little crime into this criminal gang, whacked the gentleman over the head with his own pool cue and set about giving him a bloody good kicking whilst Joe helped himself to a pint of bitter.

“Ooh, it’ll take you all your time and money, to keep me satisfied,”

Coming to the conclusion that the lads were a bit too enthusiastic about beating some sense into the guy, Joe pulled off the main instigator of the impromptu beating – one Tommy “inappropriate nickname” Bellarico as Joe recalled – before the eager little lads killed the poor man. Vekowski easily managed to collect payment from what was left of him, urging the boys out and giving them a brief economics lecture.

This mostly consisted of Joe reminding them that people need to keep breathing in order to make repeat payments. The words twat and arsehole was used to describe the kinds of people that forgot about this rule, Joe applying the label to Tommy several times as the lecture went on.

Tommy responded by pointing at his crotch area and insinuating that next time he’d make the guy suck “it”, leaving very little doubt as to what “it” was.

Joe dubbed him an “over confident twat muncher” and marched everyone back to the restaurant in order to let Business finish off this particular lesson in good business practices.

“Do you think you’re better every day? No, I just think I’m two steps nearer to my grave”

The shouting match between Tommy, Little Jim and Alfie when they got back kept most of the gang entertained that afternoon, Tommy insisting they could fuck the Munroe Sisters up and steal all of their territory easily if they wanted to. Business told Tommy to leave it out and grow a pair of brains whilst he was at it.

All Joe knew was that all the shouting was giving him a headache. He went home early that day.

“Keep yourself alive, come on, keep yourself alive, ooh, it’ll take you all your time and money, honey you’ll survive!”

The following day continued just as the last; the boys doing the rounds, Joe keeping the likes of Tommy out of trouble, everybody went home a little richer save for those dutifully paying their protection tab. Rinse and repeat, day in and day out.

Joe was grateful when the time came for those that had been interested to catch a cruise liner and to head off to Casinopolis for the fabled gang conference. He had considered going himself but thinking of how much time he already spent with these people, putting himself on a tiny man-made island with them at their rowdiest made the thought of being beaten with pool cues seem relaxing by comparison.

Joe sipped his coffee as the warm morning breeze drifted through the quiet street around him, rustling the newspaper that sat folded into a bundle on the outdoor cafe table he was sat at. It was another fine day for the City of Light, he decided, gulping down the last dregs of the coffee before crumpling the polystyrene cup in his hand and throwing it perfectly into the wire dustbin about a metre away. He watched as the sunlight reflected off the side of city’s top plate away up in the distance. It was pretty, if you liked that sort of thing.

It was going to be a quiet day, supposedly. The Dalminetti Mafia had left town to go to some big gang conference on Casinopolis Island, leaving behind all the guys who just didn’t want to go. Including himself, that left Alfie ‘the Businessman’ Cartwright, nicknamed due to his demeanour when it came to extorting money out of people (usually with the aid of a crowbar), and Milo ‘Fingers’ Malloy, so-called because he always had his fingers in someone else’s pocket. Joe absent-mindedly tapped his pocket to check that his wallet was still there.

The Dalminetti Mafia ran their business from their legitimate business front, the inspiringly-named Dalminetti Restaurant. It was a fully-functioning eatery with chefs and waiters, and if it wasn’t for the large backroom and upstairs area designed to seat around 30-40 mobsters at any one time it would be completely normal.

The cops knew where they operated from, but finding evidence to implicate anyone within the Dalminetti mafia was almost impossible. Joe liked to compare the situation to a coveted grail guarded by a rabid pit-bull. You can try your luck getting the grail, but chances are you’ll lose your balls in the process.

Joe didn’t like his job. While he sat at the table, he mulled over ways he could get out. He’d been looking for a way out for a couple of years now, but as with any criminal family the only way to leave involves the arrangement of an undertaker beforehand, preferably one with a shovel, a couple of lengths of wood, some nails and a hammer to hand.

Being a mobster was boring. Sure, the first five years or so had been a lot of fun. But after breaking a guy’s fingers for the fifty-sixth time due to a missed payment for ‘protection’, you start considering that maybe there is more to life than repeatedly slamming a desk drawer to the sound of painful wailing.

Conceding to defeat in his quest for a job exit, he ventured inside the empty restaurant, where Fingers was playing with a portable television in one of the corner seats.

“Whatcha trying to watch, Fingers?” Joe asked, leaning lazily against the bar across the room.

“I’m trying to get the game up. Got twenty big ones resting on the Galmanoc Raiders,” Fingers replied, fumbling with the switches on the front of the box. He smiled as the image of a football flashed on screen followed by advertisements.

“Who they playing?” Joe asked, clicking his fingers in boredom.

“City of Light Maulers,” came the blunt reply, followed by a grunt. “Bloody adverts. It’s all Salmanic Inc this and Silverton Salmanic that. I swear if I see another advert with that bionic-eyed ponce tellin’ us to buy his shit then I’m gonna go and steal something he might miss.”

“Like?” Joe inquired, amused.

“Dunno. Wallet, TV, teddy bear. Hell, I’d steal his car given half a chance.”

“What does he drive?”

“Dunno. But the guy’s loaded, so he must have a nice one.”

The conversation ended and the restaurant went silent except for the tinny voices on the small TV and the clanging sounds echoing from the kitchens. Joe stretched his arms before sitting down on a stool and crossing them on the bar, resting his head ready to go asleep.

He was woken some time later by the loud, pronounced footsteps of Alfie. Alfie had a way of walking that inferred that trouble was on the way, announcing that someone might get a bit of a slap if they weren’t careful. Alfie emerged from the ‘staff only’ door, a serious look on his eyebrows. As he opened his mouth a sentence of strongly pronounced words emerged shrouded in a thick urban accent³.

“Lads, I’ve just had Lil’ Jim on the blower.”

“Yeah? Enjoying himself?” Joe asked through a yawn as he straightened up.

“Not really. He’s in hospital.”

“What?” Fingers exclaimed.

“He’s having an operation, remember? Gallstones. You bleedin’ plum,” groaned Alfie.

“Oh yeah, right,” said Fingers. “Good.”

“Not so good,” corrected Alfie. “He’s just got off the blower with Benny the Ballache.”

“Is he the doctor? For his gallstones? Bit of an unfortunate nickname!” chuckled Joe. Alfie placed his palm on his forehead.

“Benny’s one of our blokes. Annoying little sod, always complaining?”

Joe shrugged.

“I don’t talk to a lot of the newbies, Alf,” he said. “I consider most of them to be annoying little sods and they all complain-”

“-Look, everyone’s dead,” Alfie stated. Joe and Fingers stared at him blankly. “The entire gang were wiped out on the airship on the journey over to Casinopolis.”

“How?” Joe asked.

“Remember those mercenaries we had in a few weeks back because Big Jim had a problem with the local Triads? And that nutter with the bionic arm ripped his head off?”

“It was going to happen one day. Big Jim thought that lighter shaped like a gun was really funny,” Joe added.

“Yeah? Well apparently this guy was on the cruise liner with his mates and our lads started a fight. Only they lost, so now they’re all dead,” Alfie explained, slightly sarcastically. “Apparently Big Boy Bellarico was going to torture the bloke who killed Big Jim but it all went tits up and now Benny and Bert are the only two left.”

“…Big Boy?” asked Joe.

“Oh for crying out loud Joe, don’t you know anybody who works for us? He was the boisterous geezer, figured he could make it big time with us. Complete arsehole,” described Alfie. Joe remained distant.

“Nope. Drawing a blank. Again, could be half the guys working for us,” said Joe. Alfie recognised that Joe didn’t tend to socialise much with colleagues outside of work. In fact he didn’t tend to socialise with colleagues inside of work. He just didn’t tend to socialise full stop, but then he never had been the same since the incident, which Alfie appreciated.

“So that’s it then, is it?” Fingers said remorsefully, considering his future as a gangster with no gang.

“Well, Jim said something about Benny saying something about amateur mages and some guy in a robe, but he didn’t make much sense and then he had to go off to surgery to have something stuck up his you-know-what,” Alfie stated. “Little Jim’s last words were before he hung up, and I quote, ‘consider this your pink slip buddy, once I’m out of the hospital I’m going abroad. I can’t be bothered with all this mafia fuss, my brother was a lot better at it than I was anyway. Nice knowing you guys’. Of course he was on a shed-load of drugs when he said this but it’s probably a safe bet that he’s had enough.” Fingers moped over the TV in response, in contrast to the delighted Joe.

“I guess this is it for us now, lads. Fun while it lasted, eh? I know you’re happy, Joe,” Alfie announced, smiling.

“Damn straight. What are you guys going to do now that there’s no Dalminettis to work for?” Joe asked meaningfully as he stood up.

“Guess I’ll go home,” Fingers muttered, poking the TV screen in frustration as the City of Light Maulers gained another point. “Haven’t seen the folks in a while, not since I stole the old man’s wallet. And his car. And his trousers. Don’t ask.”

“As for me, I’m going to stick around for a bit and see what happens,” Alfie said contentedly. “I think I should have the duty of getting the word through to all of our associates, and I’ll take care of the restaurant. Maybe the kitchen staff will take it on.”

“And after that?” Joe asked.

“Who knows? I’ll probably stick to what I know best though. Can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” Alfie stated. Joe walked over and gripped Alfie in a handshake, before turning and walking towards the restaurant door for the last time, grabbing his jacket off of the coat stand before he left.

“What are you going to do now that you’re a free man, Joe?” Alfie called out just before Joe could close the door. Joe peered his head around the door and smiled.

“For a while now I’ve been considering becoming a professional hitman. The pay seems good,” he answered. Alfie chuckled and waved.

“Good luck!”

“You too. See you around.”

And with that Joe walked away from the life he had been tied to, with all of his limbs and extremities working and intact. It seemed all too easy, but he wasn’t about to look a gift merc in the mouth. Alfie was right; he was free now…

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Post by Sean Patrick Payne | March 31, 2014 at 6:46 pm | The Hitman's Tale | No comment

Tags: 'Big' Jim Dalminetti, 'Little' Jim Dalminetti, Alfie 'the Business' Cartwright, Benny 'the Ballache' Spigotoli, Dalminetti Mafia, Dalminetti Restaurant, history, Joe Vekowski, Milo 'Fingers' Malloy, Salmanic Incorporated, Silverton Salmanic, The City of Light, the Dalminetti airship massacre, the novelty lighter incident, Tommy 'Big Boy' Bellarico, war

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