Rogue (In the life of the Rogue Book 1) (4 page)

My father motioned to his face around the beard area. “Stop shaving, grow your beard out.” He pointed to his hair. “Bald or long – your choice but it needs to be different until I know if your sketch is out there.”

A beard was fine but my hair growing out meant long, dark brown curls that would be hard to keep up, but I wouldn’t tell him that.

My father went on. “Zander’s on his way to Miami.” He pulled out a black and white photo of a middle aged, pudgy man and tossed it on his desk. “That’s Eddie’s right hand man, silent partner and another mouth to feed. That’s who fingered Eddie, and that’s the one who was wearing a wire to save his own damned neck.”

“We dealing with him?” I questioned, fascinated by the idea of Jimmy Ricky’s killers going to pay the rat a visit.

“Stick with what’s your business,” Papa griped and my father and I both noted the tone.

My father tapped the end of his cigar. Ashes cleared, the ember burning hotly, he put the cigar back into his mouth. “His body is going to need cleaning up. Zander can handle it with a few of the boys I got in Miami, but if you want to go, you can be with him. Tristan, you stay here then you stay
here
for a while; and out of the fucking sight of the damned Feds.”

My father chanced a glance at Papa for a moment then reached for his cigar. The move had been incapable to read since he never looked to Papa when he was handling business.

“Miami is Lougotti territory,” My father went on, “The old fart still got muscle. It ain’t strong but he’ll have enough eyes to know we’re in his backyard. I want it quiet.”

The question of staying here or leaving seemed odd. My father gave orders, not a multiple choice question. “So why stay here when you need me in the field?”

“Because I got bodies that could handle it.”

“Zander’s going out there, though?” I asked.

There was a crucial point that I was missing and my father was losing patients. Getting out seemed great. Staying here in Chicago meant watching Lulina and Johnny fake a happy marriage around me without having Zander to pick up the pieces.

“What’s it going to be, Tristan?” He asked.

Without much thought, I answered, “Miami.”

Papa smiled smugly in his chair. If I hadn’t of known better he looked like he could hug me but be damned if he got up to do it. “Screw up to the end,” he said.

My father sighed loudly before turning to his father. “Leave me with my son for a moment.”

After we were alone, my father walked to me and touched the back of my neck and brought me into a tight hug. His warm hand on my neck had been fatherly and loving but soon turned uncomfortable and slightly terrifying as he squeezed. The pain wasn’t bad but I tensed automatically and waited until he was ready to let go.

“You embarrassed me, Tristan.” My father pushed me away and took his seat behind his desk. “Let me repaint this picture. You and Zander were at Eddie’s to get your dick sucked for free, so that’s why you were knee deep in a raid.”

Talking was bad and I knew it.

“Is that right?” He asked again but still dared me to interrupt him while he was speaking.

I said nothing.

Ricardo Rogue was a business man from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. Papa liked spilling blood, but my father could spill blood, but be more on the logic side instead of the physical. Yet, he could be just as murderous as my grandfather, maybe more. He brought out a long blade and put the tip right at the crotch of my pants. The move had been so quick that I didn’t catch it until I felt the pressure.

When he spoke, it was low but steady.

I gulped, hard.

“You going to Miami isn’t you thinking with the head on your shoulders but with the head that has a knife aimed at it.” He bared his straight white teeth. “Dare correct me.”

I gulped again, harder than the first time.

“Keep thinking with your dick, Tristan and you’ll lose it.” He eased the knife away. “Here.” He pushed a brown envelope over in my direction. “There’s ten grand in there. Twenty-five hundred of it is for the body last night. The rest is to substain you in Miami until this mess blows over.”

I cleared my throat, and let a few seconds pass before trying to speak. I had to make sure my voice didn’t shake when I spoke. “How long will we be gone?”

“Get this done and the FBI’s inside man will be out. With that, there won’t be much of a case, but that doesn’t mean they will back off. Make the money last until you hear from me. It
better
last until you hear from me, Tristan.”

Only buckling in for the downward spiral…

Walking into the Miami Resort I found myself furiously patting my clothes as if they were on fire. The bright sun and heat had done a number on me. I was a long way away from the cold streets of Chicago – away from the dark and grim, the chilly days and even chillier nights. My tie had been loosened, taken off and stuffed in my jacket pocket. My face poured sweat, which I used sleeve of my jacket to wipe off. I looked out of place in the lobby; a man in a suit, tie and jacket, among the folks walking around in shorts and short sleeve shirts, and the women in sundresses and bathing suits. I fiercely wondered if the people in Southbeach Miami actually knew what winter was.

I was three sheets flapping in the fucking wind, so the heat was even crueler.

The flight to Miami from Chicago had been nothing more than a blur of hard liquor as I tried to drown away the heartbreak of losing my affair with Lulina. My little pep talk of being happy that she ended it because that would mean that ever closing pendulum over my head had creaked before it stopped swinging, was losing steam more and more. Zander hadn’t been wrong in his assumption of her; however, my heart had taken different paths than my head, and my dick was somewhere lost in the shuffle.

Surely I could have better than a forty-seven year old woman who had yet to retire her wardrobe of sexy, tight, clothing that was better suited for a twenty year old.

Lulina Wells was already used goods as far as the
Families
were concerned. Her marriage to Johnny had been her second, and his’ first. Before him, she was Lougotti’s young trophy wife. Lougotti ran Miami with an iron fist back in the day, and of course Lulina was tight on his ass when he held the reins. Now he was sick, close to dying, and she was sucking on the neck of the next leader of the prestigious Rogue family.

Her life as Mrs. Lougotti was common, public knowledge. Yet, the details of that marriage were something she kept closely hidden under the surface. I wasn’t a mind reader, or a woman with that second sight, but at times when I looked in her eyes I saw pain.

It was an old pain.

Yet, my drinking wasn’t dedicated completely to her. I drank heavy on the flight because my mind was in the crosshairs of an actual thought that didn’t pertain to booze and ass, and me and Zander’s dwindling money. It was about what my father meant about me staying. Did he mean I could stay there, as in moving back into the compound? Was my mistake, my time served as a
wife fucker
, no longer a factor? Or, was he keeping me close so he could keep an eye on me? The indecision wrecked my mind. The thought that I didn’t like the most was the thought that I had made the wrong decision.

I kept my head down as I passed people, not making eye contact, and trying not to draw attention to myself. Upstairs, somewhere, was the Rat, Eddie’s little silent partner, whose picture was burning a hole in my inside jacket pocket – that and the heat - who had caused all of the Rogue’s F.B.I misfortune. Currently he was being tortured, maybe screaming for his life, maybe begging and pleading. Or, he could have quietly let the men who were going to kill him in into the room – understanding that it was no use running or trying to fight, he had made his bed and they were going to make him drown in it with a pillow stuffed in his mouth just in case he got second thoughts on the arriagement. I was just here to clean up the mess, but I wished for the quiet chambers of my basement of body desmemberment. At least there, it was quiet and I could think. Here, where kids could be running up and down the hall laughing and playing while I was hacking off a leg, or making a two hundred pound man into an eighty-nine pound consolidated mass of limbs that could fit in a bag or two, wasn’t the best place to work.

When you did your dirt near the public, you had to leak into the crowd, not cause enough attention that someone would remember your face. The liquor was slowly draining away and my mind cleared as the business of the Rogue life excited me. But being inconspicuous was plenty hard when you were overdressed and sweating like a pig who just found out it was next in line to be gutted and cooked.

I picked a vacant corner in the lobby to call my cousin.

Zander sighed into the phone. “There’s a bar to the right, Tristan, I’ll meet you there.”

I chose a booth in the back of the bar. Zander arrived not five minutes after I had taken my seat. The waitress was cute but I slipped a twenty dollar bill in her hand and told her to only come to our table when I signaled her to. She nodded and walked away and both Zander and I watched her ass as she moved.

Zander was the first to snap out of her swaying hips and get down to business. “Man, am I glad you decided to come here with me.”

He looked wrong as he said this. The color in his face was gone and his skin looked gray. I pushed my beer toward him and he lunged for it, finishing the drink in one gulp. He leaned over and stared at me long and hard. It’s all too easy to see how unsettled he was.

“You didn’t see what I saw, T; they were killing him and doing it slow.”

I may not have seen what he’s seen in the room but I’ve seen a man killed before. Afterwards I chugged a beer until the vomit taste in my mouth was gone, but I had moved on and understood that you
had
to get use to it. You
had
to get you used to the dull ache when you watched a man plead for his life then die horribly in front of your eyes, when his begging had been ignored. The more you saw it the more you ignored the dull ache.

Zander’s a coward and it’s the first time I’ve realized it.

I signaled the waitress for another beer. I took my time sipping the drink as I watched my cousin drain his. The fact he’s a coward doesn’t sit well with me.

Cowards disgust those who aren’t…

It’s the first lesson my father had ever beaten into me that actually stuck and I respected. Of course I’m sure I’m drunk – the number of drinks I’ve consumed in the last six hours has caught up with me – so I dismissed the thought, hoping I’m seeing things wrong.

I took out a pack of cigarettes, gave Zander his smoke, and, together, we lit up. The inhale and exhale and the sheet of smoke as it left my mouth was nice. Zander liked it too.

“How many guys are up there?” I started. I slung an arm over the back of the booth - the buzz of the drinks and the smoke taking over.

“Three of ‘em,” he answered.

“He make any noise?” I asked.

Zander rubbed his hands over his face. “I don’t want to think about it, Tristan.”

“I need to know if an old lady has got her ear pressed to the door while I’m hacking his limbs.” I took another pull from the cigarette then stubbed it out. “This is what we do, okay? So how about you unhook your tits and quick acting like a bitch?”

“Fuck you, Tristan,” he spat and took a long sip of his drink. “You’re thinking I ain’t got the heart for this. My father says as much, but you’re assholes are wrong.”

“Listen, bitch,” – and I sipped my drink the entire time I’m talking – “Do I need to give you a moment to find your dick and screw it back on?”

The drinks were now gone and I looked for the waitress to get her to serve another round.

“Anything else?” She asked sweetly and smiled at me.

Zander had smiled too which she seemed to ignore. I could feel his glare on me then. Maybe he was thinking about what his father had said in his bar before the Feds swooshed in.

I was the looks in our little duo, which I didn’t entirely fess up to or deny. I wasn’t as tall as Zander, he being six feet and me topping out at five feet eight. My hair was curly – now a small curly afro – a light brown with a tinge of blonde highlights. I kept my face clean shaven except for a patch of hair under my chin and my lower lip. My eyes were a light brown, and if the light caught them right they could appear gold. Yet, the clean shaven look was soon about to go now that I was ordered grow out my beard.

Zander
was
the typical tall dark and handsome. I would bet money that he could get women just fine. That is, if I wasn’t around to draw attention.

Zander leaned forward and touched the waitress’ hand, waiting for her to meet his eyes. When they were looking at each other, he smiled slowly, his eyes focusing mostly on her cleavage than her face, and he attempted to try out one of my lines.

The waitress had asked if we wanted anything else and he said: “You.”

And with that the waitress poured his drink into his lap and strutted away. The moment struck me as ridicoulsy funny and I’m laughing with the idea that I’m going to slip her another twenty before leaving.

I glanced at my watch. “You think the boys are done with him?”

Zander paled considerably. “I don’t want to go check, man.”

“You get a key from them?”

He took a moment to answer. Maybe he was thinking he could lie to me and he wouldn’t have to go back up, or maybe he couldn’t talk because he was seconds away from puking. Whatever the reason, he finally came to a decision on his answer: he bit his lip and nodded his head, once. 

***

It’s better not to smoke in a room like this but I do.

It’s the next best thing to a penthouse suite – large bedroom with a living room area and a wonderful view of the ocean below. The room itself would’ve been gorgeous if it wasn’t for the blood. There was blood all over the couch, carpet – sprinkles of blood drops led the bathroom, like a trail of bread crumbs to lead us home, or the yellow brick road to take us to see the wizard, yet in this case, it was to take us to the dead body.

“He was bleeding too much so they moved him to the bathroom,” Zander noted.

I followed the blood trail, too careful not to get it on my cheap shoes. The smell of blood, fear, death and torture hung to the air like an ominous cloud in the sky ruining a sunny day. The meaty part of my fingertips pushed the heavy bathroom door open. It was a large bathroom with a glass shower stall and a three person jacuzi tub, complete with his’ and hers’ sinks. If I was paying for this room, it would’ve been worth every penny. A nice bathroom and kitchen made a house a home. A nice bathroom made a hotel room much more glamorous and expensive.

I leaned against the doorframe, stuffing my hands in my pockets. The burning cigarette was dangling between my lips, the smoke looming up and burning my eyes. “How thoughtful,” I noted looking at the very damaged, and very dead, Rat in the jacuzi tub.

If tubs could bleed, what kind of stories would they tell?

This tub was bleeding. The floor beneath my feet, the nice black and gray marble tiles with the gold trim, was bleeding too.

Zander tried to surpress a gag behind me. “What’s thoughtful?”

I took a pull from my cigarette and blew out a steady stream of smoke before passing the cigarette to Zander. “They put him in the tub so he can drain out.”

The Rat’s face was badly torn apart, his jaw crooked, but his mouth was full – stuffed like he was in mid chew of a wad of bubble gum, his eyes swollen shut, and his nose bent at a horrible angle.

I took a step closer. Zander grabbed my arm but I shrugged him away. “We gotta touch him at some point, Zan.”

The Rat’s mouth had my attention. His lips were ripped and swelled. Dried blood crusted just below his mouth like a goatee. A long black, what seemed like a stick, was sticking out. I leaned closer – careful not to leave shoe impression in the blood, and denying the urge to touch him and grab the black stick because I didn’t want to leave fingerprints. I narrowed my eyes, looking closely and then stood back up; I had seen what I wanted to see.

Zander questioned, “What’s in his mouth?”

He gave me back the cigarette and I took a pull and let the smoke slither from my nostrils. I considered the question, wondering if I should answer it. Zander didn’t look like he could take much more details.

Not telling him would be kind.

I decided not to be kind. “It’s his glasses; looks like they made him eat them.”

I passed Zander a sheet of notebook paper with the list of supplies I needed for the job over my shoulder. “Get some fresh air then get to the store. You’re going to work the living room; scrub, clean, and make it good.” I eased my large suit jacket off my shoulders, loosened the buttons on my shirt and removed it.

Zander’s heavy footsteps shuffled to the door then stopped. “Tristan? Do you ever count down the time when drinking won’t be enough to do this job?”

The question is left field, and worse, taboo in the life of Rogue. I looked to him to see his colorless face, his eyes with fear and uncertainity in them. “What the fuck you mean by that?”

“I’m just saying.”

“No you’re not.”

He was silent for a moment as his large brown eyes scan his feet. His chest heaved for a solid moment or two before he looked at me. “Yea, T, I’m just saying.”

***

If you needed a body to disappear, if you needed to torture, kill and maim right under people’s noses and never get caught, you had to follow a different set of rules. First, those who had money would have a better chance of getting away. Second, if you weren’t afraid of doing hard time, you made less mistakes because you thought clearly only because you were to terms with what the consequences were. Third, you’re fully in with what you’re doing.