The thrill is gone. For Lionel Johnson it undoubtedly is. I wonder if he thought it was worth his while. Lionel owed over 3K to Tony. Almost all in gambling, hookers and drugs, according to Will. At twenty-three years old (soon to be twenty-four) I had seen enough men struggle with gambling addiction to understand it was a real problem. Although, good old Lionel seemed to have over-indulged in excess of all kinds. He was trying to live a life that wasn’t his and here he was, in a back alley behind the Mandingo, running for his life.
I liked to think Lionel had it coming. When you’re reduced to enforcing the streets for a local mobster, you’re only a few friends away (in my case two brothers) from being on the other side of the chase. We were a bunch of losers trying to swim our way back to the surface. There was no way all three of us would work something out and swim together. Or Lionel would have found a way to escape and left us scrambling for the next name on our list. Or we caught him and use his face to prove Tony Cullen we weren’t dumb cannon fodder. In fact, I knew we weren’t. I knew this because Lionel Johnson was running into a dead end. The building he was running towards had been condemned six years ago after it caught fire. Electrical mishap, only one victim, an elderly lady who peacefully intoxicated herself with smoke during her sleep.
Lionel eructed with a deliriously happy laughter when he reached the building door. If the door opened, the possibilities of losing us would multiply. He didn’t know that behind the door were nailed plywood sheets. He also wasn’t aware that the light emanating from the building came from an industrial projector used by construction workers. The place had recently got bought out by god knows who and a cleaning crew had been there for a week. The entrance they used was on the other side of the building. I knew that because I knew the streets of Seattle inside out. Lionel apparently didn’t. He realized that when he reached the door and yanked on them frantically with absolutely no result. His brain was processing the idea that he trapped himself into a dead end, but his body was still holding on to potential freedom.
“You’ve got nowhere to go Lionel” I said. “Unless you have three grand in your pocket for me.”
He kept trying to open the door with all the desperation he could muster. When he realized he was trapped in the back alley with Will and me, he gave the door a few kicks and yelled: “FUCK”. He turned around and put his back against it. He had that animalistic look in his eyes. Kind of like a trapped deer. His eyes kept going left and right as if a potential escape route would appear magically in front of him. I grew an immediate dislike for the guy. Lionel wasn’t a pathological gambler. He was a wannabe. He dressed in clothes he couldn’t afford, probably left his wife for a younger girl (judging by his ring) and now he had messed with people he shouldn’t have. Lionel Johnson woke up one morning and decided to change lives. He felt asleep for forty years and suddenly, he decided to be someone. Since then, he was trying to live his life like a Hollywood movie. As mine was spinning downwards like an Ingmar Bergman one, I felt compelled to unleash my frustrations on him. I sent him crashing face first with a well place right hand. I felt his jaw molding around my fist and an acute pain climbing up my arm. I hadn’t punched anyone since high school and I was scared for a second that I broke my hand. In that case, that would have been a long evening.
“I got a wife man, and I got children…a little boy and a girl…let me show you their pictures”, Lionel told me on his knees, screening through his wallet, dropping blood on it. I didn’t feel like having a tender moment though. I pulled him back up by the lapel of his coat and slapped him across the face a few times.
“Cry me a river Lionel. When we caught you inside you had your had down a waitress pants you fucking pig. YOU let your family down and got a three grand debt of fucking junk man. Cry me a river.”
Will picked up Lionel’s wallet from the ground and looked at the family photo he was looking for a few seconds earlier. There was blood on it already. Will looked at it with an indifferent gaze. Unlike most people, I couldn’t seize this guy up with a single look. He was dressed like a car salesman, but he had the demeanor of an undertaker. He was cold and precise and to say the truth, pretty scary. Something told me he didn’t belong to Tony’s crew either. He picked up Lionel by the necktie and put his bloody nose right next to the small photograph.
“This is a nice family you got Lionel, lovely children, really.”
“Thank you, Thank you” cried Lionel, over the top like he was playing in a scene from The Godfather.
“What are their names?”
“The…the…boy is Jeremy and...the...girl, Leah”.
“And your wife, she looks Asian, isn’t she?”
“Yes…he name is Ryumi.”
Will expertly twisted his hand around Lionel’s necktie, brought him nose to nose with his own and said:
“Look Lionel, I’ve just had a very long day. I’ve been up for twenty six hours and I feel grumpy as hell. I’ll ask you one question, just one. Are you using your family as an excuse to avoid the beating your deserve?”
Lionel, wide-eyed, fell on his knees and started to shake his head like a pro wrestler acting intimidation on the ring. I kicked him in the ribs for good measure. I too, had a really bad day, week, month, however you’d like to put it.
“That’s it, kick a guy when he’s down” he huffed, through two painful breaths.
I kicked him again.
“I can kick you when you’re down, up or on a fucking ladder, I don’t give a shit. You’re down three K’s and you need to figure out a way to refund Tony my man because next time you’re going down in the Pacific Ocean in a garbage bag.”
By the time I said that, Will slowly but swiftly reached for a .357 magnum he had hidden inside his vest. Lionel had a short breath of panic when he felt the cold steel behind his head and Will pressed the trigger. Lionel came crashing face first into the tarmac with a curl of smoke coming up from behind his head. It was the third man I saw getting shot, but the first one from so close. I had his blood splashing my pants.
“What THE FUCK was that about? That was uncalled for. Now Tony won’t get his three grand back…like ever. Fuck”
Will stayed put for a second and a half before my hissy fit. Then, he put the magnum next to his temple. Showing not much more emotions than before. I could feel restlessness, but not that much.
“Woah, Willy boy. Chill out man. Nothing we can’t patch up, nothing that can’t be arranged. Don’t worry.”
For only answer, Will’s breath was getting louder. He was gathering the courage to pull the trigger. I had to say something.
“Don’t do that man…don’t force me down this path too. If I end the evening with two bodies on my arms, including the guys I was appointed to work with, I’m done man I’m toasted. I’ll just have to shoot myself in the mouth.”
Still no words could come out of his mouth, but the breath went a little lower. I had him thinking, I had to use the momentum.
“You’re visibly not here from your own volition either. We’re both hitting the bottom man. I don’t know your story, you don’t know mine, but we know we’re in the same place right now. We don’t know each other, but we have each other and there is only one way up. It’s not a nice, easy road, but we can do this man.”
Will finally lowered the gun. He looked down like a kid getting scolded by his parents for doing something wrong.
“I came to the west coast thinking life would be easier.”
“I know, Seattle can be a shithole when you mix in with the wrong crowd.”
“Tony seized my dealership after I called the police on him. A client had found blood on a car’s backseat? Did I have any choices? I need to eat.”
“Then Tony told you he’d give you a job right?”
No answer, Will looked down at his feet again. Tony Cullen has messed up another life with his big paws.
“Will, today is the first day of your life all right. I know Tony Cullen better than most people. I have people in his organization. I’ll help you to get out, but I’ll need you to trust me.”
“Yeah whatever” he said evading my gaze.
“The night is young. What’s the second name on the list?”
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