Chapter 3

Chapter 3 Tommy Mac
“A lot of this revolves around a small time gangster named Tommy MacGregor.” “Tommy Mac, he just runs numbers and is into small time protection racket, what does he have to do with the big Triads?” Skinner was both confused and nervous. This whole tangled web of events was starting to take an interesting turn. He had assumed that this whole thing revolved around the Triads and Yakuza. But apparently it covered much of the organized crime, big or small, across the city. “Well I’ll get to that, but it’ll all become clear by the end of the story.” Shin Lao looked down into her glass. She wasn’t much for alcohol as it tended to dull the senses, and in her line of work that meant the difference between life and death.

“Well you see, it all started with the Viper’s contract on Tommy MacGregor’s life.”

The job was supposed to be simple. Boss Tanaka wanted the competition out of the way. So far he had been unable to shake the Yakuza out of his territory, and this vexed him incredibly. There were things that needed taking care of and he could think of no better people to dispose of them than his own “adopted daughter” and the hired gun he often used. He sat down at his desk and made a quick phone call. “Yes, Mr. Burke. There is a matter that I must discuss with you. I would like to see you in one hour. Standard rules apply.” He hung up the phone and paced the floor a little more. He had started growing increasingly dis-satisfied with the Viper of late. He had taken a decidedly negative slant in his opinion. This would quickly be remedied after he ousted the Yakuza from the surrounded neighborhoods.

The Viper’s warehouse headquarters was quite a sight to behold. He had taken the rundown building just upstate of New York City and turned it nearly into a mansion. Downstairs his garage held several very expensive and very fast cars. The workbench to the left of them held over two dozen license plates. They were all legal and were switched out when they needed to be. Upstairs was his living area. All of it looked very Spartan in comparison to a normal home, but he kept to the essentials. He had built a training area when he practiced several different styles of martial arts and had a shooting range installed, sound proofed, and sealed off from the rest of the space. He looked to the case files that he kept in his desk drawer and found the one he was looking for. The tab at the top read “Burke, Jennifer and Benjamin.” He thumbed through it like he often did, though this provided no additional result from any other time. His family was still gone, he still had no idea to where or if they were even still alive. But it kept him going. He picked up his two modified Desert Eagle .50’s from his desk and grabbed a handful of clips from another drawer.

Jogging down the stairs he grabbed the keys to the sleek black Aston Martin V-12 Vanquish parked in the middle of the garage. This one was by far his favorite. The purr of the supercharged engine was relaxing. One of the few things left to him that brought a smile to his face. He liked things in their proper order, and the sound of the Aston Martin was one thing that was as it should be. A small button on the console opened the door behind him and he squealed from the garage bay. He braked hard and cut the wheel when he cleared the door, sending the car into a controlled skid that left him facing the road. Another button closed the door and set the high tech alarm that he’d had Iceman install for him some months ago.

Eighty Five. Ninety. One Hundred and five the speedometer read, and still the tach didn’t ping about four thousand. “The English sure know how to build em” he thought out loud as the stretch of highway between his base and New York City sped by in a blur. New York City crept up on far too quickly and he was forced to slow to the speed limit. He state cops wouldn’t mess with him on the highway, but these city cops wouldn’t think for a second about pulling him over, and that would be a bad thing. He passed through some of the roughest neighborhoods of New York and thought nothing of it. Most of the people around here knew him, and knew that he was no one to be trifled with. He had done many of the worst element around here many favors in his life so they owed him at least that much.

Boss Tanaka’s estate was something straight out of a Hong Kong action movie. The Viper often wondered if he had just been caught up in the cliché or if it was a conscious effort. Though it occupied nearly an acre just outside of Hell’s Kitchen, it looked to be a Japanese styled abode. He twelve foot brick wall that surrounded the estate was the only thing that was out of place. However inside of that small bit of protection all appeared lush green and tranquil. Reflecting pools and atriums nearly littered both sides of a pebbled walk that surrounded the house. The Japanese architecture of the building itself was something of a paradox considering Boss Tanaka’s decided attempts to hide his mixed heritage. It was a very sore subject to discuss his Japanese family. His name and his home were both very indicative of the Japanese, yet he insisted that he was wholly Chinese. This was never discussed as the last person had had his tongue pulled from his body and pulled behind a speeding car through Hell’s Kitchen and finally disposed of on the island.

The Viper parked the car in a shower of gravel near the house. Walking to the front entrance he was quickly patted down to ensure he wasn’t carrying any weapons. “You know I know better than that. This isn’t my first time you know.” “Yes, but you know the reasons. Boos Tanaka is very paranoid and you are not family. You’re just some hired rat who does whatever Boss Tanaka wants for a piece of cheese.” The Viper simply smiled. This singular trait was the main reason that he was still alive, despite many people’s attempt to the contrary. He was very cool headed and didn’t take to provocation very easily. “Very well Tien, I’m here to see the boss. You wouldn’t want to make me late would you?” He was allowed to pass after some words the guard spat at him in Chinese. The Viper understood everything the man said as he spoke fluent Chinese, amongst other languages. “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” he flung over his shoulder as he walked through the door.

He strolled through the house as he often did several times a week. Boss Tanaka in his increasing age was becoming desperate to gain as much strength as he could in this neighborhood before he died. This led him to want to be rid of as many people that opposed him as he could, thus keeping the Viper very busy. This was good, because dead gangsters meant money for him. He knocked on Tanaka’s office door waiting to be called in. He wasn’t disappointed as the elder man’s serene “enter” was heard through the heavy oak and steel door. “Good afternoon mister Burke. I see you made it without issue?” Boos Tanaka always seemed to state things as a question as if he wasn’t sure what went on outside of this office. “As always I made it easily with time to spare I notice.” The Viper prided himself on his efficiency in all things and being late was one of those things he couldn’t afford in his line of work. “But there is business to attend to and I do not want to keep you too long. This man, Tommy MacGregor has become a problem to me. I want him eliminated. Standard fee, standard conditions. You’ll bring Shin Lao with you. You’re bound to meet some…interference. You’ll leave at once. You have three days.” Boss Tanaka got right to the point and said no more after that, simply sliding the file forward. The Viper picked it up without saying a word and exited Tanaka’s office. Shin Lao was waiting for him by the front door, duffle bag slung over her shoulder and the hard plastic case he knew held a powerful HK227 rifle in her hand.
“Let’s drive.” He said with a small smile. He liked these particular jobs.

Several city miles later he broke onto the interstate and kicked up the engine to a dull roar. “I don’t know about this one Shin. It feels wrong.” He trusted her completely. They had worked together on close to fifteen jobs now and had become quite close. They now often flirted back and forth playfully to pass the time waiting on the job. “What do you mean?” she asked. She knew that if his instincts were telling him something, than more than likely something smelled bad. She’d come to respect his shrewd eye and his uncanny knack for detecting bullshit. “This guy, Tommy MacGregor is small time. He’s nobody in the grand scheme of things. Why is this simple hoodlum on Tanaka’s radar at all? There’s something somebody’s not telling us and I don’t like that. Not one bit.” The Viper hit the clutch and pushed the car into sixth gear, the tachometer rising up sharply for a brief second and then falling back down to a comfortable 4500 rpm. “Tanaka’s been pretty secretive lately. He’s been calling out hits on a lot of people. I think he’s becoming too paranoid of late.” Shin recounted the story of how she had recently killed a small time gun dealer on the island because he had refused to deal with Tanaka for a “bargain price”.

“It’s getting kind of scary Elias. The man has slowly been slipping further and further into his own paranoia.” “That’s what makes me worry about this particular job Shin. Something doesn’t feel right. We’ll do the legwork on this before we act. I’ll have Iceman pull some information and we’ll see how we go from there.” The pulled into the lot at roughly one hundred and twenty miles per hour and skidded to a halt just in front of the warehouse door. The Viper stepped out of the car and looked around. Something just wasn’t feeling right and he reached into his jacket, his hand resting on the Desert Eagle in its holster. He peered around the front of the building. Shin Lao became worried by the intense look on his face. His instincts were not often wrong and she pulled the small Glock that she kept as a back up piece from her duffle bag. “Speaking of paranoid.” She whispered playfully. “shhh” he hissed quietly. “There’s somebody here.” He flung the door open and noted that the alarm didn’t make its traditional beeping. It had somehow been deactivate. “I’m gonna need to speak with Iceman about that” he thought as he peered around the darkened garage. He hit the lights and found nobody.

They spread out and searched the downstairs quietly but no sign of anybody being there was found. They both crept upstairs, the light on in the Viper’s office. The feeling of warmth when you pass shortly behind someone could be felt at the door as the Viper forced it open quickly and brought his gun to level on the man sitting in his chair, puffing strongly on one of his Cuban cigars. “Dammit Edgar!! You almost got several holes punched in you. I told you that I’d come around next week to see what you’ve got.” “Yeah, but this old man might not be around next week, so there’s no time like the present. I’ve got something that your lovely lady might be interested in this time as well.”

Edgar Oswald was a small time gun dealer. He had to be well past seventy but still lived his life like he was twenty. He drank often, and much. He smoked those damn Cuban cigars that the Viper couldn’t stand. Edgar Oswald also supplied much of the Viper’s firearms and had a very good mind for the type of work that he was in. “One of the Seven Dwarves put out a new toy for you, as well as for your co-worker there. The cloud of smoke that surrounded Edgar’s head always seemed to be there. Edgar wasn’t an impressive man physically by any means. His thin grey hair was combed over his balding scalp in a futile attempt to hide the face that he was mostly bald. He reached over and popped a few antacids into his mouth. “Is that ulcer still giving you hell?” The Viper found Edgar amusing in his little routines. He was generally a kind man, reminding him of the friendly grandfather in the holiday movies. Unfortunately that type of thing never happened in the real world. “You know it boy. If that ulcer doesn’t get me than the smoking probably will.” The man’s doctor had been telling him for years to knock it off, but he never listened. Indignant didn’t even begin to describe Edgar’s feelings towards the medical community. “Now let’s get down to business”

Unfortunately the weaponry itself didn’t interest the Viper all that much. He had a well stocked room with the things that he most often used and none of the new toys really stood out. Although some of the new AET rounds that Edgar brought interested him unbelievably. He generally used the standard .50 rounds but these new ones Edgar tested out in his range and the damage piqued his interest. “I’ll take a box of them for now. If I like them I’ll pick up more in the future. You know the deal; I don’t take anything out on a date unless I’ve fired several hundred rounds.” The Viper was very picky about his weapons and tended not to stray too far from what was tried in true. In the middle of a firefight wasn’t the time to find out just how fragile that new sub-machinegun really was. Nothing interested Shin Lao however and she told Edgar maybe next time. Edgar packed up his things smiling to himself, happy that he was dealing with true professionalism unlike some of those other thugs and goons that walked through his door. These two were the real deal.

The next stage of the job was reconnaissance. Never walk into a situation blind, which was always the Viper’s motto. For the next leg of their job the Viper contacted his man with the information. Someone named the Iceman. “I never met the Iceman face to face, nor have I ever heard his real name.” Shin Lao explained to Skinner. Skinner was totally enthralled in the tale thus far and recognized several of the names that she had mentioned. The Iceman had never shown up on his radar though, so there was doubtfully any hard information. “It’s getting late, perhaps we should continue this story tomorrow, and maybe away from a police station. This is a dangerous situation on both of our parts.” Shin Lao nodded. Her thoughts were obviously on the past six years throughout the telling of the story. “Yes, perhaps you’re right detective. I’ll be in touch.” She stood and headed for the door. Her lean athletic body moved with the grace of a cat as she reached for the handle and turned her head slightly towards Skinner. “You’re the only one on this entire force that he trusted Skinner. He was certain that the rest of them were on the take. Watch your back.” Before he could say anything she had silently slipped through the door, leaving him alone with two empty glasses and nothing to go home to.