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Post by Silas Moran on Apr 23, 2009 7:02:46 GMT
The sky was dreary and overcast, hinting at incoming rain later in the evening, but that was just a small detail against what had otherwise been a productive day. 100 proof ‘coffee’ in the morning, a business deal after breakfast, successful cargo load arriving in the afternoon with only a minor hiccup, and Silas had even managed to get his groceries done. Mob Bosses still needed to eat, even if all he bought was canned food these days.
Oh, and there was a body in the car; the aforementioned ‘hiccup’. Couldn’t go forgetting about that one.
Hey, it wasn’t his fault if some railway worker was daft enough to actually open one of the boxes of cargo to check if they really carried oranges and not, say, imported rum from Boston. He didn’t force the railway worker to try and tell all of his superiors either, or to turn down a decent sum to shut the fuck up. He must have been a new guy. In any case, Silas had been quick to let Ed nip that one in the bud, so problem solved. He’d even allowed Ed go home after that, how nice was he?
Silas continued to drive further into Laclede’s Landing and watched for a familiar old brick warehouse to come into view. It wasn’t the most attractive or populated of locations, but that was why it suited so well. Silas could hardly finish off a round of grocery shopping without chucking in some bootleg liquor next to the tinned peaches, and there in the Still Water Gang’s storage warehouse he could get a crate of the stuff for free. Some of the ‘pedestrians’ – enforcers stuck with the banal job of guard duty – stiffened as they heard the car approach. The sight of Abraham Grey’s familiar Hudson Essex arriving made them relax again. Abe mustn’t have reported it stolen yet.
Yes, Silas had made off with Abe’s car. What? He had an excuse! His own vehicle was still getting the bullet holes in the door fixed, and if Abe was silly enough to leave his keys lying around, Silas wasn’t going to be held accountable. Wasn’t a bad ride actually; the engine had a good amount of kick. The only nitpick was it lacked a trunk1, so the corpse in the back was just rolling around on the floor. Eh, who was going to look? He’d thrown a blanket over it, that would do.
Silas signalled and one of the men quickly scurried to get the nearest warehouse door open. The car dove in slowly, and Silas leaned forwards to inspect the piles of wooden boxes for the ones he was after. The small crates he wanted seemed to have been stacked near the front, so Silas pulled the car up along beside it. After putting it into park he hopped out to investigate, slamming the door shut behind him a little too hard. There had better be something strong to be found around there. The last import of Pale Ale had been nothing short of pathetic.
The smell of the warehouse hit him and Silas wrinkled his nose disapprovingly. Soaked wood and moisture. To be expected seeing as the last shipment had come in drenched with water, but that didn’t mean he had to appreciate it. Probably a dead rat in there too somewhere, you could never tell with what came in from the Mississippi.
Now, where the fuck was the whiskey?
1 Car trunks were literally just ‘trunks’ back then [1]. They were either stuck onto the back of the car [2], or inside around the back seat (like in Road to Perdition, can’t find a screenshot). I googled the Essex to death, and it doesn’t seem to have one of any description.
This info should probably go somewhere...
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Post by Abraham Grey on Apr 25, 2009 11:42:08 GMT
The funny thing about staring at the minutely tiny details of, say, the government crest found on immigration papers, was that it tended to strain Abe’s eyes. He was a little short sighted anyway, although he refused to wear eyeglasses, especially after that time with Ed and the unfortunately deceased degenerate gambler who had been up to his eyeballs in debt. Of course he hadn’t had any eyeballs after Ed was done with him, which was why the Cajun hit man gave Abe the heebie-jeebies and Silas got along with him famously.
The warehouse office, although it had large windows over looking the rest of the space, was not well lit and therefore not conducive to forging documents. Abe persevered for a good half an hour, the nib of his fountain pen scratching across the official government paper he’d liberated from City Hall on his last visit. It was all going well until a blot of ink smudged the calligraphy, rendering the document useless and the half hour of hard work on Abe’s part wasted.
”Horsefeathers!” Abe cursed, throwing his pen down onto the desk in frustration. He needed a break, preferably one involving whiskey to motivate him. It might do something about the headache that was threatening to ruin what needed to be a productive day while Silas wasn’t around to cause a distraction. Silas’s distractions invariably involved guns and blood, it was difficult to concentrate with a gun battle going on in the background and blood spots ruined a good forgery as much as ink blots did.
Making his way down into the warehouse proper, Abe found the crate he was looking for (containing whiskey that was far too good quality to be selling on to the good people of St. Louis, given that they’d drink rat piss if you put the right label on it) and cracked it open with a handy crowbar. Making himself comfortable on one of the other boxes, with whiskey warming his gut and the gentle hum of his Hudson Essex in the background, Abe felt himself begin to relax.
Except…
Why in blue blazes was his car engine running? Abe bolted to his feet, sloshing whiskey over the lip of the bottle and his fingers. He looked around wildly and gave a yelp when the vehicle wasn’t where he’d parked it. Somebody had stolen it! The slam of a car door snapped him out of his moment of blind panic and drew his attention to Silas over near the entrance to the warehouse, standing next to Abe’s Hudson Essex and perusing the crates of illegal liquor as nonchalantly as can be.
That man would be the death of him.
”Silas!” He shouted, scurrying over and stooping over the front of the car to examine the shiny black paint on the bonnet for scrapes. ”You took my car!” Abe accused, still searching for proof that the vehicle was in less than pristine condition. He felt he’d stressed enough times to the entire gang that his car wasn’t to be involved in dirty business, the same way you didn’t drag a man’s wife into anything dangerous. Of course he knew why nobody had informed him Silas had taken it, when it came to choosing between Abe’s wrath and Silas’s they’d pick Abe every time. His involved less bullets. [/font] |
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Post by Silas Moran on Apr 28, 2009 16:04:07 GMT
Someone had already jimmied open one of the crates, saving Silas the effort of locating a crowbar. Well, the wooden boxes didn’t have whiskey, but they did contain something. The question was ‘What?’ The bottles were nondescript and lacking in any sort of label, the liquid clear. If it wasn’t for the fact they weren’t the glass jars favoured by the local backyard distillers, moonshine would have been his first guess. Silas opened a bottle and took an experimental sniff. Smelt like... tequila? He tasted it cautiously. Shit, yes. Not the homemade crap either, it was authentic Mexican import.
He didn’t get long to fathom just how the head of bootlegging had gotten his claws on the stuff before his raid was interrupted by sound of hurried footsteps. He turned to see who it was.
“Silas!”
Silas almost flinched as Abe’s voice seemed to echo around the warehouse. ‘Silas’. Hrumph. To this day he wasn’t exactly sure what had prompted Abe to suddenly start addressing him by his first name, but considering their history in the army it was always rather jarring to hear. If Abe felt they were that close it was possibly to his benefit, or he may have some other hidden motive, which Silas found equally likely. Regardless, was little late to start discouraging the practice.
A little niggling sensation was also kicking him for being so careless. Silas had grown so accustomed to Ed being on constant security detail that the simple task of checking the warehouse over before getting comfortable had slipped his mind. He was lucky it was just Abe hanging around, but tomorrow it could easily be a Moratori with an automatic rifle. A little bit of paranoia was healthy for a man in his position.
“Hmm?” Silas responded automatically as he resumed shifting through the liqour. The bottles clinked together warningly as he picked up one of the wooden boxes. Abe seemed to be leaning over the vehicle with a look like Silas had just threatened to shoot the pope. “Oh right, I meant to tell you about that. Don’t look too hard at the back seat and you’ll be fine,” he said casually, lowering the crate in through the rear window onto the seat. It wasn’t anything serious anyway, just some blood on the leather and a corpse covered in a blanket on the floor. Abe would get over it. |
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Post by Abraham Grey on May 1, 2009 21:27:19 GMT
Of course Silas showed absolutely no concern about the theft. Abe hadn’t really expected any different and apathy was far better than the mob boss being in a foul mood about it. Silas was one scary cat when he got into one of his moods. Besides the two of them had worked together for enough years now, both during their army days and in the gang for Silas to have worked out he didn’t need to apologise to retain Abe’s loyalty so he just didn’t bother.
That was how things worked between them. Silas did something, Abe got stressed out. It was a small wonder his hair wasn’t greying already. He looked up, just in time to see Silas lowering a crate of alcohol in through the window of his car, and winced. The torture wasn’t over yet it seemed. ”What're you doing?” He demanded an underlying thread of panic in his tone made his voice sound shrill. ”That crate'll damage the leather, put a blanket under it.” Just thinking about any of the bottles breaking an spilling it’s contents out over the seat was making him break out into a cold sweat.
Abe was almost too preoccupied with his horror at the latest cargo in his precious car to pick up on Silas’s previous comment. Almost. Lips pressing into a tight worried line he tugged open the front door on the passenger’s side of the car and leaned over the seat to peer into the back. The metallic smell of blood assaulted his nostrils instantly and Abe reeled back for a moment. It wasn’t normally a strong smell, but whatever, whoever he corrected himself grimly as he spotted a hand poking from beneath the blanket that was doing a poor job of concealing the body, had been bleeding profusely. Bleeding profusely all over the back of his car.
”You put a stiff in the back of my car?!” He sputtered, twisting and slumping into the seat, whiskey bottle in his hand clutched so tightly his knuckles had turned white from the pressure. Abe took an absent swig, the liquid burning its way down his throat with barely a moments appreciation on his part. ”When Saul reported that everything was Jake with the latest pick up he failed to mention the corpse.” Abe grumbled. ”Well isn’t this just copacetic.” He added, clearly not meaning it in the slightest. [/font] |
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Post by Silas Moran on May 9, 2009 14:32:52 GMT
Abe’s reaction of near panic when Silas put the crate down in the back seat was somewhat unexpected. What the hell? It was only leather. Then again, Silas couldn’t be trusted to look after his own car, let alone somebody else’s. He bristled somewhat at the reprimand but didn’t otherwise respond. Despite their history he was sure even Abe’s had a threshold under there somewhere, and the man looked like he was reaching his daily allotment of stress. Silas didn’t really care about Abe, he just needed him around, a fact he wasn’t particularly proud of.
Without a word he lifted the crate back up through the window, lent down and dropped it none too gently on the concrete floor. Blanket. Pah. Unless he wanted to borrow the one from the body there wasn’t exactly one laying conveniently around anywhere. Not even a thin wooden board between the crates either. Oh well, he could put it on the corpse if worst came to worst. Abe better be appreciative that he was in a good enough mood to play nice.
”You put a stiff in the back of my car?!”
What was he complaining about now?
Oh, the body.
Silas raised eyebrow in response to Abe’s spluttering. Gee, the way he had said it made it sound like he was actually upset about it. What exactly had the man expected? Some idiot had been shot, and the body needed to be moved. It was logical progression that the corpse would end up in the car Silas had been driving at the time, and the fact the car happened to belong to Abe wasn’t necessarily going to change that fact. “Everything is Jake, once I figure out what to do with our friend here. Relax, would you?”
Actually, speaking of the corpse, there was an idea. “Are you going to have a beef if I take the jacket off our John Doe to put under the boxes?” |
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Post by Abraham Grey on May 9, 2009 22:39:42 GMT
Abe gave a small sigh of relief, relaxing somewhat as Silas lifted the crate of liquor back out of his car again. It wasn’t much and it by no means fixed the fact that there was still a dead body in the back, but he’d take his victories where he could get them, no matter how small. Besides, dead bodies he could handle, you couldn’t live through a World War and spend any length of time around Silas without learning how to handle them.
Sometimes Abe wondered why he stuck around and did the job. Apart from the obvious reason that at this point the only retirement for him would likely be a bullet in the head, just when he thought it was Silas’s personal mission to drive him to an early grave with stress he did something like that. Maybe he was just getting sentimental, but he liked to think Silas wouldn’t comply and protect the leather seats of just any man’s car. It was as close to friendship as the two of them got anyway.
Abe found himself giving up on any attempts to stay angry about the corpse or even the theft. What was done, was done and there was nothing he could do about it now. Apart from clear up the evidence, as usual. ”Is there blood on the jacket?” He asked, not really shocked that Silas was considering defiling the body by stealing his clothes, it wasn’t like the guy needed them any more. No, Abe was more worried about the possible transfer of still wet stains to his seats.
Getting up now that his legs felt a little less like jelly, Abe moved to stand beside Silas, looking through the back window at the stiff on the floor. ”There’s always the river.” He suggested the popular dumping ground for bodies in St. Louis as by the time they washed up (sometimes as far as a state over), they were often too degraded to make an identification, let alone figure out which gang had made the hit and why. It lacked a little flourish though, they could send any old gang member down to the docks to deal with that, perhaps Silas had something a little more interesting (try insane) in mind. ”Or we could go for more of a statement.” [/font] |
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Post by Silas Moran on May 10, 2009 14:41:26 GMT
”Is there blood on the jacket?”
“One way to find out,”
After opening the car door Silas pulled the blanket off the body, revealing a youngish sort of fellow with brown hair who looked barely out of his teens. His bright blue eyes were like ice, glassy, lifeless, and almost rolled back into the skull. The mouth was open and slack, with a strip of cream and blue material that looked suspiciously like one of Abe’s socks hanging grotesquely from the side of his bloody mouth. It had been shoved down his throat, but it wasn’t the only cause of death, as three large circles of blood – bullet holes – were very noticeable on the man’s abdomen beneath his jacket.
Without a thought Silas pulled the body into what was a rough sitting position, the head lolling to the side, and he began to strip the corpse of the black coat it was wearing. It was hard to tell how blood-soaked it was because of the colour, but Silas noted that the fabric was moist the touch. He lifted his left hand up to the light for a better look, only to find his skin was stained red. Oh well, not a problem. Whilst trying not to get any blood on his own clothing, he continued to pull the jacket off then let the body slump back to the floor.
“River was my first thought too,” Silas agreed as he backed out of the car then stretched out the jacket to the sunlight streaming in through a window to get a better idea of where the stains were. “But, then, I figured as he was plugged by one of those Hammerless Colt Pocket’s that old Cassio Muratori is so fond of, we might let the bulls find him somewhere interesting,” he proposed with a sideways glance at Abe for a sign, then folded one of the sleeves beneath the largest splatter of blood to cover it. If he didn’t possibly need Abe’s help to deal with the body, the niceties wouldn’t even be worth it.
“Jacket’s fine, by the way,” Silas added offhandedly, laying the coat over the back seat then walking briskly back to the crate he had been examining earlier. He picked up the tequila bottles and tossed it to Abe with a bit of accidental spin on it. “There, rubbing alcohol if anything red gets on your seat,” he explained, returning back to the side of the car. He wasn’t even sure if it would work to clean blood off leather, but if not, soap and water would do the trick. If worst came to worst then Abe could always just drink the stuff. He needed to branch out of his whiskey fetish anyhow. |
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Post by Abraham Grey on May 18, 2009 17:46:09 GMT
Abe let Silas get on with the task of liberating the body of his jacket, preferring not get his hands dirty. If he didn’t want blood on the leather of his seats he certainly didn’t want it on his clothing, besides Silas was a hands on kind of guy. He did however watch the process, hovering behind the mob boss with the intent on examining the jacket himself for any blood. Not that he didn’t trust Silas, but, well… He didn’t.
He was thoroughly distracted, however, when the corpses’ head lolled back, mouth stuffed with some kind of blue and cream fabric that looked strangely familiar. ”Is that…” It couldn’t be, why on earth would it be? ”Is that one of my socks?” Abe whined pathetically. Today was fast turning out to be one of those days where everything that could go wrong would. Much like every other day working in organised crime. He didn’t bother to ask why, any answer Silas gave would be entirely unsatisfactory.
Abe tilted his head, giving the idea for body disposal a little thought. It was about time they reminded the Moratoris exactly why the Still Water Gang was the most powerful force in St. Louis. However using such methods wouldn’t earn them any favours, honour amongst thieves and all that. Then again Silas hadn’t got the gang where it was today by making friends. ”Got any orders coming into the station in the next few weeks? Once the fuzz figure just where the guy used to work they’ll be all over the tracks, won’t matter who the booze is sent for if they going poking about.”
The jacket safely off, Silas let the body slump back to the floor our of sight. Abe’s lips twitched into the smallest of smiles, giving the bonnet of his car an affectionate pat as Silas set the coat over the back seat. He yelped though, when the man tossed a bottle in his direction, grasping at air to try and catch it, fingers closing over the neck awkwardly at the last possible moment. ”Thanks.” He grumbled, not sounding remotely grateful. [/font] |
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