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Then I dial Smith’s number on my phone. We shoot the shit for a couple of minutes. He’s at the club, keeping watch using the video surveillance screens in the office. The only people who see him are those we want to see him.
It’s all part of the game because what matters most is the whole impression I’m crafting. I’m not always at the club, and when I’m not, someone I trust implicitly is. Like my second-in-command. Like Smith. But he’s also there to get any information for Jones that he can.
Jones is after something, but I don’t touch that mystery. Normally, I’d dig, but tonight, I ignore it.
“Anything come up?” I ask.
“Nothing out of the ordinary.” Smith pauses. “What’s your endgame here?”
“You don’t want to know. And anything I might do will happen when the job’s done. That’s all you need to know.”
He sighs. “And if the job goes beyond what we originally thought?”
“That’s a bridge to be crossed when we find what we’re looking for.”
I rehash our visit to the warehouse in Brooklyn, leaving out the sex fest on the floor after I’d killed that pig.
He’s silent, probably texting Jones or making notes or cross-referencing shit in some meticulous database he keeps. I’m definitely not him, we have different methods of getting things done, but we work well together.
He likes to have the tiniest of details and facts available before he makes a move.
I use gut instinct to get me to a place where I might need to be methodical. When I’m playing a part, instinct rules. Being flexible, willing to improvise and switch tactics when roadblocks spring up is critical in our line of work, even though the individual styles of the Knights vary.
Sometimes I wonder if Smith thrives on the chaotic end a little more than it seems. If he’s a little more like me than he lets on.
“The photo, man,” I say. “It’s something.”
“Fuck.” He sucks in a breath. “How bad?”
“Borderline underage and severely fucked up,” I say.
“Bring me the photo and wallet.” He pauses. “Tonight, if you can.”
A truck arrives and I jot down the license plate. It’s private, no company logo on it anywhere I can make out. “You think this guy has something to do with what Jones is after?”
“I have no fucking idea.”
I’m not sure I believe him, but unless it interferes with my job and my private mission, I don’t really care. Stepping on toes is never a good look.
“The guard got the picture from somewhere. Or he still has the girl hidden.” I regret the words the moment they come from my mouth. Nothing about the guy led me to that conclusion, and I don’t usually share my thoughts so freely.
“You think?”
Fuck.
Pulling the brim of my New York Mets baseball cap down, I ignore the urge for a cigarette. I don’t need it, but it’s something to do. “Nah, I think he found it. He was too low-level.”
“You know this how?”
“How the fuck do you think? Too easy to kill, too easy to jump, too fucking puffed up on his own small-time job.”
Smith’s just being an ass, an instigator, but I continue to convince him.
“I’m more interested in who he might have worked for or who he was working for. Maybe it’s something, maybe it’s nothing, but every small piece matters until it doesn’t with this, and you fucking know it.”
“Did your pretty thing turn you down tonight?”
I ignore him. “The fuckwit at the warehouse might have had something to do with why Jones wants the full client list.”
