Warpath

“Hey, Leo.” I tried to be friendly and not hurt that Mikey didn’t come himself. Leo stared back at me like a mute and held out the envelope. I took it and left him in my doorway, the door open as my invitation inside. He took the offer and stepped in, lighting a cigarette as he entered.

The metal click of his Zippo closed in sync with my tearing of the envelope. Inside I found my first assignment.

There was a picture of a guy about my age but older by a few, a little heavier, less hair. But the thing that stood out to me in the long lens snapshot was his outfit, or I should say his uniform. He was a cop.

“Fucked up, ain’t it?”

I had to look up and see if someone else had entered the room. Nope, it was Leo. He sat on my couch and smiled that pasted-on smile as he let smoke ooze out his nose. Leo had a dead tooth that I could never not look at. It sat there, all brown and conspicuous in the line of otherwise white teeth.

“A cop, yeah,” I said. “Not gonna be easy.”

“I mean the whole goddamn mess. Florida. The cutbacks. Everything.”

He sat still waiting to hear my opinion on the matter, flinging a leg over the arm of my couch as he settled in for a good long stay, it looked like, even though he didn’t take off his jacket.

“Yeah, I mean...” Leo caught me off guard. I’d about exhausted my thoughts on the matter. What else could I say beyond, “Fucked up is right.”

“Gotta trim the dead branches, yeah?”

“Yeah.” I guess I sorta followed him. Dead branches, dead leaves... whatever. Really, I wanted to study up on this cop in the envelope and not worry too much about the larger problem. Guys in Florida? What did I care? If it gave me my shot at bigger things, then let them flip sides, go to the cops, the feds—whoever. Let them start to kill each other in the streets if that’s what they want to do.

When I thought about it, I realized that’s what we were doing. And I was being asked to pull the trigger.

The cop’s name was Arnold Harbin. Nine-year veteran of the force after four years in the Army. I had an address, a work schedule and a list of his last five meetings with one of our guys, his usual contact. Next one was a week from Tuesday.

What I didn’t have was any reason why they wanted this guy taken out.

“So, what’d this guy do?”

Leo had gone silent again.

“Seriously, Leo,” I said. “He must have screwed up something.”

“It matter?” More smoke came slowly out of him. He didn’t seem to exhale as much as open his mouth and let the smoke drift out on its own schedule.

“I don’t know. I just kinda wanna know why.”

“Everything’s in the report.”

“The only things in here are his address and his work schedule. I don’t even know what he was doing for us. Why was he on the payroll?”

“Why are any of them?”

When I get boosted higher in the ranks, I’m gonna slap that stupid grin off his face. Maybe do him a favor and knock that dead tooth out of his mouth.

“Okay, don’t tell me. I just thought maybe it could help me do the job better.”

Leo hauled himself off my couch. “That’s where you’re wrong.”

He gave me a wave behind his back as he left without another word. Didn’t even close the door behind him.

I walked over and kicked it closed with my toe, then sat down to read up on Arnold Harbin.

It was a toss-up—do it at home or do it at work. At work the whole thing could go down as an in-the-line-of-duty thing. He’d get a hero’s burial and there would be way less heat on me because they’d think it was some crackhead or pissed off ex-con getting back at the cop who busted him.

But did it send the right message? Part of this operation was reasserting our muscle, right? Letting people know we were still in business, even if the management has changed a bit. If this guy Harbin dies and no one knows it’s because he crossed the family, then there’s no lesson learned for the rest of them.

Kinda why it would be nice to know how he crossed us. It’d be great to make the hit some sort of message about the way he fucked up. The way snitches end up with their tongues cut out or guys skimming off the top with sticky fingers show up dead with those digits removed and long gone down some sewer somewhere.