One came in first, looked around, opened the doors to the stalls to make certain they were alone and then the two men immediately laid out lines of cocaine on the bathroom sink. The sink was unwashed. The bathroom smelled of urine and mold. It looked to Lucca as if it hadn’t been cleaned in the last century, but then his standards were much higher. He told himself he might be considered a snob.
One of the two men leaned down to sniff the line up his nose. As he did, Lucca appeared behind the other one and very gently took his head in his hands, snapped his neck and murmured the appropriate phrase as he lowered him to the floor. He was gone before the other Demon straightened. The Demon giggled and then looked around, looked surprised, giggled again and then toed his friend.
“Get up, Moe. Stop fooling around.” As he bent down, Lucca came up behind him and delivered the signature kill of the Ferraros. He left the cocaine on the sink untouched and once more slid outside the door to wait until someone noticed they hadn’t returned.
Three of the Demons snagged beers and stepped outside to ensure no cops were around. They each took a separate direction to walk around the building. Geno slipped out behind them. He shadowed one man with long stringy hair. It smelled as if the Demon hadn’t bathed in several days. Stringy hair walked briskly around the corner, not once looking behind him. If he was their best sentry, Geno thought they were in real trouble. He simply matched steps, caught his head, snapped his neck and lowered him to the ground with the appropriate phrase.
Geno took a shadow tube, a fast one, that shot him around the building to the other side, nearly dumping him out to the right of his next victim. This Demon was a little more aware of his surroundings, taking his duties seriously. The fence was on this side, and he had actually climbed up to peer over it. Geno stepped behind him and as he came down, simply broke his neck and left him where he lay.
The third man was just rounding the corner toward where the first victim lay on the ground. He halted, staring, as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. It was dark on the side of the building, but the bar had neon signs on top of it, giving off light that cast shadows across the ground. The Demon could see his friend lying there, his beer spilled on the ground.
“Deke, you hurt?” he called out and then sprinted toward his friend.
Geno broke his neck and let his body fall over Deke’s just as the man was pulling out his phone to call his boss and inform him of the loss. He rode a shadow back inside and waited for Ed and the others to notice that no one had come back in from sentry duty.
Ed paced back and forth, drinking more tequila and demanding “bitches and whores” be called. He wanted food. The bartenders put out peanuts and chips.
Two Demons, ones Salvatore overheard referred to as Berto and David, snagged several bags of the chips and moved to the back of the room to eat. Ed threw the empty bottle of tequila after them. Glass shattered and sprayed across the floor, but neither Demon seemed to care, which told Salvatore that they were used to Ed’s tantrums. He found it interesting that these were the men sent to back up Benito Valdez. They seemed to be screwups. No matter. In the darkness and privacy of the booth where Berto and David had retreated to eat, they died quietly.
Four men headed toward the back room to play pool, although Salvatore was more inclined to think they were escaping from Ed’s continual rants against the bartenders. He was drinking from his second bottle of tequila and passing it to Carl and Thomas, still demanding women and more food.
Salvatore and Geno followed the pool players into the back room. One of the men racked the balls on one table while another did so on a second table. The other two men hefted pool cues and then chalked the tips.
While those bent over the tables were concentrating their attention away from the men with the pool sticks, Geno took one of them and Salvatore the other. Both were eased to the floor with broken necks. They were on the two other men in seconds, so there was no possible way either would have time to call out a warning to those in the other room. They left all four men dead on the floor.
Ed glanced around and frowned. “Hugo, tell Moe and Boz to quit snortin’ and get their asses back in here.” He waved his hand toward the men’s room.