Kane's Ransom: A BWWM Mafia Romance Novel (15 page)

"So the Family is involved."

Jiggs nodded - and then leaned a little to the side, out past the edges of the booth. "Yo, Mickey!" he hollered.

A large man whose head appeared directly fused to his shoulders, with no neck to be seen between the two features, grunted and shuffled his seat over to better see Jiggs. "Yuh?" he grunted.

"You having any sorta problems with your operation? Shipment not come through, lost a hundred bills, any shit like that goin' on?"

The big man considered the question for several seconds, his eyes almost crossing. Killian could practically feel the heat of Mickey's brain running overtime.

"Nuh," the man finally managed somehow managing to shake his head in the groove between his shoulders. "All good, boss."

Jiggs nodded and scooted back into the booth, once again facing Killian. "Well, from the mouths of babes and idiots," he said, shrugging. "Looks like it's not us."

With a sigh, Killian took a pull on his own beer. He'd hoped that this connection could give him the answers he sought. Without any answers from Jiggs, however, he didn't have any other leads or connections. He was dead in the water - and that grim expression might soon be especially fitting, when Alicia's deadline soon came and went.

"Still..."

That one word made him pause, just as he was about to climb up out of the booth and storm off in angry, helpless defeat. Killian held for a second, on the edge of his seat as he looked sidelong at Jiggs. "What?"

"You said they sounded like mobsters, yeah?" Jiggs was now frowning, rubbing at the stubble on his chin. "And moving a hundred bills of some sort of drugs through the city - that's not a little operation. So this can't be some fly-by-night buncha bastards. Someone who knows what they're doing."

"Any guesses as to who it might be?"

"Yah, maybe I do. Not sure if you'll like hearing the answer, though."

Killian considered this warning, but then pressed on ahead. "Tell me."

Jiggs groaned, took another sip of his beer, and then, with a shrug, drained the rest of the glass. "I'm gonna need another fuckin' beer to make it through this," he said. "Sit tight, and you'll hear some shit..."

Chapter seventeen

Once he'd signaled to Frankie, who obligingly placed another beer in front of the man, Jiggs began to speak.

"See, we weren't the first Family in Dallas, the Zerellis," he began. "Nah, before us, there were half a dozen others, but they were all small timers. Didn't amount to shit. And when we started getting interested, sniffing around, most of them were smart enough to read the writing on the wall."

"They cleared out?" Killian asked.

"Yeah, or joined us. A couple of 'em made some sort of pact, we wouldn't fuck with their shit, they wouldn't fuck with us, but we both knew that treaties like that don't really last. They fall through - we both gotta grow, and eventually, there's just no more room. And within a year or two, even those treaty groups merged with us, or got themselves killed trying to keep us out. Can't stand against us, not for long. You remember that shit."

Killian nodded, thinking back to the bleeding men with gunshot wounds that he'd helped to stitch back together in the rear rooms of bars, alleys, cheap hotel rooms.

"So anyway, we take over. Consolidate, they call it. When we're running everything, we can cut out all them middlemen with their hands out, put more cash in our own pocket, run everything from the supplier all the way to the customer." Jiggs grinned. "I learned the name from some fancy-shit business guy who sets up some of our accounts. Vertical Integration, he calls it. You like that shit? Sounds like we run an elevator company or something."

"But now, see, we've got a good hold on things. But we're showing that it works, that we're making money hand over fist, and a couple other groups are starting to want a bit of that cash. They see us making the gravy, they don't know how long or hard we fought to get it all, and they think they can just cruise in and do the same, you get me? Bullshit, but fuck, that's what some of them think, and they're set on getting it."

"So you're saying there's another Family looking at coming in, trying to take over your territory," Killian summarized.

Jiggs dragged his hand across his face, wiping foam off his stubble. "Fuck, they're already here. Not a Family, though. Call themselves fuckin' Mobsters, but what the fuck do they know? Loose as shit, buncha cutthroats all fighting in a pack together. Us, see, we're wolves. Work for the common good, got loyalty. These new guys are coyotes, or hyenas. They work together long as everyone gets paid, but then they'll turn right around and stab their buddy in the back to get ahead of him once he's no longer helping out - and they know their buddy woulda done the same to them. Vicious, the whole lot."

"You said that they're already here?"

"Yeah, and it's this kidnapping and drugs shit that put me in mind of it. One group in particular, in fact. They got a bit of a reputation for their mules. See, most of us like to buddy up to our suppliers, keep them happy. Happy supplier, good product, discounts, all that shit, right? But not these guys. They think that, if they don't know shit about the supplier, supplier doesn't know shit about them, they're walled off. Dunno if it works, but it leaves a lot more bodies layin' around when something doesn't go right."

"What are they doing, exactly?" Killian asked.

"Oh, they get their mules by force, that's what," Jiggs explained. "See, us, we look for someone who wants to help us. Down on your luck, need a cash infusion? Make a run for us, we help you, we pay you, everyone walks away happy. Keeps them likin' us, they come back if they need more, we cultivate a relationship." Even the business sounding words felt a little twisted, coming from the Mafioso's mouth, but Killian had to admit that he had the atmosphere to pull it off.

"But the other guys, they don't operate like that? They force them?" he repeated.

"Yeah. Probably lose more of them that way. But fuck, what do they care? No relationship there, they can just go out and grab another dick off the streets, beat up on him until he agrees. Disposable. The suppliers hate it, of course, since they eat the product costs, but they've always got more product to ship than customers to carry it. They gotta just suck it up and keep on kissing ass."

"And these guys who do the blackmailing and use force to get their drug mules," Killian mused. "They'd be the type to take revenge if a deal goes bad?"

"Oh, hell yeah. They gotta keep order in the rank and file, show some extreme punishment if someone fucks up," Jiggs nodded. "Probably what they're doing with your buddy, or your buddy's buddy, or whatever it was. He fucked something up, and so they gotta make an example out of him. Then, when someone else tries to step outta line, they point to your buddy and say, 'Eh, remember him? Wanna end up like him?'. Back in line."

Killian sat for a moment, digesting this new information. "Okay. Do you have a name?"

To his surprise, he saw Jiggs hesitate. "Look, Kane, you sure you wanna go digging in this? This is the sorta thing that you don't walk away from. Even someone like you can get sucked into the mud, and you ain't comin' back out if they get their claws on you."

"I know," Killian nodded, and for a moment he did consider walking away. But then he thought of Alicia, of those big, dark eyes looking out at him from her heart-shaped face, framed with that wavy, tangled dark hair, and how she had absolutely no one else. He felt a surge of protective determinedness. "But I have to."

"Well, don't say I didn't warn ya." Jiggs shrugged, and then leaned back in the booth. "Curanos."

"Curanos?"

"Yeah. 'Curano family' or whatever, but they're no family. Buncha thugs, taking on all the high risk, high profile shit that we don't like to see. Vicious, too." Jiggs leaned over and spat on the floor, emphasizing his words.

"Sounds like you'd like to see them gone, too," Killian observed.

"Fuck, we'd love it, but if wishes were horses, right? They threaten everything, yeah, but they're like weeds. Disorganized, dug in deep, only loosely tied together. Ain't no central organization to go after. Now and then, we'll get in a duster with a group of them and stomp their shit out, but there's always another one waiting to climb up into the hole left behind. Like fuckin' rats."

Killian sighed, took a sip of his beer. He'd nearly finished it off, although Jiggs was well past halfway on his second. "So I can't count on much support from you, then?"

"Eh, I didn't say that - but no, not much." Jiggs shrugged, although his eyes remained keenly locked on Killian. "You pull them out, and maybe we'd be interested, but we can't do too much to help out. We don't wanna get caught openly against them, see. We want 'em gone, but we ain't ready for an all out war."

"But if they were to show up..." Killian began.

Jiggs shrugged, showing off a glinting fake tooth. "Well, who knows what might happen? They pull some trouble, we might just have to put them in their place, to make sure they don't get too uppity, they don't think they can start calling the shots. You know what I'm sayin'?"

"I think I do," Killian said slowly.

Jiggs kept up the grin for another second - and then pounded one big palm on the table. "Always good catching up with you, Kane, even if you did up and shit out on us!" he exclaimed, sounding jovial once again, as though the last five minutes of conversation had never taken place. "Anything else you need from the Family?"

Killian started to shake his head - but then paused. "Actually, I could use a bit of protection," he commented.

If anything, Jigg's grin grew even wider, until it nearly split his face in half. "Now we're talking! Love to get a man nice and protected," he exclaimed. "What're you thinking about? Just a piece, or you want something bigger? You wanna stop a man, a bunch of 'em, or the whole fuckin' truck?"

"Nothing too out of control," Killian replied hastily. He wondered what Jiggs was envisioning. For all he knew, the Mafioso had some rocket launchers or grenades hidden around the place - and, now that he considered it, that was more than likely the case. "Just a pistol, that's all. Maybe something chambered for three fifty-seven rounds, I've fired one of those before."

"Well, I don't have it on me," Jiggs said. "Come on, what am I, some back alley dealer? I can't get caught with that shit. Gimme a location, though, and I'll have one of my boys send it over to you tonight."

For a moment, Killian thought of giving Jiggs a false location, but from the glint in the man's eyes, he suspected that it wouldn't do much good. By this point, one of Jigg's men would have already tagged his car, and they almost definitely had someone on the inside of the police who could run his credit cards. They'd know that he was staying at his hotel, and probably everywhere else he'd been.

So instead, he pulled out a business card, flipped it over, and jotted down his hotel room number and the name of the building. He slid it across to Jiggs, who leaned out past the edge of the booth again and gestured. One of the other big men without a neck came over, and Jiggs handed him the card with a few quick instructions. The man nodded and thumped away without speaking.

"Great, great," Jiggs said, dusting his hands together as if shaking off flour. "And now, I bet you gotta be on your way - but you've got my number, and I'm sure I'll be hearing from you soon enough."

Killian nodded, standing up from the booth. "Always a pleasure, Jiggs," he lied, actually making his words sound halfway genuine.

Clearly not enough, from the way that Jiggs scoffed. "Ah, don't fuck with me, Kane," he said, although there wasn't any heat in his tone. "Listen, don't get yourself killed over this shit, okay? These Curanos, man, they're disorganized, but there's some nasty pieces of work in their ranks. Even if you pay, they'll probably still try and put you in the ground, you know that?"

"Yeah, I kind of figured," Killian said dryly.

Jiggs laughed uproariously, as if he'd just cracked a hilarious joke. "All right, all right. I'll cover your tab, don't worry about Frankie. Oh, and one more thing," he added, as Killian took a step to the door.

Killian froze, waiting.

"That little black girl you've got following ya like a lovesick puppy, she's a cute one," Jiggs commented offhandedly. "You'll probably spill all this shit to her anyway, so make sure she knows to keep her trap shut. We're pretty peaceful, now, but I'd hate to see one of our guys go after her to keep her quiet."