The Deal

The cigarette was dark and smelt of cloves; it was expensive and difficult to come by even in this port town. The one called the widow held it's long ivory holder to the side of her mouth. Her business suit was black with pale cream pinstriping.

Max had never felt so uncouth in all his life. She exuded an unusual presence from her green chair by the fire. This was his neighborhood. The broken bottoms were his and yet he had no strings to pull when it came to her. Her eyes flashed from the light of the fire. The snow outside was swallowing the city. Max waited while she considered his offer. He had never been a Patriot but she was no fan of his ruffian outfit. He was an old school gangster who made a lot of money even in these desperate times. Despite her dislike of him, he had a purpose and a place, in the world she was building.

"You will aid the resistance." She said it as a declarative sentence not as a question.

Max nodded humbly.

"You can keep your docks, and your army of thugs but in Broken Bottoms you answer to me. Thirty percent of all protection money from local businesses and forty percent of your income from abroad goes to me. Making your life a living hell, would be easy. Know that, killing you is low on my list, but piss me off and you'll never walk through the old neighborhood again." The small man beside her showed an evil grin and raised an Aspen bat into view.

The cigar shifted from the side to the front of his mouth. He pretended to contemplate the options laid before him.He agreed and reached out to shake hands a sign of a completed deal. She did not reciprocate; instead she merely she rose and disappeared her man in a blue hat pushed a pile of documents his way. He couldn't look at the photos. He simply nodded. He was outnumbered, outgunned, and half his men had converted to her outfit now.

As he climbed back into his stretched Citroen he tried to regain the calm he had known. He tried to fix his mind to that place that had allowed him to stare down so many gun barrels. He even tried to chuckle thinking back to how he had cornered the other Administrators into giving him Broken Bottoms and the surrounding areas. He tried to return his thoughts to back when he was blackmailing Patriots not being blackmailed.

Max was in his late fifties but you won't have thought it though. He was built wide across the shoulder, narrow at the hip. He had dark hair and amber eyes that glistened at the thought of money and extortion. Broken Bottoms had been his childhood home and he had worked hard to become it's keeper. He had broken many knees, threatened many dealers, and shot a great many people to get to where he was today. He was in no way thrilled to know that she in a few short months had taken the reigns of his empire out from under him.

Half his men worked for her now. Nearly every thug knew working for the widow meant better pay, and greater benefits. Her acts of terrorism had united people faster than unions and personal threats ever could. She did have a style all her own though.

There was no guarantee the woman he had just met with was her, no one saw the widow and lived.

The problem was now he was in a tough place. Twice since the dock bombings the other administrators had tried to weasel him out of the Broken Bottoms, but he had outwitted them at every turn. They might have succeeded if they hadn't hey needed him, revolt if it was to come, would come from that sector, and they needed someone with a firm hand. If the crime is organized then the general people are not was the notion. Oh, if only they knew. If he was to keep his lifestyle and his hold in Broken Bottoms he was going to have play by her rules at least for now.

The photos in the envelope were not of him, but to be used by him. Several, Patriots on her payroll seemed to have forgotten their place. They had led the round ups on Charleston St, the western edge of the Bottoms. They needed to be put in their place. The photos were of certain Administrators with a man named Jessie. The kind of photos that could end any career in this tight laced political powder keg. One thing he did like about the widow was her ability to twist people, it was a trait to be admired and feared from his angle.

The driver was taking it slow with the threat of black ice on these back streets. This was a night for dark things, dark plans, dark schemes. A perfect night to find the idiot who had thought about sending coppers into Max's territory.