Shades of the criminal.

The Shades of the criminal.
Chapter One: The Badge & the Lunatic.

         Standing in front of a cracked mirror with a smirk draped on his stubbly face, the scraggly haired man nodded his head while looking back at himself in the mirror. He dressed himself in ratty stonewashed jeans and a somewhat clean grey leather jacket before heading the door of his apartment. A photograph on the door scribbled on with a red marker was torn from the tape it was stuck to until it rested inside one of his jacket pockets before he departed the poorly maintained apartment.

         "This one is for you brother." Brushing a few strands of hair away from his face, the photograph of his target crumbled under a closed fist. Parked outside a local social club known as Beppe's, the man looked over the streets for his man, Benjamin Leo, a low-level gagster working with a local crew of unaffiliated gangsters in Camden, New Jersey. Leo, dressed in a casual red & black tracksuit sauntered inside Beppe's after slipping out of a white Chevy cobalt with a trio of gentlemen. Jonathan, the hunter inside his beat up Ford pickup truck rubbed his rough hands together, reaching into the glove compartment for a balaclava and a pair of gloves. He carried himself across the street with the baseball bat tucked beside his left leg. He figured the guys inside wouldn't carry firearms around given the recent crackdowns by the governor, so he chose something he could swing violently if it came to that.

         Leo, seated at a poker table with four other men sat around shooting the breeze while Leo's second-in-command tried pressing the issue about the job they screwed up on two weeks ago & the pressure Asaro was about to place on them since Jersey was stuck in their vice.

         "All i'm sayin' Benny is their gonna waltz inside here one day soon and bleed us dry for that circus we pulled! I mean I get we're trying to show our hearts, but we ended up looking like morons." Benjamin took a swig from his whiskey, nodding in agreement.

         "You think we are the only ones in this business that have fucked up on the job? I bet old man Asaro in his younger years paid dues too. So, let them come here, I want to get back in their good graces."

         Henry, another member of the street crew was about to chime in with his own opinions until the bartender who was in the backroom came crashing through the doorway, knocking down a few bar stools in the process. John held the baseball bat upwards towards one of the hanging metal lights strung throughout the establishment, muffling his voice with a huskier tone then normal.

         "Came here looking for Benny Leo! Maybe a Tom Collins while i'm at it too." He swung the bat at an approaching gangster with a furious swiping motion until he fell flat on his back. The firearm tucked inside his waistband slid across the floor beside his boot. Leo remained in his seat beside Henry while the other two stood up until John raised the gun up, leaving them hesitant.

         "Clearly I should of calculated one of you would have a gun. Anyways, now that I have all of your attentions, I want Benny Leo to stand up and jog over to me. The rest of you go ahead and take a seat while we go have a friendly chat about killing people."

         Marching out through the backroom he entered from, he dragged Leo into the trunk of the Chevy cobalt after picking the keys out of his tracksuit pocket. Leo banged on the trunk from the inside, prompting John to bang back in playful excitement. A cadillac pulled through the street at the exact moment he squealed out of the alleyway; John nodded his head upward at the dapperly dressed gentlemen inside before looking through the rearview mirror to ensure he wasn't followed.

         "Guess that Leo cat pissed off more people then we thought." Laughing at what they witnessed, the suited men proceeded inside Beppe's.

Two Hours Later.

         "This was my brother. Guy could pull the ladies with just a few passing words, hell of a wingman too. You know his wife was about to have a kid? Sad world we live in where an upstanding guy loses his life to a moronic wannabe gangster, but let me guess from that ugly look your giving me; shit happens, yeah?" Smacking Benjamin in the temple with a right hook, Leo reeled back in the seat he was tied to with a grunt of pain.

         "You may have done homework on finding out my crew ran that job, but guess what genius? I wasn't there that night." Spitting blood onto the dusty floor of the warehouse, John continued to poke at him like a tiger inside a cage. He picked up a pair of pliers from the table, opening them up with a giddy smile.

         "Okay, okay. So, just because you didn't kill my brother directly means you shouldn't suffer, I understand that. Yet, I'm going to make sure that's made right." Adjusting the mask on his face, he reached the pliers down to Benjamin's mouth about to perform deal surgery until Leo began to laugh, shaking his head.

         "Can't believe i'm about to break my cover to a psychopath. I'm a fucking cop! You fucking lunatic! Check my shoe!" Trying to kick his feet that were wrapped to the legs of the chair, Benny managed to topple over on his back. John, panicking at this revelation carefully slit a side of the duck tape on the chair before stepping back from the fallen Benjamin.

         "Like I said back there at Beppe's I'll let this shit slide. Don't let those guys see you around though, they'll rip you apart." Benny began ripping the tape from the side of his arm as John darted out of the warehouse with a new perspective on the unstable actions he almost carried out.

The Asaro Compound, Bergen County, NJ.

         Dominick Asaro, dressed in silk pajamas sat at his kitchen table with a fresh newspaper resting on it's surface. His greying hair was unorganized and the bags under his eyes made his appearance seem like he never went to bed. His chestnut colored eyes flipped through the pages of the Star Ledger, stopping at the article about the bank heist two weeks ago that still made the rounds in the news. One of his guards, a younger man in his mid thirties handed him a telephone while he sipped from a glass of fresh orange juice.

         "Salvatore, think it's time we met with the plumbers to fix that rusty floor. He come back from that spur of the moment vacation yet?" Salvatore Russo, the underboss of the organization slid off his bed to sit upright with the phone pressed against his ear. The naked woman inside his bed rolled over on his side still asleep. Sal rubbed the side of his head, hesitant on meeting with a group of nobodies.

         "It's your call chief. You'se think we need to patch it up, I'll have the foreman of that area go down in the afternoon, make sure he's back from his trip and all." Dominick hung up the phone politely after the call, returning to view his paper in his time of morning reflection.

Camden, New Jersey.

         Four days after the botched plan for revenge, John strolled up the steps to his apartment with a bag of groceries tucked in his right arm. He grew paranoid from the events in the warehouse, so he remained in isolation until his food supply began to run low. Opening the door to his apartment after a struggle to remove his keys from his jacket, a figure in the shadows toked on a cigarette as he entered his home.

         "Wasn't hard to track you down Johnny. Guess you weren't really planning on your whole revenge plan turning sideways like it did." Benjamin's bruises were still fresh on his face, yet his chiseled features made them look minuscule in comparison. His sharp blue eyes flickered at the sight of John's unmasked face; his cigarette flung into the ash tray on the table. John sat the bag of groceries on the floor, locking his wrists together in a sarcastic manner.

         "Well you found me. Who knew a cop can kill your brother, lead a group of sociopaths, and play pretend without getting repercussions for it. So, c'mon pal whip the cuffs out." John smirked in Leo's direction while he sat down at the kitchen table. Ben took a seat on the other end, studying the interior of the apartment.

         "You know in a weird way, abducting me actually opened a doorway for my job. Asaro actually reached out to check on me. My crew might actually catch a break and I owe it all to a dirty looking psychopath living in faint squalor." Clapping his hands together, Ben stuck his right palm outwards to John.

         "Just so we have an understanding Johnny boy, I didn't know people would die. Brass is on my ass about that still, the plug was almost pulled on this case, but you saved it. So, I want to throw you a bone." Smoking from a Lucky Strike, John rolled his shoulders, letting the smoke trickle around his face as he rested his forearm across the table.

         "A bone? If your trying to recruit me into this little operation because you feel sad for me, you should pack up your tissues. I'm sorry for nearly ripping a few teeth out of your mouth, but I got my own shit to worry about instead of playing detective."

         Standing from the seat, Benjamin pressed his palms on the table with one last effort to talk some sense into John. He slicked back his pompadour styled hair, fiddling with the cigarette still burning in the ashtray.

         "Look at this way, J. You don't have to help me fully, I just think you'd be an asset to this operation. I talked to the brass already, they think someone like you can be of value and besides if we can bring down these Asaro guys, you won't get charges for assaulting a federal agent. It's a win for everybody!"

         John's cigarette was asked out on the table as he stubbornly stuck his hand out for a handshake. He pulled Ben closer to his face once he stuck his hand out again to get a new point across about the job he was taking with the FBI.

         "Either we pull this fucking job off or I end up dead in a dumpster or betrayed by the system. So, brother let's fucking do this." Leo was perplexed by his words, yet shook his hand with a firm of grip of literal & metaphorical understanding, ushering John to take a drive with him to the planning room he had setup on the outskirts of town.