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Dante's Fire Big Jack: Chapter Eighty Six
BIG JACKThe Marksman found him the first time on one of the sunnier days. By then, the heydays of winter had slowly began to give way to warmer days, drifting steadily from snowy days thick with cotton-like clouds to more torrid days, and the first signs of spring had began to appear across state lines. Everywhere you turned, there were melting snowdrifts; and new blades of green grass sprouted from places in the snow. The air had also gotten considerably warmer.Joaquin went down from the hotel room they were staying at to get something from one of the shops close by. The hotel was the big fancy type, with two large beds metres away from each other. Big Jack had opted for larger, more opulent accommodation after the call from Neil. It was the best he could do. He had a faint idea of how the Marksman thought. Fugitives liked to leave very little tracks to make it impossible for anyone to track them. That was basic knowledge. So more often than not, if not always, they w
Dante's Fire Dante: Chapter Eighty Seven
DANTE The man's mother had a house uptown, in the wealthier parts of the city, squeezed between two much larger buildings. Hers was considerably smaller than the rest and elegant in its smallness, perched on an equally small parcel of land. There was no lawn.Merely looking at it, Dante approved. It did not stink of illegally obtained wealth, but smelled of gratification; did not scream of affluence, but spoke of small comforts. Dante knew well-hidden drug money when he saw it, though. And this was it.He alighted from the back of the jeep, but his uncle stayed. The man arrived in the city a few days after he had Jackie over at the house, and although the mansion was big enough that their paths would most likely not have crossed, he was thankful that Orlando had not arrived earlier. Yet was Orlando who had convinced Dante to make this trip. In his words, 'The people who work for you need to see that you care for them, Dante. Fear is one way to inspired loyalty. B
Dante's Fire The Marksman: Chapter Eighty Eight
THE MARKSMANThe killer knew fear when he smelt it. Rust and sweat, that was what it smelt like. And Jack Maeto reeked of it. It had not been an easy task finding the man, but once he had found him, staying with him was relatively easy. The man was enormous and so, he stuck out like a sore thumb. His size did not give the killer cause to worry. Scared people were predictable. They were clumsy too, repetitive. They slipped up, made mistakes. Unfortunately for them; fortunately for him.The killer sat behind the wheel of his Toyota, a old rusty car he rented. It was perfect for keeping a low profile and had let him follow the man around town without being looked at twice. He fancied himself a hunter, and Jack Maeto and his companion were blood trailing prey. The Toyota was parked in a shoulder of gravel on the street that was directly opposite the restaurant the big man had just walked into. CRAIG'S DINER. The killer popped open the glove compartment where he had kept
Dante's Fire Big Jack: Chapter Eighty Nine
BIG JACKDeath was in the air tonight. Big Jack could just taste it. He did his best to shrug the thought away. It was only his nerves, he told himself. Running on caffeine and Coca-cola was not the best way to live.The receptionist was a lady in her mid twenties—or so he guessed—and like most people at that age, she had an attitude, and when she spoke, she sounded like disturbed water. Joaquin did a good job booking a room without threatening her within an inch of life, considering how exhausted they both were.'That would be 35 dollars a day.' She said, lips smacking gum. She never looked up from the computer. A row of gaudy bracelets jingled on her wrist whenever she moved her arm.Joaquin glanced at him. He returned the look. 35 dollars was mighty cheap compared to the places they had been to. 'We will take it.' Big Jack said.'Uh, you staying the week? It would be 250 dollars in total.'There was no chance they we're staying ther
Dante's Fire Big Jack & The Marksman: Chapter Ninety
BIG JACK:Big Jack awakened with the feeling of airlessness, like there was river in his lungs. He only managed to regain his composure after he had gasped and gasped into the floor, until he had drawn enough air into his body. He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling in the motel room. It was dark and quiet, the only light coming from the windows. The curtains fluttered and a phantom breeze kissed his unclothed upper body. All was silent, almost disturbingly so. Not even the usual night bugs and crickets could be heard. Joaquin made a noise from his throat and rolled over in the motel bed. He thrashed around a little bit then sunk back into a deep sleep.Poor boy, Big Jack thought. Left his life to chase an old man who was afraid for his, all around the countryside. He listened for the sound of more thrashing, but Joaquin had gone silent. It must have been what had woken him, he told himself. In the dark, Big Jack waited for his heart to stop beating so fast. He was not sur
Dante's Fire Big Jack: Chapter Ninety One
BIG JACK'The hell happened to your face?' McCoy asked, staring at him in horror, when he arrived finally.Big Jack palmed his bruising cheek self consciously. 'What the hell happened to your stomach?''This tends to h happen when you are living a good life, my friend.' The man laughed at his own joke and patted the new swell of his stomach.Big snorted. Only moving the muscles I'm his face hurt like hell. Worst than hell actually. Those he could tend to with an aspirin. The real hurt was in his head, where he could not get to. 'It's no worries. I was never a pretty man like you, McCoy.'They were in the better parts of Miami, in one of the buildings his friend owned. McCoy was reclined on one of lounge chairs, sipping sparkling wine from a flute when he was escorted up. The man had taken one good look at his face and exclaimed. Now, he offered Big Jack a drink.He shook his head at the offering. 'No.''Since when do you refuse champagne?'F
Dante's Fire Dante: Chapter Ninety Two
DANTEColeman Spears was just as punctual as he had expected. The bloody man was correctness itself, what with that firm jaw, those self-righteous eyes that seemed to have the ability to make anything he did not approve of combust if he fixed them with a stare for enough time. Which was what he looked to be trying to do to Dante when he spotted him in the midst of the festivity.Dante took his hand in a firm grip. The man's giant paw of a hand almost swallowed his. 'Finally,' he said through a smile that was more clenched teeth than it was actually excitement. 'I get to meet the man running the city.'Spears snorted. 'I could say the same for you. The people seem to believe you are the one in charge.'Dante's arm was in grave danger of being crushed. Flattery and subtle violence? One handshake and a sentence and he absolutely loved this guy.He managed to get his hand out of the vice grip and smiled. 'Well, this is New York. The people think what they
Dante's Fire Big Jack: Chapter Ninety Three
BIG JACKHe cut the frizzly beard he had grown on the journey. In the mirror, when he looked he had become another version of himself. A man who was familiar in a distant fashion, but who was still a stranger. Big Jack washed the shaving cream off his cheeks and chin and felt the smooth, new flesh there. Another thing Joaquin would never be able to do.The fight at the motel had left him with a limp, slightly imperceptible, but still there. He limped out of the bathroom with its ornate mirror and shiny ceramic, back into the room that had been allocated to him. The windows in the room were open, and a gentle breeze played with the shutters. For there, Big Jack could catch a glimpse of the street. A row of palm trees lined both lanes on the road, the early morning sun was the colour of a cob of corn. He was leaving, finally. Everything felt distant in a way already. Like he was never there, like he was just passing through.McCoy had made his staff leave him some clean
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- Dante's Fire
Jackie & Big Jack: Chapter One-Hundred
JACKIEDante drove as though he meant to frighten her, in that peculiar fashion that she had seen people do in movies sometimes, when they meant to frighten their passengers into silence or verbosity. But he did not ask any more information of her, or her continued silence, which would have been unlikely. This left her to wonder what his endgame was. Was his plan to orchestrate an accident? To kill them both? He was intense, she granted him that. But he never appealed to her as suicidal.'Dante, what are you doing?' She asked tentatively.He kept his eyes on the road, never blinking. 'Is it not obvious?''You can stop the car. Stop the car, let's talk. It doesn't have to be this way.' She said. Now he looked at her. The rage that had returned had now dimmed in his eyes. Instead, there was only exhaustion. Soul-swallowing exhaustion.'You know,' he told her, 'you were the one person in this world that I believed I could grow to trust. Really trust. The one person. And then you just h
- Dante's Fire
Dante: Chapter Ninety Nine
DANTEJackie's phone beeped to life on the nightstand in the dark of the room, bathing the wall in white light, and for the third time, Dante ignored it. That night, the moon was a phosphorescent thing, and it poured into the room through the windows, spilling onto the floors. Over Jackie's shoulder, Dante watched it creep further into the room as the night drew on. The clock on the nightstand read 3 A.M in ominous red letters bright enough to betray the pistol Dante had laid next to it. But it seemed like nothing more than a few hours had passed since they had sex. The room smelled strongly of semen, fabric softener and—this close to her—cheap shampoo.Time stood still whenever Dante was with Jackie. He knew quite well that reality awaited him outside the doors of the hotel, outside of her arms, but while he was with her, his many troubles shrunk and the world ceased trying to swallow him whole, flesh and bone included.Even in the gloom, he
- Dante's Fire
Jackie: Chapter Ninety Eight
JACKIEThe Aurthurson Hotel burned a harsh silver under the glaring moon. Although it was gigantic in its own rights, it was dwarfed by the corporate skyscrapers around it. What they had in height, the hotel had in width.Dante parked the car in the parking lot and shut off the engine. He let out a long, tortured breath. Jackie examined him in the quiet darkness. He slumped into the seat and stared back at her.'Your grand plan is to sit here all night? Or are we ever going to go in?' She asked, humorously.He snorted. 'Real talk? I wish we would. It's peaceful out here. It's almost never peaceful in New York.'They stared at each other in the dim, contained silence of the car. It was the first time since the raid a semblance of calm had returned to him. He was composed again, the Dante she was accustomed to. Jackie knew caged rage intimately. In part, because she was Big Jack's daughter. In part, because she had felt it for herself. After the
- Dante's Fire
Nick: Chapter Ninety Seven
NickColeman Spears was the sort of man who did not give a sailing hoot about anyone else's sensibilities. Nick figured this out the day that he met him. A man who cared little for politics, but paid attention to it anyway, just like himself. So when he heard that the man had gone out of his way to go after Dante Bianchi, he was pleasantly surprised.It was in the tabloids, the raid. Not the police commissioner's involvement in the raid, but the raid itself. Bluish photos of Ambience taken from a distance showed dark police vehicles blocking off the main entrance from the street. Passersby stopped and stared in the snapshots. Were he younger, the old man would have been damn near ecstatic. But now, he only thought it would have been even better if Spears had finished it, had brought the goddamn Bianchi out of his precious night club in handcuffs. But hr had not. He had found nothing. This part did not leave Nick surprised. Impressed, but not surprised. Th
- Dante's Fire
Andre: Chapter Ninety Six
ANDREThe snow that gathered at the top floor of his building had melted with the coming of spring, and the water that it had left behind formed shallow puddles at the corners of the roof. Damp wetness was everywhere you looked on the roof, every surface you touched. Andre had not been here for a long while. He had forgotten what a view Brooklyn was at the darkest hours of night, and how much better the view was in the light of day. He had forgotten the rows and rows of buildings, some as tiny as pebbles in the distance, others skyscrapers, bursting through the cotton wool clouds.Memories are feeble things. But it was all coming back to him as he stood there, staring out into the day. It did not seem so long ago now, since he had been there with Nick Noah, Trent in a building some distance away, with a sniper trained on him. A much needed precaution.This time, however, like the last, Andre was not alone. Gloria was at his side. She was dressed as she oft
- Dante's Fire
Spears: Chapter Ninety five
SPEARSThe team of officers came through the front doors like an avalanche, breaking the mountain slope. This, at least, was what Spears imagined it would have seemed like to Dante Bianchi.He had taken the rear, coming in as the last man, his hands deep in the pockets of his Police parka, the handle of his firearm protruding like a leathery bone from his utility belt. Ambience was a tall building, and the lower floor could be traced with the eyes to the VIP section in the upper floor. Only staff were in the building at the time, and one of them, a woman was descending the stairs when they charged through the front door unannounced. She stopped, clutching the steel railing in a fright. Leo Daniels was ascending the steps, talking to the Oman as he climbed. The bartender was startled, too. Spears did not blame him. Cops were never bearers of good never.Soon Dante Bianchi answered them. He came rushing down the stairs, in a suit that distinguished him, gave him t
- Dante's Fire
Jackie: Chapter Ninety Four
JACKIEWhen Dante called again, asking if she would come to his club, Ambience, Jackie had said yes without pause. There should have been that fear of sounding desperate, that apprehension that he would hear her rapid, almost desperate yes, and wonder, and maybe even guess correctly that she wanted to be there only so she could go through his things so she could get into his head.But there was no fear. That gave her cause to worry. Neil had warned her many times already. The last time was the day before the call. He had picked her up from work the other day. She came down after a long, grueling shift to find him waiting in his car outside. Even though she would much rather had taken a taxi, she let herself be talked into entering the passenger seat.'Dante is dangerous.' He had told her. 'Volatile.''Oh, and you are not?'Neil ground his teeth together. She could tell he wanted to pound the steering wheel. 'Not like this. I watched him shoot a man in
- Dante's Fire
Big Jack: Chapter Ninety Three
BIG JACKHe cut the frizzly beard he had grown on the journey. In the mirror, when he looked he had become another version of himself. A man who was familiar in a distant fashion, but who was still a stranger. Big Jack washed the shaving cream off his cheeks and chin and felt the smooth, new flesh there. Another thing Joaquin would never be able to do.The fight at the motel had left him with a limp, slightly imperceptible, but still there. He limped out of the bathroom with its ornate mirror and shiny ceramic, back into the room that had been allocated to him. The windows in the room were open, and a gentle breeze played with the shutters. For there, Big Jack could catch a glimpse of the street. A row of palm trees lined both lanes on the road, the early morning sun was the colour of a cob of corn. He was leaving, finally. Everything felt distant in a way already. Like he was never there, like he was just passing through.McCoy had made his staff leave him some clean
- Dante's Fire
Dante: Chapter Ninety Two
DANTEColeman Spears was just as punctual as he had expected. The bloody man was correctness itself, what with that firm jaw, those self-righteous eyes that seemed to have the ability to make anything he did not approve of combust if he fixed them with a stare for enough time. Which was what he looked to be trying to do to Dante when he spotted him in the midst of the festivity.Dante took his hand in a firm grip. The man's giant paw of a hand almost swallowed his. 'Finally,' he said through a smile that was more clenched teeth than it was actually excitement. 'I get to meet the man running the city.'Spears snorted. 'I could say the same for you. The people seem to believe you are the one in charge.'Dante's arm was in grave danger of being crushed. Flattery and subtle violence? One handshake and a sentence and he absolutely loved this guy.He managed to get his hand out of the vice grip and smiled. 'Well, this is New York. The people think what they
