[center][img]https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7073/7176990981_5f34e3d7e0.jpg[/img]
[b]Summer, 2012
Before dawn
Manhattan, New York[/b][/center]

The solemn sound of a garbage truck pulling away from the curb filled Matthew with a sense of nostalgia as he sat alone on a bench in a backstreet just around the corner from 50th st and 11th ave. He’d taken a cab here immediately after hanging up the phone with Torry Fevor, a former work associate and friend of Matt’s still in the force. He pulled up some reports from major case and got Matt an address he was looking for.  Karen was still asleep as he slinked out of the apartment with a wakizashi tucked into his jacket. 

Just as the truck rounded the corner, and it’s humming muffler was out of earshot, Matt stood in the lonely alley and faced the door he knew to be several yards in front of him. Rory McKinely was the man Matt was looking for, a known associate of the man who attacked Matthew and killed his aunt. This was the only lead Matt could follow and he thought it was better than staring at a cold trail. The door was a back entrance, kept open for special customers, to a dingy bar in Hells Kitchen. It was a haven for degenerates, killers, and hired criminals, and Rory was a peg which fit squarely in those slots. The bar was called the Squinty Fly.

Matthew walked through a thick cloud of what he assumed was hookah smoke. It’d become a popular addition to most bars in lieu of smoking cigarettes indoors, which was illegal in New York. Glasses chattered and Matt focused on the epicenter of the noise, allowing himself to receive clear and distinct signals. He could “see” the small crowd of drunken patrons lined up at the bar and a few people talking in booths. Matthew quickly remembered the locations of the obstacles and maneuvered around them in order to make a quick scan of the room. Most of these people were boosters, drug dealers, thieves, and white-collar criminals; Matthew knew that going into the joint. So only a few were qualified for the kind of work Rory did. He remembered seeing two men who could fit the bill. One was standing by the bar and the other was sitting at a couch. The one at the bar smelled faintly of perfume. And his voice, as he ordered a drink, had hints of a Bostanite, Rory was a pure New Yorker. When Matt sat at the couch he could smell the faint scent of ball propellant and gunpowder, the gruff chalky smell of a man who hasn’t showered in a day or so. Matt finished off the whiskey he ordered and set it on the table in front of him. 

After a few moments Rory lifted himself from the couch and walked over to the bathroom. Matthew waited for the shrill sound of the door opening and closing before he stood. Quickly, he crossed the distance between him and the bathroom and snuck in. He could hear the crashing sound of Rory urinating as he silently walked up behind him. When Matt’s shoulder met Rory’s back he pushed hard forward, pressing him against the wall. He drew his wakizashi and slid it between Rory’s arm and his torso as the thug attempted to reach for his pistol. 

“Don’t you even think about going for it. Unless you won’t miss your arm.” Matt said calmly, in a deeper voice than usual. He didn’t exactly know why that was, but he could feel the tension and the anger rising in his throat, as if his emotions were talking for him. Carefully, Matt removed the pistol as Rory stood still, placed it in the sink behind them. “Spread your legs,” Matt commanded as he began patting Rory’s jacket to check for extra weapons. He behaved as a cop would, stretching out Rory’s leg’s with his own to maintain his position. As Matt reached down to check Rory’s pants he felt Rory’s body move, he turned and tried to elbow Matt on the back. Matthew twisted his body to the left, moving away from the strike, and drew his wakizashi, tucked under his arm, with blinding speed. In only a moment Rory’s hand was in the sink with his gun, and blood spurted around the bathroom. 

Rory screamed in pain as he came to the realization of his severed self. Matt bum rushed Rory to the ground and held him down with his knees. With the wakizashi raised above his head he loomed over Rory’s bloody, writhing body. 

“If you don’t want your story to end like this, Rory, you’ll tell me about your friend. Greg Calvin. You know him, yes?” Matthew asked this calmly, taking off his jacket as he did so. “You were in the marines, right? You know how to tie a tourniquet. Use this.” He said as he ripped off the arm of his jacket. Rory fumbled with the material and sobbed as he wrapped himself up with help from Matthew. People approached the bathroom door and Matthew could hear the clicking of a pistols hammer from outside. 

With the bathroom being as small as it was Matt pulled Rory across the bloody floor and sat against the door to block it. “Now Rory, if you don’t tell me who Greg worked for I’m going to have to kill you and your friends, okay? This is it. What do you say?” Matt said these things deliberately, his blood-soaked hands holding on to Rory and his glistening sword at once; one menacing the other. A kick of the door shook Matt and Rory. 

“What’s going on in there?” A voice from outside yelled.

“Last chance, Rory” Matt said as he raised the sword to Rory’s throat. 

“The Kingpin! The Kingpin. Please, please, man.” Rory sobbed, with blood covering most of his body. Matt nodded, stood against the door and dragged Rory against it. “Don’t let me regret letting you live, or I’ll come back and take the other.” Matt said as he tossed the severed hand from the sink into Rory’s lap. He climbed out through the tiny window of the bathroom to the back alley where he started as the door was being forced open. 

[center][b]***[/b][/center]

Matthew stopped at an open fire hydrant as he made his way downtown to wash some of the left over blood from his body. He met Karen at the office after he’d made sure he was cleaned off and collected the suit he asked her to bring. Today was Matthew’s first day as a hired lawyer from the Nelson & Son’s lawfirm. With the prospect of a bright future, and vengeance, in front of him, a loyal and wonderful woman beside him, and a hot, and gruesome trail of blood behind him, Matthew was strangely at peace. He looked at the actions he’d committed stoically, as if they were done in a dream; though, Matthew considered, in many ways they had been. Was it that, or had he been reflecting on those actions [i]through[/i] a dream? As if those volatile, chaotic moments of hatred and lust were the only real moments he’d ever truly experienced in his life. Matthew received a cold chill up and down his spine when he considered that. So he thought on something else, something new. He repeated the name in his mind as he huddled over his newly presented cup of coffee: Kingpin. [B]Kingpin[/B]. [B]KINGPIN[/B].