[center][img]http://i.imgur.com/odNGXKX.png[/img][/center] [b]Gotham Gardens [/b] Smoke filled the casino floor. Old ladies chain-smoked unfiltered cigarettes and worked slot machines with dead eyes. Dolled up ex-strippers wobbled across the floor on too tall heels, dishing out chips and cigarettes. The heavy make-up couldn't hide the miles and the years. Drunk businessmen played blackjack. Geeks in Hawaiian shirts and Shriner fez hats played roulette. Slam sat at the casino bar on his lunch break. "Lunch": Six shots of rye and three beers. A straight up liquid lunch. He moonlighted as a security goon for the cut-rate casino. It was shit work. He worked over drunks who got too handsy with the girls. Card cheats lost teeth, card counters got their arms broke. He got paid more than the rest of the goons because of notoriety. People still recognized him from time to time. Geeks wanted photos with Slam, geeks wanted to pose with their fist on his chin in a faux knockout punch. One card counter asked for his autograph after he fractured the fuck's arm. He spat blood and smiled. He said he had something in common with Goodnight Garcia; both got their asses handed to them by Slam Bradley. Slam watched the beer swirl in his glass. He had six days to get two grand out of thin air or the Russians would turn him in Borscht. He'd get a few hundred working tonight and tomorrow at the Gardens, but there was no PI work to be had. The law firms wouldn't call him back or give him the time, and civilian walk-ins were rare in the business. Dames in distress coming into a PI's office was straight out of the movies and books. Slam didn't even have an office. He worked out of his flop over on the East End. Chinatown. That's where he always went when he had enough booze in his system. The night they got street justice for Fat Ricky Fat's niece fucked Slam up in more ways than he would ever admit to even himself. He crossed a line that night. Beating shitbirds was one thing, but he had killed them. He'd taken a life; a life of a scumbag, but still a life. The transfer to homicide saved what little bit of his soul that he had left. He got teamed up with Gordon and the rest was history. But those days were over. As dead as the junkie rapist he gunned down in Chinatown all those years ago. He polished off his last beer when the gorillas came up. They were different heights and weights but looked like twins. They both had necks like tree trunks and ruddy faces. Slam played his favorite game: Cop or Wiseguy? They both had buzzed heads like cops, they had that asshole swagger and self-importance that both cops and wiseguys had, their suits were too nice to be cops. In the end, the rings made him put his money down on wiseguy. They both wore gold rings on their pinkies. Slam saw a flash of diamond encrusted somewhere. Even if a cop could afford that kind of flash, he wouldn't be caught dead with that shit. "If one of you is named Tony," Slam said softly, pushing away from the bar on wobbly legs. "I am going to fucking scream." "I'm Angelo," the smaller of the two said. "And this is Paulie. And you're Slam Bradley." "Charmed," Slam said with a loud beer belch. "I'm sure." "I saw you fight back when I was a kid," said Paulie. "You were something." "I was something," Slam shrugged. "Now I'm just a piece of work." "And now you're coming with us," said Angelo. "Guys, I gotta get back to work." Slam tried to push in between the two mobsters. The pushed back and he was pressed against the bar. "We talked to the pit boss," Paulie said with a smirk. "He's cool with you taking the rest of the night off." "Awful nice of him," Slam said as the two men put their arms on his shoulders and started to guide him across the casino floor. -- The next thing he knew, he was face to face with he head of the fucking Bertinelli Family. Geppe got in close, so close Slam could smell his stinking breath and the cologne he seemed to bathe in. [quote=@Ruby] Geppe turned just-so to tilt his body in the guy's direction, before smiling. "Sorry about the drama, Slam. Hope the boys weren't rough or anything stupid. I'm Guiseppe Bertinelli. I've got a job I want you to look into. Happening right about now-ish, one of the GCPD sarges for traffic is gonna get capped. We're not sure by who, we just know it's gonna happen. We know he's crooked, working for someone. We want you to find out who killed him, and to find out who he was on the payroll of. To motivate you, and to address payment, I purchased your gambling debt from the Russians....you should really find better betting guides, my man. That's not a small debt for a guy of your means. Do this job for me, do it well, and the debt's gone. You never have to see me again. What do you say?" [/quote] The information came and went by Slam fast. If he were sober, he would have grasped it immediately. As it was, he took a few moments to comprehend just what Bertinelli was saying. He felt like telling him to call the cops. He didn't do murders and shit like that. He either did divorce jobs or muscle work. He hadn't looked into a murder since the... the case that got him ran out the GCPD. But he had a fucking albatross around his neck in the form of that debt. And he didn't like being in the mob's debt. The Russians would beat you and huff and puff, but they only wanted cash. If the Italians got their hooks into you, they wanted favors. That was their coin. He was surprised he wasn't being asked to whack a guy. Compared to that, looking into a murder was.. "Easy," Slam said out loud. "I can tell you who killed your guy right away: A murderer."