[b]Jack Townley - "Townley Tower", Manhattan
10:47 PM [/b]	

	When a person manages to score a penthouse on the top floor of one of the most beautiful buildings in the western hemisphere, the legitimacy of stepping outside at all simply disintegrates. Jack Townley had irresponsibly spent a huge slab of the Townley Crime Family’s fortune to buy himself a 38-story temple in the middle of Manhattan Island. For a man whose lifeline was his subtlety and unparalleled cunning, this was sloppy. Specifics, though, mattered very little to him when he looked out across his sprawling view of New York. His enjoyment of the imagery was not necessarily one of pure beauty and splendor; rather, it was a constant confirmation of his power. [i]Look at all of this. It is mine.[/i]
	
	Jack pressed one hand against the glass which lined his ridiculously large bedroom-slash-office and lit the cigar dangling from his mouth with the other. He wasn’t truly ready to bid farewell to his time on the mountaintop. The other families—The Simones and Vallarios—hated him so passionately that they had put aside their rivalry and were now working together to uproot him. Jack had the high ground, but in this world, everything was finite. He knew well that it would not last unless he did something drastic to ensure that everything remained off-balance.	
	
	The telephone on Jack's desk rang. He groaned and shuffled over to the ‘office’ portion of his room, cigar still in his mouth, and answered.

	[i]“Is this the office of Mr. Townley?"[/i] asked a monotonous female voice on the phone.
	
	“There are a lot of those. You need to be specific.”
	
	[i]“Jack…?”[/i]

	“Yes.”
	
	[i]“Alistair Simone wishes to meet with him. Can you check Mr. Townley’s availability?”[/i] murmured the woman on the phone.
	
	“I will need to check his books. Please hold.” Jack put down the phone on the desk, folded his arms, and took a deep breath. [i]Alistair Simone? The fuck does he want?[/i] The thought of sitting face-to-face with the figurehead of his sworn enemy was irresistible, though. The rest of the Townleys would be appalled by such a decision. Good. “He is available in an hour.”
	
	[i]“Very good. He can meet Mr. Simone at the Cappocci.”[/i]
	
	“Queens? I…he will not agree to meeting in Simone Family territory.”
	
	[i]“Very well. Perhaps he would be more comfortable on Staten Island, then? The Spectacle Club.”[/i] The woman was very noticeably avoiding the prospect of meeting in Manhattan.
	
	“Right.”
	
	[i]“Thank you, Mr. Townley,”[/i] said the secretary on the line before she hung up.
	
	She had known it was him all along. Jack gently placed the telephone back on the receiver before slowly shaking his head. A necessary prerequisite to this hermit-like phase of his was to fire his secretary and take his own calls. It was above all things annoying and unreliable, but Jack was in the midst of a puzzling era. Every step from here-on-out needed to be deliberate and carefully considered.
	
	After a few moments of silence, Jack picked up the phone again. “Bring ‘round the car.”