The Frenchman's Revenge (64 page)

~~~

His reaction to Aldo’s death surprised
G
reg.
It wasn’t grief he felt or even sadness.
It was
surprise. H
e
didn’t
expect
t
he Frenchman to get Aldo. It was disquieting.
A
fter
he had time to absorb
his surprise
,
he felt
relief.
He admired Aldo
,
but
always kn
ew
he was smart
er
than him
.
Aldo was a
tyrant, a vicious and
feared
tyrant.
But
Aldo’s power came from
the scum of the
earth
,
his
gang members.
Greg
could care less about
the fucking gang members.
He was relieved that the gang literally disappeared after Aldo was killed.
To
Greg
,
they were subhuman
,
no better than the vermin skulking in the alleyways of New York.
They scattered like a flock of
pigeons
scared up b
y a round of buckshot
,
too
stupid to know that that
by flapping
their
wings the
y
gave away their location
and
became
open targets for the
hunters
and
,
eventually
,
carrion
for the buzzards.
With
the remnants of the gang gone
,
Greg
could pu
t
his own enforcers in place
,
t
he kind of men who
were
polished as well as dangerous
.
T
h
e kind of men who surrounded
t
he Frenchman
, he thought with a grimace
.

U
nlike Aldo, Greg
got his
power
f
rom
a different class of people.
People like the
bankers
, like L
ouie Sinclair
and the
fifty
other
ranking politicians and financiers
in his
pocket.
The class of
people
who bought, lied
,
and cheated their way to power
and
c
ut corners to get there
.
Greg knew how to fi
n
d th
e dirt in th
ose co
r
ners
.
He captured e
ach
grimy compromising
particle
in
his ultimate
source of power
--
the
leather bound
ledger
locked
in his desk.
Every
illegal
or embarrassing
act his flock of pigeons
committed
was documented
in
that book
. A
nd every penny
– either the bribes they took or the hush money they paid
--
was listed
in the column
s
after their name
s
.

Aldo never understood the power of
keeping
records
.
It was ironic, Greg
thought,
that
it was
Aldo’s
records
--
kept by Carlo
s
and handed over to
t
he Frenchman before Carlos killed
himself
– that
brought
Aldo
down.
No
,
Greg
thought, one more confirmation that
he was smarter than Aldo.
No one knew
about
his book an
d
no one ever would.

Greg’s final thought
when he heard of Aldo
’s
murder was how differently he felt when his
own
father was killed.
Not
surprising
,
given the way his father died.
O
ver the years
,
Greg
watched his father’s concern
s
turn to horror. By the end
,
the old man
couldn’t hide or
ignore
the chopped up
animals
, the
neighbors
’
charred
pets
,
and finally the rumors of young girls
hideously
raped
and killed.
Knowing how weak h
e
was, Greg knew h
is father m
ight do something unpredictable-- like go to the police. Greg couldn’t tolerate unpredictability.

Greg remembered the old man’s anguished face.
When his father saw the gun in Greg’s hand, he looked relieved

With
tears streaming down his face,
he said
, “
May
God forgive me
,
I
f
athered a
monster
.
”

Greg
had replied
with a pleasant
smile.

“
Please hold
that
thought in eternity
, Father
,
because
,
yes
,
you most certainly did.
”

Then he pulled the trigger and shot his father
in the face
.

~~~

Greg broke
from
his reverie and responded to the knock on his door. He nodded for Hank, Chris, and Peter to enter.
He called the meeting of the leaders of his inside team to go over the plans for the evening
. This was the night he had been waiting for, spent the last three years planning. It was the night he would take over the world, or at least as much of the world that was of interest to him.
Tonight
,
men would die
, either because
they
stood in
Greg’s
way or w
ere
no longer
u
seful.
Or because he was
t
he Frenchman
, a dirty yellow Chink who
,
among his other sins
,
had committed the ultimate sin
--h
e had d
efiled
Greg’s
woman
. T
onight
,
t
he Frenchman would
pay the price and
Greg would win the prize.
Elena would be his.

“Don’t forget, we will need a minimum of thirty men inside and at least that many outside.
E
very
one of them needs to be crystal clear what I expect
,
” Greg
reiterated
for at least the third time
as they went over the plan
.

Hank re
p
lied patiently
,
knowing how fastidious and
compulsive
Greg was
about details
.

“I hear you,
b
oss. We’ve got it under control.
When the
s
heriff gets here, once he gets over his shock at the bloodbath
,
there won’t be a question in his or anyone’s mind
that
t
he perpetrator was
t
he Frenchman
.
We’re all gonna leave this evening hailed as
heroes
for killing
that yellow bastard
and
the rest of his foreign
scum.
”

Greg nodded and
licked his lips at the prospect.

~~~

At
their complex
,
Bai, Elen
a
, Nianzu
,
and
Wyatt
huddled around blueprints
for
the
g
overnor’s mansion and grounds
. The
four of them had spent the last hour going over the
diagram
.
When they
finished
,
Nianzu
planned to
meet
with Quitin, Manchu, Liang
,
and the others
to
confirm
that every man knew
his precise role
.

Bai and Elena
,
and Wyatt,
L
ei
,
and Alex had
formal
invitations
t
o the Governor’s
B
all
. I
t would be expected that Nianzu
, Quitin
,
and several other personal guards would
accompany
them.
What
wouldn’t
be expected was that Bai and Nianzu would p
osition
over a hundred men four layer
s
deep inside and outside the mansion.

Bai
tossed the sheaf of papers they had been studying
on his desk
and went over the goals for the evening.

“Tom
’s report is definitive
. T
he ringleader of Aldo’s gang is here in California. No one knows who
he i
s
,
but they call him the Chameleon.
Our
task
tonight is to unmask him
and
get solid proof of
the
dirty
politicians
in his pocket.
”
Wyatt
re
read the list Tom sent and
shook his head in disbelief.

“Bai, we knew this
Chameleon
,
is
a master blackmailer
,
b
ut
,
h
ell
, there
must be
thirty
politicians on
T
om’s list.
Christ, if we can break the
Chameleon
and get proof that
all
th
e
se
assholes
are
on the take
,
we can change
the fucking
power structure in New York and Washington.”

“
I agree, Wyatt.
This operation
is
bigger than a gang, even one as powerful as Marcello’s but
I didn’t know the political rot was this extensive.
Let’s face
it
,
the
Chameleon is smarter and more insidious than we gave him credit for.
Granted
,
Marcello
provided
the muscle and the
threat of
terror
.
But you and I know money is the ultimate incentive for politicians
and blackmail
is the
definitive
weapon to keep them in line.”

Wyatt let out an audible sigh and nodded in agreement.

“
Christ
,
th
e
se
sorry assholes
fear exposure more than they do being c
hopped in pieces
by a tyrant like Aldo.
Somehow
,
the Chameleon managed to get a hell of a lot of shit on a hell of a lot of
unscrupulous
men.
”