[adamu]

Al opened the cab of his truck to let Thorn in. He'd already killed the dome light. Patted a bag next to him on the bench seat. "All done, jist gotta slip 'er into place. Resin's ready too. Long as he ain't found my backdoor, be in an' out less time than it takes Spike ta eat a steak. An' yeah, lately he always drives hisself. Now, how long we gotta wait fer Rocky ta git here?"

[Jack_Spade]

"Should be in position, but I'll check to be sure." A quick call later Thorn nodded: "Rocky just unloaded the ice and is now eating a pizza with anchovies. Sometimes this guy is just  weird.

I guess this is it then." Thorn adjusted his jacket and zipped up his biker gloves. "Wish me luck. This is one of those things you have to get right the first time."

He nodded to Al and left the cab to walk over to the parking lot.

[adamu]

Al gave him a minute's lead, then grabbed the bag and followed, forcing himself to lose the cigarette.

He found a spot in an alley mouth close to the Nocturne, and on the other side of it from where Thorn had his little stunt planned. Settled deep into the shadows to wait.

Waiting sucked, but who knew when a car would come by at the right speed for what his new buddy had planned. So he waited. Ready to move once his wingman created the opportunity.

And then he realized he was not alone in the alley.

There were sounds coming from behind him. Voices. Not speaking exactly, but definitely human. He turned slowly, his night vision cranked to maximum. The sounds were like, what was it? Like fighting, only sort of quiet. They were coming from behind a pile of old boxes about twenty yards behind him. And the boxes were moving. Just a bit. Sort of a rythmic motion.

Shit, someone was doing the nasty right there in the alley like a couple of mangy cats. Then one of the boxes tipped over and he saw the guy's face - shit, it was Vinnie. The almost smart one.

If Thorn pulled his stunt now and they came out to look, then instead of breaking into Arty's car, Al would be having an impromptu meeting with the mob boss's nephew and his lady love.

[Jack_Spade]

Oblivious to this complication, Thorn wandered onto the parking lot of the restaurant. Slowly he went towards the menu box to see what they had to offer. He almost sputtered as he saw the prices - no wonder so many armored high class cars were around. He became very conscious of the fact that he didn't fit in here in the slightest. Whatever he did, he would have to do it fast.
So he faked a cough an snuck a little ketchup packed in his mouth before turning around and striding towards the lot as if to retrieve his own car. A silver  Mercedes was navigating around the packed place, heading for the exit.
Not exactly what he would have wanted - for one thing the cars front window would not yield in a collision with him, necessitating him to roll over the complete car and falling down behind it. IF he did it right.
<<Al, are you in position? I've got a likely candidate in about 15 seconds>>

[adamu]

Al was flustered. It was his first premeditated murder, after all.

He spoke into his mic: <<Negative. Negative... Sex.>> was all he could think to say. He tried to whisper it, but his sandpaper on slate voice sometimes got away from him, and the boxes stopped moving.

"Hey, who's out there?"

[Jack_Spade]

<<Negative. Negative... Sex.>>
That message was so surprising that Isaint almost stumbled by accident into the way of the accelerating Mercedes.
'Damn, now I'm getting attention before the action even starts.'
Quickly he left the parking lot to cross the street back to where Al should be waiting.
<<Al, what's going on?>>

[adamu]

Crouched in the mouth of the alley, Al silently and desperately tried to wave Thorn away, arms flapping frantically while trying to minimize his silhouette.

From deeper in the alley, Thorn heard an angry voice call insistently, "Hey fucktard, I said who's there?" and a female voice whining, "Sheesh honey, not now. Where's my panties?"

And then Al was calling back in the most ridiculous fake voice the ork had ever heard, a pinched, nasal travesty of speech - "Sorry boss, um, didn't know you was there. We're going now. Go back to sleep."

[Jack_Spade]

Thorn hasted across the street to the alley, slipping on his gloves.
Hearing Al do his super fake impression, Thorn actually stumbled a bit, missing the chance to duck away in time.
"HEY, you, what the fuck do you think..."
Thorn didn't so much think as just act. Grabbing a random bottle from the ground, he spun around and threw it as hard as he could towards the man's face.

[spoiler]
Vitals Shot (Throw): 7d6t5 3

9 S + 3 Successes
defense: 8d6t5 5
[/spoiler]
But the man had spotted the motion and ducked just in time to have it smash against the wall.
"Hey, you are that butt faced bouncer..."

[adamu]

Well, either the Magenta Twins had filled Vinnie in on the details, or he also was a patron of Thorn's little house of pleasures. Either way, they were made now.

He figured they'd never pull this off now without being associated with the deed.

Unless, of course, Vinnie was never heard from again.

The idea of which didn't bother Al at all.

He was worried about the girl, though, in the shadows behind Vinnie bouncing around from one foot to the next as she tried to shimmy her panties back up to where they'd started the evening. She'd have to wait, though.

He fished a ball peen hammer out of his tool bag. He hadn't really needed a hammer for the job at hand, but it was always a useful thing to have handy. He walked toward the mafia lieutenant and said, "Vinnie baby, you can insult me, you can shoot at me, you can even beat me within an' inch o' my life, gouge out my eyes, an' dump me inna sea. But ya don't go badmouthin' my friends."

[Jack_Spade]

Vinnie looked even more confused: "Al? You fucking retard! Do you have any idea..."

Thorn slammed into the man like a cannon ball, using the same trick he'd demonstrated at the bar: Jumping at the wall, pushing himself off and slamming with his full body weight into the stomach of the mafia guy.
"Don't be cheeky to the butt ugly."

[adamu]

With Thorn's not inconsequential weight atop the smaller Italian, Al wasted no time bashing the man in the head repeatedly with his hammer. A lot of blood flew around. And brains. And bits of skull.

Then Al stood up straight, hammer dripping with gore, and offered the ork a hand up.

"Now don't you go nowhere, darlin'," he said to the girl, who was conveniently frozen in place. "This had nothin' ta do with y'all, but reckon we gotta talk now."

[Jack_Spade]

Thorn cursed silently. They had just killed a mob guy in front of his girlfriend. He had no idea, how Al would solve that - because one thing was clear: Thorn wouldn't injure or kill a girl merely because she was inconvenient. Searching desperately for a way out he said:
"You best forget what you've seen here. If you do, the Vory won't have a reason to come after you."
'It's beside the point that they won't have a reason if you you do talk...' he added mentally. 

[adamu]

Al walked up to the disheveled girl, hammer trailing from his right hand and leaving fat drops of blood in his wake.

"Reckon I know you, darlin'. Yer Sally the Bean's cousin Tony's ex-wife. You an' Tony Jr. still sharin' a place with Vera, the hostess at Carluccio's?"

Her eyes went wide at the mention of her child.

"An' ya know who I am, right?"

She nodded. "You're Al Guthrie. You used to do jobs for Vinnie."

"Very good. So you know we had ourselves bit of a fallin' out. Natural I'd find other employ. Vor ain't real thrilled 'bout Arty movin' in onna Harbor Island Marina."

Al congratulated himself on his choice of murder-mates - Thorn was real clever, planting the seed of misinformation even as he enjoined silence.

"So you got two choices," he continued. "You can tell folks what ya saw here, an' then spend the rest o' yer days wonderin' if Tony Jr.'s comin' home from school that day. Or ya can go home, an' if anyone asks ya say Vinnie came with ya, an' then left. End o' story.Cuz they ain't gon' find him in this alley. Now ya know who I am, an' ya know I'm as good as my word. But ya don't have ta trust me. Trust this - here's a credit transfer of ten thousand nuyen. I'm sendin' it to you with a post-date o' one month. Now I can't git it back. But the trick is, I gotta finalize the transfer onna day. So ol' Al's still alive inna month, little Tony goes ta college. Whaddaya say, toots?"

[Jack_Spade]

"Yes, ok. Please, please, don't hurt my boy."
What else could she say mused Thorn. With his ugliest grin, he shouldered the corps and gave her a wink. He really felt dirty doing that to that poor girl, but all in all it seemed to be lesser of the available evils.
"Please get the car Al.
And you, I'd suggest you go and see a trid-movie or do some work out. We wouldn't want you to get PTSD from this sordid affair. Be safe in the knowledge that there was nothing you could do. It's not your fault."

[adamu]

Al threw the hammer back into his bag, scooped it up, and wheezed his way the three blocks back to his truck. As he took off, he saw the woman do the same. He preferred she not tell anyone what had happened, but it was not a huge deal for himself, since he knew the mafia was no match for him. He was, however, worried about Thorn being implicated in the night's events.

Oh well, the whole thing had been the ork's idea anyway.

But then, it was Al that had brought the issue to his doorstep.

Problem for another day!

He spun the Gaz around, whizzed it smoothly to the back side of the alley, and reversed down it, deftly slipping between dumpsters and sleeping transients. They loaded Vinnie's dead weight onto the pick-up's bed and covered it with a handy tarp. Al found a hose near the service entrance to the facing building and sprayed the chunks of skull and brain down the drain. Wouldn't stand up to a forensic investigation, but he knew from the trid that organized crime didn't use those techniques, so they were 100% safe on that front.

Five minutes later, they were back in position and the plan was still a go.