Romeo of the Streets (8 page)

Ferret looked around himself, peering down the long avenue towards the university campus. “Where we going anyway?” he asked.

“This way,” Eyeball pointed, walking on ahead, “Flip N’ Chip’s you call the place, that’s where Lou said to meet them.”

As they crossed over onto official Campus grounds, even Eyeball allowed the wonder to show on his face at their new and unfamiliar surroundings. Compared to the tough streets of their up-bringing—the more dangerous, rougher parts of the Orange Grove and the connecting Harlow neighborhood—this was like a dream come true. A playground of innocence and virtue where guys like them could run wild without fear of repercussion. As long as they didn’t go
too
wild, that was—compromising a thing like this because they got over-excited at the beginning and pushed it too far would be a terrible mistake. No, they had to somehow blend in at least sufficiently enough that nobody would call the cops the moment they showed their faces. From here on out they had to make like students. It promised to be quite the learning curve for them.

Flip N’ Chip’s Bar and Tavern was bustling at this hour. As the only bar close to campus grounds it was always busy but now, on a Friday night near midnight, it was particularly jumping—even despite the huge frat party that was taking place that night over at Delta Gamma House. Waiting in the glow of the main door-light a little to the side of the entrance, Romeo and Lou stood smoking cigarettes, casually leaning against the wall like they hadn’t any particular place to go to nor any particular time to get there in. Lou nodded to Eyeball and Ferret as they approached while Romeo merely smiled.

“So,” Ferret called, “here we are—now which one of you is Chip and which one of you’s Flip?”

“Get the fuck out of here,” Lou laughed, waving his hand at them. “What took you so long—you get held back by campus security or something?”

“The hell did we,” Ferret replied, “the train timetables are all screwy getting out this far from the city. We were lucky to even get one at this hour.”

Lou shrugged. Romeo let his cigarette fall to the ground and then he crunched it softly beneath his boot heel. He stood up from the wall and narrowed his eyes. “Well what are we waiting for?” he said.

They walked in silence across the campus, joining the gradual influx of party-goers as they flowed in steady streams towards the big blowout at Delta Gamma House, and from a distance the four of them would have looked no different than any of the other CCU students, just out for a good time. But from up close their faces were tense and they walked with the steely resolve of men preparing to go into battle, silently psyching themselves up on the inside for whatever violence they might now be preparing to face. The so-called “Wild Cats” were the number one drug-dealing gang around the campus—the only actual gang there was, if they could even be called that—and therefore served as the primary obstacle standing in the way of Sal and his crew moving in. There could no half-measures now if they wanted this dealt with and out of the way quickly, they could show no mercy. They’d have to crush these guys completely, not just enough that they’d retreat for today but so much so that they’d never have the nerve to even attempt a retaliation sometime further down the line. And, even more importantly, to ensure that they wouldn’t try to turn them in to the cops once it was all over. That would be an offense worth killing for and nobody wanted that. It was bad for business if nothing else.

The party was really jumping. Outside a huge crowd had gathered in a ring around a particularly boisterous bout of beer pong and the drunken revelers cheered and roared at the contestants inside their makeshift coliseum.

“Good,” Eyeball said, “a distraction.”

They pushed past a couple of drunk frat-boys on the steps and went on into the house. “Hey,” one of the guys protested and when Ferret turned on him, the kid shut his mouth in an instant. Yes, their first university assignment could prove to be a little easier than what they were used to, but it was early days yet and only time would tell.

Sensing the thought, Eyeball spoke out as they entered the party. “How this goes all depends on how many of these assholes are in here—their meeting room’s upstairs, right Lou?”

“Yeah,” Lou nodded, glancing furtively around to see if there was any trouble on the horizon. Nothing but drunks and dancers for now.

“We should just go in and pop em all,” Ferret spoke up, “Bang! Bang! Bang! That’s it. Easy.”

Eyeball ignored him but looked at the other two closely. “You guys ain’t packing heat, are you?” he asked, “Remember we said no guns.”

“No guns,” Romeo nodded, “we won’t need em anyway.”

“I do got this though,” Ferret grinned, taking his hand out of his pocket to show a brass-knuckle on his fist, scratched from ample usage, and paradoxically spelling the word “IRISH”.

“Nice piece,” Lou said.

“Yeah, you say that now,” Ferret replied, “But I bet you wouldn’t want to take a closer look, would you?”

“Try me,” Lou smiled.

Romeo stepped towards the staircase, either not noticing or deliberately ignoring the two girls who were frantically twirling and stroking their hair trying to get his attention as he walked past them. “Come on,” he said, “let’s get this over with…”

He began to climb the staircase, stepping aside to let a rather large young man dressed in only a bed-sheet and a paper crown pass by on his way down, as the others followed Romeo.

“Hail Caeser,” Ferret signaled to the frat boy and the guy returned to him a puzzled gaze.

After checking a number of rooms (and disturbing more than one offended couple from the throes of their sensual pleasure) they opened a door onto a large rec-room type area, complete with a pool-table, bar and huge sofas facing a home cinema screen hooked up to a variety of games consoles. On the projector screen the
Grand Theft Auto
avatar was just in the middle of boosting a car when they stepped in and Ferret smiled to see it. He loved that game.

“Who the fuck are you assholes?” somebody grunted. “This is a private room for Gammas only. Party’s downstairs.”

Eyeball smiled as he narrowed his eyes. “No it ain’t,” he said, “the party’s right here. Or at least our kind of party is anyway.”

The four of them stepped into the room and got ready to teach the Wild Cats a beginner’s lesson in the law of the streets.

The guys were tough alright, seasoned football players with the strength to match, but when it came to the art of free-for-all fighting they were rookies at best. Ferret threw his Irish fist at one six foot seven goliath and the guy dropped like a bundle of bricks, smashing through the glass coffee table and splitting the long clay bong that had lain on it right in two beneath him.

“Oof,” the beast moaned, as he crumpled in a heap amongst the broken glass.

Eyeball placed his lips to Lou’s ear and whispered: “we’re looking for Pete, right? That’s the guy?”

“Yeah,” Lou nodded.

“Where the fuck is Pete?” Eyeball shouted as two more big football players lunged towards him at once.

Lou punched one in the side of the head and then kneed him in the stomach as he buckled over, while Romeo shot his hand out almost Karate-style and felled the other with a single blow to the throat. Impressed, Eyeball raised an eyebrow in his direction and Romeo shrugged.

“I’ll ask you again,” Eyeball said, “where the fuck is Pete?”

At that moment a restroom door burst open and a tall, muscular blonde guy stepped forward from inside, pulling up his pants. On her knees in front of him, a sorority girl wiped her mouth and protested: “Pete! You promised we wouldn’t be disturbed!”

Ferret and Lou sniggered as the Wild Cats leader said, “Shut up Cindy, ok?” and then: “I’m Pete, who’s asking?” He looked at the carnage around him, his uneasy gaze settling on the four tough guys in the middle of the room, apparently unfazed by the whole commotion.

“You Pete?” Eyeball asked.

“That’s what I said, didn’t I? Now who the fuck are you?”

“We’re your retirement package,” Eyeball said, taking a pair of pliers from his inside coat pocket. “Ferret, bring him to me.”

Even through all the noise of the party, someone downstairs must have heard the screams because minutes after Eyeball felt satisfied that Sal’s message to the Wild Cats had been adequately received, a siren sounded outside and the alarming sight of flashing red and blue lights appeared in the window.

“Looks like the party’s over fellas,” Eyeball said and then he smiled down at Pete, who sat hunched beneath him, gently moaning and clutching his bloodied right hand with the other. “That’s our ride Pete, but we want to stay out a little later tonight so we better disappear before they make us take it. Now you boys remember what we told you, ok?”

He turned to leave, before pausing one last time as he looked around the room. “Hey,” he said, “don’t get me wrong—I get the motivation here. You guys are clearly used to the finer things in life. Listen, how about this: if you and your boys still want work after this then you come to me, ok? We’ll see that you’re making more hard cash than whatever little chump change you were earning before.
A’capice
?”

Pete nodded his understanding but could only groan in answer.

“Good,” Eyeball said, “ok, fellas, let’s split.”

With that they released their hostages and hurried out of the room.

The house was still packed downstairs and an unruly mob of frat-boys—liquored up and outraged that someone had had the nerve to even attempt putting an end to their fun—had taken over the kitchen, where they were chanting: “Party on! Party on! Party on!”

Leading the way downstairs, Eyeball winked up at the others as they watched two campus cops push their way through the front door and towards the madness in the kitchen beneath them. Excellent—they’d done what was natural and gone straight to the most violent-sounding place in the building, as all the while the real criminals were slipping by undetected in the hallway. They stepped off the stairs and pushed towards the door when a girl’s voice called out: “Lou? Hey Lou, what are you doing here?”

They turned back to see two girls looking at them from across the crowd. One of them had glasses and her hair tied back in a bun, while the other was kind of large and punkish with a streak in her dyed-blonde hair. They both looked faintly familiar.

“Hey,” Ferret said, nudging Lou, “ain’t that your sister over there?”

“Ah shit,” Lou hissed, “yeah, it’s her—her and Lisa…” He looked back across the crowd and shouted “I got to go baby, I’ll explain later!”

At that moment Eyeball pushed forward in an effort to get his accomplices out the door but when he looked to Romeo it seemed like the guy had all of a sudden completely forgotten the stakes of the situation here. He was staring back at Lou’s sister, totally oblivious to Eyeball’s attempts, and when Eyeball followed his eyes back to the girl he saw that she was just staring right back at Romeo too. Behind her, Eyeball spotted the campus cops pushing back into the hallway and when their eyes met his they immediately widened, no doubt with the dawning realization that of all people in the frat house liable to be making serious trouble that night, he and his associates were clearly the most obvious suspects. He shouldered into Romeo as he passed him, hissing to get a move on, and then the four of them pushed back into the darkness outside, each of them disappearing in a different direction under the all-encompassing cover of the night.

It wasn’t until later the next day that we properly heard the full story about what had happened at Delta Gamma House that night—and it sure wasn’t in the form of any explanation from Lou to Lisa or me. I let on to Lisa that I wasn’t surprised, in between fretting and pawing over her like a best friend should, but truthfully, I was almost as shocked as she was. Yeah, of course I knew what Lou was mixed-up in (and as for Romeo—well truth be told I didn’t actually know
anything
about that guy at all, now did I? So I couldn’t admit to being upset about his part to play, no matter how much I felt like it) but the whole business had always seemed somehow distant and removed from the civilized life that me and Lisa lived on campus. I understood that they were into that tough guy gangster crap, but as a concept it was somehow abstract and theoretical, not something that would ever affect me or invade upon my real life. I guess part of me was just waiting until Lou grew out of the phase he was in and started behaving like a normal law-abiding citizen again. But now… well now I was starting to think maybe the only one who wasn’t facing up to reality in all of this was me.

We hadn’t even intended to go out that night—Delta Gamma and the football crowd wasn’t exactly our idea of a good night’s fun—but when we got our test scores back from our latest exam a day early, complete with surprisingly high marks for both of us, Lisa was insistent that we do something to celebrate. It was a coin toss between the frat party at Delta Gamma house and Flip N’ Chip’s and since Lisa had been spending so much time at the bar with Lou lately, we decided we’d stop by the frat party and check it out for a while. Sure, our hopes weren’t exactly high but what did we have to lose? We could always leave again if the party was too wild and unsavory for our civilized tastes. Little did we know how wild it would actually be…