Unorganized Crime

1

Unorganized Crime

By: my one resident brain cell

I was lightly shoved into the large office, a man I recognized lounging in a leather office chair with his feet on the desk. My boss, a caporegime. Mr. Rocca. His eyes moved away from the papers in his hand and scanned over me while I stood in his doorway, hands held firmly at my sides while I tried not to shuffle from foot to foot.

"You called me here, sir?" I tried not to sound too bored, but I must've failed because the man narrowed his eyes. He removed his legs from his desk and planted them on his Vitrazza glass chair mat. He exhaled heavily, setting down his papers, and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Did they really choose you? Do you have any idea why you're here?" I shook my head. Rocca never called people up, and the sudden commotion downstairs with some other employees left a lot of people, especially me, nervous. "Well," Rocca explained. "Recently, there's been an increase of 'visitors' from Russia. Mostly rough, suspicious-looking men. It wouldn't be too much of a concern if there wasn't anything bad going on in the mostly decommissioned Russian Mafia. Unfortunately, they've been having issues over there. A small group had been targeted by the FBI and were smoked out, leaving their connections and any entrances to exposing larger organizations wide open. Naturally, as you may assume, this angered the head of the family and there's been a rush to depart the country until you get killed, or worse."

I did my best to keep my tone polite when I spoke, this time."But what does that have to do with me, sir?" He squinted at me, annoyance evident on his face.

"See that's the thing," He sighed again, heavily, like I wasn't worth his time. I guess, in terms of the hierarchy, I wasn't. Regardless, I was getting annoyed with all his sighing and pauses. He continued, "I sent my guys down to choose someone good for the job I had in mind. I was very surprised when they sent you up, Harold." Now he was insulting me straight to my face, but he continued.

"The gist is, in short, that we don't need any more competing groups, fugitive or not. We've already got enough of that all around the country." He huffed. "So! What I need you to do is to find out more information about this group. Intercept a member at the airport, threaten them or hurt them. It doesn't really matter to me. You've got a gun, it'll be fine. Get some data out of one. Most of them have distinctive tattoos on their hands or arms, so read up on your Russian tattoos. You start tomorrow. Okay, now you're dismissed." He stood up and leaned against his desk, his attention going back to the carpet. I continued to stand in the doorway of the office, expecting him to say something more. He continued to stare at that lump in the carpet, eyes narrowing through a pair of glasses. Without looking at me, he said, "Why are you still here?"

I finally left, taking one quick glance behind me as I went, and adjusted the bowler hat on my head. The last thing I saw was Mr. Rocca grab a chair from the front of his desk and throw it down, aiming at the lump, as I closed the door. There was a big crash. I adjusted my tie, huffing.

My steps echoed in the tall and quiet stairwell as I made my way downstairs. I started wondering why the capo had so much intel on some rinky-dink Russian group. They weren't high profile, or have any connections to any of the U.S. groups. We didn't even have anything to do with the Russian Mob, the Bratva. As I found the door to my floor, a familiar face was already waiting for me outside. Not familiar, as in 'friends', but as in 'I've seen him around and he wants to impress me and probably move up rank wise'. He had messy black hair that hung in his eyes, and he wore a white button-up shirt. Damian spoke, his voice low,

"What did the capo want with you?"

"Why would you want to know? It's none of your business."

"Well, when someone is dragged from their desk, it's a source of curiosity. Also, the capo doesn't usually call people up very often"

He kept standing by the door and raised his eyebrows inquisitively, likely expecting an answer. I pushed past him and he followed not too long after I sat in my desk. A few people went up to him and talked to him urgently in low, hushed voices. He only sighed and shrugged. What a bunch of children! None of them would ever become made men if they kept acting like that. Papers were scattered around my desk, meaningless and full of nonsense. I'd probably get moved soon enough, anyway. I put my papers in a stack and began to organize them while typing information into my computer. It was all I could do until tomorrow, I guess.