Page 84 of Bourbon & Blood

“Thanks,” I said, and put up my phone, pulling back out into traffic and the throngs of tourists that were a fixture in this part of the city.

I rode out to where Saint and Axeman were sitting on our quarry.

“Boys,” I said when I pulled up next to ‘em and cut my engine.

“Hey, boss.” Axe gave me a nod.

“What’s the rundown?” I asked and they gave it to me. He’d been home all day, but from what they knew, listening as they had with the surveillance equipment we had, he was planning on going out to dinner at a fancy place off Chartres.

“Thinkin’ about grabbing him?” Saint asked, handing over the parabolic mic he had pointed at the house and the earpiece to go with it.

I nodded.

“Axe, go back to the club an’ get the van. Gonna need it to haul this hog to the Smokehouse,” I said.

“You sure, boss? This ain’t no little hog,” he said.

I nodded, my eyes fixed on the fancy house he was in.

We lucked out. We were in one of the neighborhoods where folks with six figures worth o’ income were housed right next door to a workin’-class family on government assistance or a dude on a fixed income and Medicare. There were parts of the city that were a real crazy mix like that, and this was one of them. It was enough to keep us sittin’ here off the radar. Weren’t no reason for us to be here, but there weren’t no reason for usnotto be, either.

“You got it,” Axe muttered, and he kick-started his classic ride.

Wasn’t long before our prey was pullin’ out his driveway and went right on past us without a second look. We looked like we were just talkin’ and smokin’ a joint, but he paid us no never mind which was a test in and of itself to see if Cornelius had been talkin’.

Didn’t look like it.

We rode out, keeping a healthy distance as we headed on down to Chartres. We found a place to park, and Axe rolled up. We got in the van and circled the block a while, casing the joint, possible points of exit and, the best spot to potentially ambush our boy.

It was dicey kidnappin’ a man off the street like this; but we’d done it in broad daylight afore and right now we had the benefit of the cover of darkness.

We had our chance, and things went smooth as butter.

We threw open the side door, hauled his ass in, and tazered the motherfucker until he was out. A hood, some flex cuffs behind his back, and we were good to go.

“Anybody spot us?” Saint asked Axe as our chests heaved with the struggle to subdue the little shit.

“Don’t look like it,” Axe declared.

“Drop us up the block,” I said. “And git on to the Smokehouse. We gotta get this little piggy ready for the market.”

Axe pulled up in a loading zone ahead and Saint and I bailed out to walk back to our bikes.

We rode out to the Smokehouse, and I contemplated how I was gonna play this.

I kept thinking about my little Alina, and how she’d spoken about her friend. She had a thing with Maya that was as close as a citizen could get to what I had with my brothers that rode with me.

Despite my girl’s lonely upbringing in the face of massive dysfunction, she had a deeper understanding about whatfamilymeant than any other person I’d known – and for her, her only family was Maya. If indeed this motherfucker had taken Maya away from my woman? Well… there would be hell to pay, and I had no trouble bringin’ hell with me wherever I went.

The humidity was so thick you could cut it with a knife, and still it’d be a bitch to get it off the blade when you were through. So, it stood to reason, it was going to be one hell of an uncomfortable night at the Smokehouse. Not nearly as uncomfortable as it was going to be for Kenny boy, though.

“He’s still out,” Axeman said calmly when we pulled up. He lit the spliff in his mouth and sucked in a lungful of green.

“You get him settled into his new accommodations?” Saint asked him.

“I got him trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey,” he shot back and I nodded.

“You good, boss?” Axe asked me, looking my way.

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