Chapter 1: The best of plans

"Hey ... ah ... Art. I got a bad feelin' about this man. A real bad feelin'. I mean it man ... I don't think this is real smart ... Ya know? I'm just sayin', I think we're askin' for big trouble here." 'Sharp' Louie told his friend with concern in his voice.

"Whoa ... whoa ... time out there brain trust. I'm thinking you mean bad as opposed to being good, as in it's fucked up right? Well, tell it to someone who gives a shit my man! This ain't a goddamn fuckin' city council meeting, you know. Besides, since when did you start doing the thinking for this outfit anyway? Screw it man! I've made up my mind. This is a done fucking deal with or without your fuckin' help Lou. It's fuckin' done man! You got that? You fucking got it?" Art, 'The Mailman' responded defiantly as he abruptly yanked the nose of the big Cadillac toward the curb, slammed on the breaks and came to a screeching halt. "There's two ways you can go on this ... my way or the highway. What's it gonna be, Lou?"

In all the years that he and Art had been partners Louie had never seen Art quite so upset. Louie was well aware that he wasn't the smartest guy around, hell, that's how he'd gotten the nickname 'Sharp' Louie, but he was sure as hell smart enough to know that what Art was planning on doing was real crazy shit. Just like Art had told him Louie had never been the brains of the outfit and most times he just did whatever Art told him to do, but this time he felt he had to try and talk Art out of his plan. "Come on Art ... Jesus Christ, man. Fuckin' forget about it." Louie apologized. " ... don't be that way. I don't want to get out of the car ... but shit man ... We'll both end up in the East river if we work this scam you're planning. Nobody gets away with fucking over Raw Eddy man. Nobody."

"Fuck Raw Eddy!" Art extended his middle finger pointing it toward the windshield. "Raw Eddy ain't the poor bastard who's got cancer man. Me man! I'm the lucky fuck what's got this shit eating out my insides, not him man, me! So screw fucking Raw Eddy to hell and fuckin' back!"

"Yeah ... I know man, but..." Louie started to argue again but Art cut him off.

"But nothing man. I've thought about this a whole lot. This is probably the only chance I'll ever have to get my hands on enough money to do something about this crap," Art jabbed his thumb toward his cancer ridden stomach then he angrily stubbed out the butt of his Lucky Strike cigarette into the overflowing ashtray. " ... and I ain't passing on it Lou. No fucking way am I passing on it!"

"Yeah ... but Eddy don't like being chumped, and we're talkin' a whole lot of his money here. Remember what he did to Frost? And that was for less than a grand man." Louie knew how serious Eddy was about anybody stealing money from him. Allen Frost had

skimmed just a little over a grand off the top from one of Eddy's bookie joints and Eddy had both of Frost's hands hacked off then had him hung upside down in the front window of a retail store where he bled to death as a reminder to anyone else even thinking about ripping him off. Stealing from Raw Eddy was bad business and Louie was scared, but in the end he also knew if Art was really going to go through with the deal, he'd help him ... because him an Art was partners ... no matter what, they was also pals.

The two D.E.A. agents sat uncomfortably on straight-backed wooden chairs, in the shabby three-room apartment on the second floor of the 'Fenton Arms' hotel. Both men were mindlessly staring out through the unwashed living room window at a warehouse located directly across the street from the cheap hotel room, and both men were bored to spit. For the last three day's they had been staking out the warehouse, which was proposed to be the location of a drug deal going down within the next few days, but so far nothing had happened.

Stakeouts in general were considered to be 'grunt detail' and disliked by everyone, but this particular stakeout was the bottom of the pit. For one thing, the information that a drug deal was about to go down had come from one of the departments more unreliable sources, an informant who went by the name of 'Willie the Weasel', a low life snitch that would swear his mother was Hitler in drag if it got him twenty bucks. Second, the only reason the department had taken any real interest was Weasel's claim that 'Raw Eddy' Hyde was doing the deal, and the department couldn't afford to pass up any chance of getting the goods on 'Raw Eddy' no matter how slim the prospect. And third, a new departmental policy stipulated that no one on surveillance would be allowed to play cards, listen to a radio, watch television or even read a newspaper was currently in effect. The department felt doing anything other than observing was much too distracting and might jeopardize the assignment. That policy made a boring assignment even worse.

"We're on!" One of the agents jumped up and anxiously yelled to the other when he spotted a white Cadillac El Dorado slam to an abrupt stop and park a block away from the entrance to the warehouse.

The other agent stood up and retrieved the two way radio sitting on the end table. "Bout fucking time. I'll radio in for backup." He said, thankful for finally having something to do.

"Hold on!" The first agent said looking through binoculars. His comment stopped the second agent from keying the transmitter button. "It's only two of Eddy's flunky's. You know, that Sharp Louie brain trust and..." He squinted his eyes. " ... Art some-thing-or-another, you know, that dick head they call The Mailman."

"Well shit! Maybe the Weasel really is on to something this time? Want I should call it in any way, just to get the squad up and on their toes?"

"Naw. Let's just clock um and wait until something solid actually goes down. Don't want to queer the deal by pushing early if this really is something. I'm still not all that convinced our mister Weasel ain't just blowing smoke up our ass." He pulled the binoculars from his eyes and plopped down on the uncomfortable chair to wait once again.