My Jungle

It was time to go pay some debtors of mine a friendly visit. Business is business. At these friendly visits I usually get a chance to introduce my fist to a few faces, my foot to a few midsections, and finally, my long lost children (Franklin, Hamilton, and Jackson) become reaquainted with the inside of my briefcase. I usually enjoy myself far more than the honored guest of the evening. Tonight, however, there was something different in the air. Lefty and I had just finished enjoying some Chinese food (even though we had to struggle to drown out the resturant owner yelling at some guy named Charlie in the back). When we stepped out of the restaurant, there was a tension in the atmosphere; as if the air knew something that I did not, and was having extreme difficulty withholding the information from me. Something was about to happen, I could feel it. I placed my hand on the gun tucked into belt and tried to stay as alert as possible. When Lefty saw my face, he knew that something was bothering me. He asked me several times what I was thinking, and each time my silence was all he got in reply. I could not blink, I could not slip, I had to stay alert. Just then I heard the screech of tires peling out of a spot. It was at that moment that I knew the air could no longer keep its secret. This was the moment that the mood was set for. The screech of the tires almost came as a relief, because that meant that it was either now or never. Whatever was about to happen was either going to happen now, or not at all. Bang,bang, bang!!! I was being shot at! I could not tell yet from where. The sound of a gun firing was anything but unfamilar to me, but i must admit that it had been a long time since i had found someone bold enough and dumb enough to actually pull the trigger. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted the location of the threat. The shots were coming from an unmarked black van with three or four occupants inside the vehicle. Lefty and I immediately began to return fire. Lefty had a better shot than Kobe Bryant and managed to accruately put two bullets throught the driver side window. I wasnt sure if it was the bullets or the sleet from earlier in the day that caused the crash, but the van suddenly swirved and crashed head first into the street light at the intersection. The occupants of the vehicle were pretty badly injured, which allowed us pletty of time to disarm, disrobe, and restrain the shooters. (Upon futher inspection, it was definitely the bullets that caused the crash). I told Lefty to put them in the trunk and transfer them to our "interigation room," which was in reality the old undergorund wine celler that was behind the bar. Needless to say, I was pretty pissed about being shot at, and decided that I only needed to question one of the three thugs in the van. The other two....well, lets just hope that the rope around their hands and feet didnt stop them from swinmming to safety after we dumped them off the bridge. After several hours of interigation and whole hell of a lot of smelling salts, we found that some wanna be hot shot Columbian prick put the simple bastard up to it. It never ends!! When will they realize that this is my jungle!?!

I Hate Rats

After a few hours, the rain finally subsided. The sky still looked as if someone had dipped a paintbrush in it and swirled it around because of all the darm ominous clouds. When I saw that Lefty was about to go investigate the roof top, I figured, what the heck, why not go with him? It had been a while since I vistited the Heights last, and I figured that it couldn't hurt just to get out there and show my face. Besides, I absolutely had to know what was on top of that roof. We hopped in Lefty's Mustang, but at the last second we decided to take my favorite car, the Mazerati. When we arrived at the Heights, a few people gawked, a few fled, and the rest were too high to react at all. We made our way through to the elevator, but considering the intensity of the storm that just pasted, we decided that we weren't going to chance. Being stuck on an elevator was the last thing that I needed right now. When we reached the stairs, my attention was immediately drawn to a kitten that was wondering around the stairwell aimlessly, and then to the only other human occupant in the stairwell, besides Lefty and myself, a very disgruntled, annoyed, and obviously rushed woman pushed her way past us both without so much as an acknowledging glance. I had killed a man before, and this woman struck me as cold. But after she pushde passed, we continued our ascent. Finally. We reached the exact spot where we had seen the figure in the storm, but all that was there was a shabby lemonade stand looking table and a small curiously motionless rodent on the ground. I refused to have my presence defied by something as trivial as a rat, so I motioned as if I was going to step on it, and yet it remained still. I bent down to take a closer look at this death defying creature, and i realized...the damn thing was stuffed. Who stuffs a rodents!?! Upon seeing this I became irate in the effort that I had wasted in my quest and began to curse at everything that he a pulse and was within earshot. A stuffed rat...why would anyone? Now being in the mood that I was in after the most anti-climatic investigation in the world, i decided it would make me feel quite a bit better to collect on some of the money that these so called hustlers owed. Surely not all of them would be able to pay me back, but today, that is exactly what I was counting on. Some people have stress balls, I have this. I told Lefty to put the word out that I was collecting today. What can I say? Its simply time to pay the piper.