The Talon Family The Assassination of Two Part 1

The Talon Family

The Assassination of Two

March

By: Chase L. Currie

New York City

Time: 2005

Walter Shirley stood with his hand in his suit pocket staring out the window of his penthouse over the skyline of the city he loved. He played with the pocket knife his father gave him when he was ten years old. It was a simple knife and was all his father ever had to his name. It was given to him by his father and then his father and so on and so on. It was given to Walter because he was sitting beside the bed of his dying father. The last and only act of kindness the man gives any of his children.

                The lung cancer was eating him from the inside out, and there was nothing they could do to save him. He was dying. He would be dead in a matter of days.

                He told Walter to open his hand through a painful gasp of air, and he did as he was told. He placed the knife in his hand and said, “Make something of yourself, become better than I was, but never forget where you came from.”

                He played with the knife now twenty-seven years later wishing his father could see where he was standing now. They grew up poor like all the Irish around them. They grew up fighting for the next day’s food not sure if it would come and they grew up only having each other. Walter and his twin brother Mark was left with nothing after the death of their father. Their mother died walking home drunk one night and didn’t see the car that hit her.

                They were left alone in the world only having each other.

                And now, Walter stood looking down at the city about to become the mayor of the Big Apple. He smiled knowing his father was looking down at him cheering him on. He hoped his father didn’t see all the things he had to do to get here. He found himself having to get into bed with some nasty people, but it all led to this moment.

                He was no longer poor. No longer a nobody doing nothing with his life. He was a something. He had made it, just like his father asked him to.

                The knife came out as he smiled down at it. “This is for you, old man,” Walter said.

                He put the knife away, something he always keeps with him and fixed his red hair. He pushed his glasses up his long nose and lanky body heading for the door. He was going home for the night. He needed to see his wife, later.

                Life was good.

                Even if there had been a few threats made on it. A few of the people who helped get him here was calling their debt in, but Walter had no plan on paying them. He knew one of the mob bosses were feared by everyone called the Voice, but it was a dumb name along with the threats. Walter had a better security force than most countries. The Voice couldn’t touch him, not now or ever. Once he was in office, he would make sure people like the Voice was put to an end. He was going to make sure the mob was destroyed. It was one of the many things he had planned for this city.

                He was going to save the city.

Walter walked past the six guards outside of his penthouse heading for the elevator. He had a meeting with a very lovely rock star at some club he didn’t know very well, but he didn’t want to miss spending the night like a king.

                “You are doing well tonight Scott?” Walter asked the head of the guards.

                “Very well, sir,” Scott said with a nod. He was once a Navy SEAL and still spent his off-time training like one. He was a giant of a man and Walter felt very safe standing next to him.

                “How are the kids?” Walter asked.

                “I get to see them this week,” Scott told him with a grin. He and his ex-wife still had a good friendship and share the kids as much as they could between their busy lives. The relationship didn’t work because they both wanted different things in life outside of the kids. It was a sad tale but an easy split between them. They handle themselves like adults a rare thing in the world of adulthood. Walter made sure to pay him well and give him every other weekend off to spend time with his children. Sometimes, Walter even paid for them to have a day out at the fair.

                “That is good, Scott,” Walter said with a smile.

                “You should come and see them,” Scott said pressing the button for the private elevator.

                “I’ll find the time,” Walter told him.

                “Your car and the team are ready to go,” Scott said listening to the radio in his ear. It was a small hearing aid looking device which Walter had to take a while to pick out when he was first around all the bodyguards, but now it was like seeing the gun they had hidden away. It was nothing new to him. “Also,” he said with a little rise of his eyebrow, “your brother is in the elevator.”

                “Wonder what he is doing here tonight?” Walter asked himself. His brother was going through his own divorce, but it was not as easy going as Scott’s was, in fact, his ex-wife was making it hard as a nail for him every step of the way. “I hope everything is alright.”

                The doors ding opening with a splitting image of Walter standing on the other side expect for right scare over Mark’s right eye and his hair oiled back like a 20s gangster. Walter stepped into the steel box as Scott nodded at them both. He walked away with the doors shutting behind him.

                “Hey,” Mark said.

                “Everything alright?” Walter asked.

                “Leanna kicked me out tonight,” Mark said with his hands in his pockets.

                “I’m sorry to hear that,” Walter told him. “You can stay in the penthouse tonight. I’m going out.”

                “Yeah, that’s what Chad told me,” Mark said. He didn’t look at his brother just kept his eyes forward as if he was trouble and there was something odd about his voice. It sounded like it wasn’t him talking, but it was his mouth moving.

                “Can I ask you something?” Mark said.

                “Shoot.”

                Mark turned to face him, and Walter saw the radio in his ear just like Scott had and he asked, “Why did you think we couldn’t get to you?”

                “What?” Walter asked stepping back.

                “I told you, Walter,” Mark said with a dead look in his eyes. “I told you the Gavel falls on everyone. We are everywhere, and no man is safe from me.”

                Before Walter knew what was going on, Mark had pulled the small pistol from his pocket aiming it right at his brother’s head. Walter’s arm shot up into the air as Mark moved it upwards and around went off echoing in the small steel box, but it wasn’t the sound that hurt the most. There was a stinging pain in Walter’s neck like something wasn’t meant to be there. He let go of the gun, but his body had already fallen to the ground. He touched the side of his neck where the knife was standing out, more shock it was there than anything else. The gun was a decoy. He didn’t try to remove it, but breathing was hard. He couldn’t find air, and every time he spoke his mouth was full of a copper taste.

                “I told you, Walter,” Mark said still dead eye. “I was coming for blood this time.”

(Writer’s Notes: I must also point out here the villain on this tale is created by my cousin, Allen. He helps me created some characters for a pen and paper game we are playing. I’m also using some of the short stories I’m working on with the Talons as missions for the game.)