“Not so fast,” Sal Gabrini said as he sat on the passenger seat while his underboss, Robby Yale, sat behind the wheel.  “If he I.D. us, it’s your ass.”

“He may have done that already,” Robby said.  “He’s sticking to all of the main roads like he’s afraid.”

“That’ll change.  Just be patient.  This shit don’t happen lightning quick just because you want it to happen that way.  And keep your ass back!”

They were in Baton Rouge, where it all went down, and Sal still couldn’t understand why one of his lieutenants would be this far south when his ass was supposed to be manning his turf in Vegas.  And the only lead they had so far was the driver of the car in front of them.

“He’s turning now, Boss,” Robby said.  “Finally!”

“Stay back far enough,” Sal ordered.  “But don’t lose him.”

Robby, keeping a distance, did as he was told and turned down the side street too.  But when he turned, he frowned.  “Ah, shit,” he said.  “We’re in a fucking school zone!”

The ride was even slower, as they drove past the school, but then their fortunes shifted.  The driver did what they had been waiting for him to do since their tail began fourteen miles ago: he turned down a quiet side street of businesses not yet open, and other businesses shut down as a result of the city’s urban blight.  It was exactly the move Sal and Robby were hoping he would make.

And Sal took immediate advantage.  “Get that motherfucker now,” he ordered.

“My pleasure,” Robby said eagerly.  He sped up so fast that their SUV was beside the target car before the driver realized what was happening.

“You want me to pull the PIT on him, Boss?”

“Hell no!” Sal shot back.  “He might get out of that.  Pin him.  Pin his ass in!”

Robby swerved the SUV against the side of the car so violently that the driver, with the SUV pinned to his car like a skin, ran off road, across the sidewalk, and headed straight for a tree.  The SUV swerved slightly away, just in time, as the car and tree collided.  The frontend and hood of the car bent in, and the engine began to smoke.

Robby slammed on brakes and Sal, with his assault rifle by his side, hurried out.

Sal Gabrini was not the kind of man who wasted time on killers.  If his target had anything to do with the disappearance of his capo, the target would be better served to just spit it out and get it over with.  If he chose to play games, Sal would make certain he regretted that choice.

The driver might have been dazed by the collision, but he wasn’t so confused that he didn’t open the passenger side door and try to make a run for it.  But Sal hurried up, too, and was upon him just as he managed to get one of his feet out of the car.

As soon as the driver saw that it was Sal Gabrini who had caused that crash, his heart nearly stopped.  And he tried with all he had to jump back into his vehicle, and slam and lock the door.

But the problem was Sal Gabrini.  Only a fool would think he was going to get out of this that easily.  Sal grabbed the door handle and nearly swung the door off of its hinges he flung it so wide.  “Where your punk ass going now?” Sal asked him.  Then he took his free hand and grabbed him by the collar, and then threw him to the ground as if he was throwing down a piece of trash.  Robby ran over too, with his own weapon in hand, and looked around and around to make sure the area was still clear.

Sal placed one of his red-sole shoes; shoes even the downed driver recognized as an expensive-ass pair of Louboutin’s, on top of the man’s chest, holding him down.  Then he placed the barrel of his rifle at the man’s throat.  “Fuck with me,” he said to the driver, “and this will become your final resting place.”

“I don’t have anything against you, Mr. Gabrini,” the driver cried.  “You got the wrong guy!”

“Yeah, sure I do.  And fucking ice cream ain’t sweet!”  Sal pressed the rifle’s barrel even harder into the man’s throat.  “Cut the bullshit and tell me what happened.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Motherfucker, you think I got time for this bullshit?  You think I’m going to let your punk-ass tell me you don’t know shit about shit and leave it at that?  You think I’m that fucking person?  Tell me what happened!”

“They told us to snatch him!” the driver yelled out.

That was more like it, Sal thought.  “Who’s us?” he asked.

“Me and Gimp.”

Sal frowned.  “Gimp’s ass is in Chicago.  What’s he doing in Baton Rouge?”

“He was here for the job.  Then he went back.  The cops got heat on him for some luxury cars he stole in one of their affluent areas.  He can’t steal right now.  He needed the extra dough.”

“Who hired you?” Sal asked.

“I don’t know!  They hired Gimp and Gimp hired me.”

“Fucking liar,” Robby said.

“Mr. Gabrini, I’m telling you the honest truth,” the driver begged, with his hands still in the air as if Sal was still a cop.  “You gotta believe me.  Robby just blowing smoke.  Robby just trying to get me in trouble.  But I’m telling you the truth!  I wouldn’t lie to you like that.  I know you’ll kill me if I lie to your face like that!”

“After you snatched him, what happened to him?” Sal asked.

“We put him in the trunk and drove him to Texas, like Gimp said he was told to do.  And then we turned him over.”

“Over to who?” Sal asked.

“I don’t know those people.  Just some wise guys Gimp knew.  They put him in their trunk, paid Gimp, and drove away.  Then Gimp paid me.  That’s everything that happened. I didn’t kill him.  I didn’t harm a hair on his head.  All I did--”

“All your ass did,” Sal said, “was turn him over to the people who did kill him, and who did harm a hair on his fucking head!  And you think that exonerates you?”

“But I didn’t kill him!”  The driver was crying like a baby now.  “I wasn’t even the one they hired.  They hired Gimp for that job.  I was just going along with Gimp.”

Sal was about to react, and tell him what he thought about his going along, but Robby saw a car turn onto the street, and began speeding toward them.

“Boss, we got company!” Robby yelled.

But as soon as Sal turned to see for himself, the car was heading straight for them, and was driving so fast and recklessly that it was nearly swerving out of control.

Sal grabbed Robby, and together with him dived to the other side of the tree just as the car sped straight into the back of the car Sal had targeted.  The car flipped over into the air like a flying spacecraft, and kept flipping, over and over and over again, until it landed, frontend first, in the middle of the street.  The speeding car drove right over the driver of the target car, as if that driver was their target too, and killed him instantly.

Then the speeding car drove away, as if their entire mission was to take out that driver before he told too much.  But Sal jumped back into the frame and began shooting at the speeding car, as if it was his mission to take them out.

Sal wasn’t going for it.  No way were they getting away with this.  He ran behind that car and shot his assault rifle repeatedly.  He broke the back window, disabled a tire, and finally got the driver through the head.   The car continued to speed, but Sal knew it wasn’t going anywhere.

And it didn’t.  Before the others in the vehicle could get behind the wheel, to control the motherfucker, Sal thought, the car careened off the road, knocked over benches and chairs and even knocked aside a parked car at a textile store, before it ran straight into the store’s brick building.  And that car smashed so violently that it ended up half its side.  The people inside the car all were thrown to the front, and smashed too.

Robby ran up to Sal, his heart still racing from that close call.  “They didn’t even come for us,” he said.  “They know we’re trying to find out what happened to your capo, and if they know you, they know you aren’t going to stop until you do find out.  But they still let us live.  They didn’t even try to come for us.”

Sal didn’t respond.

“Don’t you think that’s strange, Boss?” Robby asked.

It wasn’t strange to Sal.  It was called spacing in the underworld.  They might want his life eventually, but they didn’t want it yet.  They wanted to leave him in the dark.  They wanted to leave him guessing.  They wanted to make him solve a fucking puzzle, before he solved the crime.

Sirens could be heard in the distance, as Sal suddenly realized the alarm at the textile store was blaring.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Sal said, and they hurried to leave the area.