Tripple D

05Nov09

Dangerous Dave Durango may have been the loudest man in the world. Which was odd because he was a pickpocket, a burglar, a sneak thief. Or perhaps it was less of a contradiction and more of a clever foil. The man seemed utterly incapable not only of keeping his mouth shut but of saying anything in less than a tenborous bellow. Tripple D was a man with no sense of an inside voice or the basic decency not to speak what was on his mind. Whenever and wherever that he might be.

The nickname was not about the man’s stature. It was not a call sign amongst underworld folk that Dave was a force to be reckoned with, the kind of man one hoped to never meet in an alley without three men as backup and a supply of heaters. No, the moniker was about Dave’s inability to shut up no matter what trouble it might get him into. And it got him a lot of trouble.

Now Dave was hired, a couple of years back to steal a certain object from the then still living Jimmy “La Tuer” Kaminski. This was a decade ago, in the days before Madame Kaminski stepped forward to rule that family with her iron bitch facade. Kaminski was rumored to have gotten a shipment of gold from out of the old country. Which was valuable, sure, but this wasn’t just any gold it was templar gold. Which means nothing to me, you understand, and it sure as hell didn’t mean anything to Tripple D. But it meant enough to Kaminski that he double crossed Varenetti, a friendship that seemed to have held for twenty years through the wars and the original syndicate. But this gold. This gold, it was worth splitting that all up.

So Tripple D goes in. Subtle like. And he’s looking for a map built into a statue that Kaminski had for finding the gold after it was hidden. This is all too much. Bad mojo and such, rich, powerful men have better things to do with their time so when they go nutty about something like this I say that no pay is worth it. And truth be told, Tripple D was doing the job for the same rate he did everything for. Not a major contender by any means, but this is the way he operated.

He finds the statue in question. This sort of armless dragon-lady thing. It obviously isn’t Kaminski’s normal kind of thing. And he gets to thinking, Tripple D, and he decides that the map isn’t in the statue or written on it. The statue itself must of come from somewhere else. And Tripple D isn’t stupid mind you, just uncouth. And he’s standing in Kaminski’s bedroom with the man asleep all of five feet away and he starts working this thing out to himself. Outloud. And not in a hushed mumble. This is Tripple D we are talking about. And Kaminski wakes up and is so stunned when he sees who it is that he just starts laughing.

And Kaminski’s guys come in and grab Tripple D and they work him over, medium-style, nothing to rough. And then they huck him out the back and tell him to have a nice day. Just like that. “Have a nice day.” And Tripple D goes and tells his employer about the statue. And Tripple D, he’s got a good memory, he talks about the shape and the color and everything and the guy nods and pays him double his scale.

And he didn’t even get the thing. That is the funny part. What the hell was the man paying for?

Filed under: 100 Ways to Find Yourself in the City   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: Billy Barrett, Kaminski, Tripple D, Varenetti, Zed