“Our other banks,” Lucifer says with a smirk of his own.
“Fuck, we’re going that legitimate now?” I ask with a raised eyebrow.
“For our progeny. We’re still the disreputable crowd, as always,” Lucifer says.
Well, fuck me running. Being legit is a scary fucking thought.
“You’re not expecting me to wear suits like those two fucks?” I ask, pointing at Simon and Andrew.
A large grin spreads across the evil fuck’s face as he says, “Of course, in due time.”
“I’d rather fucking choke,” I snort.
“Back to the business at hand. The new tech that Sommers has talked about is now on every police vehicle in Garden City. It’s called an LPR, or License Plate Reader. We’ve known about the software and hardware since its inception, but until recently it’s been tightly controlled,” Simon says.
“Isn’t that thing the little mod they have affixed to the cop cars now? Reads the plates of every car they pass?” Andrew says.
“Exactly,” Simon says. “Going over the video feeds around the church, I was able to pull two license plates numbers. Although I’m unable to ascertain which exactly is Alexei’s, I’ve put in a tracking request for those two plates.”
“As soon as they start moving, we should be able to find them?” I ask.
“Yes, with time I should be able to follow them through Garden City and Bethlehem. If a police car picks them up, I’ll be able to link them through traffic cameras and such,” Simon says with a grin as he flips the laptop around for us to see. “Two black Audis. One was riding with enough weight to show it had at least four passengers, perhaps five. The second had two or three men in it.”
“You don’t think they’ll swap plates?” Johnathan asks.
Simon shrugs his shoulders. “More than likely, no. They don’t have our developed contacts and information. If they do, it will make our job of tracking these men down much harder.”
I nod my head. “Figures. Any trees you need me to shake?”
Lucifer shakes his head. “Not yet. With the hit on the restaurant and the bank, we need to keep our actions more covert. Let’s see what kind of message they try sending us. It should be soon.”
“Sounds good, but I’ve got a feeling the Irish aren’t going to be happy with us no matter the outcome of this little war. We’re working with the Italians. From what Meghan has told me, her mom getting hit with a car bomb has put a huge rift between the two factions,” I say.
“I don’t buy it being the Italians. They had no reason to when it happened, and it’s not their style anymore,” Andrew says.
“Really?” I ask as I turn to look at him.
“Yeah, the Italians weren’t even trying to take over territory in Bethlehem. They were busy fucking around with the Russians when that shit went down over here in Garden. Why the hell would they go for a war on two entirely different fronts?” Andrew says and points to Lucifer.
“He’s got a very good point,” Lucifer says as he looks over to Simon. “Put a call over to our Italian contacts. Let’s see what they have to say. I think us befriending the Irish would go a long way in offsetting what the Russians have been doing.”
“If the Italians didn’t do the hit, who did?” I ask the room.
Snickering, Johnathan says, “They don’t call the drink the Irish Car Bomb for no reason.”
Laughing, Lucifer says, “Now that would be interesting.”
“It would,” Simon says, “This could be falling back to the troubles the Italians and Irish were having over in Ohio. Two of the best hitmen in the world dropped off the map after the big dust up over there. What if the Irish were trying to take over more space and needed to pin serious damage on the Italians?”
That’s some convoluted thinking, if you ask me. But if the Irish killed the wife of an Irish boss… fuck me. That’d be a mess to deal with. They’d have to have a damn good reason for doing it.
“Any chance it was the Russians?” I ask.
“Blame the Italians, cozy up to the poor little Irish and get their allegiance?” Andrew asks.
“I’ve got a thousand bucks right now that says it wasn’t the Italians who did it,” Johnathan says with a laugh.
Snorting with a chuckle, I say, “Not taking that fool’s bet.”
As soon as we start standing up to go about our tasks for the day, Lucifer’s phone starts ringing on his desk.
Looking down at the phone, he frowns at it. “It’s an unknown number, Simon.”
“I’ll start a trace,” Simon says quickly.
Lucifer picks up the phone and waits a moment before saying, “Hello.”
Simon makes a thumbs up gesture from his laptop and motions for us to stay.
Lucifer grins as he says, “Let me put you on speakerphone.”
Pushing a button, he sets the phone down in the cradle and a Russian voice comes over the line. “Of course.”