Shoes On A Wire

Grant Colder than Ice

The next day I arrive at the office and am immediately handed a stack of papers by a grumpy short man. Aka Greg.

"My office. Now" he says.

I am acutely aware of the lack of sleep I got last night. Wishing I had better sleeping pills that could make me sleep without nightmares or flashbacks like that.

The interns running around visibly shrink against his presence. They also shrink against my prescience too, but that's just from the scar on my face. I feel slightly uncomfortable with their guilty ogling stares. I try not to let it get under my skin but it was so obvious. I sighed. I even caught Theo staring at my scar sometimes but I never said anything. I self consciously rubbed the scar. As if I could erase it somehow.

As we enter he jabs his stubby finger at the bulletin board of photos and papers in front of him. His finger laying on Drew Kings face and a mugshot of another black man of the relative same age.

"These are the gang leaders. Drew King of the Oldtown royals, and Raymond Scott, He's also known as Ray and the leader of the East side Ravens" Greg says with his hands in his pockets.

East side Ravens? How come the report didn't mention his name?

"I didn't mention them in the report because I wanted to talk to you about it today" he says as if reading my mind.

"Ok so I assume these are the men spearheading the gang wars" I say it more like a question then a statement. He nods solemnly.

"So Ethan Scott is an arms dealer for Ranch. We also know he deals to King in secret but we have no physical proof. But anyways more importantly if we can catch Ranch for some minor offence and put him away for a bit, then we eliminate the need for a gang war. Then we can really start breaking down the organized crime in the lower East-"

"Wait" I interrupt him after pondering this information, "If Ethan Scott is dealing to both of them in secret he could potentially start a gang war just to make a profit..."

"He's a crack head, he needs those gangs to give him his stash" Greg looks at me in the eye now telling me to drop it.

Something isn't right here.

You can get cocaine from the mob or the Colombians or the Spanish he doesn't rely on the gangs for them?

crack head or not he's gonna want to make the most of this inevitable gang war by selling expensive guns to both sides. And from the looks of the recent homicides he may have already.

I need confirmation that both sides have been in touch with Ethan Scott. I also need Greg to tell me what the hell is going on.

Changing the subject I ask "So what started the gang war itself"

He sighs, sitting down in his evil genius style swivel chair.

"Basically Ranch and Drew were good friends and traded drugs and guns until a deal went wrong. Cops busted his location and half of Ranches meth supply line were terminated. This wasn't good for his business and his more elite clientele abandoned him for Drew claiming he was a safer dealer and had less pressure on him from the Feds. he blamed Drew for the bust claiming he tipped the cops off and they lived happily never after. Hits on both groups have been happening increasingly in the last 6 weeks and each blames the other for the fatalities. We want

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding in.

"So Ranch is going to find out soon and we need to know when so we can prevent him from completely leveling the projects in an all out gang war." He continues drumming his fingers on the desk.