The Kingmaker

11 - Breadcrumbs

Nate's only objective had been to get to Commissioner Laura Ingram through her daughter. She had already proven herself averse to bribery and various forms of blackmail large and small, and the truth was that after she managed to somehow get the National Guard on the streets of Alexandria within two days of the Blackstone Riots breaking out, no one wanted to cross her too violently yet. Not until they had enough dirt on her to ensure a little more cooperation.

But despite nearly every officer on the force digging for it, they could find nothing. Nothing that would stick, anyway, because Commissioner Ingram never gave anyone a chance to find her in a compromising position. She was always in the public eye from dawn to dusk, and even on the drive back home, she was always working, working, working. On the phone, on her laptop, and on the field, too, whenever she felt the need (which was often). A frame-up job was impossible to set up simply because she always had too many eyes on her at all times.

And then things changed. What, he didn't know, but Nate had heard something about new blood in town. Some cartel with connections that crossed national borders, fingers in pies that would make senators blush. They had wanted to stake a claim in Alexandria for a long time now, but there simply hadn't been room. All the territories were claimed, every inch of the city divided up and distributed.

Until they promised that they would handle the biggest problem they had, the new Commissioner who had replaced her more amenable predecessor five years ago and summarily begun to dismantle the city from the roots up. How, they had asked, and the answer had been simple. We'll kill her.

Everyone had laughed. It was one thing to kill off some no-name cop who refused to be paid off, but Laura Ingram was no ordinary threat. Her reformative propositions and straight laced ideals were annoying beyond description, but the real danger lay in her connections with the federals. Alexandria's dark overlords had plenty of weapons to terrorize the city with, but once the tanks rolled out, there was no telling where the destruction would stop. And in the end when the dust settled, it would be the criminals who would have to rebuild their shattered empires, years of painstaking work all eviscerated in a week.

The last time Alexandria had fallen under martial law, millions of dollars of product had been confiscated or otherwise lost. Heads had rolled. Territories had crumbled. Laura Ingram was only one woman, but behind her shoulder loomed a greater threat than any of them were prepared to deal with. She was not to be killed. She was not to be touched.

But then, it finally happened five years later, and everything was over in a flash. Overnight, the Salini Cartel went from outrageous outsider mongrels barking at the door all the way to sitting at the apex of the crime pyramid, king of the urban Alexandrian jungle. They hadn't even demanded a reward or recognition - they had simply walked in and taken their rightful place at the table.

Some had cried foul, insisting that what the Salini had done would rain down hell upon all their heads, that the Salini had single handedly assured Alexandria's fall. That it wouldn't be long before the government came to avenge their fallen pet and march the streets, kill their supply lines, lock down the city and trap everyone inside to stew in their own hell. And then they would work their way in, dissecting every district until they wrung out every ounce of blood baked into the foundations.

But then nothing happened. On the first day nor on the tenth, nor the hundredth. It was simply done. The cartel claimed that it hadn't even been a calculated move, that they had simply done what they wanted and that no one dared to stop them, not even anyone on Capitol Hill. And wielding such power and fear, who could stand up to them?

And so the Salini reigned. Even if they hadn't been the ones to viciously butcher the Commissioner and her family  in their own home in the first place, striking fear into every remaining hopeful heart in the city, they were already far more dangerous than any run of the mill crime family by virtue of their sheer reach. They had nothing to lose because they had everything to fall back on. Tanking prices and selling their product at a loss on the streets? Didn't matter, they had more than enough money to cover their deficits with the profits from a different branch on the tree. They could drive out the competition in a matter of weeks if not days. And if anyone thought to meet their shark-like tactics with force, everyone knew how far the Salini would go. If the fear of a feds-backed police commissioner didn't stop them, then surely few things would even make them take pause.

There was no honor among thieves. Instead, there was only the fear of escalation beyond what was tolerable, and the Salini had already proved that they could tolerate just about anything - and return violence for violence in spades and more. In the end, with no one to challenge them, their value increased thirteen million citizens almost overnight.

And so they bought the soul of Alexandria, and the currency was terror. Terror and blood.

--------

"I was going to ask where DiAngelo fits into this, but I think I can already guess that you know little more than I do. Might be a waste of time to ask." Eden thoughtfully rubbed her chin between her forefinger and thumb. "I mean, nothing you've told me is new either, so all of this has just been a bit of a disappointment."

"Wait!" he begged as she c****d back for another swing. "Wait, there's more. I can tell you things about him!"

"You haven't spoken with DiAngelo since that night. You said it yourself. Eight years is a long time, Nathan, and I have doubts about the reliability or value of your information when you haven't even met with him since then."

"No, I hear things - lots of things! From others. People are still in contact with him. We talk -"

Eden stared down at him, slowly tapping the side of his head with the end of the rebar. "Come on," she said softly. "Come on, Nathan. You can do better than that."

"Don't, please. Please."

"Do you know how I found you in the first place, Nathan? It wasn't through that cozy little diner your mom and aunt own. The Half-a-Bagel. I love that name, that's probably the only I've told you all this week that wasn't a lie. Because, Nathan, I found you because of DiAngelo. You've been poaching his dealers with your product, I saw it with my own eyes when you sold to them. Very slimy. But that's your style, isn't it. And I know you resent him for leaving you behind in the dust so long ago, right?"

A choked sound gurgled from his throat, and Eden flashed him a wide-mouthed smile.

"My first night here, I climbed up a rooftop and saw about three, maybe four transactions in progress. I was pretty high up, I'll give you that, but what are the chances? All within just a few blocks of each other. And I thought to myself, why don't I wait to see where they go? Maybe I'd get lucky and see one of them walk home or maybe rendezvous with someone else, and I could work my way up from there. Connect the dots. Follow the breadcrumbs. You know the story of Hansel and Gretel, right?"

She tapped the side of his head again, but a little harder this time. A little more insistently.

"I asked you a question, Nathan. Do you know the story?"

"T - Two kids get lost in a forest and - and they leave a trail of breadcrumbs so that they can find their way back home," he wheezed. "I don't know the rest."

"Well, you got the middle, and that's the most important part. Not the part about the witch trying to eat the kids. That's what a lot of people zero in on, but see, there's nothing to learn there. No, the lesson's in the breadcrumbs. You're right, those kids did leave a trail to follow back home through the deep, dark woods, but in the end, they couldn't. You know why? Because as little Hansel was dropping and dropping and dropping those breadcrumbs, there was a bird that followed quietly behind him, eating each one. Just gobbling them down. Hungry little thing."

It was clear that Nate had no idea why Eden was saying any of this. Maybe he thought she was crazy. Maybe he thought she was rambling just to hear the sound of her own voice. Maybe he was thinking there was no point to anything she was saying. How wrong he was.

"Everyone leaves breadcrumbs, Nathan. Everyone. DiAngelo. His dealers that man that side of the Slum Belt. You, from this side of it. Even me, except I do my best to eat them before someone else does. Do you know why? Because when Hansel was in that forest and he was laying out those little pieces of bread, he was lucky he was only followed by a bird. It could have been anything. Could have been a rabid raccoon. A wolf. Could have been a bear, too, actually. Bears are just - absolute gluttons. They get one whiff of anything remotely edible and they'll just go after it, nose to the ground."

That was what she had done, too. Kept her nose to the ground, followed the tracks. The breadcrumbs.

"So I followed one of them all night, and then I came back the next day and followed another one. And then another the night after that. And I kept doing that until I found their supplier, and then I did the same to him. And I s**t you not, that's all it took to find that one-eyed f**k DiAngelo living it up in his little coke house. God, he finally got some meat on his bones. I don't know how he did it. He doesn't strike me as the type to try rehab, and no rehab center would take him anyway, so he had to have kicked the meth habit cold turkey. And I thought, wow, I wonder what it took? There aren't many things that can seduce someone better than two perfect lines of speed on the table. And then I remembered that it's not about seduction. Because you can't just seduce an addict into going clean, can you. Hm? I'm right, aren't I?"

Nate didn't give her an answer, so Eden pressed the tip of the steel rod between his eyebrows and shook his head side to side for him.

"That's what I thought, too. So then I realized he didn't find anything he liked better than meth. No. He got scared off meth. And then that's how I found out about the Salini. Now, I didn't know the cartel name until you told me just a minute ago, but it was just - I saw it in his face. Even through a cheap ass pair of binoculars, I saw it in the way he would hold that phone so tightly whenever he got a call, scared about who would be on the other end. I saw it in the way he would sag whenever he realized it was someone safe, the relief that just steamed out of his pores.

And I saw it in the way he would tighten up even more whenever it was the person he was so afraid of. I thought this man was going to s**t himself on at least five separate occasions, and I only followed him around for three days. Man. I used to think DiAngelo was hard as hell. Ratty and twitchy, yeah, but everyone knew about the time he skinned that sixteen year old kid for skimming off the top of his packages. You remember that? Way back. I must have been...seven years old. Hit the news for one day and then dropped off the next night, because a kid who messes with the Underground, well. Maybe he was stupid enough to deserve that end, is what people said. And DiAngelo didn't even get locked up for it. Mm. I think that's the case that had my mom spinning. Because from then on, nothing could stop her. Locomotive Laura. Had a fire set under her and she wouldn't stop until she got to the top where she could make a real difference in the city. That's what she wanted."

Eden sighed. Smiled.

"But I'm getting sidetracked. I do that a lot now, you know. I talk. I talk and talk and talk. I never used to do that before, and then a switch flipped inside me. I started realizing how fun it is. Like right now. I can say anything I want to you, and what are you going to do about it?"

Nate's breathing sounded especially loud now all of a sudden. Very annoying. Eden c****d her head and continued to stare down into his wide, glistening eyes, admiring and pitying how pathetic and weak he looked. He reminded her of the time she had seen a baby bird fallen from its nest on the pavement, broken wings flapping weakly and head lolling about. She stared at him until he took in a deep, sudden breath.

Ah, now he saw. Now he understood. There was no way out for him, and the only way she was going to let him leave this place was in pieces.

The instant he tried to lunge away from her, Eden reared back with the rebar and swung down, smashing it into his temple. A splatter of blood flew from his nostrils. Instant concussion - he was out like a light. Not dead yet, but she would handle that soon enough. In a minute, though. She hefted the metal onto her shoulder and leaned back, removing her foot from the unconscious man's ribs.

"So I was talking about breadcrumbs," she continued casually. "And the bird that ate them all as Hansel laid out each piece behind him, not knowing what was following behind and snapping them up all the while. Except in this story, our story, you're the Hansel. I'm going to eat all your breadcrumbs, Nathan. Your cache of drugs that you stashed in the apartment and in your storage locker, your hundred thousand dollars divided into ten stacks of ten thousand all around the place. It'll be easy. Now, your supplier's going to come looking for the merchandise, but you can rest easy. Mom and Aunty will be fine, because I'm going to make sure your body's found here in the morning. No one's going to think you skipped town and that they're covering for you. I could have been that asshole, mind you, but she gave me a free cup of coffee the other day. So I'm returning the favor. And if it makes you feel any better, which I hope it doesn't, I'm going to put your resources to better use than you ever could."

Eden looked up at the half-constructed building towering over them, counting the stories. "Ah," she said. "Damn. That's going to be a long way up. Glad I have the whole night."

She rubbed her lower back, already anticipating the soreness she would be feeling in the morning.

"At least you're not too heavy, but it'll still be the worst piggy back ride you've ever gotten."

And the last. Tragic.

Eden smiled.