TITLE: That Shotgun Shine (4/?) AUTHORS: Paige Caldwell, David Stoddard-Hunt RATING: Hard R (language, violence) FEEDBACK: paigec38@yahoo.com , dmstoddardhunt@yahoo.com WEBSITES: http://www.geocities.com/mattersofbelief http://www.iwtbxf.com/paige NOTE: Full headers with part 1. Pts. 1 - 3 are here: http://www.iwtbxf.com/paige/Shotgunshine.htm ************************* Apartment of Adriana La Cerva Wisse Street Lodi, New Jersey "Christopher," Adriana hissed, shaking her slumbering fiance with unusual vehemence. "What?" He shrugged her off like a buzzing gnat, pulling the covers up over his muscle shirted torso. "It's Tony!" Her urgency was awe-inspired, fearless only because she was so rarely exposed to the man himself. "Tell him I'll call him back." "Chris-ta-fer!" Even groggy with sleep, he felt tension knot between his shoulders at the shrillness in Adriana's voice. She shook him once more, then stopped abruptly. Christopher Moltisanti smiled, victorious, and burrowed back into his pillow, seeking the glittering riches of a dream interrupted. The room and its occupant grew still. After a moment, a slow ratcheting sounded, metallic, well-oiled and familiar. "Get up." A sharp click, right next to the young mafioso's ear. "Get up, you stupid fuck." The barrel of the gun was just visible out of the corner of Christopher's startled left eye. On sheer reflex, he leapt out of bed, not to face his attacker but to put distance between himself and the piece. It was a full five seconds before he realized whose finger was on the trigger. "Jesus, T!" Tony Soprano grinned, clicking the safety and slipping the gun into the waistband of his slacks, at the small of his back. "I need you to do some research on the computer." "Now?" Tony stared at him, incredulous. "No. Whenever you're ready, Sleeping Beauty. Yes, now!" He ripped the covers off the bed and threw them over Christopher's shoulders, sending him out into the living room with a slap to the back of the head. As he booted up his laptop, Christopher asked, "Okay. Now that I'm up, what do you want to know?" Tony ignored the insolence only because Christopher was family, in all senses of the word. "I want you to give me everything there is on these two names. Don't ask no questions. Just do it." After a number of practiced keystrokes, Christopher shook his head. "Check the federal database, you get me?" Tony asked. "The federal database." It took another five minutes to get in. Shortly, Christopher looked up at his boss and then back down at the screen. He let loose a long, low whistle. ***************** Satriale's Pork Store Kearney, New Jersey The polite host for now, Tony Soprano held the door for Scully, who peered inside and entered cautiously. While Mulder followed, Tony squinted into the gray North Jersey sky, then cast quick glances up Dukes Street and back and forth down Kearney Avenue. He nodded once to Furio and ducked into the darkened shop. As the two former agents slowed to take in their surroundings, Tony shouldered past and disappeared through a heavy metal door. To the right, just behind the counter, whole carcasses hung alternately with stuffed sausage casings, a carnivore's Christmas trim. "The other white meat," Mulder said, coming to a stop in front of the small glass showcase. Scully turned on him, her expression flaring angrily. "What?" he said, chuckling. At least, Scully thought, he should have the grace to be nervous. When the metal door scraped open again, Mulder jumped. Scully hid a satisfied smile behind two fingers. "Wait here," the mob boss cautioned. "I've got some business to take care of. Furio is right out front. You'll be safe in here." Whether that was because or in spite of Furio's presence was not at all clear. "Uh, Mr. Soprano?" At Mulder's words Tony paused, though it was apparent to both partners that his indulgence had tight limits. "The Satriales. Do they actually run a butcher shop here?" "Nah. Not no more. They, uh, they retired." He gave a small chuff of a laugh. "Sold the place and moved down to Florida." He shook his head at some private image and returned to the room beyond. In the silence that descended, the cuts and slabs took on associations that threatened to overwhelm them, leaving both awash in blood. Scully picked up a day-old copy of the Newark paper and began leafing through it. They had a pre-arranged series of contact procedures with Doggett and Reyes, involving personal ads in various newspapers. The "Star-Ledger" was not one of these. Nevertheless, she searched hurriedly for the classifieds. "Any part-time profiling jobs?" Mulder quipped from just over her shoulder. She ignored the remark, but calmed slightly. Her frantic search for distraction slowed to an idle crawl through the daily paper. "Mulder! Look at this." On the bottom half of a page in the front section was a public service announcement offering vaccine screenings to all residents of North Jersey, free of charge. Paid for and handled by FEMA. "Looks like they're stepping up the timetable, huh?" Mulder's tone had suddenly gone flat. "Readying recruits for when the time comes," he said, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets. "And that time may be sooner than we thought." ************** "Reactions? Questions?" Tony paused, arms and hands open in invitation. No one among the assembled captains moved even the slightest fraction. "Complaints?" It was an old joke, and an insincere request. All of them knew just where they could shove their complaints, should they voice any. Only one among them was rash enough to crack wise with the boss, and even he was too stunned by the news to speak. "Nobody? Ralphie?" Tony stood back on his heels, taking a long draught on his cigar. He could wait. Ralph Cifaretto, momentarily without his Cohiba, fumed just the same. The capos cast circumspect glances at each other, seeking the man foolhardy enough to tell the Underboss of North Jersey that he'd lost all touch with reality. Eventually, the burden of truth-telling fell where it must, on Tony's most trusted confidante, his consigliere. Silvio Dante stepped forward with a duck-footed swagger. Out of habit, he carried an unlit cigar, occasionally gesturing with it, more often than not chewing on the butt end. He rarely lit up anywhere but at a meal or over a bar, lest ash burn a hole through the imported silk of his hand-tailored suit, or shirt, or tie. The stoop shouldered Dante craned his head to look up at Tony, draping an arm collegially around his boss' shoulders. "T, I think what people are having trouble wit'," he began, "is the blurrin' of traditional roles." Tony smiled fondly at his friend's earnest attempt at diplomacy, as well as at his discomfort in doing so. He raised his eyebrows as if to say "izzat so?" Silvio backed off and rose to the occasion, grandly. "Our Thing, as we all know," the counselor's arm swept the arc of the room in illustration, "operates on a certain commercial business model dealin' wit the exchange of goods and services." "Aw, Jesus Christ! We ain't the Federal fuckin' Reserve." Paul "Paulie Walnuts" Gaultieri's typically profane outburst was just the first trickle of steam building up in the room, Tony knew. "Fuckin' supply and demand. We supply an' den we fuckin' demand they pay f'r it." Laughter from several of the capos signaled that all was not lost. Tony remained silent for the time being. Silvio resumed his discourse in fustian fashion. He met Tony's gaze squarely, eyebrows arched as far up as his heavy pompadour would allow. "Look, T. Paulie's point is on the money, even if he don't know what it is." Sil and his fellow capo exchanged glares. "It's pure economics. The private business man being allowed to operate in a free market is, is the backbone of our democracy." "Democracy?" Tony chided, trying not to laugh. "Sil, if you got a point in there somewhere, you'd better get to it. You're gonna tie your tongue up in knots!" His consigliere was undeterred, but proceeded to the heart of the matter, just as Tony expected he would. "The feds, Tony? Oh, Madonn'! Feds!" The frustration of even having to consider such lunacy beaded and pooled in his voice, fanning out in waves through his increasingly emphatic gestures. "This here? This is Our Thing. Ours. We don't split markets with the feds. They do their thing, we do ours. Separate but equal. 'Course, they draw lines then sit and wait for us to fuck up and cross over 'em. And we find ways to keep doin' our thing within those lines. It keeps business flowing, and pisses them off in the bargain. The separation between the two? It's good for the economy, T. Them on their side of the law, us on ours. That's the way it's always worked, the way it still works. It's tradition. Why mess that up by blurrin' the lines?" Someone, possibly Paulie, added "Yeah, don' shit where you eat." Tony ignored it. Silvio spoke quietly, "Due respect, Tony. I don't know which is worse, them claiming they see little green men or you suggesting we get in bed with feds! It's, it's..." he stammered. "Nuts?" Tony supplied. "Un-American!" Silvio finished categorically. His conclusion was greeted with a string of dumb nods from most of the other capos. "Sil!" Tony said in mock amazement. "I had no idea you were so fuckin' patriotic! Well, don't worry, George Washington," Tony patted him twice on the cheek. "I haven't gone oobatz, here." He walked among his capos. Most stood stock-still, looking straight ahead as he passed. One, older than the rest, white haired but tanned and fit, remained seated. By misfortune of birth, Hesch Rabkin could never become a made guy. Not officially. But, he'd served as advisor now to two generations of Sopranos, and was trusted implicitly. He smiled cagily at Tony and nodded once in encouragement. "Now, no one's suggesting that we start working hand in hand wit' dem, settin' up profit sharin' plans and the like." Tony's voice hardened for a moment, snapping their attention around. He returned each of their stares in turn before relaxing. "It's nothin' we haven't done before. We do business with feds all the time. A detective runs up a little gambling debt to us, we help him pay it down a piece of information at a time. It's just business!" Tony sensed that there were reservations still. "All right, all right. The set up for this is a little different, I a dmit. But it plays out the same," he said pointedly. "We promise them what they want then collect on the debt, with interest." He was close to winning them over, close. "It's just Shy," Tony clarified, using the slang for a loan-sharking business, "but with two former feds as the marks." The tension in the room eased a little. Hesch nodded in confirmation. Close enough. "All I want you to do is hear them out. Then, if you still think they can burn us, that two *former* F.B.I. agents, who believe the sky is fallin' and it's filled with little green men, can throw us for a loss? Then, fine. I'll call it off. Just hear 'em out first. Capisce?" Nods from all corners. Tony relit his cigar and popped it back into his mouth, smiling. He looked over at Silvio and said, "And you! You couldn't decide which was crazier, believin' in little green men or my business sense? C'mere. I got your oobatz, right here." Silvio Dante stared blankly at his boss for a moment, then broke into a lopsided grin. The tension in the room ebbed another notch, though not entirely. Tony nodded to the person closest to the door, "Paulie Walnuts" by chance, to fetch their guests. It was time. High time. ************** They'd barely begun to plan a resistance effort, let alone to lay the groundwork for one. Ten years until colonization. It was a hideously scant amount of time for such a daunting task. And now, it appeared that the schedule had been advanced. Scully glanced at him, eyes wide, turning abruptly to stare out past the winged pig soaring across the glass pane. If she couldn't quite hide her fear, then at least she could avoid visiting it on him. Mulder, she knew from long acquaintance, would gladly take it all upon himself, well beyond his capacity to bear. For his part, Mulder searched for a topic with which to distract her. Her emotions were kept well camouflaged, but he'd learned to spot them. Mulder had surmised many times that, somewhere along the Scully line, there must have been a gene mutation that left his partner predisposed to sang-froid. On rare occasion, when he could wrestle his own hyperactive thoughts into quiescence, he listened to her currents, committed to memory the delighted burbles, anguished eddies and furious torrents rushing just beneath her steadfast, placid surface. Now, from across the small shop, he sensed a skittering rapids, a flood over murderous outcroppings: fear. Staring at the cuts of butchered meat, he considered and discarded as tasteless a frightening array of carnivore jokes. Failing in his task, he turned to offer what solace he could, only to find her attention already diverted. Mulder followed her line of sight to the building across the street - a tailor shop on the ground floor, on the upper an I.B.E.W. union hall. "Mulder?" she said slowly. "Would FEMA use their own personnel to administer these vaccines, or would they use local nurse technicians?" If it had come from anyone else, Mulder would have assumed the question to be an idle one. But it had not come from just anyone else. "Dunno, Scully. There's no real reason they'd need to use secure personnel. I suppose they'd go with the local talent." She continued to stare out across the street, satisfaction suffusing her expression. "Why?" he prodded. "Why d'you ask?" Her sudden smile stunned him. "I think I've thought of a way our new friends could be of help with this FEMA problem." Before he could coax an explanation out of her, the door to the back room swung open and a man with absurd hair appeared in the doorway. Forgetting themselves and their situation, they gaped at the man, incredulous. Finally, deciding it must be an invitation of sorts, they moved toward the door. Scully walked through, lips pursed, ignoring the man's wild eyed stare. Mulder, however, indulged in some staring of his own, transfixed by the white swaths on either side of the man's head. With a soft hand on her partner's sleeve, Scully put a halt to his rudeness and drew him on. "But, Scully, it's Mercury," Mulder whispered with as much awe as a twelve year old boy. "The winged messenger!" He straightened to his full height and added mordantly, "Either that or some guy's had the tail fins of a '59 Cadillac pinned to his head. Only his hairdresser knows for..." Scully tugged once, quite sharply, on his sleeve and Mulder followed more or less docilely into the room beyond. "Okay, he's either Mercury or a Caddy. Not that it matters. One could stop on a dime, while the other *was* on a dime. But that's just my ten cents worth." The room they'd entered was simple yet breathtakingly brutal. An aluminum skinned work space, cramped in spite of being sparsely furnished - a work table taking up the center, with blood stained aprons on hooks standing in for curtains. Its most prominent feature was a large cleaver lodged into the edge of the worktop. The most prominent feature missing from the room was the man that had preceded them into it, Tony Soprano. Quickly, it dawned on both of them that the room was scarcely large enough for three people, let alone an entire 'family'. Each sagged in relief that this was only a pass-through to their scheduled meeting place. Behind them, the winged-haired man scanned the front of the store one more time, his eyes darting this way and that. After a moment, he too relaxed, if only slightly, removing his right hand from the inside pocket of his jacket. Turning, "Mercury" closed the first of the metal doors with a solid thud and gestured the outsiders forward. "You know what they say, Scully," Mulder said. "When one door closes..." "Shut up, Mulder," Scully replied wearily. - end, part 3 -