Homecoming, Part Two.

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Crossing the bridge into Algonquin set me back five bucks, the kind of toll only the stupid citizens of Liberty City would tolerate paying on a daily basis. Not paying wasn’t really an option though – while I was waiting to get through I saw some clown on a motorbike blow through the toll-booth, and less than a minute later, I saw two cop cars fly past after him. I guess the revenue from the outrageous levies was being sunk partly into law enforcement funding. Police presence was everywhere in Liberty City now; cops doing breath-tests on the highways, uniforms strutting the street, and if the radio report was true, N.O.O.S.E specialist teams on call 24/7 to deal with the tougher criminal elements. It made me more than a little nervous, but I really didn’t want to go to this sit-down without packing some heat of my own.

I circle for a while looking for a park again, finally getting lucky with one out the front of an old brownstone apartment complex. The weapons dealer is housed in the basement of just such a building according to the bum, and just for a moment I question the logic of travelling half way across Liberty on the word of a degenerate drunk. Then a door opens, muted light spilling out of the doorway and silhouetting a man stashing a sawn-off shotgun into a duffel bag. The man steps past me and onto the street, we don’t make eye-contact, it’s just an unwritten law. He has his business, I have mine.

I jog down the stairs and catch the door before it closes, and step into a dank space lined with enough firepower to fuel a revolution. Pistols, assault rifles, bazookas, grenades and countless boxes of ammo line the walls, which are themselves covered in posters of hot broads holding huge guns.

“How may I help you, sir?” inquires an Indian-sounding voice in the darkness.

“I’m looking for a pistol, nothing flash, just a burner,” I reply.

“Nine millimetre handgun, for you sir, today only, four hundred.” For a moment I consider going and jacking some street-level drug dealer and taking his piece and profits, just like I would have done back in the day.

“Chuck in the ammo and I’ll take it. What’s your returns policy?” I ask sarcastically. A thin, clean-shaven young Indian man steps forward from the dark with a pistol and magazine of ammo.

“Generally if there is a problem with the item sir, I would not expect you to return at all,” he smiles, and hands me the stuff in a brown paper bag.

“Yeah I follow you,” I laugh, “but if you don’t mind me saying, you don’t look like the kind of guy I’d expect to be running an operation like this.”

“I used to work in a call centre in Broker, but they shipped the jobs overseas,” he deadpans, and I’m not entirely sure if he’s kidding.

I hefted the 9 milimetre pistol in my hand, the first time I’d held a gun since I left Liberty all those years ago. It felt good. It felt more like coming home than stepping off the plane at Francis International. I jammed the gun in my jacket and walked out of the underground store. Back in the Sentinel and my Whiz wireless cellphone starts vibrating insistently in my pocket, the theme song for my favourite TV show, the Science of Crime is chirping too. I love that show, but it makes me glad I’m out of the game now – they didn’t have any of that fancy DNA shit or labs full of forensic scientists back when the Leone family was dropping bodies left right and centre.

“Yeah?”

“Hey Charlie, it’s me, Bobby. Are you ready for the meet?” I was now. So Bobby gave me directions to some strip club over in Alderney of all places. The state of Alderney was right next to Liberty but its own independent, second-rate state. Nothing of any merit ever took place there, and it was a weird location for the meet, but I agreed, told Bobby I’d be there in an hour. I fiddled with the dials on the radio, heard that asshole Lazlow was back on the air, and quickly skipped past until I heard something a little bit rock. Roger Daltrey was singing about a guy looking under tables and chairs, desperately seeking something. I wondered what I was going to find across the river in Alderney.

Driving in Liberty City was always a...unique experience, and time had not changed it for the better. Cars pulled in and out at random, changed lanes with no warning, and cab drivers would slam on their breaks mid-traffic if they heard or saw anyone hailing them. Every couple of minutes the general cacophony of horns and engines would be pierced by the shrill siren of emergency services rolling out, mainly cops, but I saw a few ambulances and fire engines hustling to the scene of some disaster or another. While I was waiting at a set of lights, I saw a guy walk right up to a car in broad daylight, smash its window and hotwire it, battering his way into traffic before speeding off. A couple of pedestrians called the cops, most were too engrossed in their oversized coffees and MP3 players to even notice.

“Turn left,” a slightly sexy female voice said.

“what the fuck?!” I shouted, reaching into my pocket for the pistol I’d just bought. Then I noticed the car had an inbuilt GPS which I must’ve turned on by accident when fiddling with the radio dials. Obviously the previous renter had a thing for shitty fast food, because the destination was a Cluckin’ Bell chicken shack in Star Junction. Still, having never set foot in Aldernery when I used to live in Liberty, the GPS could come in handy, so I programmed in my destination and after a moment, my route was calculated and I was ready to go.

The GPS had defaulted to taking the freeways where possible, and as the traffic lightened, I started to slip into the comfort zone that only a smooth, easy highway drive can give. I was so relaxed that I almost didn’t notice I was driving on the road to the old Leone mansion, the true heart of Cosa Nostra’s power back in the day. I slowed down without even realising it, and when I saw the turn off for the once-gated entrance, I had to see for myself. The dirt path was overgrown, but through the weeds and trees I could see the mansion up on the hill.

It was decrepit and utterly abandoned, a burnt-out shell of its former glory. Boards hung from the windows, graffiti marred every available surface, and I could see trash piled around the place from where I was. I sighed and shook my head: there was nothing here for me now, just ghosts that still haunted me to this day. I wondered if the stained pool of my blood was still here, wondered if the bullet that hit me was lodged in a tree, wondered if the squatters had any idea of the history of the place they’d turned into a crack den. With another sigh, I got back in the car and put it in reverse.

Twenty minutes later, the GPS lady told me I had arrived at my destination: a seedy strip club in a seedy suburb in a seedy city. It was anonymous, I had to give Bobby and his boss, Ray Boccino that. I ejected the gun’s magazine, checked it, ran the slide back and forward a few times, then cocked and locked the pistol, ready for action. Taking a deep breath, I locked up the Sentinel and stepped inside the strip joint.

Bobby looked old, and when he introduced me to Ray Boccino, I wasn’t impressed. Late forties, running to fat, I shook his soft hand and determined that this was a guy who was soft in pretty much every way, except for the eyes. I had no doubt he was probably a good earner, he had that look about him, but I didn’t imagine he did any of it hands on.

“Charlie Vincetti, please, sit down, we’ve heard a lot about you from Bobby,” he said, gesturing for me to take a seat in a corner booth. On the stage, some skinny bitch with no tits was undulating half-heartedly – there was nobody in the club besides us and the bartender.

“None of it good, I’m sure,” I said with a smile, and everybody laughed politely.

“So,” he said.

“So,” I said.

“I’m sure Bobby told you I’m recruiting, we’re trying to make a push, take some territory, earn some respect, y’know, from the families,” Ray started, but I interrupted immediately.

“What do you mean from the families, I thought you guys were with the family?” I looked at Bobby questioningly – he wouldn’t make eye contact.

“Oh we will be, Charlie, I work for Jimmy Pegorino, he runs Alderney,” Ray said with pride.

“He runs Alderney?” I repeated, shocked. “Bobby, what the fuck is going on here?” He shuffled his feet, still wouldn’t look at me.

“Hey show a little respect, buddy,” Ray growled.

“Respect? Bobby, what the fuck are you doing running with some two-bit wannabes like this? They ain’t even connected, Bobby! We used to laugh at these boondock motherfuckers back in the day!”

“Things change, Charlie,” Bobby mumbled, but Ray was on his feet.

“Who the fuck do you think you are you shithead punk, coming in here and disrespecting us like that!?” he shouted, rolling up his sleeves and puffing up his chest. I was on my feet maybe a second later, pistol in hand, my finger clicking the safety off.

“Sit the fuck down you fat piece of shit before I put you down,” I snarled, but I turned to look at Bobby again, the best foot-soldier I ever had back in the day.

“You make me get on a plane for this, Bobby? You want me to come work for some low end wannabe gangster piece of shit in fuckin’ Alderney?! Is this what you want!?”

“I’m sorry, Charlie, but we need someone good. We need you!” his eyes were imploring me, but I could tell he knew that it was over. Probably for him too, given that his recommendation had just pointed a gun at his boss.

“No, Bobby, I’m the one who’s sorry. I’m out of here, and you should leave too.” And with that, I backed out of the club, fired up the Sentinel and tore out of the lot, blood pounding in my ears, anger flowing through my veins.

The GPS lady got me back to the airport’s car rental lot in one piece, and I drove like I was on autopilot. Past the Leone mansion, past the old Atlantic Quays, past the old Bitchin’ Dog Food factory where Marty Chonks used to turn his victims into chum, past the street where that asshole killed Don Salvatore himself. Outside the car, a vicious thunderstorm had blown in, rain bucketing down in wild sheets as thunder and lightning shook the very foundations of Liberty. I sat there for I don’t know how long, thinking about how far Cosa Nostra must have fallen if some backwater Alderney operation thought they could muscle in on the families.

I return the car and pay for the hire, then I remember I can’t bring a gun onto a flight anymore. The world has changed so much in so little time, and I’m about to throw it in the nearest bin when another of the city’s great unwashed sidles up beside me.

“Hey mister, can you spare some change?” the homeless guy implored, waving a Styrofoam cup at me that had long since ceased to be white. I looked him in the eye, and then pulled out the 9 milimetre. I looked for the fear in his eyes, but it never came. Whether he was too strung out or just didn’t care, I’ll never know. So I knocked his shitty cup out of his hands and wrapped them around the reassuring weight of the pistol and turned towards the departures area.

“Go and work for it, you bum.”

Written by Dominic Rozenberg.