alexborden
League Member
Tom Neiden’s home
2237 Chestnut Boulevard
Parma, Ohio
12:10 PM
Down the street a dozen curious and frightened heads poked out from windows and doorways. The Parma emergency dispatch received approximately fifteen calls in four minuets. Prayers were being uttered by some, cameras were being loaded by others. People timidly started walked out of their homes.
Marie’s sobbing and pleading still rang out. She cried out to God for mercy and begged her husband not to die. She laid him down across her lap and held him against her. Tom Neiden’s warm blood ran down the front of her blouse wetly. Her arms were gleaming dark crimson. She wiped away the flowing tears in her eyes, streaking blood across her face. Marie shuttered for a moment and went quiet. Clenching her eyes shut, she shook.
“Tom...” she almost whispered.
Alex Borden laid sprawled on his back across the front lawn . His head leaned back flat against the grass limply. Etched on his face was a frozen grimace of pain. The wind blew softly over his body, gently blowing his dark bangs across his eyes. His chest rose and fell faintly, showing a sign of life. Then...
...he opened his eyes.
Alex rolled over to his side and groaned. It took him a few seconds to sit up.
“Man...” he said to himself. “This... hurts.”
Alex stumbled to his feet, almost falling down again. He put a hand over the spot where the bullet hit him and caressed it, happy to be alive and grateful he decided to wear the discounted bulletproof vest he bought from a Puerto Rican aquantaience of his.
After this, I’m gunna send that guy a bouquet of roses. he thought.
His chest throbbed and stung when he moved. He glanced over at Marie, who was rocking Tom back and forth gently in a pool of blood. She was staring into his eyes, humming something that sounded like a nursery rhyme.
“Oh, Jesus. M-Marie?” he called.
No reply; just soft humming.
He heard sirens in the distance.
Without warning Alex’s heart filled with a hate that fueled his aching body with rage. He gathered his strength and started for his car.
He would not be a victim.
_________________________________
Michael Bigelow’s base of operations
694 182nd Street
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
2:00 AM
Alex was outside a small warehouse in the industrial district of the city. It blended in with all the other square brick buildings and showed no signs of the threat within. Shadows danced everywhere beyond the orange streetlights overhead. This is where Alex Borden crept.
Behind the building two men were guarding a door.
“Sh*t, it’s cold tonight.” said a fat man in a skull cap and a leather jacket. He held a cigarette losely between his lips and flicked again and again with his lighter, each time the wind blew it out before he could light the smoke.
*chkkt chkkt*
“Damn it.” Fat Guy cursed, trying again with his lighter.
The tall man next to him looked over and pulled out a small book of matches from his pocket. He tore off a match and struck it sharply against the flint. He handed it to Fat Guy as it sparked up and lit brightly. Fat Guy took it and shot the Tall Guy a sour look.
“Thanks.” he said grumpily. Fat Guy lit the cigarette, shielding the flame from the wind.
“Who the hell still carrys matches around with them anyways?”
“I like the way they smell.” Tall Guy replied.
Alex crept past them beyond the reach of the wall light’s glow. On the far side of the warehouse was a fire escape. He looked up at the ladder and hesitated. Stepping back, he coiled his legs and leaped. He knocked the ladder lose and it suddenly and quickly slid down to its maximum length.
*clank!*
Sh*t! Alex winced and looked around for signs that he’d been made.
Nothing.
Assured that no one heard him, he climbed the fire escape to the roof.
Alex was here before. They had all organized the robbery from this very building. He knew this place.
He stepped lightly on the gravelly roof toward a small sunroof window. Alex found it wasn’t locked and easily slipped it open and went inside. There is a whole level of rafters above the upper office rooms overlooking the whole warehouse, carefully, he dropped from the window to a rafter with a small thud. A sharp jolt of pain shot through his injured chest, but Alex kept his mouth clamped shut.
This is it. he thought. No turning back now.
He looked down to see if anyone was there. The warehouse was filled with stacks and stacks of boxes and crates. It wasn’t well lit, the sparce ceiling lights did little to illuminate. Alex didn’t see anyone, just a large table surrounded with chairs.
Suddenly Alex heard distant voices, then the sound of laughter. A moment later, a group of people walked into view. Among them was Bigelow. They gathered around the big table, chatting amongst themselves. Most sat, but some stood or sat on crates.
Alex saw dozens of new faces. He counted the group. Damn, Mikey. You done got yourself a real gang, havent you?
Bigelow seated himself at the head of the table. The chattering abated when their apparent leader looked up at his crew gathered around the table.
“Tonight,” he began. “all ties are severed. Business is done. Tonight, all yall are getting paid!” he said. A smile played on his lips as some hooting and shouting came from his group. He put up his hand up to silence them. “Listen! We got some work to do. When we went to hit up Borden for the money, I’ll be *******ed if the crazy f*cker didn’t set it on fire in his damn bathtub! By the time we got to it, the money was all burned to sh*t!”
An uproarious shouting instantly came from the group. They pounded the table and stood in outrage. “What?!” one snarled.
“Hey. Hey! Sid’down! I just said that you was getting paid tonight! It wasn’t all burned up. Theres about ten grand left!”
“Thats it?! Ten grand?!” one incredulously asked.
“Aw hell no!”
“This isn’t what we agreed to, Bigelow!”
“How much was it before?” asked one of the new people. Why they were all getting a cut Alex could only guess.
“Seventy thousand.” Bigelow replied.
That lying sack of sh*t! I counted it myself. There was two hundred thousand! Alex thought.
“Listen, I know how yall feel! I have my balls in the same meat grinder as you! When we saw what that fool did, we shot their sh*t up! I shot that snow ho b*tch right in the f*ckin heart myself!” Bigelow proclaimed triumphantly.
Alex Borden watched from above. His gripped the handbar of the walkway so tightly his knuckles were white. He trembled with fury.
Bastard. He framed me! Hes keeping most of the money for himself and he let me take the heat!
“Right now hes lying in some freezer waiting for someone to scoop out the slug in his chest.” He called over to someone. A man wearing a red bandanna brought a trash bag to Bigelow and set it on the table. Their leader picked the bag up and poured its contents out on the table. Before them was a charred pile of cash. “This is whats left of the money.”
The gang below started shouting again and arguing amongst themselves.
He screwed me! No, he played me. God, no. I can’t let him do this! I can’t let him get away with this!
Alex looked over at an office suspended on a level above the warehouse floor. Stairs led up to it from the ground and there was a ladder leading down to it from the rafter walkways. Alex headed over to the ladder and crept down carefully. No one spotted him sneaking to the door. He closed his eyes, breathed, and braced himself. He turned the knob.
Locked.
No problem. thought Alex. He fished a small black kit from his pocket. From it he took two long, small steel instruments and inserted them into the keyhole. He fumbled with it for approximately seven seconds and...
*klik*
Alex knew how to pick a lock for as long as he could remember.
He slowly opened the door and peered inside the small room. It was dark, empty. He tentatively snuck inside. There was a big window taking up most of the length of the office overlooking the warehouse but the blinds were drawn. Alex reached for a clasp at his side to unfasten a flash light he had wisely brought with him. He turned it on and looked around. At first he saw nothing of particular interest; a lamp, a couple chairs, a bookshelf lined with books, a desk with nothing on it. Quickly, he started searching everything. He cautiously moved the books from the shelves and looked behind them. He looked through all the shelves and under everything, careful to leave the office looking just as it is.
“Theres got to be something still here. There has to be some proof of the truth!” he said to himself. Alex realized that this was Micheal Bigelow’s place for years now. Surely, there was something left behind, something he could use against his former boss.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Everyplace he searched, he found nothing but junk papers and old books. Frustrated, he yanked opened another drawer and barely looked inside, not expecting to find anything. He almost slide it closed again but he saw a dark square shape out of the corner of his eye. He pulled the drawer open again. Inside was a briefcase. Perhaps the briefcase. Alex tried to open it. It was locked. Moments later, Alex made the case click open.
Inside were stacks of one hundred dollar bills.
The rest of the money! Alex thought, joyfully. He closed it and started for the door. He stopped. A wicked thought suddenly popped into his head. He paused and thought about it for a moment. No. he thought. I’ve got a better idea.
Alex placed the briefcase on the desk unlocked and left the office door open a few inches. He hurried up the ladder to the rafters, and crept back to the walkways. He picked up a
piece of crumbling stone, probably fallen from the roof years ago. Hefting the piece of granite in his hand, he studied the distance and the angle from where he was to the office. Suddenly, he chucked it and it sailed right through the office doorway. There was a loud noise from inside.
*KRACK!*
Heads turned. The irritated conversations all came to a sudden halt. People started up the
stairs to the office immediately, guns drawn.
“What the f*ck was that?!” one asked.
“Whos there?!” another demanded.
Half the group was already heading over to investigate. “Wuh-wait! No! Don’t go up
there!” Bigelow cried out, standing. Then he saw that the door was ajar. “No hold up!” he
bellowed. “STOP!”
One of them turned around and looked at him, eyes narrowing in suspicion. He turned back and started up the stairs.
Panicking, Michael Bigelow shoved his way up the stairs but before he could block them, they made it to the briefcase. He stood in the doorway of the office and saw his crew members’ eyes widen at the sight of the money.
“What the f*ck is this?!” one asked.
“It-- I” Bigelow stuttered.
“You! You had the money!”
“No. No! What?! Naw, listen. I-.. I uhh...”
“You tryin’ to cheat us, Bigelow?” the hoods below him started up the stairs with their guns drawn.
“No!”
“No?! Then whats this?!”
“No.. no listen. It was that punk Borden! I don’t know how but he” One of them pulled a shiv out of his jacket pocket and ran at Bigelow. He backed up into the office and a load of the gang members piled in after him. All Alex could make out from where he was was the muffled sound of arguing, then screaming and the sound of a struggle. Then...
BLAM!!
BLAM!!
BLAM!!
Shots were fired.
Alex decided now would be a good time to leave. He climbed up to the roof and ran down the fire escape with more gunshots ringing out behind him.
_
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