A Message Received

Maggie’s World

Maggie banged on the cottage door for the third time. Nothing. She leaned over to look in the window again. The lights inside were dim, so all she could see was the inside of the blue curtains. Marco was either not home, or not answering his door.

The hierarchy in the Family was a complicated thing. Drake stayed on top, of course, as he had been for longer than Maggie knew. Below him, at least in the others’ eyes, was Maggie. Then there was a mish mash of hopefuls that vied for Drake’s affection and approval wherever they could get it. Marco had once been one of those. At least until he’d actually achieved the leader’s trust. In the last few years, though, he’d continued to capitalize on the perks of being in the inner circle, but he’d become lax in his dedication to Drake’s orders. Drake hadn’t noticed until recently, and probably would still not have realized Marco’s insolence if not for Maggie’s intervention. Thanks to her, both Drake and Marco were keenly aware that their relationship was at a dangerous crossroads.

Maggie believed that now that Marco had this knowledge, he had run. While she often questioned his wisdom and common sense, Marco was not a dumb man. His biggest problem was that he had no morals. Marco did whatever he wanted to please himself and to hell with the consequences. He’d wanted to be at Drake’s right hand, and he’d achieved that. He apparently no longer cared about that achievement. And even though he was no longer concerned with Drake’s praise, he was smart enough to know that he should be scared of the repercussions of his recent actions.

Turning away from the cottage and walking toward the six car garage at the far end of the property, Maggie pulled out her cell phone. She could feel sweat forming on her forehead. The air was as still as death around her, doing nothing to provide relief from the heat of the day. The date on the calendar professed that summer would be ending soon. Mother Nature seemed to have altogether different ideas, providing day after day of warmth, broken only by an occasional bout of thunderstorms.

She opened her phonebook and dialed Marco’s number. After two rings, he picked up and answered. He sounded as if he were outside. “Marco, I need to see you,” Maggie said.

“Hey, Mags. I’m a little busy right now,” he said.

“You should come back home right now, Marco. Something is up,” she said. Maggie wasn’t sure if threatening him would be the most effective method to convince him to come back or not. Unfortunately, she had few other options.

The sound of a car passing filtered through the phone on Marco’s end. “I’ll be home later. I’m meeting some friends in a minute.”

“Marco, the police are looking for you.”

There was a pause on the line. “I know.”

“Then you know you need to come home. Drake wants to talk to you,” Maggie said. She didn’t think she was being very threatening, but she’d be scared if she were Marco.

“I’m not going to walk in to a death sentence,” he said, his voice sober.

Maggie’s fears were realized and she shook her head. “He will protect you. Give him the benefit of the doubt. There’s too much at risk here.”

“Maggie, you’re a good girl. But I’ve been around enough to know that I’ve probably stepped over the line with Drake. He’ll kill me without a thought.”

This was a lost cause. Marco had an idea in his head of which he wasn’t going to let go. Drake would have to find a different way to deal with this lost sheep. “You’re making it worse for yourself by running. You know that, don’t you?”

“It’s done done, Maggie. Just tell him that I won’t talk. The Family is safe,” Marco said, then ended the call.

Maggie stopped walking as she reached the entrance to the garage. She had hoped by the end of the call she would know where Marco was and have his agreement to come get him. Her task had now become much harder. The thought crossed her mind to go back to the house and report this development to her father. That would do no good. What she needed now was to go out and find Marco whether he wanted to be found or not.

Looking up from her desk at Drake’s Carved Wood, Maggie smiled at two customers walking through the front door. Business had been slow all day, with only a couple of browsers crossing over the threshold. Even if these people weren’t there to buy, the foot traffic provided her with some measure of hope that she would sell something soon. She needed some ray of sunshine into her day. She’d spent the entire night and part of the morning searching for Marco, to no avail. She knew how scared he was by the difficulty she was encountering in trying to find him. In another hour she’d be back out in the city looking again.

Maggie crossed the store to greet her customers, a young man and woman who might have been twenty-five. She doubted that they could afford the pricey pieces that she carried in the store, but it was possible. New Orleans had as many millionaires as it had old buildings.

The man looked like he might have come from money. He had on tan silk slacks and Italian shoes. His shirt buttoned all the way down, though he left the few on top unbuttoned to show off a thick gold chain. His light brown hair was slicked with mousse that left a perpetual spike. His face was shaved clean and appeared never to have been soiled with hair. The woman was pretty, but not stunning, in a simple blue summer dress. Her shoulder length auburn hair flared out at the sides reminiscent of Farrah Faucet on a good 80’s hair day.

“How are ya’ll today?” Maggie asked.

Taking his eyes from the furniture in the bedroom section, the slick man nodded. “Great. It’s a beautiful day,” he answered.

“That it is. Let me know if you two have any questions. Some of our pieces have quite a history. Everything in the store has been hand carved in Europe.” The woman began walking through the pieces past where Maggie stood.

The man crossed his arms over his chest and took a set position as if he were ready to talk for a while. “You have an impressive collection. How do you locate your pieces?”

Maggie was encouraged by his interest. “My father travels extensively in Europe. He’s made contacts over there with artisans of all kinds. He introduced me to one furniture maker in particular who supplies a lot of my inventory. The rest comes from a hodge podge of sources.”

Slick nodded, but his eyes were no longer on Maggie. He watched something behind her with sudden anticipation. Before Maggie realized that she needed to act, she felt slight arms close around her, and a cloth cover her face. When she gasped in surprise, she felt a heavy liquid enter her nose and mouth. Before she could raise her arms to break her attackers grasp, Maggie felt her muscles begin to weaken beyond her control. The quickness with which she was rendered useless hit her like a train, and she had trouble believing that she’d been taken even as she slipped into unconsciousness.

Maggie awoke sometime later, groggy, weak, and disoriented. Soft blue light invaded her vision when she initially opened her eyes, keeping her from focusing in on anything that might let her know where she was. As the world came into adjustment a little more, she recognized four walls, a green table with a felt top, and five chairs in addition to the one in which she sat. The room had no windows and a musty smell—cigarettes and stale beer, which only made her more puzzled as to her current location.

An opening formed in the dirty white wall that Maggie interpreted to be a door that she hadn’t noticed. Two men came through it. One of them was huge like a football player, his suit coat appearing as though he wore shoulder pads underneath it. His black hair was sheered to his head, his eyes wide in his face. The other man was slighter, but his features were dark and intense, and he looked like a fountain underneath his exterior.

“Whoda her da do?” Maggie said.

The two men looked at her amused, the smaller one actually chuckling. Rage welled up in Maggie like a geyser. She vowed immediately to make the men pay for bringing her to wherever she was and laughing at her. They had no idea how dangerous she was.

Maggie’s small captor laughed even harder when she tried to stand. The little energy the woman could muster was quickly dashed by the duct tape holding her hands and feet to the wooden chair. She almost fell over sideways in her attempt to stand. Maggie grunted several slurred curses as she struggled against binds that normally would have been simple for her to break.

“Don’t hurt yourself, Miss. No one wants to see that. It’s not why we brought you here,” the smaller man said.

“Wader manu,” Maggie mumbled again.

“You must need a couple more minutes to sober up. I want you to be lucid enough to take a message back to your father,” the small man said.

He walked to her and stopped beside the chair. He was wearing silk slacks and a tailored shirt that probably cost a thousand dollars. His cufflinks were gold and had some kind of jewels forming the letter J on top. The man put his hand on her head and gently stroked her hair. Maggie pulled away, but knew she couldn’t escape him in her current condition.

The J man leaned into her field of vision and smiled. “I can see why your father would value you so much. You’re a beautiful young woman.”

“Go to hell,” Maggie sputtered, a little surprised that the words came out intelligible.

“She speaks. Good.” He moved around to fully face her, squatting down to her level. “In case you don’t know, I’m Ronald Jeremiah. You’re dad and I, while we’ve never met, are having a bit of a disagreement. I need your help with that.”

Maggie shook her head. “I can’t help you. You’ve made your bed, now you’ve got to lie in it.”

“Oh, I’m perfectly willing to live with the consequences of my actions, my dear. I’m just not sure this is something that both myself and Warin Drake wants. I think there’s enough of this city to go around,” Jeremiah said.

Maggie looked at him, wondering if somewhere deep inside the criminal, there was a reasonable man. His eyes, while intelligent, held a menace that made her doubt there was much chance of reason. The fact that the bodies between the two groups were piling up like firewood made her doubt even more.

“There is more than enough business to go around, I’m sure,” Maggie said. “The only problem is that my father wants the lion’s share of it, and so do you. Neither of you will be willing to take the short side of any deal. And your attacks on our Family members have angered my father. I’m not sure he’d deal with you no matter what, now.”

“A business man is always open to a deal if it’s beneficial. I know enough about your father to know that,” Jeremiah said.

He knew as much about Warin Drake as Maggie knew about quantum physics. She shook her head, still clearing the cobwebs. If she could just get her strength back, she’d make Jeremiah and his crew a non-issue. “What you need to do is tell all your people to stop attacking the Family and to lay low for a while. My father might forget about you.”

Jeremiah laughed as if he were in control of this game. “I have no such plans, my darling.” He stroked her hair again. This time, Maggie remained rigid, staring the squirmy little man down. “Give a message to your father, for me. Tell him that I’m willing to share New Orleans with him, if he’s willing to share with me. The way things are going now, the only result will be a lot of our people dead, and Warin Drake in jail.”

The thought of her father spending one moment in jail was preposterous. Him being arrested was an impossibility. “I’ll pass on your message, but the results are going to be far worse than you can imagine.”

Maggie could finally feel the blood running through her veins again, and the fuzziness had left her head. She began pulling against the ropes binding her to the chair. The wood creaked under the pressure. There was still a lack of coordination in her muscles, but she could feel her full strength returning. Jeremiah pointed to the thug who had been standing behind her. Maggie didn’t care. She put all the strength she could summon into her next rail against her restraints.

As the rails on the chair broke apart and her arms became free, the door to the game room opened. A dark haired man that she recognized all too well entered the room. His eyes turned round, as Maggie knew that hers did.

“Get her,” Jeremiah screamed.

Maggie shattered her frozen moment and pulled her legs from the ropes around them. The legs of the chair busted apart, and she stood to keep from falling. Before she could take a step, large arms from behind encased her. A rag covered her nose and mouth with the same foul smell that had landed her in this place. She thrashed her head from side to side, but could feel the lethargy that had never completely left her, seeping back into her body.

“Marco,” she said, staring at her betrayer before she slipped again into unconsciousness.