The House by the Side of the Road

Joey’s biggest asset was his ability to pull all the gangs together when there was a profit to be made. In fact, one of his first actions as leader of his gang was to call a truce, followed by a meeting of leaders from the city gangs. He spoke clearly about the payout if they worked together. He assured them they could all continue their own businesses and shoot at each other when nothing bigger was going on, but that they would make millions if they’d work together under his direction when a large-scale business opportunity presented itself.
It made sense to show up when Joey called. And it made sense to follow through. His connections had fed large-scale projects like the one he had been working on these past eight months. Joey had been particularly proud of this endeavor. It had been highly complex with many moving parts. And he had worked with his contact Johnathan Richards, a guy who had connected with him through an L.A. gang, saying he had financiers in the Chicago area who were interested in making a high yield investment. As a result, he had brought together a truly spectacular city-wide effort to import weapons into the city for distribution. In this case it had been weapons, but there had been other vice efforts previously. The partnership was very successful for all involved. Unfortunately, this time, there had been something amiss—a leak somewhere in the communication chain.
Joey had little time to think through where the plan had leaked. The police were clearly aware of the timing and the scope of the gun importation and distribution. He’d figure it out and when he did, pity the fool who cracked his plan.
“Let’s go! Do I have to do every single little thing myself?” Joey shouted, as the sirens were becoming faint, probably because the tires on their vehicles had been shot out.
As Lorenzio swerved to avoid an old lady pushing a shopping cart across the street he wondered two things: First, what was that homeless old lady doing in the middle of the street at this hour of the morning, and second, did Joey think he was out for a leisurely drive? How much faster could he go?
Finally, Lorenzio pulled off onto a narrow side-street, made a quick left into an alley, and another left into a garage in a near West Side neighborhood in the city that looked old enough for Al Capone to have parked there. The doors closed quickly behind them, and they jumped from their car into the one parked next to it. Pulling out from the front of the garage, they turned west and eventually took the Eisenhower Expressway to Mannheim Road where they headed south. Once they were far enough south to be out of the city traffic, Joey began to give some parting directives to Lorenzio.