Thread: Why Does the Caged Bird Sing? (Nevermore and Xana)

There was a time, maybe a couple of years ago now, when the name 'Nino Marchesi' could have been heard in the Gilded Cage. Not up in the front of the house, of course, where Vinnie's beloved girl sang her songs and customers put out hard-earned dollars that would end up in the coffers of the mob. No. Instead Nino's name was reserved for the back rooms and only a select few lips. Vinnie would light up a nice, fat cigar and take a few puffs on it while letting the smoke drift around under the lights of that dark back office. Then he'd tap out the ashes and mention a 'problem' he's been having to this Consigliere across the desk from him. Say, for instance, some nobody mick was running illegal booze into the city for some clubs in Vinnie's territory and hurting his monthly take. He'd say how it sure would be a fine thing if a kindhearted citizen did something about all that illegal booze getting out onto the streets unchecked. And then that Consigliere go into the back to the payphone by the employee restroom and call one of the Capos beneath him and share word about this problem. It was a very hands-off beginning to a painful series of events. A truck would wind up on its side out in the desert. It'd catch light. And there would be a long trail of blood in the sand leading to some blubbering kid in a suit he sure as hell didn't pay for himself, laying face down in the sand, and with a pair of bullet holes drilled into his back that the coroner would get paid not to notice. A Capo would get a phone call, the Consigliere would get called by the Capo, and then the next day Nino would find an envelope almost too thick for his mail slot pushed through his dingy old apartment door. Except maybe that wasn't a 'nobody' dead on the side of the road. Maybe that was a boy by the name of Sean Donaghue - the youngest son of 'Big Ox' Donaghue, the head of the Irish mob that had been trying to strike a deal in the booze trade with Vinnie's gang. Suddenly word gets out that it was an Italian-looking man who killed his son. Maybe one who got paid. Then a year's worth of deals and negotiations are in jeopardy of going down the drain with all the blood from the gang war that is sure to break out if something isn't done to alleviate the pressure. Another phone call is made. And suddenly Nino's name is mentioned again. And his address. And the bar her prefers to stop at to top himself off when he's not called out on a job. Then a bunch of surly-looking Irish boys come driving by that same bar one evening and fill the whole place with lead. Then without checking the bodies they start throwing gas and matches through the window. Nino scowled as he massaged his shoulder on reflex. The one that still had shards of a bullet lodged in the bone. Old phantom pains were bad enough that he nearly chomped through the filter of his cigarette while glaring daggers at the city lights growing closer on the dark evening horizon. Las Vegas was drawing closer. He hadn't been back in the last few years as he'd ran across the country to try and escape Vinnie's boys and the Irish all the same. Tried to heal up and recover. And of course tried to plan all the vile things he'd do if he got the man who put him up to die alone. Nino start pressing all the harder on the gas pedal. Cold green eyes squinted at visions nobody else could have seen in the dark ahead of him. The speed drove up and Nino drove closer. He was coming back.