In a warehouse in the machine district, more toward midtown than downtown, there was a subbasement with a room in the back that was never used for machine parts. The owner of the warehouse, a squirrely little human whose drug habit had pushed him well beyond the bounds of morality, allowed the dwarf organized crime syndicate to use the room for all sorts of dastardly things. In exchange, he never had to pay for a single high. At this point, however, his addiction was so old and so advanced that getting high was almost impossible. He needed the drugs just to function on a normal level.
Earlier that day, he had seen two dwarves dragging a sandwich board down there. The thing wasn’t too heavy for one of them to lift but it was awkward for them to maneuver. Later, he had noticed two other dwarves leading a man down there. The man had been wearing a bag over his head and one of the dwarves had been carrying a large duffel. Every time he saw something like this, the man thought about calling the police and getting himself into rehab. Then Caesar MacGregor would deliver a fix and all would be right with the world.
Caesar delivered the fix.
Then he went down into the subbasement.
The man with the bag over his head was Nikolai Durchievskiy. Nikolai was nobody’s friend. As an enforcer for the Russian Mob, he’d crossed paths with Caesar’s dwarves time and again. Normally, a confrontation on the street stayed on the street. This time, however, things had gotten complicated. Caesar was embarking on a whole new expedition. He had plans. Big plans. And some stupid Russian mobsters had stumbled over them. That would not do. Normally, a simple enforcer wouldn’t have the kind of information Caesar was looking for. Nikolai, however, was close to the source. He was the nephew of one of the Russians’ biggest bosses.
Caesar’s dwarves had set everything up exactly as he had instructed. Humans usually tied their captives to a chair for an interrogation. The chair thing didn’t work for dwarves. If the victim was too tall, it was hard to get a good angle for delivering a punch. Besides which, it was way too comfortable. Caesar much preferred the sandwich board. His dwarves had forced Nikolai to his knees and opened his legs around the board. They had tied his ankles to the back end. Then they had pressed his back against the board and fastened his arms around his back. It was very effective except for the fact that a victim usually fell over several times throughout the course of the interrogation. Nikolai was a big man and would tip over the sandwich board easily enough. Still, he’d been drugged so much of his strength had been drained from him. He was also blindfolded so he wouldn’t be able to get his bearings.
As soon as Caesar started questioning him, Nikolai understood what kind of trouble he was in. There were plenty of dwarf mobsters out there, but Caesar was famous among them. He detested all creatures who were not dwarves. In the course of his business, he tolerated humans on a daily basis, but that didn’t mean he liked them. Even his closest human associates knew about his prejudices and felt them on a regular basis. Elves, though, were the lowest form of life in Caesar’s eyes. He had nothing to do with them except when it became necessary to deliver a bribe to some shady politician or captain of industry.
Nikolai responded predictably at first. He claimed not to know anything. He was only an enforcer. Blah, blah, blah.
Caesar hit him once and broke his nose without even bruising his knuckles.
Human bones were so fragile.
Caesar asked some more questions and Nikolai became more defiant.
He promised Nikolai that he would break his jaw next and still expect him to answer questions.
Nikolai spat at him.
Shaking his head sadly, Caesar ordered all four of his dwarves to hold Nikolai and the board steady. Two came in at his knees and two at his shoulders. They stuffed his mouth with a dirty rag. From the duffel bag, Caesar pulled out a sledge hammer. This was another advantage of using a sandwich board instead of a chair. This particular board wasn’t designed for advertisement. A strong piece of wood had been fastened between the back feet. With Nikolai’s own feet sticking out the back, he was primed for a good old fashioned hobbling. Caesar took off the big Russian’s shoes. Then, to make his point, Caesar pressed the sledgehammer up against Nikolai’s foot. He was famous for this, Caesar.
He was about to bring the hammer around when the subbasement door opened and a dwarf figure entered the room. When he saw what Caesar was about, he waited. Realigning his shot, Caesar brought the hammer up and, not unlike taking a shot in croquet, he brought the head down full force against Nikolai’s foot. It bent inward as the bone snapped, and flopped back out.
Nikolai screamed around the rag.
Throwing the sledgehammer over his shoulder, Caesar went over to the newcomer. Dressed in a business suit, this dwarf stood out from most others. His actual job was as an administrative assistant for one of the most crooked elf holdings in the city. Throughout the course of his day he was demeaned on a regular basis, but he took it because Caesar paid better for the information he brought than his job paid for the menial work he did. Today he had brought some very important information indeed. He brought Caesar a name and that name was Evelyn Van Deign.
Caesar listened to the news with thin lips. He had only met Van Deign a couple of times. Her interests were environmental, which didn’t really cross paths with his own. Still, if she was meeting with Owen, who was a police officer and a dwarf, then perhaps she was branching out. He needed more information. He told this to the dwarf. Nodding a promise, the dwarf accepted a wad of bills and left the subbasement.
With that done, and yet another quandary to consider, Caesar went about finishing the job he had begun.