Long Way Down by Lauren Gilley

Author:Lauren Gilley [Gilley, Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HP Press
Published: 2022-10-06T00:00:00+00:00

Eighteen

Pongo had been teased by his club brothers – some with good-natured intent, some with a not-so-nice sneer hiding behind the rims of their beer bottles – that the reason he was the one perma-stationed in the city was because he was too lazy to deal with the day-to-day operations of the Albany clubhouse. Like every chapter, its illicit dealings were camouflaged by legitimate businesses – a moving company, used car lot, and salvage yard in New York’s case. All the brothers were employed in one of the three, and if they were short on prospects – like they were now – everyone chipped in with the cleaning and bookkeeping and maintenance. Repairs to the clubhouse post-explosion had been extensive and expensive; the club was also looking after their previous president’s widow and children, so the purse strings were a little tighter than they used to be.

One of the guys, Pit, had suggested on more than one occasion that Pongo was a “pretty boy afraid to get his hands callused.” “Always running off to the city to fuck around, huh? Ain’t got time for the real shit, do ya?”

Pongo had tossed him his brightest grin and said, “I have a face made for Broadway. Don’t be mad just ‘cause yours was made for the business end of a septic truck.” Pit had cussed, and fussed, and waved him away in a huff. Pongo had gone with a laugh, seemingly carefree, and not told him how much product-pushing he’d had to oversee since the mysterious and wealthy Mr. Shaman stepped into the benefactor role a few years back. Albany might have offered dirty work in the physical sense – but there was nothing clean about the street gigs Pongo oversaw on a daily basis.

Business was booming on the post-Waverly scene. The low-level dealers, pushers, and thugs who’d levered Abacus like a crowbar on the street had been rattled by the top dogs’ takedown, and had receded into the shadows. Which left an opening for the Dogs – one hurried and less-than-organized so far. Their dealers had whistled and beckoned and lured in customers no longer buying from Waverly’s rats, and the profits were jumping.

But word had come from Knoxville, from Ghost himself, and disseminated through the president of every global chapter: it was time to tighten up the operation. Time to ramp up production, incentivize dealers, and eliminate the competition on the ground.

For Pongo, that had meant a lot of sitting at bars, and bumping into people on the subway, shaking hands on street corners. His affability and charm were his best weapons. But his charm was of an entirely different sort than that of today’s contact.

He stepped off a marble-walled elevator onto a floor that gleamed with the same, black with white veining. Through a pair of cushioned glass doors, he found a desk, the wall behind it clad in marble, too, a sleek sign in soft, brushed gold that read Soleil Talent. The woman at the desk wore a

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