44.
Two weeks into Miami he spotted the dark sedan. Tinted windows.
A Maybach. The Rooskie's tracked him down, and were looking to get even for the counting room. The South Americans were manning it. The Rooskie's ran it.
Payback. Message time. It was a fuck-you score. Trench chalked a lesson. An underworld demo. You guys might be top dog, but we're the roots, and don't forget it stuff.
Trench ended things in a quasi bug house. A broken down retirement home, hatching dementia. All his crime market gains, fleeced by lazy relations. Trench had slipped too far. A skid row geezer.
The Rooskie's finished the cook. That's the difference. A mafioso would have strolled in, seen the guy's pretty much gone, and dime Saint Santino to bring him in. Not the Russians.
They snuffed him out. Two young guns. One pinned Trench's arms, while his comrade shoved a pillow over his face. Deep night.
When staff found Trench the next morning, a hospice nurse pronounced, and dialed a funeral home to wrap the remains. No coroners and autopsy. He went peacefully in the night. Shuttled off to the big bunk, in a dark, unmarked van.
Time to go. Split the scene. Tony collected his loot, a few changes of clothes stuffed an overnight bag. The two meatheads from the Trench snuff, sat in a getaway ride. Tucked in a slot, hawking Tony's wheels. A street level parking garage, right beneath the mid-rise.
If they tracked him down here, knew where he roosted, they sure as shit knew what he drove, and where he stashed the wheels. Tony ditched his first escape plan, and bolted out the rear of the building. He tacked a cab, peeling off. Times, they are a changin'. These guys had connections.
Tony paid cash most of the way, laid low, and they still found him. Maybe the internet had something to do with it. He was plugged in, beated around with it. The good thing, such a novice left behind a novice computer with novice info. The better thing, Tony Scram was no rookie. He scrammed off, goosing the Rooskie's.
The comrades busted in, tossing pad. They hocked the desktop, knowing Tony was long gone. The cabbie booked towards a rental hut. Tony burned the Florida Turnpike, north of Tampa, when they figured he wasn't coming home.
Tony could have paid cash for a good used car. The minutes of paper work, he couldn't spare. He broke out another credit card, knowing full well a Russian whiz kid could track it. Sure, he'd track it, but he wouldn't connect the card holder. Not through a fresh alias.
Tony drove all night. Only stopping for gas, bottled water to wash down meds, and hit a rest room. He burned Baton Rouge, and smoked Houston. Arizona bound. By the time Tony hit the cow pastures of east Texas, the comrades were called off.
Ordered to top off the Maybach, and return to the Jersey hills.
Tony kept south. Interstate 10 cut right through Texas. Tony ditched the pastures for the plains. Damn, Texas is one big mother. Took him a day and a half to cross.
When big 10 splashed him outside the Alamo, he finally relaxed. The rock formations, and desert heat. A new planet. He switched rentals, and shoved off. He cruised El Paso, hooked into New Mexico, and the pay-off. Arizona loomed.
The crime father was still alive, somewhere in Phoenix. Tony slalomed the rock slide formations. The shades of stone, organ pipe cactus, moving him further from the past, and Rooskie's. A new map.
Tony found Phoenix too spread out. Too much sky. Naked.
With the itch to hide, he broke out the map. He thought about the old man. The last thing he'd want, was to bring anybody with him.
Maybe Leo didn't care for any kids from the good ole days.
He pictured a ninety year-old guy hot-tubbing. Bikini's and bourbon tumblers. Bi-focal's fogged over. White glistening hair. If he were alive. Nobody knew for sure. The old man scrubbed the past clean, and bunkered in. No news of a death makes you think he's still going. Phoenix rubbed Scram the wrong way. He shoved off for Nevada.