Orin Burke wore his designer sunglasses, expensive leather jacket, and gold wristwatch like advertisements that he was a man of taste despite the scars on his face and knuckles.  The cream leather seats in his Cadillac were used to curvier bodies than this lanky kid in bluejeans that sat next to him now.  Orin pulled out into traffic.  "Who was that on the phone just now?"  Paulie tried to play cool.  "Ah, just some body that thinks I'm a message service."  Orin pressed him, "I thought I heard you say your sister's name."  Paulie tried again to cover, "Oh yea, she just wants me to call somebody.  I'll do it later."  Orin didn't like the sound of this, "did I hear you say she was going someplace?"  "No, nothing like that." Paulie was getting nervous.  He started pushing buttons on the disk changer.  "Come on kid.  Leave that alone."  Orin said, slightly irritated.  "How come you have such a nice car, and my sister has such a piece of crap?  Don't you both have the same job?"  Paulie asked, trying to deflect the conversation.  "I have a nice car because I take my job seriously.  I don't know what your sister thinks she's doing.  She's way out of her league."  Orin said, trying to make a point.  "I'm getting a motorcycle.  I'll blow this thing off the road."  Paulie laughed.  "A motorcycle?  Okay smart guy, what are you gonna do when you have to work with somebody?  Or when you have to move something big?" Orin's voice was growing more irritated.  "I don't need a partner.  I'll ride in like Batman and blow everybody away." Paulie said laughing.  Orin's blood pressure was going up.  He just kept driving and shook his head.  "Okay Batman, you do that."
    It was seldom that he got to really enjoy his work any more.  Orin was determined not to let this punk get under his skin.  The only reason he was coming along was to lead the way back to where everything got screwed up.  After that, anything could happen.  Hey, its a dangerous world.  Accidents happen all the time.  Besides, if everything went according to plan, there would be a little personal fun in all this.  Something he'd been waiting to do for a long time.  "So where are we going anyway?" Paulie said,  turning the annoying factor down just a notch.  "Bud said you were going to fill me in on the rest of the details."  Orin paused before answering, like he was making a calculation in his head.  "That depends on you kid.  You wanna tell me about what happened in that hotel?  Where was it again?"  Paulie wasn't sure what he meant at first, he had been in a dozen hotels recently.  Orin's voice was showing more annoyance now.  "Come on kid.  You know what I'm talking about.  Your sister got that other little skank involved...  Something went wrong...  they snatched her... come on.  Fill me in."  
    Paulie didn't want to talk about it, but he got the feeling he really didn't have a choice.  The truth was, he had been trying to impress Moira that night.  She was cute and he wanted her to like him.  "Well, somehow... somebody found out who we were, I mean what we were there for."  Paulie paused, trying to put a positive spin on it.  "Well I guess they figured out...  I mean me and Moira went into the bar in the hotel lobby, and you know, I had my sisters gun in my belt under my shirt and I was telling Moira about how I was going to be working, you know... in the business or whatever..."  Orin's jaw muscles were getting tight.  "Come on kid spit it out.  What happened?"  Paulie continued, stuttering a little, "Well like I said, I guess somebody overheard me, or maybe they could have seen the gun, and I guess they went and told the manager, or somebody called the police, because two cops came in, and the bartender pointed back towards us.  Anyway, we ran out the other side of the bar, and circled around outside and got back to our room before they found us.   We told my sister about it, and she got all bent out of shape and said we had to leave.  We were throwing all our stuff in the car, and this truck pulled around the corner and started speeding towards us.  It wasn't the cops.  They started shooting and we all hit the ground.  I forgot that I had my sisters gun, or I would have shot back.  I probably could have got at least one of them, but like I said, I forgot...   Anyway, I couldn't see what was happening, but I guess they grabbed Moira and took off."  Paulie stopped to see if Orin would say anything.  He didn't. 
    Orin was trying to piece it together.  Anyone could have been listening in on the police frequencies that night.  It wouldn't have been to hard to put two and two together.  The boneheads just grabbed the wrong girl.  Paulie tried again to get Orin to talk.  "So what now?"  Orin just smiled ever so slightly while staring at the road ahead.  "Now we clean up the mess kid.  Tie up those loose ends."  He smiled to himself.  Those loose little ends.

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