Chapter 1

June 1988

The afternoon sun was quickly fading and light blue clouds were blocking the sunset, yet my best friend and I were still sitting in the same position we had been in since early this morning.

Josh Taylor is the name. I would prefer if you didn't call me by my last name, though. It just doesn't suit me, if you know what I mean. Right now, I'm living the high life and I am loving every moment of it.

"Hey, Josh!" My best friend shouted. "Are you going to move, or what?" He pointed to the chess board. It was littered with only a few pieces, my king, queen, two rooks and pawn my remaining pieces.

I loomed over to see the expression on his face. His mustard-coloured sunglasses and wavy brown hair blew as the wind rushed past us. He was wearing a flashy white suit, something that seemed like it was coming out of a disco era. That's Mario Cellini. We had grown up together in the rough and tough life which we called Miami Vice.

"Relax." I uttered, looking around at the view. Women in roller blades wearing naught but bikinis and short skirts and shirts passed by, with the fancy cars in view as well. Turning towards the chess board, I finally made a quick move.

Tossing my rook over to the very edge of where his king stood, his king was now trapped by my opposing queen. "Checkmate, Mario." I grinned, almost evilly, as he widened his eyes in shock. "Come on, we need to get that job done for Giovanni."

He scoffed as I got out of the chair, dragging his white suit with me. I, on the other hand, had a sense of taste in fashion. Wearing a green and blue Hawaiian shirt and navy blue jeans, I was poised for action.

Mario was right behind me as we walked over to my fancy car. Pulling out the key for my silver sports car, I popped open the trunk and it revealed what Mario and I needed. Picking up the empty black bag and handing Mario a ski mask and a Ruger rifle, I thrust them all into his hands.

"I'm driving!" Mario exclaimed joyfully, heading towards the driver's seat. I quickly rushed up to him and stopped him in his tracks.

"My fuckin' car." I pointed to it. "Scratch the car will mean a scratch on your ass. I am driving." I threatened him, grabbing him by the shirt. He grinned as if I were joking, and I cracked a small one as well.

He got into the passenger seat as I pulled my black bag, rifle and ski mask out of the trunk. I slammed the trunk shut and leapt into the car, taking off and leaving a trail of smoke behind me.

We both turned on the radio to listen to some early 80's music. At the ripe age of twenty, I was feeling luxurious and dangerous at the same time. 

Mario quickly donned his disguise and looked at me. "So what did Giovanni say about this one?"

"He says if you don't start shutting your trap, he's going to put you on ice." I mocked, driving and swerving past all the other slow drivers. Mario looked at me with a bit of disgust as if he were disappointed with my answer.

A swerving car nearly cut us off as we approached the highway. "Oh, this fucking idiot." I cursed to myself. I pulled out a handgun and sped up to meet him.

The driver was a middle-aged man. I rolled down the window and he rolled down his, both of us continuing to drive.

"Where the hell did you learn to drive, bub? You think that's fucking funny?!" He yelled at me. He gave me the middle finger, still holding onto the wheel tightly, with the both of us approaching the bridge.

"No, I'll tell you what's funny, you fucker." I held out my handgun and aimed it at his direction. The driver across widened his eyes at me, now looking helpless and surrendering instantly. "This is funny." I told him, firing my handgun at his top right tire. It blew instantly, causing grey smoke to spew out and the driver to spin out.

I turned back to the front of the road, smiling evilly with the music pumping into my ears. "You know, one of these days you're going to get caught and the cops will bust you." Mario warned.

The two of us were nearly at our target. "Now, Giovanni wants us to get the twenty-five G's like he asked for." I informed Mario quickly. "He says this is for the King's Club. You know, the old club where we're going after this job?"

Mario grinned. "I'm going to go meet Chrissy after this. She promised me a LOT of. . . Pleasure."

Looking disgustedly at Mario, I spoke aloud. "You two have been doing it, haven't you? Save it, I don't need that shit like you do."

"Hey, Josh, we all need it. All guys do, mate."

We stopped at our location, the Miami Grand Bank. We pulled over behind the big building, which was three storeys high and full of rich yuppies that the lot of us despised. Yet, all these folk inside had loads of cash waiting to be stolen.

"I'll go in first." I ordered to him. "You have the tendency to fall and trip on something."

"Now, I resent that. I may be a bit clumsy, but when it comes to robbing banks, you know I'm the man for the job." He protested, still half- joking. That was the way Mario was; he loved to joke and speak seriously at the same time.

The two of us entered through the sliding glass doors, our rifles hidden underneath our coats. Both our ski masks were on and we approached the tellers ahead of us.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" I yelled loudly. "My partner and I would like to be the first to tell you to stop what you are doing, and listen to what our friends have to say!"

Instantly, Mario and I revealed our Rugers and fired into the air. It blasted through the ceiling and debris fell to the ground. "Now, I think we have all of your attention!" I called to them. By now, every single person on this floor was on the ground and hunched behind one another.

The bank was decorated with marble floor and wooden desks for the tellers. It was a rather large bank, which meant it had rather large sums of money. There was about fifty people on the ground, cowering in fear.

"Now, the rest of you!" I yelled to the tellers. "25 grand, and make it fast!" I aimed my Ruger at them, tossing the black bag.

"Hurry it up!" Mario yelled angrily, tossing another bank teller his black bag. We both watched in glee to see every bank teller emptying their cash from their desks. I turned around, seeing the rest of the people on the ground, still unmoved.

The bank tellers had been loading cash with one hundred dollar bills marked in them. I looked towards a girl who looked about eighteen years old. She had blue eyes and was looking at me in fear, peering through the hole in the ski mask at my brown eyes. "Come on, darling." I ordered, still pointing my gun at her.

Once all the cash had been emptied, I snatched the full bag from her hands and began looking towards the door. Mario snatched his bag from some old man and nodded to me that he was finished.

As part of the plan, we needed a hostage as an insurance if things went south. The bank teller with the blue eyes was cute enough and no one wants an old wrinkled man as a hostage. I grabbed her wrist and ignoring her yelps, dragged her along with me as we made our exit.

"I'd like to thank you all for being oh so kind!" I replied, backing up towards the door. "It makes our life a whole lot easier that you remained on the ground. Thank you, and goodnight to the rest of you!" I saluted them, running past the door and making my way out to the car.

Mario was about to lift off his ski mask but a single glance towards the new guest with us, stopped as he tossed her into the back of the car, along with the money and our weapons.

"Easy as pie, like I knew all along." He grinned, watching me start the car, the roaring engine speeding off back down the highway.

*

"I've called the police!" The old man yelled. "Everyone, please stay where you are and stay calm! Is everyone alright?"

Everyone nodded in agreement, feeling a bit at rest. A security guard rushed in quickly, panting as if he had been running for miles. "We've just got a license plate of the vehicle, and the police are already on their tail!"

*

"Uh oh." Mario said, looking into the rear-view mirror. "We've got cops hot on our tail."

I sighed. "They always are. One little bank robbing and they're all over you. I'll lead them over to the King's Club. You call up Giovanni and tell them to take care of the annoying bug behind us!"

Mario pulled out his cell phone and quickly dialed the boss's number. "Boss, we've got a problem!" He called. "We're heading to the King's Club now with the cash you wanted, but we've got one cop tailing our ass. Get Enrico to take care of them, now!"

He hung up his cell phone and quickly looked behind him. The officer was hot on our trail, now. Looking at the mirror, he had already pulled out a handgun. Taking my handgun from my pocket, I opened the window and fired at his hood.

The officer was held back another ten feet, but continued to drive. We were edging closer and closer to our safe haven, and we could now see Enrico's loyalists carrying their machine guns. We swerved past them, into the parking lot of the King's Club.

Enrico opened fire on the cop, striking out his tires. The officer looked in fear, as he slammed into a brick wall ahead of him, throwing him through the window instantly and killing him, most likely.

We had already reached the safe haven and no one seemed to be following us anymore so felt it was safe to exit to car. Mario dragged along our pretty little hostage as we made our way towards the crashed car and the now dying officer lying a few feets by the side.

The officer was crawling on the floor, struggling to reach safety, anywhere away from us two. Mario dragged the now unconscious hostage from the backseat of the car and threw her on the road, just a bit away from the crawling officer.

No one noticed the widened eyes of the officer when he saw the unconscious woman thrown beside him, unsure to anyone whether it was due to the treatment the poor woman was going through or there was a more personal reason for his shock.

 "This pig got it real good. Was stupid of him to follow us." Mario remarked.

  Meanwhile, the hostage had woken from the impact of being thrown even though she was still dizzy and unaware of her surroundings.

“I wanna pop one into this pig. I hate these damn cops.” Mario growled as he pointed his gun towards the struggling officer who was now crawling towards the hostage instead of safety.

I quickly stepped forwards and put my hand on Mario’s gun to lower it as I spoke,

“Its stupid to kill someone. We’ve gotten what we wanted and the cop was just doing his job. Could’ve been anyone.”

With disgust, Mario turned to look towards me,

“You having some love for a pig?”

Before I could continue any further, Mario shot the officer with a smirk.

“I ain’t blood thirsty. I just wanna shoot the pig. I won’t kill the hostage.”

With those parting words, he heading towards the parking lot, eventually making me follow behind him as I gave one last look at the now dead officer.

As we arrived into the underground parking lot, Giovanni and his bodyguards were there beside him. He was a bit on the heavy side, but nonetheless, the big boss around Miami Vice. He wore a black tuxedo, ready for another King's Club party.

"My money?" He beckoned. The bodyguards helped us out of the car and we handed them the two bags of money. "Thank you, boys, for the assistance in this hold up. You both are going to be very rich men."

"No problem, Giovanni." I smirked. "Just another hard-earned days work."

*

Unbeknownst to anyone, a scream rang out across the entire neighborhood. A mix of guttural roar mixed with deep agony and sadness as the young hostage was holding the dead officer in her arms, his blood painting her dress smudges of red which she didn’t cared for.

Her screams continued now mixed with sobbing until eventually dying down as she fainted again, this time over the dead body

*

Upstairs in the King's Club, the women had come in for the night. The day in Miami had turned into a sweet, summery night. The hot ladies were coming in to have a good time, as were my fellow mobsters.

"Oy, Josh!"

Ken Ferrari looked towards me, shaking my hand in congratulations. "I heard you and Mario pulled off a huge job for Giovanni Diaz today. My congratulations go out to you, mate!"

"Wasn't much of a hard job." I shrugged, drinking a martini at the table with Mario. "Wait, did you and the Colonel take care of the Haitians like the boss asked you to?"

Ken grinned. "Yeah, we took care of them. Poisoned their drinks while playing bartenders. The fuckers didn't see it coming. Anyway, I've got some stuff to take care of. Bartender!" He called to the man sitting at the bar. "Another martini for the guys over here!" He ordered quickly. "I'll see you guys later."

The two of us watched the TV above our heads, as a news reporter reported the death of one officer in the chase. It was the same officer who had followed us during the robbery, and Alex Tanelli was pronounced dead at 45 years of age.

"Here's to us, Josh." Mario took his new martini. "The woman, the money, the life. We're the kings of the world." He tipped his glass with mine, celebrating our dubious victory for the day.