Prologue

It was a soggy March afternoon when the notorious mob boss “Quickshot” Esposito was killed. Aside of Quickshot’s death, it was a day only notable in that, seven hours earlier, Charlotte Garland gave birth to a lovely redheaded boy named Earl, a dog found out that sausages smelled and tasted differently when they came from someone’s mouth, and that a little girl two counties over survived the surgery her family had taken out a mortgage to pay for. None of these would show up in the local paper the next day. Instead, the Flying Gazette, named for the original editor-in-chief’s dead horse, would have upon the front page of their seven-page weekly a glorious photo of Quickshot Esposito, whose image would invoke equal parts fear and bewilderment, with a much lesser part of the viewer’s hearts dedicated to whatever adoration they had for such a powerful being. When passing Quickshot Esposito on the street, one hastily waved, raising their eyes only to Quickshot’s chin before rushing off to wherever they were going. Only the people who served Quickshot dared speak a greeting. It was noted, in the obituary, that Quickshot’s life was a quiet one recently, and that a life lived loud oft leads to a loud end. “This is, perhaps, the only manner in which Quickshot Esposito’s life matched others’,” the author mused.