Dungeons & Gangsters

by Marco Frazetta

  “F0916B.”

  “F0916B,” J-Maxx said back to his guy on the phone, “got it? Okay. Yea. Call me as soon as you got eyes on it.” J-Maxx ended the call and tossed the phone to the orc that grabbed it for him. “Alright, Teek, we’re on the right path now, huh?” He smiled and clasped a giant hand on my shoulder. “I’ll get a crew together and meet you at your warehouse in half an hour. We’ll shoot over to Vegas, catch the train as soon as we spot it. We’ll be rich this time tomorrow night.”

  “We’ll see, J-Maxx. Sounds good, real good,” I said sarcastically.

  “What, you don’t believe me? When have I ever led you wrong?” the orc asked, genuinely hurt.

  “I ain’t sayin’ you led me wrong.” I didn’t care much for orcs but truth be told, but even if he was a fuckin’ asshole, J-Maxx did put some money in my pockets from time to time. “Fuck it, you’re right. We’ll be rich tomorrow.” I straightened my jacket and nodded.

  “Good. Now we got work to do.”

  I watched the orcs drive off, then walked over to my Mustang.

  “Let’s go,” I mumbled to Skreech. He nodded and headed over to the car too; sometimes he could judge my mood and could tell when I wasn’t up for hearin’ the peanut gallery. As I was about to sit down in the driver’s seat, I looked up and saw Raulis’s dead body, could smell the blood and shit and guts that had come out of him. For some reason I felt a little pity for this dead elf—I couldn’t figure out why. He was nothin’ but a difficult fuckin’ prick in the brief time I knew him, but still, I had given him my word and that matters to a hobgoblin, regardless of whether it was given to a fuckin’ elf or not. My bad, I thought, as I looked on at the dead elf. I shook my head after a moment and turned the engine on.

  Back at our warehouse, I put on an all black outfit and the military issue bullet-proof vest I had told Skreech to leave out for me. Tactical, I thought, seeing myself in the dirty mirror attached to the wall. I looked over and saw Skreech sittin’ there on his little chair, lookin’ at me all dejected, so after I grabbed my gear, you know, my modified .40 caliber Smith & Wesson and my ankle revolver and the little black-bladed knife I kept with me, I went over and sat by the goblin.

  “How you doin’, Skreech? You alright? You good? You ready for this shit?” He looked up at me, blinked and nodded. “Go ‘head and bring your guns and the rest of the gear down to the car, Skreech, I’ll be right down. Make sure the explosives are in there.” I turned away for a moment to scan the room, making sure I wasn’t missing anything.

  “You got it, boss,” Skreech replied eagerly, snatching up his shotgun and MAC-10 submachine gun, a black duffel bag with some ammo, some cartridges, and the sticky explosives we were gonna use on the train to blow the doors open, if need be. Then I heard him scamper down the stairs toward some banging on the door.

  “Yo, Teek!” J-Maxx’s muffled voice came through the door, “don’t mean to interrupt your fuckin’ tea party up there but you ready to go or what?”

  I walked outside into the night air and saw two big ass monster truck Tacomas, one of them the green one I had already seen, and J-Maxx, Maurice, his gang of orcs whose names weren’t offered or asked for, the sallow junkie, and another orc, one I hadn’t seen before. This motherfucker was even a little bigger than J-Maxx. He had a big ass portrait bust style tattoo of Steven Seagal on his arm which bulged when he moved and flexed. J-Maxx introduced him as Big Dubbs, and that the other truck belonged to this big green fucker.

  “Big Dubbs, huh?” I said, nodding at the orc, having to crane my fuckin’ neck back to look up at this guy. “You’re one big fuck, no disrespect.” The big orc and the others chuckled a moment.

  “None taken,” Big Dubbs replied, “ain’t the first time I heard it. You ready?”

  “Of course. I'm a professional.”

  “Teek, we gotta get movin’,” J-Maxx rumbled. “I got word from my guy Brock in Vegas. We’ll meet up with him when we get to Nevada. He’s an undercover, real good. He told me he put out a APB to his cop pals to disregard anything they hear over their fuckin’ cop radios about a train gettin’ jacked, that they’ll call it a trainin’ exercise. The other orcs chuckled with him. “We gotta hit the road now though, if we’re gonna catch up with the fucker.” J-Maxx added. Big Dubbs came up to me and eyeballed me.

  “Somethin’ interesting about you, hob. Remind me of one of those stories about hobs from back in the day. Ready to head out for a job, all militaristic and shit.” The huge orc smirked down at me.

  “Yea, I did my homework.”

  “Smart ass, too,” Big Dubbs snorted, laughing. “See my truck over there?” He pointed to it, clearly very proud of it. “I put a monster hook on it, it’s easy to work, so we can haul the container, if it comes to that. If it’s got somethin’ my hook can catch on to, I can probably haul the shit.” Then, he leaned in real close. “I pulled my ex’s house down with it a couple months back. Since I’m told this is your plan, if anything happens to my truck, it’s comin’ outta your end.”

  “Comin’ outta my ass…” I mumbled, eyebrows raised.

  “Huh?” Big Dubbs asked.

  “Let’s get on the road.”

  “Got room in my truck, if you wanna roll with,” Big Dubbs told me.

  “Nah, I’ll follow the trucks in my car.”

  He nodded and walked over to his heavily modified Tacoma, which was a dark red color, and jumped in, starting up the huge truck and pulling it up behind J-Maxx’s green Tacoma. J-Maxx walked over to me holding a walkie-talkie.

  “What’s up, J-Maxx? I already got one, remember?” I asked him, wondering why he was bringing it over to me.

  “Just in case,” he said, holding it out to me, “if I can’t get a hold of ya on yours I’ll be able to on mine.” I nodded and took it, then headed over to the Mustang with Skreech. The orcs had loaded up into the trucks, and it was finally time to hit the road for Vegas and the train.

  Chapter 10

  We had caught the 10 freeway outta L.A. with minimal traffic, and had an even clearer path on the 15 to Vegas, up until we suddenly hit a clump of traffic, red traffic lights like it was Christmas. I lit up a joint and passed it to Skreech, who was fuckin’ around with the radio tryin’ to find somethin’ decent or at least without the static.

  “What is this, magic song radio? Pick a station or turn it off.” I snatched the joint away from the goblin. He grumbled and clicked off the radio. I picked up the walkie-talkie on Skreech’s lap and chirped to J-Maxx. “What do you wanna do about this? You could easily go off-road in that big fuckin’ truck of yours.”

  “I could,” the orc chirped back, “but we still gotta meet up with my guy Brock, and I ain’t tryin’ to draw attention to us if I don’t even have my big joker card with me.”

  “True. Besides, looks like they’re clearin’ outta the way whatever the fuck was holdin’ us up.” I couldn’t see it clearly but it must have been an accident, there was blood on the road, shattered car electronics and windshield glass. A mangled car door, torn from it’s car, laid in the middle of a lane. The smashed up car radio was somehow still on, and as I drove by it I heard some faint old doo-wop shit comin’ from it. My old man woulda got a kick outta that, I mused. I passed the joint back to Skreech, who just shrugged looking out at the signs of a bad wreck and puffed on the weed.

  “Guess the road to Las Vegas ain’t exactly paved with blowjobs, huh?” I asked aloud, then hit the gas so hard our heads slammed against the backs of our seats.

  We met up with J-Maxx’s contact, the undercover cop, Brock, at this shitty little spot down Las Vegas Boulevard, called Buffalo Bill’s. He was a half-orc, half-human hybrid, and it turned out he worked for Las Vegas Metro Police for years, fuckin’ guy was a detective and loved to wave around that big shield, but had linked up with J-Maxx and was on his take, gettin’ a taste of whatever came through his purview that J-Maxx was movin’ or whatever dirt he was doin’ when he came to Vegas. He was a crooked cop in every way,
shape, and form. He stole narcotics from dope dealers, he shot first and didn’t ask many questions later, had been accused of countless assaults, and was known around his way for repeatedly and constantly committing civil rights violations; I think it was ‘cause of this that J-Maxx spoke of him with great affection. After Brock hopped up in J-Maxx’s Tacoma, I dropped back behind the two trucks and followed them. J-Maxx had hit me on the walkie-talkie, tellin’ me to stay close, that we were comin’ up on the train tracks that the train would be comin’ along any time now. I sparked up another joint, feelin’ nervous and excited, wanting to calm my nerves a bit.

  “This is it, Skreech, can you feel it?” I turned to the goblin. “This is the chance we’ve been waitin’ for.”

  “Lemme hit that again, boss,” Skreech said nervously. I passed the joint over to him.

  J-Maxx’s voice came over the walkie-talkie, “the train’s comin’, can you hear?” I sat there a moment, listening, watching the train tracks as they faded into the dusty, flat desert. Only things that broke the flat line between the sky and land was the shitty little building we we're parked by and some telephone polls that cast shadows on the ground shaped like crosses.

  Then it was on us. I started to hear the distant rumble of the train comin’ down the way. Fucker’s comin’ fast, I thought.

  “Radio silence for now, you know what to do,” the orc chirped simply over the walkie-talkie. We all sat there, the two giant monster trucks and my Mustang, lookin’ puny next to the modified orc trucks, idling with the lights off and waiting. Finally, after what felt like hours but was barely a few minutes, we saw the lights from the train comin’. As it hurtled by us, the orcs and I simultaneously dropped our vehicles into gear, following as close as possible. J-Maxx must have given the signal to Big Dubbs, ‘cause the latter shot ahead of J-Maxx and me, wanting to make sure he got a good head start so he could pull up in front of the train. I looked over at the train, saw EMISSARY FREIGHT - TRUSTED SINCE 1857! in faded blue paint on the side. J-Maxx and me pulled up beside the middle car of the train—the one which Raulis the elf had said would be where Mr. Sentega’s cargo was—the windows were blacked out, it was impossible to see inside. Definitely where he’s got the goods, I thought. I pulled around to the other side of J-Maxx’s Tacoma, so I could keep an eye on Big Dubbs. He was flyin’ next to the railroad, he had already shot passed and ahead of the train a moment before, and a few seconds later he pulled up on the track.

  “Moment of truth,” I said excitedly. Skreech looked on, eyes buggin’.

  But the train wasn’t slowin’ down. It almost seemed like it was speeding up, having seen the truck park on the train tracks.

  “Shit,” I hissed. I grabbed the walkie-talkie. “J-Maxx, tell him to dip now, the train ain’t slowin’ down!”

  “He ain’t answerin’!” the orc yelled back over the receiver.

  “What the fuck…?” I saw Big Dubbs was out of the big Tacoma that he had pulled up on the train tracks, and was climbin’ up into the bed of the truck, behind the towing hook.

  “What’s he thinkin’?” Skreech asked. I saw Big Dubbs take a pair of sunglasses out and slowly put them on. Then he reached down, and I couldn’t believe this shit, but this fuckin’ orc had a double-holster on and pulled out two real big hand cannons, slowly, lifting the barrels up and training the pistols on the train conductor’s window.

  “This is some Fast and the Furious shit right here!” Skreech squeaked.

  “This dumb motherfucker thinks he’s in a fuckin’ movie!” I roared. “He’s gonna get himself killed and take out one of the trucks! Fuck!” I hit the gas, hoping to outrun the train and somehow yell out to the orc to run, to dick it out of there before it was too late, but I wasn’t gonna make it. I looked up at Big Dubbs in the bed of the truck, and the idiot started buckin’ shots at the train conductor! “This is real life you stupid fuck!” I yelled, so desperate I didn't’ care that he couldn't hear me, eyes glued to the big orc shootin’ at the train—like that was gonna make it stop. “He ain’t gonna stop!”

  I watched as the train plowed right into the orc’s big modified Tacoma, cuttin’ through that big monster truck like a knife through a hot turd. The noise nearly made me piss myself it was so loud, violent, metal crumpling like a soda can. I couldn’t see what happened to Big Dubbs exactly, just saw the big green lug go flying off like a flipped coin. The train cleaved right through his truck in a brief shriek of destruction and kept it movin’, full fuckin’ speed ahead. Holy shit. I was fucking floored, my mind going blank for a long moment.

  “J-Maxx!” I began on the walkie-talkie, not knowing exactly what to say, “what now?”

  “Uh, I was hopin’ you’d tell me.”

  “We can’t just keep tailin’ this thing.”

  “Yea, no shit.”

  I looked over at Skreech real quick, heard him say somethin’ but I couldn’t quite make it out.

  “What?”

  “I said we gotta do somethin! Or we’ll miss our chance!” the goblin yelled.

  “I know that! Fuck… Get the explosives ready!” My knuckles turned orange from gripping the wheel so hard. Either this was going to work, or we were going to blow ourselves straight to hell. “J-Maxx,” I hollered through the walkie-talkie, “it’s time for plan B!”

  Chapter 11

  “What do you need me to do?” J-Maxx asked over the walkie-talkie.

  I thought for a moment, then turning to Skreech and the sticky explosives in his lap, I clicked back, “we’re gonna need to jump up on it now, I got somethin’ to blow the coupling links, send two of your guys up to give me some cover.”

  “You got it,” the orc said. Immediately he veered to the right, his giant wheels kicking up a cloud of dust. He came up real close to the train, almost close enough for the passenger side rearview mirror of his monster truck Tacoma to graze the blacked-out little window of the middle train car. Since the doors of his truck had been removed, Jeep-style, and to accommodate the bulk of the orcs, the two orcs sittin’ in the front and back passenger side seats, closest to the train, started to climb out of the truck and I could see they were eyeballin’ the train car, tryin’ to see into it and also tryin’ to figure how they were gonna somehow latch on to it. I saw them both look back at me to see if I was gonna jump.

  “Alright, Skreech, you’re gonna need to take the wheel.”

  “Shit, you know I can’t see over the fuckin’ thing, boss,” the goblin whined. I looked at him hard for a second, then looked back to keep my eyes on J-Maxx’s truck and the orcs waitin’ on me.

  “It’s mostly a straight way.” I quickly pointed towards and along the train tracks. “You’ll be alright, just keep your fuckin’ foot on the gas and when I get up top, bring the car as close as possible to the train.” I unbuckled. “Here, I’m gonna pop my seat back, and you’re gonna climb over, quickly, while I slip back and over to the other side.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw the goblin look at me with one eyebrow raised dramatically higher than the other.

  “Sounds complicated,” Skreech said nervously.

  “Get ready!” I lifted the lever on the side of my seat, then pulled it all the way up so the seat would drop back. “Now, Skreech!”

  “Teek, what the fuck are ya waitin’ for?” You gonna get on the fuckin’ thing or what?”

  Yea, give me a minute, I’m in the middle of fuckin’ maneuverin’ right now. I pushed my body backwards towards the back seat, reaching back and pulling my body up so Skreech could scramble into the driver seat. There was a momentary drop in speed, but Skreech put as much weight as he could on the gas pedal and we caught back up to the orc’s truck as I slid into the passenger seat.

  “Good job, Skreech.” I patted the little goblin briefly.

  “Just get back in here safe with the shwag, huh?”

  I nodded to him, my red eyes glinting in the dark for a second at the thought of our soon-to-be, and hard-earned, rewards.

  “I’m comin’ now,
” I chirped to J-Maxx, then dropped the walkie-talkie into Skreech’s lap. I saw the orcs that were waitin’ to jump up on the train had decided to go old school and had equipped themselves with some gloves and crude hooks attached to rolls of rope. I smiled to myself briefly, thinking how nimble these orcs would be with their fuckin’ grappling hooks, then grabbed the sticky explosives Skreech had dropped on the floor when he moved over to take the wheel. I was unsure of exactly how I was gonna carry the explosives while leaping on to a fuckin’ moving train, so I reached back and quickly dumped out all over the back seat floors the bullets and cartridges in the duffle bag that Skreech had brought the shit in from the warehouse. Then, slinging the strap of the duffle bag around myself, I shoved the sticky explosives into the bag, yanked up the zipper, and started to climb out of the passenger side window.

  “Sure ain’t the first time I’ve had to climb up on top of a fuckin’ car!” I yelled down to Skreech as my feet cleared the windows and I pulled myself up on top of the Mustang. As I was tryin’ to steady myself on the top of the car, which must have been goin’ at least fifty-five, maybe sixty miles per hour, Skreech gingerly moved the car closer to the train. Come on Skreech, a little closer, just a little closer. One of my hands rapidly ran across the explosives in the bag around my torso and the fully loaded heat on my waist. This shit had really gotten crazy but truth be told, I was fuckin’ lovin’ every second of it. I was fuckin’ exhilirated. It was like for a moment I remembered that hobgoblins were once feared all throughout the world, because we had the balls and the discipline to carry out shit like this. I heard a faint clatter and saw the orcs who, having noticed me gettin’ on top of my car, took that as a signal to get froggy and fuckin’ jump, and they had just secured the grappling hooks to the ledge of the top of the train car. I looked down and saw that Skreech couldn’t move the car over any further. Shit, it’s too far! I’m gonna have to leap like a fuckin’ centaur at the Olympics to get up there! I worried, then thumping on the roof of the car with my boot, I shouted down to Skreech, “Skreech! Get closer!” I didn’t know if he heard me or not for a couple seconds ‘cause the car didn’t move one fuckin’ inch to the right, but then he moved over so close that the right side of the car was practically up against the train tracks, the little spikes on the centers of the rims of my Mustang sendin’ up sparks when they grazed against them. I looked at the train as stoically as I could, but I was feelin’ sick. I looked over at the orcs and saw they were waitin’ on me again. I nodded to them and turned back to the train. Fuck it, I thought, and, tensing all the muscles in my feet, my legs, my whole body, I jumped.