“Asia,” Fanny said, “we have to get out of here.”
“I can’t. I can’t until I find Baby Joe. Have you seen him?”
“He’s in the bar. He’s fighting with Oleg. We have to—”
Asia wasn’t listening; she was already running up the stairs.
***
Agent White moved fast, and with surprising grace. She rolled through the doorway of the bar. The door had a colored panel that depicted St. Basil’s Cathedral. As she came to her feet, a bullet shattered the painted glass. A fragment of the Sanctuary of St. Basil the Blessed sliced her on the cheek, close to her eye. She dropped to the carpet and instinctively put her hand to her face. It came away bloody. Three more shots sounded out, splintering the door. She couldn’t make out where the shooting was coming from. She crawled on her elbows and knees toward the head of the stairs.
That’s when she saw Agent Black. He was lying facedown on the steps. She slid down to the landing below and put her hand on his carotid artery. The pulse was strong. She stood and set her back against the wall. A movement caught her eye, below and to her left, and she spun around, assuming the Weaver stance. Momo Bibbs and Endless Lee were emerging from under the stairwell and heading for the door. Bibbs was limping and favoring his side.
“Freeze,” she shouted.
Momo froze. Endless kept going. Agent White fired two rounds in quick succession into the marble floor in front of his feet. Chips stung his shins and he stopped.
He looked up at her. “That floor’s expensive.”
“Tiles can be replaced,” she said. “Heads can’t. Don’t move.”
She stepped down toward them. Something hit her on the back of the head. She pitched forward and landed on the floor.
“Neither can fucking teeth, bitch,” Endless said, kicking her viciously in the mouth.
***
It was a scene from a Saturday matinee. The barroom was empty, strangely silent after the gunfire, the customers having fled into the street, an overturned glass rolling on the floor. And the two gunslingers face to face. But neither said This town ain’t big enough for the both of us. Neither man said anything. They just stared. As if, in that moment of confrontation, they had come to an accord dictated by some bizarre, contorted samurai ethic, both acknowledging the other’s right and need to be there, kindred spirits recognizing that their salvations lay in the act of destruction, and each offering the other the chance of catharsis, and each respecting what they both knew to be true: that before him was an adversary who was at least his equal, and likewise a killer, and that the first mistake would be the last, and that only one of them would walk from that room while the other was carried from it in a shroud.
Oleg wasn’t making the same mistake twice. He came in slow, weaving and sinuous, like a mongoose, all speed and guile, but respecting the cobra’s bite.
He is old. But he will know many things because of it. Look at his scars. He is a survivor, and without fear. But he will be slow. And he will tire.
Baby Joe studied Oleg as he moved forward. He is young. But he has been here many times before. And he is without doubt. He has taken many beatings, but has never been beaten. Not one-on-one. That will count. If he thinks he is losing, he will panic. He thinks he is in control, but I can change that.
Baby Joe kicked the glass that lay overturned on the floor. It cracked Oleg above his left eye, shattering and gouging out a piece of skin. Blood welled up and dripped into his eye. That was all it took. He lost his composure and charged in. Baby Joe was reminded of a goat, a rank wall-eyed ram. Baby Joe jumped forward as if to meet the rush, and then jinked and sidestepped. Oleg tried to change direction, but Baby Joe slashed down with his elbow, and another gash opened up on Oleg’s cheek. The elbow strike and his momentum were carrying him forward and down, but he lashed out with his heel as he fell. Baby Joe was able to swivel his hips and draw some of the venom from the kick, but it was too fast for him to avoid altogether. He felt a tearing pain as it hammered into his ribs.
Oleg rolled away, out of reach, and back up to his feet. Stupid. He tricked you, and you let him. The kick was luck.
Baby Joe did not try to follow and catch him coming up. He flexed his shoulders. Fuck, that was fast. And something’s gone. Felt like costal cartilage. If that would have hit me full on…
Oleg leaped, lashing out with ferocious kicks like a giant demented fighting cock. Baby Joe swiveled under the first two, twisting his torso and head like a running back, and blocked the third. It was delivered at full stretch and was the weakest of the three, but it still carried incredible power. One of those kicks could break his arm if it caught him full on. He backed away, but the bar stopped him. Another vicious kick came whipping up and Baby Joe weaved under it, but Oleg stalled and turned it into a knee. It bludgeoned Baby Joe in the temple and he went down.
Oleg knee-dropped Baby Joe in the back of the ribcage. A rib cracked. He threaded one forearm around Baby Joe’s throat and brought his other hand down, going for the classic rear naked choke. He was too eager. He had his face too close, and unprotected. Before he could close the chokehold, Baby Joe whipped his head backward. It was a blind and instinctive gambit, but lucky, and his skull connected with Oleg’s nose and lips. A broken tooth punctured Oleg’s bottom lip. More blood. Baby Joe reached around and grabbed Oleg’s testicles. Oleg grabbed Baby Joe’s wrist in both hands and turned it, simultaneously straining with his legs, heaving himself upright and pulling Baby Joe halfway to his feet. Oleg’s grip strength was phenomenal, and Baby Joe was compelled to release the scrotum to protect his wrist. He twisted around and sank his teeth into Oleg’s nose. Oleg bellowed and hurled Baby Joe away from him. The tip of his nose came away in Baby Joe’s mouth. They squared off, breathing heavily, and regarded each other. Baby Joe spat the tip of Oleg’s nose onto the carpet, then grinned at him. Oleg grinned back, as if the loss of the end of his nose was of no consequence. An inconvenience.
Oleg’s face looked as if it had been peeled, dark empty eyes peering out of a bloody mask wearing an expression of mild surprise, like a pig’s face hanging in a butcher’s window. But his wounds were superficial. They bled, but were not debilitating, at least for as long as the blood did not affect his vision.
It is blood, and pain and nausea, nothing more. I was right. He knows many tricks. But see how he breathes. I was right about that too. He tires. I must only avoid being tricked again, and he is mine.
Baby Joe’s wounds were not so apparent, but were much worse. There was a swelling knot on the side of his head, and a flickering in his eye.
Fuck. This bastard is as clever as he is fast. The rib is gone for sure. And the eye. Maybe a detached retina. He’s bleeding, but that’s all. Look at his face. Behind the blood. He thinks he’s winning. That’s because he fucking is. Do something.
Baby Joe took a step forward, with the very slightest indication of discomfort, as if he were trying to conceal the extent of his injury. Oleg smiled and shook his head. Baby Joe shrugged. It had been worth a try. Except, the real trick was the joke. A shared understanding of the way of things. Humanity in a place where none existed. A game of football in no man’s land on Christmas Day.
Do we not share this insanity? Are we therefore not brothers in arms? Is the thing that separates us and sets us against one another not the same thing that unites us?
It was psychological sleight of hand, and it worked. Oleg was still thinking about it when Baby Joe attacked him with feral ferocity, faster than he had thought possible, turning him from aggressor into defender. It wasn’t his way to fight going backward, and Baby Joe caught him with a long jab and a vicious right uppercut that rattled his teeth together. Oleg probably didn’t know what a mandibular condyle was, but if he lived long enough, he was going to find out, because the one on the right side of his jaw was cracked. As his head flew back, Baby Joe chopped him in the trachea with the edge of his hand.
Oleg choked but he didn’t go down, and he swung at Baby Joe
’s ribs. Five short swift punches, bang-bang-bang-bang-bang. Like speed bag work. Fast, but sacrificing power for speed.
The ribs. Punish the ribs. They are broken. He will not support the pain.
It was a good idea, but the mistake was in the execution. One hard shot would have been better. The punches were sharp, knifing into Baby Joe and cutting short his breath, but they didn’t drop him and they didn’t stop him. He grabbed Oleg’s collar and pulled his head down and brought his knee up. One, two, three, like a soccer player juggling a ball. The nose was mushed again and the lips crushed against the jagged teeth. The third one thudded into Oleg’s forehead, heavy and leaden, and he felt the head flop. Still holding the collar, he changed feet and swung his boot up into Oleg’s groin. Oleg fell forward onto his destroyed face and puked.
Baby Joe stood back and put the boot into Oleg’s ribs. He suddenly felt dizzy. He had to lean on the bar. He bent at the waist and lowered his head and watched Oleg. Orthostatic hypotension. Blood pooling. It means you’re getting old. Make sure you get older. Stand up straight and finish this thing.
He reached behind the bar and grabbed the nearest bottle without looking. He glanced at it, elegant and elongate, the liqueur yellow and festive. The incongruity made him smile. Galliano. A pre-prandial. A little something for madame, before you dine?
Incredibly, Oleg was on his hands and knees, attempting to stand up. Baby Joe took the bottle by the neck like a softball bat. It was full. And heavy. He walked over to Oleg.
“A pre-funeral?” he said. “A little something for monsieur, before you die?”
He swung the bottle up over his head. The light caught it at its apex. It glowed like a party balloon. Party’s over. Baby Joe brought the bottle down, aiming for the base of Oleg’s skull.
A bullet smashed the bottle. Baby Joe was spattered with sweet yellow Galliano and broken glass. And blood. He fell backward, tripped, and slammed against the wall, leaving an oddly decorative smear as he slid down. He sat on the floor, trying to concentrate, trying to clear his eyes. Trying to clear his mind.
He saw Oleg stagger to his feet and limp unsteadily toward him, a bloody, dripping apparition, a noseless ghoul.
You fucking stupid bastard. An ankle holster. A little something before you die, monsieur? Witty. A fucking parting shot. Why didn’t you stop and have a drink at the bar while you were at it? It wasn’t finished. I thought it was done. I was dizzy. You weren’t dizzy; you were weak and stupid. And it wasn’t done. You are. You are going to die, sitting on the floor soaked in a fucking Italian party drink, and you deserve to.
Oleg stood over him and leveled the gun. He was standing back, out of kicking range. Baby Joe looked at him. Oleg was staring into his eyes, looking for something. Something he wanted. He didn’t find it.
“Not very fucking sporting, pal,” Baby Joe said.
Oleg fired. The panel next to Baby Joe’s face splintered. Oleg fired again. The bullet smacked against the heel of Baby Joe’s shoe. Baby Joe wasn’t sure if Oleg was doing it on purpose. He was rocking slightly on his heels. He lifted his gun hand and wiped the blood from his eyes. Baby Joe moved, and Oleg immediately dropped the barrel and fired. The slug went through Baby Joe’s calf. Baby Joe flopped sideways and rolled. Oleg stepped back and fired. The bullet hit Baby Joe in the buttock. He booted Oleg’s legs out from under him. Oleg dropped straight down and sat, almost comic, with his legs outstretched like a toddler taking a tumble. Baby Joe was almost to his feet. Oleg swung the gun and clubbed Baby Joe over the head. It lifted a piece of his scalp and dropped him back to his knees. Oleg pointed the gun at Baby Joe’s face, but Baby Joe grabbed his wrist. Oleg brought his other hand up. Baby Joe nutted him and he fell backward, pulling Baby Joe down on top of him.
It became a contest of strength. A wrestling match over possession of the weapon. They struggled in silence, their faces inches apart, staring into each other’s eyes as if each sought to draw the will from the other by mesmerism.
And Baby Joe could feel himself weakening. The first bullet. He couldn’t identify the wound, and it didn’t hurt, but it felt like something was leaving him. He tried to use his weight and his position, but Oleg could sense the waning of Baby Joe’s strength, and he abruptly thrashed and jerked sideways, and raised his leg, and Baby Joe was unable to prevent himself being tilted to the floor. He clung on, but he was losing the sensation in the fingers of his left hand. The gun was slippery with blood.
Oleg was doing it right. He knew he was getting the upper hand. He knew what was happening, and he knew that all he had to do was maintain the pressure and wait, forcing his wrist around, slowly but inexorably bringing the barrel of the pistol around to point at Baby Joe’s eye. Baby Joe saw it clearly for the first time. He played his last card. It was all he could do.
The gun was an FN Baby Browning .25 ACP, which carried six slugs and had to hit something vital to kill you. One slug was in the bar, one was in the sole of his shoe, and three were in him. If he could make it to his feet, he still had a dog’s chance. Baby Joe suddenly let go of the gun, and smacked Oleg twice in the eye with his right hand. Oleg hadn’t expected it. He concentrated on keeping hold of the gun. Baby Joe was halfway to his feet before the Oleg could get the barrel around. Baby Joe tipped over a heavy, round wooden table. Oleg struggled up and backed off. Baby Joe lifted the table. Oleg was husbanding his last round. He knew the .25 wouldn’t go through the wood. He stood weaving, the gun extended, waiting for his shot. Baby Joe advanced, holding the table like a shield. The effort was making him lightheaded. White dots swirled before his eyes. He set himself up to rush Oleg, to crowd him, to make him miss his mark.
Baby Joe put his foot in the pool of Galliano, slipped, and went down. The edge of the table hit him on the cheekbone. He pushed the table away. Oleg was over him. He looked up at the black hole pointed at his eye.
Asia ran into the room. She saw a moment excised from time with a scalpel and frozen in her mind forever. A surreal black-and-white still, hand-tinted in yellow and red. Baby Joe down. A man standing over him with a gun. If she’d had time to reflect, she would have realized that she had never seen anything with such clarity in her entire life. She raised the service revolver she had taken from the policeman. She remembered Baby Joe’s words from years ago—from another time, another life, another self.
Aim for the middle. Shoot and keep shooting.
She fired five times, pulling the trigger as fast as she could. The first shot missed, and took out a row of glasses behind the bar. The man turned. The second shot hit him in the shoulder, and he staggered backward, but did not fall. The third shot smacked into the wall behind him. The fourth clipped him in the ribcage, at an oblique angle; the slug didn’t penetrate, but it still dropped him. Asia’s fifth gave him a partial auriculectomy.
She kept frantically pulling the trigger as the man struggled to his feet. He shuffled toward her, limping. He seemed ponderous, a nightmare Ed Wood monster, his face a ruined, bloody mess, but he was on her before she could move. She swung the heavy gun at his head, but he swayed out of reach and punched her in the stomach. She fell to her knees and he kicked her in the chest, sending her sprawling on her back. He stood over her and raised the .25.
Baby Joe smashed a chair across his outstretched arm. The gun dropped from his hand and went skidding across the floor. He looked at the gun and then back at Baby Joe. He tried to raise his fists, but his right forearm was broken, and he could not close his right hand. The bone was sticking out, and he stared at it, uncomprehending, as if he could not understand why his hand wouldn’t work. He held it toward Baby Joe, as if to show him the wound, almost shy, the way a child shows you a cut. Baby Joe stepped in and punched him on what was left of his nose.
Maybe Oleg was lucky. A lot of guys don’t get such a nice view on their way out. But Asia’s skirt had ridden up during the fight, and Oleg got a clear view of the crotch of her panties and her full thighs as she stood astride him with the bloody Baby Browni
ng she had retrieved from the floor, and sent him to the big sleep with the last round through his right eye.
***
“So what? Come to finish job. Go ahead. You do me favor.”
“Khuy. What are you talking about?”
“You set me up, manda. Was all big game. To get hands on R3 and Fab 13.”
In the aftermath of the bloodbath at the Savoy, Fanny was able to piece together something of what had happened the night Khuy disappeared and she got sucker-punched.
Major Oblov, who had been prized from the roof of the taxi with several fractures and a renewed faith in the structural integrity of Lada motorcars, and who, when he regained consciousness, found Fanny standing by his bedside, told her about the deal at the morgue, and also that he hoped he wasn’t on his way to it. She knew that someone checking into a hospital with several bullet wounds and a broken switchblade stuck in his abdomen, and fitting the description of an infamous hoodlum whack job with considerable accuracy, would immediately instigate a series of phone calls. She knew that Khuy could not afford to let his incapacitation become common knowledge. So where would a grievously wounded Russian gangster have gone to lick his wounds? The same place all monsters go: to their lairs.
She found Khuy in a room tunneled under the gazebo in the grounds of his mansion. He was alone except for a doctor, a nurse, and a couple of old babushkas in attendance. He was heavily bandaged, whiter than a halal chicken, and had enough needles and tubes in him to rewire Grand Central Station. She could see from the screen that his pulse was weak, but steady.
The Chameleon Fallacy (Big Bamboo Book 2) Page 27