by Frank Dorn
Akhim was studying his nails as he talked. “Nobody cares that the other child started it, or that you had been victimized and ignored many times before. All that they care about is that you, an outsider, hurt one of them. One of the chosen, one of their own. You are expelled. Your parents are heartbroken and your world, your life feels like it is at an end, but you survive. Eventually you grow up, make friends, and discover acting. Against all odds that leads to some stunt work for movies and TV. Then you get your big break. Do you let it go to your head? Do you pick on others?”
Akhim jumped off the desk and into the General’s face. “Maybe you do. Lea doesn’t. She stands with the bullied, the downtrodden, the neglected and abused. Come on. It’s showtime.”
Akhim turned on his heel and quick stepped up to the platform. Brandie and Jose helped him up while the others climbed down into the crowd. He turned and, grinning, faced the crowd.
“Greetings. I am Akhim Gudan and am, among other things, a director. This is Lea Kalani and she is a stunt woman and actress.”
The crowd cheered and applauded. Akhim continued. “While our meeting has been tragic, unexpected, and unplanned we are happy to meet you all and I hope you feel the same, but now I have an important question. Who has ever slipped on a banana peel?”
The crowd laughed but no one confessed to slipping.
“No one? Have you ever, in real life, seen anyone slip on a banana peel?”
Again, no one had seen someone fall.
“How about in movies? Or on TV?”
Nearly everyone’s hand was raised.
“Excellent. Me too, by the way. I have seen people trip in real life. My first reaction has always been to try and catch them, but if they do fall, my second reaction is to see if they’re all right, and I expect you do too.”
Around him heads nodded.
“But in movies, slipping on a banana peel is always funny and we’re going to show you how it’s done.”
Lea stepped forward. “Correction. He’s going to talk, I am going to show you how it’s done, unless you want to trade places.”
“No no that’s all right. You go right ahead.”
“Full speed?”
“Yes lets start with that now watch closely.”
Akhim maneuvered Jose to the middle of the platform. “You smile at Lea as she approaches you.”
Jose nodded, and Brandie sashayed in his direction. He grinned, she smiled shyly back, then her right foot kicked high in the air, while her left foot trailed. Suddenly she was airborne, her back parallel to the floor. Reaching back with her right hand, she slapped the ground. As her body approached she slapped again with her left hand, then kicked softly with both heels. She landed flat on her back.
The audience gasped, lead by Jose who knelt beside her. “Are you all right?”
She grinned up at him. “Of course, silly, help me up.”
7. 7
The security cameras provided only high angle shots. Three cameras, three screens. The angles made for an almost godlike view. Charlie felt he should be grateful for that, given that Akhim was prancing about the “stage” holding the tips of his thumbs together with his index fingers raised like goalposts. There was nothing godlike in their choreographed pantomime.
People had already died. Men with mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters. Perhaps lovers, wives, children. What would happen to all of them? The ripples of their misbegotten con would effect lives for generations and yet here were the belligerents on all sides laughing and playing together.
Everything that had happened was the result of poor planning. Charlie detested poor planning. Especially when he was the one in charge of the plans. There was no time to continue beating himself up, however. He made a note to himself: find out who had died, and take care of their families.
Behind Akhim, Jose stood shuffling nervously from one foot to the other and about a yard beyond him Brandie stood, arms crossed.
Eventually Akhim stopped, shifted Jose a little bit forward, then shifted Brandie a little bit back.
After that he jumped down to the floor and did that thing with his hands again. Finally satisfied, he brought Starbuck and General Flores to the front. Everyone crowded in behind them. Akhim then signaled Jose who pretended to throw a punch. Brandie threw her arms into the air and staggered backward.
The audience, including the leaders, erupted in applause. Brandie straightened up, took Jose by the arm, and forced him to bow with her.
After that, Starbuck and the General cinema punched each other. The punches looked more realistic, but the part about pretending to be hit didn’t look quite so good. Even from a high angle. Soon everybody was practicing the moves and a few were branching out into multiple punches and even a few kicks.
All in all, everyone was having a good time.
Except for him.
Charlie had heard Akhim’s description of Brandie’s childhood. He had never thought of her as child before. Of course he knew she had been one but he had never imagined what it had been like. The possibility that the story he had heard was true had hurt. He didn’t understand why, and he didn’t like that. He didn’t like not understanding, because he knew he was smart enough to understand practically everything, and he didn’t like imagining her childhood trauma. He did not like it at all.
His first inclination was to research. Find out where she had grown up and what schools she had attended, then identify her tormentors, hunt them down, and make their remaining days on earth a living hell.
He set that notion aside. That kind of help she didn’t need and would likely not appreciate.
Back to the problems at hand. They had succeeded in getting the drug lord and his minions, and the military, to relax and let their guard down. Now he needed to get them out of there. Time to cut their losses, and the losses of everyone else, and shut this fiasco down.
He would manufacture some emergency back in Hollywood which demanded there presence. Yeah, that could work. That would work. It had to work.
~*~
You could find the same group of toughs anywhere. Be it a prison yard or cafeteria, the floor of the stock exchange or a loading dock, middle school hallway or army barracks. They were everywhere. A group of men, generally young, always dressed alike, always too sure of themselves, too smugly superior.
They were a gang of people who liked to hurt others for fun and profit. Such gangs were sadly common. The members were always skilled and powerful in some fashion. Many feared them, few liked them, they didn’t care.
Akhim had seen such groups in city alleys in every corner of the globe. He’d avoided them on the street, and in board rooms and when they couldn’t be avoided, he had learned how to take them down.
They were gathered outside the front door. Two dozen men, more or less, and all of them soldiers. They wore matching green sleeveless undershirts that accentuated their muscles. Most had crude black tattoos on their hands and arms. They laughed with each other and watched the rest of the world with cold dead eyes. They were winding each other up, inciting violence, preparing to attack.
The sad reality was, they didn’t really care who they attacked as long as they inflicted suffering and didn’t get hurt themselves. If there were people who were more contemptible with less social value, Akhim had not crossed their paths.
For the present, they had inspired one goal: keep them from doing harm, even if it meant hurting them or worse, getting hurt himself.
Step one: Alert Brandie. She was busy flirting with Jose and showing a gaggle of women how to fall convincingly without getting hurt. The technique involved a great deal of laughter, from what he could tell. Then again, that might just be Brandie’s teaching methods at work.
Getting her attention was easy as not much happened that she didn’t notice. Conveying the severity of the problem and the complexity of his response sans words was harder. A raised eyebrow and a nod toward the group of toughs sufficed, however.
A nod from her assured him th
at if things went badly, she was ready and able to lend her support. With reinforcements assured he moved on to step two: Catch their attention.
He could try the used car salesman; blunder headlong into the middle of the group and recruit them in the lamest manner possible. Maybe the soft seduction, promise them all sorts of drugs and women who know what to do to a man and how to do it, along with a rowdy atmosphere. Wine women and song for the modern macho man.
Long ago he had given up on threats either implied or direct. He couldn’t run fast enough any more and he never could stand up to the beatings that resulted once he had been caught. Threats would work for guys that looked like them, but they didn’t play as well for skinny old guys like Akhim.
Unless he had backup like Brandie. He could stir their little hornet’s nest, step back out of the way, and let Brandie deal with them. They would underestimate her, and they would figure they outnumbered her, and she was cute and therefore worth dominating. Taken together, that would be their downfall. Knowing Brandie she would easily deal with the men. She would kick them on their way down and once they were down, she would kick them again just to make sure they stayed down.
Step two: catch their attention. That part was troubling. So many choices, and so little time to choose the precise one. He decided to appeal to their basest animal instincts: dangle a fight of any sort in front of them, and their attention would be caught. But how subtle should he be? He studied the men. They were arrogant in manner and cruel in jest, and mere copies of each other. In other words they were stupid bullies. He chose a direct approach. Lifting his nose to just the right angle of superciliousness, he walked into the middle of the group.
“Hello gentlemen I couldn’t help but notice how you keep yourselves apart from the rest of the riff raff and that indicated to me that you are very special young men. You’re a cut above the rest. You are bigger, stronger, faster, and no doubt smarter than they are and that is why I wish to challenge you. Yes you heard me right, I want to challenge you to stand against that little tiny slip of a girl who is even now showing your compatriots how to fall down. I propose that you show her how to fall. Show here what a real man can do. Show here how strong a man can really be.
“Now I hope and trust you do not expect her to be plucked like a hothouse flower. She will scratch and claw a fair bit and likely as not she will lay a few of you out cold. However for any who triumph I can promise you the reward will be sweet.”
He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. The gathered bullies hooted and added suggestive catcalls. Perfect. Now to implement step three: Let the games begin.
“Why don’t one of you call her out?” Akhim shouted loud enough for everyone to hear, “Tell her what you’ll do to her once you win. That always gets her hot and if she likes it she may just play the round heel and roll right over.”
There were no shortage of volunteers to fight Brandie, but only one Brandie to fight back, which was fine. She was more than enough. After much jostling and debating with fists and feet, the winner, a big scarred man with ink on his forearms and knuckles, stepped onto the raised cocoa bale ring. Brandy was ready. He kept his hair so short he appeared to have a shaved head. His scowl was pronounced and appeared permanent. He wasn’t the strongest, cruelest, or most evil man that had ever lived, but he wanted to be.
Brandie was not impressed. She let him flail about for the better part of two minutes before she mounted an attack. With three kicks and three punches, she destroyed him. That didn’t keep her from hitting him twice more before his face bounced twice before settling to the floor. When his face touched down, he was already well past unconscious.
The next six men volunteered in order to avenge their fallen comrade. They didn’t succeed in achieving vengeance. They were felled faster and harder. She left them conscious enough to feel their own pain, and to groan. When Brandie smiled and gestured for the next man to join her, there were no more volunteers.
Which lead to step four: Get back to work. Finish the con and get out.
8. 8
“Don’t worry I see them.”
Brandie was breathing hard and her face glowed with perspiration. She had demonstrated six full forms, which consisted of set sequences of techniques, each form taking ten to fifteen minutes.
The guards and most of the soldiers had applauded her routines, and she had to demonstrate several techniques half a dozen times before the men were satisfied. To say they were impressed would have been an understatement.
Jose appeared with a cup of coffee and a bottle of water, both for Brandie.
“Lea you were magnificent.”
“Oh I just bet you say that to all the girls.”
“Oh I – no, you see not ever but you-”
“You fluster too easily.” Akhim clapped him on the shoulder. “Lea is just teasing you, you know,” Akhim wrapped his arm around the young man’s shoulders and lead him away. “but if you want to impress her, show her you’re not just kind and considerate but-”
Brandie grabbed Jose’s arm and pulled him away from Akhim. “But if Akhim is giving you advice about anything you should turn and run.”
“I just bet he says the same thing about you!”
Brandie laughed. “You are a quick study.”
“He was about to send me over to the death squad with instructions for me to break them up.”
Akhim draped his arm over Jose’s shoulders once more. “You are correct. So tell me, how do you plan to disperse them?”
“I have no intention of approaching them, let alone breaking up their group. They are violent and sadistic bullies.”
“And they incite each other to greater acts of violence, hence the need to separate them.”
“Or we could leave them alone, let them take out their frustrations on each other. That’s what happens when you’re not around.”
The gang of soldier thugs were aware they were being observed. More than a quarter of their members had already been soundly beaten. Of the rest, some preened and showed off their muscles. Others glared an unspoken challenge. The remaining few men turned to taunting the trio inside the cartel’s factory.
“I’m sure that is an effective strategy but it is not one we will employ today. We need a more direct approach and I am just the woman to do it. Which one is their leader?”
“They don’t rightly have one, being they’re all privates, but D’agastino is the nastiest and he has powerful connections.”
“What would taking him out do to the rest of them?”
“What would killing one hornet by slapping a hornet’s nest do to the rest of the wasps?”
“A word, Lea.” Akhim dropped Jose and lead Brandie away from Jose and the others. “Don’t start something that will require body bags to finish.”
“That ship has already sailed, amigo. All we can do now is make sure, at the end of the day, that they’re the ones in the bags and not us.”
“There has to be a better way.”
“You think on that. I’m going to act on it.”
Brandie slipped off their makeshift ring and headed for the door. The death squad rose as one to meet her.
Starbuck was standing with General Flores beside the receptionist’s desk. Flores was on his phone, on hold. Apparently he was speaking with higher ups and they were not happy with him. That was his problem and none of Starbuck’s concern as he wasn’t very happy with the General either.
What really concerned him was the army squad hanging around the entrance. More than a dozen bodies by steroids were busy riling themselves and each other up. If they had been his men he would have broken them up already. These were the General’s men and therefore they were the General’s problem.
Except that Lea Kalani was smiling and walking right toward them. He had watched her forms, and watched her demonstrate movie martial arts. She was impressive. And he had watched her knock out a soldier who was at least as big as the men she now faced, along with a half dozen more. This confrontation was diff
erent. The earlier fights had been one-on-one, and given the stupidity of the men she faced, she still had the element of surprise on her side until the last man fell.
Now, he couldn’t imagine these guys underestimating her. Then again, they were in the army which indicated they might not be the brightest and most rational of men when it came to making good life choices.