Blasted

by Chris Martin

  BLASTED

  by Chris Martin

  ink press

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Blasted © 2012 by Chris Martin

  First Printing – February, 2012

  ink press

  a division of The Association

  cmsof.wordpress.com

  BLASTED

  -1-

  It began in a bar I’d never been to before. I’d just finished a job and needed to get very drunk very fast. I was on my third whiskey when she walked into the dive. I should have known something was wrong then. She was way too classy for the joint. I ordered my fourth drink as she sat down beside me and ordered herself a gin and tonic. She kept looking at the front door, acting real nervous. Her drink came and she drank it down like it was water. I tried to keep my mind on forgetting my own problems, but I looked up when she let out a little gasp.

  I took a look in the mirror behind the bar and saw two hulking goons bearing down on her. I didn’t like it. The roid-rager standing closest to me wore a hat two sizes too small, making his head seem even fatter than it was. I immediately wanted to smash his fat face in. His buddy was just as big, but not really fat. His problem was the lunar surface he tried to pass off as a face.

  “Mrs. Moore,” Fat Head grunted. “Your husband wishes to speak to you.”

  The dame tried to play it cool, but she was doing a lousy job. “Tell Adrian that if he wants to talk to me, he can do it through my lawyer.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Fat Head spat.

  I knew that I should keep my mouth shut and mind my own business even as I was opening it. “The lady said she wasn’t going.”

  Suddenly the attention was diverted to me. “Who the hell are you?” Zit Face managed to spit out.

  “I’m the last guy in the world you want to play tough with, Zit Face,” I snarled back.

  The goons began to press in on me. I kind of figured that they were too stupid to know they were out-matched. I grabbed the bottle of whiskey from the bar and whirled around in my stool, smashing it on Fat Head’s fat head, glass flying everywhere. He crumpled to his knees as Zit Face started to go for his piece. I took the stub of the whiskey bottle that I still had and rammed it into the goon’s gut. He yelled a horrifyingly shrill scream as I raked the jagged remnants of the bottle across his acne-riddled face, taking strips of skin with it and popping a dozen swollen white pimples along the way. Zit Face hit the floor with a wet thud, but his friend had recovered enough to have another go. He had his .38 in his hand and was raising it to fire at me. I threw the broken bottle as hard as I could. It sailed across the 20 feet that separated us and imbedded itself in the thug’s puffy forehead. Fat Head was dead and his gun was in my hand before he hit the floor.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I told the girl as I laid down some dough to pay for our drinks.

  The dame was in shock, but I managed to get her out of the bar, just as I heard the first sounds of the cops. They were still a few blocks away, but I had to move fast. I got the dame into my heap and raced down the alley.

  “So what’s the story, doll?” I asked, checking my rearview mirror.

  “It’s my husband, Adrian. You fool! Now he’ll kill us both,” she cried.

  “I don’t kill very easy, lady. A lot of people have tried and a lot of them are eating dirt.”

  “You’re out of your league here, cowboy. Do you know who my husband is?”

  I chewed on that for a few seconds and then it hit me. Adrian Moore. Of course. Jesus Christ. I was in a lot more trouble than I thought. The dame was right. I’d just signed my own death warrant.

  Adrian Moore was the most feared mobster in the city. Nobody fucked with him. He’d killed more people than most people met in their entire lives. He started out as a small time hood, but made his mark by taking out the bosses of five of the six families. The sixth boss had taken him under his wing and groomed him to be his successor. When the five other families eventually retaliated, the sixth boss had been murdered and Adrian took over. With a cold-blooded violence that hadn’t been seen in the city before or since, Moore took out the other five families in one night. The press called it “Bloody Tuesday”. When the dust had settled and the bodies had been buried, Moore was top dog in control of all six families. Since then he’d run the mobs like a well-oiled machine. He had allies everywhere from the mayor’s office on down.

  “Oh. That Adrian Moore,” was all I could manage.

  I figured it wouldn’t be safe to go back to my place. Hell, it wasn’t safe to go any place, but we had to find somewhere to hole up. I headed out to the ‘burbs and hoped that the place I had in mind was still there.

  It had been a small landing strip out in the middle of nowhere. The city had invested the cash in a new airport, and the old one was put on moth balls. Now, as far as I knew, the place was abandoned. I could stash my heap in one of the hangars and hole up for a few days or until I could think up some plan to get myself out of the mess I was neck deep in.

  The dame had calmed down by the time I pulled the heap into one of the hangars. Her hands had stopped shaking enough to where she could light a cigarette. I shook two out of my pack and lit them both, handing her one. I took a deep drag off the butt and held it in. As I exhaled I asked her what her story was.

  It wasn’t very pretty. Her name was Holly Moore. She’d been hooked up with Adrian Moore for a little over a year. From what I could gather, he’d rescued her from a life of prostitution, but I didn’t really think she needed rescuing. This was a dame that could take care of herself. She wasn’t a street walker. Her brand of hooker was delivered to its high-end clientele via limo and wrapped in furs that I couldn’t afford on two lifetimes’ wages. At first, she told me, everything was great. Big parties, lots of expensive gifts, and non-stop sex. But eventually, the honeymoon was over. The gifts stopped and the beatings started. Pretty soon she was hooked on ‘H’ and left to her own devices. But with that habit come big debts. Hubby wouldn’t cough up the dough, so she stole it from him. When he found out about the theft, he sent his boys to bring her back. The rest I’d experienced for myself.

  Holly crushed out her smoke. She surveyed the hangar that I’d picked out. It clearly wasn’t what she was used to. The only thing that resembled a bed was a couple of old seats that had been ripped out of a plane years ago. She didn’t complain, though. She spread her coat across one of them and lay down without another word. Within minutes she was out.

  The sound of a car engine woke me up. Holly was already awake, peering out between the cracks in the walls. She heard me sneak up behind her.

  “It’s Adrian’s men,’ she whispered.

  “But how. . .,” was all I could get out.

  “It doesn’t matter. Do you have any guns?”

  “Yeah.”

  I crept over to my heap and sprung the glove box. My own .45 was in there, along with the .38 I’d taken from Fat Head back at the bar. I tossed her the Fat Head's gun. She spun the chamber and saw that it was fully loaded. I released the clip from my .45 and double-checked it. It was loaded. I slid a round into the chamber and waited.

  From what I saw there were only two of them. I surmised that Moore had sent out an army to look for us and this was just a routine check. They had no idea if we were here or not.

  The footsteps got closer and I could see Holly’s lithe body tense under the pressure. She was a cool one, but even the cool ones have their breaking points, and she’d just about reached hers. I couldn’t afford to look out for her, though. She’d have to take care of herself.

  T
he two men were within earshot now. They were talking football. I stole a glance through one of the cracks. They were professionals, but their guards were down. Their guns were in their mitts, but rested casually at their sides. Two quick shots would take care of them, but I wanted to avoid a shootout if possible. I hoped that they’d turn around and report back to their boss that the old airport was clean.

  But my usual luck was with me. I saw them approach the hangar where we were stashed. I readied my rod, and then saw them split up. I had no idea where the second guy was off to, whether he was checking for a second entrance, or just moving on to another hangar. At this point it didn’t really matter. The first guy was opening up the door to our hangar. The sunlight began to creep in, flooding the hangar with bright light. The goon’s shadow blocked out a good chunk of the sun and I raised the .45, lining up a shot that would splatter his brains all over the macadam behind him.

  As I began to gently squeeze the trigger, the sunlight caught the metal of my piece, warning the goon of my presence. He swung around, and my eyes locked on his as I saw the barrel of his .38 line up with my forehead. Without a moment’s hesitation, I fired off two rounds. The first one caught him in the throat and the second one right between the eyes. As his head was reduced to red vapor, his finger reflexively squeezed spasmodically on the trigger and a shot rang out. I didn’t feel the slug enter my upper left arm, but I heard it. A heavy, wet slap. Then I felt the blood splash on my face.

  I didn’t have much time for reflection, though. Holly cried out. I stole a glance around the corner of the open door and saw the corpse’s partner run at full bore towards us. He must have seen me at that exact moment, because he got a shot off mid-run. He was a damn good shot too. If I’d stuck my head out a fraction of a second longer, I would have had to find someplace else to hang my hat.

  The thug was approaching fast, but now that his presence had been alerted, he wasn’t taking any chances. He darted out the door he'd come through and disappeared to the right.

  I took a few seconds to rip off a strip of my jacket to stop the blood seeping out of my upper left arm. The good news was that the bullet hadn’t hit any major arteries. The bad news was that I was still lugging around a .38 slug.

  Suddenly there was a loud metallic clank directly over our heads and, as we dove for cover, we looked up to see the thug spraying the hangar with bullets from his tommy gun. Holly and I showered the corrugated iron roof with slugs until both our rods were empty. I tossed Holly the dead goon's .38, which was one bullet shy of fully loaded. I paused to reload, and motioned to the dame that I was going to try to go outside and get up on the roof. She nodded her head and started rifling off some cover fire, mindful of her limited number of bullets.

  I dove outside and hit the macadam rolling. I could hear Holly's intermittent gunfire and the dull clang of .38 ammo hitting the iron roof. I looked around and immediately spotted the steel ladder running up the side of the hangar.

  As I started to climb I tried to ignore the voice in my skull telling me that what I was doing was suicide. To my amazement I reached the roof without having to dodge a single shot. The killer was obviously too busy dodging the cover fire that Holly was providing me. He must have seen me step onto the roof out of the corner of his eye, because he whirled around to face me before I could get both feet planted.

  He took a shot at me, but I was able to dive out of the way. As I rolled, I hit my left arm on the roof. The pain was unbearable. My gun was jolted from my hand and slid across the roof towards the thug.

  Fortunately, I caught him on the last round of his clip, so that one shot was all he got off. As he reloaded, I lunged for my .45, but he read my move beautifully. It was nothing for him to kick my gun through the hatchway in the roof.

  My only chance was to disarm him and then beat the shit out of him. I kicked as hard as I could and managed to catch his gun. It flew off the roof and I heard it land in the dust below. He still had the upper hand thanks to my left arm, but I was no slouch with my mitts, so I figured I could give him his money’s worth, and with luck a little more.

  I never got to find out. His knuckles raked across my face with the force of a Sherman tank. I was knocked off my feet. Before I could get up, I felt his heavy boot pressing against my skull. Between his boot and the iron roof, I knew that at any second my skull would split like an overripe watermelon. It didn’t happen, though.

  I barely heard the shot with his boot pressed against my ear. Almost immediately, the pressure started to abate and I was able to move. I didn’t even have to look to see what had happened, but I did anyway.

  Still standing on the ladder, with just her head and torso sticking above the eave was Holly Moore, her .38 still smoking.

  -2-

  “We don’t have much time,” I said.

  We were back in the hanger. After I had fished the car keys out of the pocket of the guy Holly had killed and driven the car into the hangar, we popped the trunk and crammed the two corpses inside.

  “First things first,” Holly said, wiping away some sweat. “Just who the hell are you?”

  “Some people call me Steve Blast,” I told her. “You can call me whatever the hell you want, doll.”

  “Cut the crap. Why are you doing this? You’re a dead man, you know.”

  She didn’t have to tell me. I knew all too well what it was I’d stepped in, and it didn’t smell very nice at all. Adrian Moore had six mob families on his side, and we had just the two of us. Pretty shitty odds, even for me.

  “Baby, I don’t know why I’m in this. I’ve got a bad habit of sticking my nose in places where it just shouldn’t ever be. But I guess it’s too late now. I’m in it, so we’ve got to come up with some sort of strategy, or we’re not going to live out the day.”

  “You’re pretty good with that rod. . .and your mitts. You a cop or somethin’?”

  I laughed. “No. I’m no cop.”

  “So what’s your story?”

  We didn’t have time for this. My story was a long and complicated one and we had much more important issues to deal with. “Maybe some other time, doll. Right now, we’ve got to get the hell out of here. It won’t take long before your husband misses his muscle and sends somebody else out after them. We’ve got to find another place to hole up and think this thing out.”

  “I don’t know what you’re hiding, Mac, but I’ll let it go for now. We’ve tried your little hidey hole, now we’ll try mine.”

  I wasn’t going to argue. Once a dame makes up her mind, it’s only a fool or a lunatic that would try to change it. I tossed her the keys to my heap and slid into the passenger seat. I could tell that she was surprised by my gesture, but not for long. She was no dummy, and certainly no innocent school kid. She’d been around and seen a lot. It would take a helluva lot more than some joe tossing her a set of keys to get any kind of real reaction out of her. She slid behind the wheel and brought the engine to life. I took the opportunity to check her out. In all the excitement, I hadn’t really had the chance.

  She was dressed like you’d expect Adrian Moore’s wife to dress. The velvety green dress complimented her long, blond hair and green eyes perfectly. The dress clung to her body like saran wrap, leaving little to the imagination. And with a body like hers, a little imagination went a long way. I’d worked my way down to her gams when she interrupted me.

  “You like what you see, Blast?” she asked, with just a hint of sarcasm.

  “You don’t hear me complainin’,” I said, lighting a cigarette.

  “Well, the first thing we need to do is stop off and get some more appropriate clothes. If I’m going to be blowing guys heads off, I’ll need something a little less formal.”

  I didn’t have a chance to reply. She gunned the engine and took off down the road, leaving a trail of dust, along with two dead thugs, in her wake.

  “This is fuckin’ crazy,” I said, realizing the understatement that I’d just made.

  Holly eased the car to a
stop and shut off the engine. I surveyed our location in disbelief. It was the estate of Adrian Moore.

  “They’ll never think of looking for us here. I know a secret way in, and if we’re lucky, Adrian won’t have changed the locks yet. There’s a guest house on the outskirts of the property that no one ever visits. We can stay there until we come up with a plan,” she explained.

  To some extent her madness made sense. And besides, I didn’t have any better ideas. “Aw, what the hell. I guess we’ve got nothing to lose.”

  We exited my heap. It was pretty well hidden, far enough off the road to where you’d have to look damn hard to find it. The heap was black, so it would blend in well with the dense foliage. We covered the car with some loose bushes and branches, and then I followed her to the fence of the estate.

  It looked impenetrable to me, but Holly knew just where to go. There was a section of ground hollowed out underneath the fence, but filled in with weeds and grass. Once these were removed, there was enough room for us to crawl in on our bellies. Once inside, we replaced the camouflage and quietly made our way to the guest quarters that Holly had mentioned.

  The main house on the estate was the stuff of Rockefellers and Vanderbilts. Obviously, the mob business paid pretty good. The house itself was a three story mansion, decked out in glistening marble, with an impressive fountain standing right outside the front entrance. Huge Greek columns adorned the front face of the mansion. Around back was an Olympic-size swimming pool, a tennis/basketball court, and a huge garden, immaculately kept. To one side stood the enormous garage, where Adrian Moore kept his dozens of classic cars and motorcycles. The house stood on fifty acres of land, and in a remote corner of that land stood the guest house.

  Where the main house was the picture of egotistical indulgence, the guest house looked like it hadn’t been touched since the turn of the last century. Maybe even the one before that. A few of the windows still had panes of glass in them, although almost all of those were cracked. The door rested on one hinge, the other having rusted out long ago. Inside, I heard the scurrying of rats as I peeled the cobwebs off of my face. It was a fairly large place. A small sized home for most of us normal Joes. It contained four rooms and even had a basement. I figured we’d be safest down there for the time being.