by Brett Baker
“Cooperate and we’ll let you go,” Newsboy said as Pencil Skirt held my arms behind my back. “You’re a hard person to capture, Mia Mathis. We know you’ve killed better people than us. Unfortunately for you, those people are dead, so now you have to deal with real live people. And we know your style, so it’s not going to work on us.”
Newsboy stood at least ten feet away from me and seemed content to stay right there. Pencil Skirt continued to hold on to my arms, but he, too, wanted to keep his distance. He held my arms with his arms extended away from his body. If he lacked strong hands I could have squirmed out of his grip, but his fingers felt like vise grips around my upper arms.
“Who are you?” I asked. “How do you know my name?”
“Don’t worry about us,” Newsboy said. “Our identity is unimportant. You should worry about yourself, and about doing what we ask you to do. It’s the only way you’ll stay alive.”
“I have many ways of staying alive,” I said. “And unfortunately for you, at this moment, all of them are bad for you.”
Newsboy reached behind his back and pulled out a gun. He stepped closer to me and aimed it at me. Pencil Skirt squeezed my arms even tighter, which I thought impossible. “Watch your mouth, Mia. We have orders not to kill you, but a guy can only take so much back talk. I just had a cup of coffee while we were waiting for you. And coffee makes me jittery. It’d be a goddamn shame if my shaky finger started acting up again and this thing went off. I’m a horrible shot, which is bad news for him,” he waved the gun at Pencil Skirt.
“Eh, go ahead and shoot him,” I said. “I doubt anyone will miss him. I see assholes like you everyday in my line of work. The world will be better off without both of you. Kidnapping a woman, threatening to kill her, threatening to kill each other. You’re a couple of real stand-up guys. In fact, how about your buddy here just lets me go, and after I’m gone you turn this into a murder-suicide?”
“Shut the fuck up!” Pencil Skirt said. “If anyone’s getting murdered here it’s going to be you because you don’t know how to stop talking.”
Pencil Skirt dragged me deeper into the store. With no electricity it got darker the further we got from the entrance, and with the bright sunshine behind him, I could barely see Newsboy.
“Through that door,” I heard Newsboy say.
Pencil Skirt turned around to get a better look and dragged me with him. “Walk!” I led us toward a large metal door at the back of the store. Pencil Skirt had begun breathing heavy, the strain of dragging me around beginning to weigh on him. As we approached the door I heard him ask, “Is he going to be there?”
“He should be,” Newsboy said. “There’s an alley back there and I told him that’s where we’d be. No way we’re going to drag her down a busy street in the middle of the day.”
“Who are you?” I asked. “We’ve had such a good conversation I feel like you know me, but I don’t know you guys at all. Golly fuck, you already know my name. I don’t know either of your names. Does that seem fair to you?”
“You don’t need to know our names,” Newsboy said. “We haven’t asked you any questions yet, so you’d be well-served to stop talking.”
“You haven’t asked me any questions…yet. Does that mean that you’re going to ask me questions? Is this a job interview? Is that what’s going on? I applied for a writing job with Whirlpool a few weeks back. They need manuals for their new line of washing machines. Is that what this is about? Because I’ve got to tell you, unless you’ve got some fucking amazing fringe benefits, I don’t think I’m going to accept your offer.”
“Stop talking!” Pencil Skirt said. “You don’t talk until we tell you to talk. And right now, we’re telling you not to talk.” He swung me around again, and leaned his considerable bulk against the steel door. The push bar made a thunderous knocking sound before giving in and letting us through. My eyes squinted as the bright sunshine assaulted me. “There’s Manny,” he yelled back through the door, toward Newsboy, who I could no longer see.
A black minivan accelerated down the alley, and Pencil Skirt had to move us up against the wall of the store so Manny had room to pass us in the narrow alley. The door slammed shut, and then rumbled back open as Newsboy erupted from the store. “Get her in the van,” he yelled as he raced around the front of the van.
The rear door on the driver’s side slowly slid open, but as Pencil Skirt stepped toward the van and tried to pull me toward it as well, I planted my foot on the ground, between his feet. I stopped resisting and let him direct me toward the van, but as he turned his body to get more leverage to throw me into the seat, I kept my foot planted, and he tripped over it. His largess leaned toward me, and forced me to sit on the small flank of the van’s floor situated between the seat and the exterior door. I knew that Pencil Skirt wouldn’t be able to brace himself and would fall right on top of me, so I quickly slid toward the rear of the van, and as his body crashed down toward me, I pulled my hands away, broke free, and let his weight take him face first into the seat.
“Get her!” Newsboy shouted from the front seat. But by then it was too late. I’d broken free, and unless they planned to shoot me or drive away, they’d suffer a quick and decisive beating.
I stood behind Pencil Skirt and kicked him once in the back of the head. His face bounced off the well-cushioned seat, which absorbed some of the blow. I grabbed him by the back of his shirt collar and threw him to the ground. He looked up at me and tried to roll away from the van, but the wall impeded his movement. I started kicking him in the ribs, and when he brought his legs up to defend himself, I changed my focus to his head. It took six good, hard kicks, but he finally stopped moving. On the last kick I could feel his skull shatter, and my foot sank ever-so-slightly into his head.
At that exact second, Newsboy punched me in the kidneys, which floored me, and I collapsed on top of Pencil Skirt. He smelled like a fat, sweaty man who tried to cover his stench with cigarette smoke and cologne. I wanted to vomit. I rolled off of him and turned over just in time to see Newsboy with a gun pointed at me.
“You chose this, bitch.” I scooted back toward Pencil Skirt as he spoke, and in the instant he pulled the trigger I rolled off of his chest and onto the ground. The bullet went into his chest, and Newsboy let out a scream, as if he’d been the one shot. “Goddamn it! Get back here.” He pointed the gun at me again, and I didn’t wait to see what he planned to do. Instead I rolled under the van, and shimmied myself all the way to the other side, picking myself up off the ground. “She’s under the van. Floor it,” Newsboy told Manny. The driver obeyed, and as the van pulled away I watched Newsboy look at the ground. The look of surprise on his face when he expected to see my body beneath the van, but instead saw empty pavement, provided a moment’s entertainment before I leapt across the alley and dropkicked him in the chest. With his gaze fixed to the ground, he never saw me coming. Both my feet nailed him dead center, and he let out the customary grunt as the air in his lungs rushed out, and his body lurched backward. He appeared to possess no coordination as he stumbled back, arms waving frantically, and eventually fell, hitting the back of his head on the brick will of the store. Somehow he held on to his gun, but my sudden attack so stunned him that he could do nothing but stare at me. I rushed toward him, and grabbed the gun out of his hand and used the butt of it to bash him across the face. Two teeth flew from his mouth, and a fountain of blood erupted. He had no reaction other than to look at me, and after a few seconds bring his hand up to his mouth.
“What do you want from me?” I asked. “Where were you taking me?”
Newsboy didn’t respond. I watched him for a few seconds, waiting for him to say something, and then all at once he returned to reality, and began screaming. He held his mouth in his hands, called me a bitch, and tried to kick me as he sat on the ground. I easily avoided his onslaught, and when he tried to get his feet under him I swept his leg and his crashed to the ground on his ass.
“How did you know I was here?
Who gave you information on my location and my name?” Newsboy didn’t say anything. Blood poured from his mouth, and he stopped trying to contain it. As it dripped from his chin and began to pool in the small concavity created where his chest met his ample stomach, he looked down as if mesmerized by the crimson mess. “Who else is coming after me? You and your buddy here can’t be the only ones looking for me. How about Manny? Is he coming back?” Newsboy remained silent, and as I watched him in such a pitiful state, his refusal to answer my questions began to infuriate me. I’d obviously gained the upper hand, and he was in no position to piss me off. “You better start talking or this is the end of the line for you. We’re in an alley, there’s no one around, one of your friends is dead, the other ran off. I can dry gulch you right now without anyone knowing. I walk back into that store, come out the other side, and I’m off scot-free. And you’re dead. So you better tell me what’s going on.
Newsboy raised his hand to his mouth and held it beneath his chin. He looked at me, and then down at his chest, as if just noticing the blood pouring from his mouth. His hand quickly filled with blood as it dripped from his chin. He leaned forward, and reached down toward his toes. I stood just beyond his feet, so he was leaning toward me as well. I expected him to wipe his hands on his pants, but in one fluid motion he reached beneath his pant leg and into his sock. He pulled out a small handgun, barely large enough for him to fit his finger on the trigger. He seemed to move in slow motion as he raised it toward me and pointed it at my face. I didn’t wait for him to aim, or try to talk him into putting it down. The most important second in any encounter, especially one involving a gun, is the first second. If at all possible I preferred to eliminate my counterpart right away. I don’t use guns—those things are dangerous—so a surprise, rapid attack is my best defense and offense against those hoodlums whose complete lack of imagination coaxes them into using a firearm.
In one swift motion I delivered a roundhouse kick to Newsboy’s hand, the precise moment at which he pulled the trigger. My contact with his hand changed the trajectory of the bullet, and it jettisoned into the pavement instead of my brain. He held on to the gun, but as soon as my foot landed I picked it up and kicked in the opposite direction, the outside of my left foot connecting with Newsboy’s mouth, which was already bleeding.
Newsboy heaved to his right and crumpled to the ground. I took the gun from his hand and bashed him in the side of the head, just above his ear, with the butt of it. He covered his head with his hands, probably expecting an onslaught similar to that which I heaped upon his partner. Instead, I lowered myself to the ground, flat on my chest, so we were face-to-face. He had his eyes closed and his mouth wide open, and blood continued to stream out.
“If you want this to stop, you better start talking,” I said. “I’ve got questions and you better have answers. You can keep dicking around and refuse to tell me what I want to know and I’ll just keep beating the holy living fuck out of you, or you can start talking and the beating will stop. I’d prefer to talk to you, but I have to be honest, it’s a goddamn thrill to beat the shit out of you, too. There’s this switch in my brain, and when I get into the heat of the moment and I’m battling someone who has already tried to harm me, that switch just flips and I become quite sadistic. It’s rather sickening, actually. When I think about it during a quiet moment I’m very ashamed. No person should treat another person that way. But right now it’s not a quiet moment, and I’m not ashamed. So that’s bad news for you. And the only way for you to make it stop is to start talking.”
I stood up and pulled Newsboy by his ear and made him sit up, leaning against the brick wall of the store. He looked at me and smiled a somewhat-less-toothless smile. “You don’t even know, Mia. I can tell you everything I know and it’s not going to help you at all. You want to know who hired me? Fine. His name is Bobby Stebbins. He’s from Sacramento. Look him up.”
“Why did he hire you?” I asked.
“We’re supposed to bring you to him. If we can’t bring you to him, we’re supposed to kill you. Wanted dead or alive, that’s what he said. But he preferred to have you alive.”
“Who is he? What does he do? What does he want with me?”
“He does everything. He’s a fixer. People get into trouble and Stebbins fixes it. People have a problem they can’t solve and Stebbins handles it. You’re just another problem to be handled.”
“I think he’s going to get more than he bargained for with me,” I said.
“He knows what he’s up against,” Newsboy said. “Everyone knows you, Mia.”
“Are you the first people he’s sent?” I asked.
“Come on, Mia. You know the answer to that. You’ve left behind a trail of bodies. The guy on the lakefront. The poor guy you threw under a bus. You’re a maniac. That’s why Stebbins called us. We’re expensive, but we’re good.”
“Why is he after me?” I asked. “What did I do to him?”
“He’s after you because someone told him to go after you.”
“He’s a mercenary?” I asked.
“More or less. He makes plenty of enemies, and sometimes we’ve got to eliminate someone just because Stebbins needs them out of the way. But you’re a hire. He didn’t have anything against you until you started killing his people.”
“They’re all his?” I asked.
“Every one. He’s never lost a person, and now you’re just taking them out left and right. It’s turning personal for him, Mia. Don’t be surprised if he comes looking for you himself. We’re it. There’s no one left. You’ve taken out the whole outfit.”
“What about Manny?” I asked. “He’s still out there.” I looked down the alley and half-expected the black minivan to race around the corner with Manny at the wheel. “Is he coming back for me?”
“Manny’s a driver, that’s all.” Newsboy spit a clot of blood from his mouth, and his tongue made a disgusting slurping noise against his palate. He wiped his mouth with his hand, looked up at me, and said, “You’re a barbarian.”
I nodded and smiled. “Says the man who accepts money to kill a complete stranger.”
“I’m not even getting paid for this job,” Newsboy said. “You were supposed to be a quick kill. Right on the lakefront, middle of the day. In and out. Didn’t happen that way though. It’s never taken more than one attempt to complete a job for Stebbins. He hires professionals. But when you took out the first two we sent Stebbins started getting antsy, and it’s not even about the money. He told the client you’d be gone by now, but you’re still here. The client’s so pissed that she said she’d take care of you herself. Told Stebbins to fuck off and refused to pay. Now it’s just a pride thing for him. He has to show he can do the job or he risks losing it all. What little he’s got left.”
“Who’s the client?” I asked.
“I don’t fucking know,” Newsboy said. “I’m the hired help, man. You think they’re going to tell me who the fuck hired us?”
“You just said that the client wanted to take care of me herself. That implies you know it’s a woman. So who the fuck is it?”
“I don’t know who it is. Stebbins just said that she’d take care of it herself since he couldn’t do it. Pissed him off. But then she couldn’t do it either.”
Toilet Brush!
“Is the client dead?” I asked.
Newsboy looked at me with a mix of alarm and disbelief. “I don’t know if she’s dead. I just told you I don’t know who she is. But even if she’s dead, don’t think you’re off the hook. Stebbins is going to want you dead no matter what at this point. And the whole thing started with a different client anyway.”
“What the fuck do you mean a different client? Not the woman?” Newsboy nodded. “How do you know?”
“After you killed Murphy, Stebbins called me for a meeting.”
“Who’s Murphy?”
“The guy you threw under the bus. I’ll never understand how you pulled that off. He was the best of the best. Stebbin
s recruited him for years before he joined us. Former SEAL. More kills under his belt than stars in the sky.”
“Wait a minute, he had a former SEAL working for him? How does a guy go from being a SEAL to murder-for-hire?”
“Well, if you didn’t throw him under a bus you could ask him. But I guess he’ll take that secret to the grave with him.” Newsboy spit blood again, and this time another tooth came shooting out of his mouth. He looked down at the tooth in the puddle of blood and then back up at me. “Fucking barbarian.” I shrugged my shoulders, but said nothing. “Anyway, Stebbins called me for a meeting after you killed Murphy and said that you were top priority. He was pissed about Murphy to begin with, but he’d just hung up the phone with the client, and Stebbins said the guy’s voice quivered as he spoke. He was really shaken up. Had to pause a few times to collect himself, and Stebbins thought he might start crying at any second. Stebbins tells me that this guy, the original client, is as hardcore as they come. He’d done jobs for him before and the guy was ruthless. Take out the target at all costs, collateral damage be damned. Hence the attack on you in broad daylight on the lakefront. But the guy starts talking about his partner in this, and he’s worried. Stebbins thought he seemed scared shitless. What the fuck does someone have to do to make someone like that scared? I don’t want to find out. So Stebbins is telling me this, and his phone rings. He answers and the woman says, ‘I miss the day when men knew how to kill. Now it’s just another thing that has become woman’s work. You keep sitting there with your thumb up your ass, and I’ll show you how it’s done.’ That’s it. Doesn’t identify herself, doesn’t mention you. Stebbins calls his client, tells him what happened, and he immediately knows who it is. Tells Stebbins he better watch out, too, because his life could be in danger. So now Stebbins is freaking out not only because he couldn’t finish the job, but because this other client might take him out.”