Johnny Wylde

by Wynne, Marcus

  ***

  In the distance, the sound of sirens, rising.

  ***

  “They’re coming, just hold on,” I said to Nina. I could tell she wanted to run outside, to the guns. Run to the guns.

  What a woman.

  ***

  Vladimir dropped the navy blue Cadillac into gear, backed it up, pulled to the edge of the parking lot, right behind Ho in a tricked out Honda Civic, just in time to see the almost nose to nose gunfight on the sidewalk…

  ***

  “Everybody's here,” Marcus said. “Let’s get the party started…”

  “I like that song,” Joe said. “Wish I had my I-Pod.”

  More laughter from Deon, then, “On my fire, okes…”

  ***

  Inside, I heard the distinctive chatter of full auto weapons, and the tempo picked up…

  ***

  Marcus lifted the tarp and tossed it to one side without altering his firing position in the truck bed. Then he fired a long burst across the huddle of fighting men on the sidewalk from his SAW…

  Deon opened up with his SAW, the intersecting cones of fire completely covering the Vietnamese crew and Steep Ride’s men…

  …and watched with his usual dispassionate in-the-moment evaluation how quickly their bodies came apart in the hail of 5.56 fire…

  …Joe centered his cross hairs on Ho’s head through the windshield, took a breath, half let it out, pressed the trigger….

  …and watched the windshield star and shatter as the 7.62 round punched in, and without waiting for the red mist, he fired twice more, just to be sure…

  …and saw the splatter inside, then moved to acquire the second vehicle, blocked now by the first…

  ***

  Vladimir knew, just knew, and he threw the Cadillac into reverse and hit the gas, squealing tires, backing up and palming the tire to the left hard, then dropped it into gear and stomped on the pedal, racing out the far side as rounds tracked the pavement behind him….

  ***

  “Motherfucker!” Joe hissed into his mouthpiece, emptying his magazine at and into the fleeing Cadillac.

  A police cruiser came into his line of fire and he fired before he could stop himself…

  ***

  The responding cop slammed on his brakes and jerked his wheel too the right, ducked down in his seat and got out of his squad, shouting into his handset, “I’m taking fire on the north side of the building!”

  ***

  Deon put a final burst into the last man he saw twitching on the ground. “Break contact, pick up.”

  He rolled out from beneath the Bronco, then moved quickly to the narrow alley between the warehouse, pausing only to cover Marcus, who jogged towards him from the pick up truck, a grin on his face.

  “Right, then?” Deon said.

  “Never better, oke,” Marcus said.

  They walked down the alley, to where a shiny new blue Toyota FJ Cruiser was parked. A rope hit the alley, and Joe rappelled down, his PSG-1 slung over his shoulder.. The three men put their weapons in the back of the Cruiser, shut the back, got in, and drove slowly away, easing into traffic two blocks away, just in time to see a parade of police cars and ambulances rushing down Harriet Street.

  “Fucking Russian got clear,” Joe said.

  “That’s what we get for sending a SEAL to do a Ranger’s job, isn’t it?” Marcus said.

  “Fuck you,” Joe said.

  Marcus just grinned. “You hate to fuck up, don’t you? I’d think you’d be used to it by now.”

  “We’ll settle him later,” Deon said. “He’s combat ineffective right now. On the run, beat up….we’ll catch up with him soon enough.”

  ***

  Vladimir dumped the Cadillac a mile or two away, walked into the Mainstream Mall and went to a pay phone, dialed Sergey’s cell.

  “Yes?” Sergey said.

  “We have some major problems…”

  ***

  Nina and I stood on the sidewalk. The uniformed cops were still going building to building, and others were taping off the slaughterhouse scene on the street centered on the delivery chute.

  Nina reloaded her pistol and holstered it, staged her remaining spare magazine forward in the speed pouch, looked at me.

  “Just what in the fuck did we walk into?”

  I had a slow look around. Shrugged. “Don’t know. This kind of shit scares me.”

  It had gone down just as we’d wanted it to.

  Except we didn’t get Vladimir Darko.

  And I didn’t think Nina was going to be happy with me when she figured out what had just happened.

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Lizzy was curled up in Jimmy’s recliner, a cup of chamomile tea steaming in her hand.

  Nothing but quiet and her thoughts.

  She had The Dhammapada open in her lap. Let her gaze drop from the open window to the page.

  Like the Himalayas

  Good men shine from afar.

  But bad men move unseen

  Like arrows in the night.

  Thought of Jimmy and how often he moved unseen through the night. All his life, maybe.

  But how he shone.

  Oh, how he shone.

  She closed the book and set it on the floor. She’d given it as a present to Jimmy, early on in their…whatever it was that they were in. She didn’t believe in labels. It was what it was, and that was enough for her.

  Quiet.

  She thought of a vacation she had taken, one of her many solitary trips abroad. To Kyoto, in Japan. She stayed in a ryokan on the banks of the Higashiyama River, right next to the Gion District. Every day she walked the Path of the Poets between the Golden and the Silver Pavilions, looked at the green hills circling the old Imperial City, and spend time in the rock garden near the Golden Pavilion. There was one stone there in the carefully raked sand, a stone beautiful in its rugged beauty, worn, though it had been jagged once before, long years of rain and snow and wind had softened it’s edges.

  It reminded her of Jimmy.

  He kept himself so well hidden, at least to almost everyone who knew him. His friends at the bar, all of them, they only saw what he wanted them to see. Except, maybe, his African friend. She smiled at the thought of Deon, who on the one occasion he’d met her, had given her a long appraising look and then treated her with gentleness and consideration, never once referring to her work…

  …holy work, though she would never say that. With the girls, she was quiet and reserved, but never stand offish. They all liked her, or so she thought, and sometimes hoped.

  There was a story that a Buddhist nun had told her when she was in Japan. They had met in a small tea house outside the garden grounds of Meiji-jingue-mae in Tokyo, shared a table and then several cups of green tea.

  “It was a long time ago,” the nun said. Her face was tiny, simian almost, lost in wrinkles and puckish good humor. “People would come to the statue of the Kwannon, the White Mother of Buddha, and make offerings. The rich would come and lavish the statute with garlands, burn incense, make big money offerings to the priests. And then a young temple girl, a dancer, came. She was young, and very poor. But she was very beautiful, and had no husband yet. So she came before the Kwannon to offer her prayers, but she had nothing to offer but her prayers -- and her dances.

  “So she danced.

  “And many of them, they stood there and made rude comments about her beauty, but they rolled off her unnoticed. Several of the rich patrons complained to the priests, and one came to shoo her away, because it was thought to be unseemly.

  But the girl danced and danced, so beautifully, and so hard that the sweat streamed down her brow.

  And just as the priest came to shoo her away, the statue itself stepped down, and wiped the sweat from the young dancer’s brow.”

  Lizzy sat spell bound.

  “So you see,” the nun said. “There is nothing wrong with offering only what you can offer, even if it is only a dance, as lon
g as it is offered with love.”

  She thought about the money Jimmy gave her, the way he used that to keep distance in their relationship.

  Smiled.

  Thought about dancing.

  With love.

  Far off in the distance, she heard sirens, and what sounded like rolling thunder. But the sky was clear. She frowned, just for a moment, and then her face cleared.

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  “All of them?” Sergey Komorav said in disbelief? “All?”

  “Yes,” Vladimir said. “It was expertly done. All of the blacks, all of our people except for me…”

  “How is it that you managed to get away?” Irina said. She paced back and forth, her heels clattering on the floor, as she pulled nervously on her Sobranie. “Are they coming here?”

  “I was lucky,” Vladimir said. “That is the only reason.”

  “They will come…” Sergey said. “We must be ready for them.”

  “You say this is the South African?” Irina demanded.

  “Who else?” Vladimir said. “Who else would have the skill. Who else would have the desire?

  “This is a declaration of total war,” Sergey said softly. “Are we ready for that?”

  “I am,” Vladimir said. “Are you?”

  “What about men? We need more…we were counting on Ho,” Irina said.

  “We have them,” Sergey said. “They are on their way. I have five. They are very good. No one knows them here.”

  “They will be looking for you,” Irina said to Vladimir. “You are not fit for a fight now, they know who you are…you need to go away.”

  “No,” Vladimir said. “This is my fight, too.”

  “You’re a liability,” Sergey said. “The South African will be looking for you, or maybe he will come for us and then look for you.”

  Vladimir didn’t want to listen to the logic of that argument. It was clear to Irina.

  “Vladi, it would be best to just go,” she said, switching tact. “It would be the best thing if you were to rest up, come back strong…”

  “No,” Vladimir said. “I can be of use. I’ll go, see if I can draw them out, while you position our people accordingly.”

  “Very brave,” Sergey said. “But I don’t think so.”

  “Wait,” Irina said. “Vladi makes a point…let him be seen…we will follow him, look for those who are looking at him. The hunters will be so focused on him they won’t be looking over their shoulders…”

  “Yes,” Sergey said. He stared his wife in the eyes. “That might be the best way to do it.”

  Vladimir, in his anger and exhaustion, missed the significance of that glance between the husband and the wife.

  ***

  Later, Vladimir drove through the narrow streets of downtown Lake City. He trolled the streets around the second and third tier sex shops and strip clubs that dominated the Wildwood District. He saw a sign, a gleaming neon of a naked woman and the name THE DEEP BLUE: A GENTLEMAN’S CLUB. He parked his car two blocks down, fed the meter, walked down the sidewalk. He got looks from the late night street people, but even with obvious wounds, they gave him a wide berth. The rage radiating off of him was apparent even to a civilian, let alone the experienced street rough artists looking for their next take-off.

  They left him alone.

  At the entrance, the door men, a matched set of bulky steroid white boys encased in cheap tuxedos gave each other the look when he came in.

  “How’s it going?” one said.

  Vladimir shrugged, suddenly aware of his demeanor, softening it. “Not bad. I was in an accident,” he said by way of explanation. “Just looking for a nice seat, you have loges?”

  The one who spoke to him nodded. “Sure. You have to check your coat with the coat girl…the hostess will see you to a loge and banquette. Easier on your leg that way, huh?”

  “Leg, back…it all hurts,” Vladimir said.

  “Car accident?”

  “Yes.”

  “Enjoy your evening, sir.”

  Vladimir smiled, a rictus on his face, and limped away, exaggerating his discomfort. A Hispanic girl, a real stunner, sleek with short black hair in a page boy bob, small breasts and lean hips shown off in a sheer form fitting jersey dress smiled in welcome.

  “Good evening, sir. May I show you to a table?”

  “A loge, please. Towards the back. I have some injuries.”

  “Of course. I’m sorry to hear about your injuries. We’ll make sure you get taken care of…” she said solicitously, turning and smiling back over her shoulder at him. “This way…”

  He followed her to the loge, noted her name tag, Anita. “Thank you, Anita.” He handed her a five dollar bill.

  “You needn’t,” Anita said. “But that’s sweet.”

  She tucked the bill into the strapless bra beneath her jersey dress and walked away, Vladimir’s eyes on her ass and legs.

  He leaned back against the thick pad of simulated leather, let his eyes adjust to the gloom inside the club. It was not particularly busy: few of the loges occupied, a few tables, most of the men there (and two women, a couple together) were seated at the runway and stage. Cocktail waitresses in short black skirts with wide suspenders over skin tight white shirts opened low over cleavage and tied over stomachs took their time going back and forth from the bar to the tables. At one table, two drunken men lolled back in their chairs as they were straddled by dancers working lap dances.

  He wanted a cigarette, but the silly American laws prohibited him. He thought it typically American, to ban smoking on one hand and to promote drinking with the other. He was Slavic, and to drink without smoking seemed not only foolish but alien.

  “What can I get you to drink?” his waitress said. She was short, busty, plump in a school girlish way, blonde hair pulled into a pigtail that jutted out at an angle above her right ear.

  “Vodka,” he said.

  “Oooohh,” she said. “I like your accent. Are you Russian?”

  “Slovenian,” he said. “It was part of the Soviet Union.”

  “Cool! Do you want a name, or just bar vodka?”

  “Stolichnaya is good,” he said.

  “We’ve got it iced,” she said. “Like it like that?”

  “Yes.”

  She flounced away and he watched her go.

  The music changed to some heavy rap. A blonde woman, older than he liked, with a long braid down her back and drooping breasts, came down the runway and began to go through a desultory routine and work the pole.

  Not his type.

  But there was one who was just finishing a lap dance at one of the tables. Tall, black long hair, dark complexioned, maybe Italian, big enhanced breasts, full hips and ass, long muscular legs…

  He liked that.

  When his waitress brought his drink, he handed her a twenty and said, “Keep the change.”

  “Thanks!” she said. “I’ll check back on…”

  “Who is that girl?” he interrupted her. Pointed at the dancer he liked.

  She looked. “That’s Monique…you want her?”

  Vladi smiled up at her. “Yes. I want her.”

  ***

  Nina and Jimmy sat at the bar in Moby’s. A long line of dead soldiers in front of them gleamed in the dim light. Theiu kept them coming…shots of Cuervo for Nina, between Coronas, The Black Lady for Jimmy, and one short Jameson’s.

  “Some day, huh?” Nina said.

  “No shit,” Jimmy said. “Could have been bad.”

  Nina looked over at him. Laughed. “Fuck you.”

  “I’ve been fucked enough today, thank you very much.”

  Nina held up her glass, clinked it against his bottle. “I second that emotion.” She slammed the rest of her shot, signaled for another. “You ever want a job, let me know. You run that carbine pretty good.”

  Jimmy shook his head slowly, in admiration. What a woman.

  “Some kind of date you took me on,” he said. “You always that m
uch fun on a first date?”

  “I thought it was kind of slow, myself.”

  “I don’t think I can hang with your idea of a hot date, then.”

  “You want to run with the big dogs, you got to pee on the big trees.”

  Jimmy laughed and tilted his bottle in salute. “I guess so.”

  “Did you check on Lizzy?” Nina said.

  Jimmy considered the implications of that question for a longish moment, then said, “Yeah. I called her when you were in the bathroom. She’s fine. She didn’t want to come down for a drink.”

  “She like to drink?”

  “Wine only. Never seen her drink anything other than juice, water, and the occasional glass of wine.”

  “You don’t take care of her, I might steal her from you.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  Nina laughed. “Just busting your balls, big boy. Most of the dancers I know aren’t into men.”

  “How about you?”

  “I’m into men. Just not most.”

  “Choosy, huh?”

  “You bet.”

  “You got one?”

  Her face darkened. She touched her nose. “No. I don’t. Not in the market.”

  “Sorry for asking.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “All right.”

  Jimmy turned his glass idly in his hand. “Thanks for smoothing things over with the PD.”

  “What am I supposed to do? Let you twist in the wind for saving my ass? I don’t think so. You could show most of the cops on LPD a thing or two with that carbine. I meant to ask you, too…where’d you learn to run the gun like that? Army, Marines?”

  It was Jimmy’s turn to reflect. “Army.”

  Nina saw that, too. “Well, all right then. Maybe we should just stick to drinking and the occasional gunfight, huh?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  Nina’s beeper went off. “What the fuck?” she said. “It’s past the witching hour…” She checked the number. “I got to take this.” She pulled out her cell phone, hit speed dial. “This is Capushek. What you got?”

  She listened intently. “Yeah, I got it. Where’s she at, St. Mary’s? On my way.” She hung up the phone and said, “I got to go. Work.”