by John Etzil
“I don’t think too many people live here. Looks like about half the homes are boarded up.”
I grabbed my flannel shirt, threw it on over my T-shirt, and gave her a kiss on the lips. “It’s go time, baby.” She stood up and gave me a hug, holding me extra tight for a long time. She might not have waxed poetic romance phrases about us and tacked them to the fridge, but I could tell that she loved me from her hugs. “I’ll be back in a bit, babe. Don’t fall asleep on the job.” I patted Saber’s head and left.
I made my way down the stairs and out the front door into the cool darkness. I made a left turn on the sidewalk and crossed the street before I reached the corner. I pictured Debbie watching me with the night vision binoculars and fought back the urge to moon her. Jeez, stay freakin’ focused!
We had driven this route a few times in daylight, so I knew exactly where I was going. I turned right at the corner and made my way to Johnson Street, where I made another right. I walked along Johnson until I found the property that backed up to the Landers Street heroin house, and snuck down an alleyway I had found while examining the drone footage Amelia had captured.
The garbage-littered alleyway was only about three feet wide, and the buildings on either side seemed to be abandoned. I hustled through and came up on the eight-foot-high chain-link fence that surrounded the rear of the heroin house property. The three-story brick structure was one of several abandoned properties that were owned by the city. But all they had done was board up the broken windows and put a fence around it with a bunch of graffiti-covered “Keep Out” signs in sun-faded red.
I took out my night vision goggles and scoped out the rear of the house. Other than the garbage and broken furniture that was scattered throughout the backyard, I didn’t see anything.
Most of the brick structure was overgrown with ivy, and the weeds and brush in parts of the backyard were almost as tall as I was. I should have brought my machete to chop through it. I wondered how many snakes and spiders I’d be brushing up against and said a silent prayer of thanks that we didn’t have any scorpions in this part of the country. At least Newburgh had something good going for it…
I took out my wire cutters and cut an opening large enough that I could squeeze through without leaving any skin behind. I pulled open the fence, which was harder than it sounds thanks to all the ivy and other plants that had grown around and through it over the years, and shimmied through it.
Once I was in the backyard, I crouched my way through the dense part closest to the fence and stopped just short of a small clearing that was the backyard. Before I stepped out into the open and exposed myself, figuratively speaking, of course, I wanted to make sure that the coast was clear.
I knelt down, closed my eyes, and slowed my breathing so that I could absorb all the sounds around me. The crickets were here, but not in great numbers. Music came from inside the heroin house. It was reggae, maybe Bob Marley. Something about no woman and crime, which I didn’t quite understand, but a catchy tune nonetheless. A dog bark came from in front of the house, followed by a throaty command to shut the fuck up. Nice way to talk to a dog.
I didn’t hear anything that set off my internal alarm, so I stepped out into the clearing, all proud of my silent ninja abilities. Bruce Lee? Pfft. Amateur. Jackie Chan? Yawn. Jason Bourne? Ha, nothing but a twelve-year-old compared to me.
The backyard motion detector picked me up and turned on an exterior light that was so bright that I could be seen from Mars.
12
I heard the click of the motion detector and knew right away that I’d done a Patrick. I had my Glock drawn and extinguished the light on my third shot. Less than a second had passed, but the damage had already been done.
Lights came on in what had previously been dimly lit rooms, and three men came rushing out the side door, pistols in hand. One of the men went to the front of the house and came back with a gray pit bull, who was tugging at his leash with puppyish exuberance. The other two waited for him and then followed him into the backyard. I had already finished chastising my dumb ass and backed my way into the dense brush. I watched the men through my night vision goggles, Glock at the ready.
They must have had a lot of confidence in this pit bull’s tracking ability, because they dropped his leash and let him run circles around the backyard until he found his desired object. A ratty old ball. He grabbed it, shook the mold and dirt off it, and sat down and chewed on it, his tiny tail wagging a mile a minute.
The three men stood there in the dark looking at each other, unsure of what to do next. They looked around over their shoulders, waited a few minutes, and then shrugged at each other before deciding to head back inside.
My escape was pure luck. If they had been halfway competent, or had a worthier guard dog, I would have been discovered. I had no qualms about shooting the three—in fact, I’d almost done so right there—but I struggled with shooting a dog, especially after my hero, London, had taken a bullet for my Debbie.
After waiting another ten minutes to make sure no one else came out of the house, I stood up, my knees creaking in revolt at kneeling for so long. I walked out into the clearing and over to the rear corner of the house. Peering around it, I saw what must have been a three-hundred-pound mountain of a man, bald and bearded, standing guard by the side door.
I decided I should try and find another way into the house.
Amelia’s aerial footage had uncovered a cellar door, the kind that lies on the ground at an angle, on the opposite side of the house. It probably hadn’t been used in decades, and by all rights should have been locked. I tiptoed over to it, pushed my hand through the ivy and searched for the handle. I found it and gave it a tug. It didn’t budge. It must have been locked, or maybe just rusted shut. I yanked on it harder, and the handle snapped off, sending me tumbling backwards into the weeds. I jumped to my feet, swatted through a spiderweb, and fought my way through the brush and back into the yard.
At least I was on the side of the house that Debbie couldn’t see. Otherwise I’d never live that one down. I still had the rusty handle in my grip, so I tossed it in the weeds.
I studied that side of the house but saw no other way to get in. I was out of options. Looked like it would be access through the side door mountain man for me.
I tiptoed back across the backyard and peeked around the corner. Mountain Man was talking to a young lady, trying to impress her no doubt, as he rolled up one leg of his oversized shorts and explained to her the origin of his King Cobra thigh tattoo that started at his gigantic calf, which was as wide as a football.
The two jawed for a few minutes and the girl finally tired of his spiel, so she said goodbye and turned and walked away. I had already made up my mind on how I was going to kill Mountain Man, but the real challenge was what to do with his massive body. If I just left it on the sidewalk, he’d be spotted quicker than a beached whale on Fourth of July weekend in the Hamptons, so I had to make him disappear.
Seeing him focused on the young girl’s ass as she strutted away, complete with a few mmm, mmm, mmms, gave me my opening. I snuck up behind him. As the girl disappeared around the front corner of the house, he adjusted his crotch. I leapt on him, snaked my right arm under his double chin, and locked in a rear naked choke around his tree-sized neck.
Before Mountain Man knew what hit him, I leaned him backwards. To keep himself from falling backwards, he windmilled his arms and backstepped in sync with me. Right into the backyard. My rear naked choke hold on his arteries was so tight that I felt him go limp a few times. I didn’t want to have to drag his big ass, so I let off on the pressure for a few seconds. He’d start to come around, and I’d reapply the pressure, causing him to fade out again. We repeated our dance a few times until we reached the dense foliage against the backyard fence, where I put him down for good.
I had already pissed away three bullets on the motion detection light and didn’t feel like wasting any more, but this needed to look like a gang war. I rolled him ove
r to his belly, waited for the grogginess to wear off for the medical examiner’s sake, and shot him twice in the back of his head. Twelve bullets left.
I left the cover of the underbrush and trotted over to the side door. I cracked the door and looked inside. It led to a stairway that went up to the left, or down to the right into the basement. The basement was dark, so I chose to go left, which put me in an empty kitchen. The place smelled like you would imagine an abandoned home retrofitted into a heroin house would smell like. Old and moldy, with marijuana and heroin odors wafting about.
The kitchen led to a living room that had a single couch against the wall. A couple were making out on the couch, and I caught sight of an AR-15 leaned up against the side of the couch. The guy was a skinhead, shirtless and covered with tattoos and gold chains.
Someone stumbled down the stairs and interrupted the makeout man on the couch to ask him if he could use the bathroom. He was met with a gruff, “No, this ain’t a gas station. You got what you came for, so do your dirty business somewhere else.” What a douche bag. The denied customer slouched at the shoulders and shuffled out the front door past the two teenagers and the hard-at-work pit bull, who was rolling around the front yard, happier than a pig in shit, destroying his new toy.
There was no way around the AR-15 guy and his chick, so I shot him twice in the chest. She was so stoned she didn’t even realize what happened. I rear naked choked her out, the effects of which would wear off in a few seconds, and when she came to she’d have no permanent damage, so I tied her hands behind her back with her late lover’s belt and stuck a piece of duct tape over her mouth. I had a phobia about taping an innocent person’s mouth shut and them dying because they had a head cold and couldn’t breathe through their nose, so I bent down to listen to her breathing. She’d be fine. I slid the couch back away from the wall and tossed the dead guy on the floor. I laid her on top of him.
I emptied the AR-15 and did a quick disassemble that would have made Debbie proud. Except that my eyes were open. I pocketed the bolt carrier group, making the rifle useless. I hid it under the couch and turned off the lamp on the end table. I tossed it behind the couch, careful not to whack the girl.
I made my way over to the stairs and took a deep breath. This was it, showtime. The shit was gonna hit the fan in about twenty seconds. I took another deep breath, grabbed the railing with my right hand, and…
“Hey! Where’s Dominic? And who the fuck are you?”
Shit.
13
I turned slightly to my right, just enough to bring my left hand across my belly, but still hidden by my open flannel shirt. I hated this with a passion, but I had no choice. I fired blindly, two quick shots through my favorite flannel, praying to God that I hit the bastard and didn’t put holes in my shirt for nothing. Ten bullets left.
I heard the solid thunks of bullets hitting fleshy mass, and turned all the way around to see him collapse to his knees. His eyes were wide open, and blood dripped from his mouth. He wobbled for a second and face-planted with a loud smack of forehead against floor. His pistol lay at his feet.
Goddamnit, another freaking body to get rid of. I hated this shit. I hustled over, stuffed his gun in my pocket, and grabbed him by the feet. I pulled him down the stairs to the basement, leaving a trail of blood from the two exit wounds in the middle of his back, and dropped him next to the stairs. I kicked him in the nuts, payback for making me put two holes in my shirt. I’d been practicing that move for years, and never, not one freaking time, did I ever manage to put the second shot through the hole created by the first one. #Freakincursed.
I hauled ass back to the kitchen, into the living room, and up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Enough fooling around.
I reached the top of the stairs and stepped into a hallway. To the left were two rooms, their doors removed, and to the right was one open doorway. The two rooms on the left were dimly lit, both with music coming out of them. With my Glock leading the way, I moved to the first room and stepped inside. It was empty.
I went to the second room and found four people sitting on a couch, getting high. The guy closest to me reached for his pistol and I shot him in the face. How many bullets left? Shit, lost count… The others were in shock, but that wore off fast. I creamed the second guy across the temple with my Glock, and he toppled off the couch and hit the coffee table facefirst, collapsing the legs on one side of it. His face slid down the table, leaving a trail of blood, until it came to a stop against the floor.
I checked out the two girls. They couldn’t have been more than twenty, but they looked like crap. Dark circles under their eyes, oily hair, and overall unkempt appearance that had me shaking my head.
“Close your eyes.” I pointed my gun at them. “What are your names?”
“Sofia.” “Maria.” They blurted them out at the same time, followed by sniffles.
What’s with all the names ending in an A in this freakin’ town?
“Any other ladies here?”
“No. Please don’t shoot us.”
“Shut up. One more word and I will. Now put your hands together.”
They did, each of them trembling, and I cable-tied them together. I took out the duct tape and put a piece on each of their mouths. I wrapped a piece around their eyes and leaned over and whispered in their ears.
“If you stay here and keep quiet, you might live through this. Understand?”
They both nodded.
The face-plant guy started to move and he let out a groan. I looked down and noticed a small pistol in his belt. I shot him and took his pistol. It was an old ratty no-name semiautomatic with a rusty grip. I unloaded it, broke it down, and pocked the slide.
I popped the ammo magazine out of my Glock and inserted a fresh one. I left the two ladies and made my way down the hall to the front room. I walked through the doorway and was greeted by a Tina Turner tune, clouds of drug smoke, and a buff security guard seated at a table and texting on his phone.
Before he looked up, he announced my entrance fee: “Twenty dollars.”
I’d learned early on in my aviation training that complacency was a killer, and no matter what your occupation, you couldn’t take things for granted. Buff security guard took for granted that I had been vetted at the door, and his hesitation to put his phone down and raise his eyes was textbook complacent behavior. Not that it mattered, I mean he was dead anyway, but I loved a challenge. I pointed my Glock at him. “Seriously? Twenty dollars? You charge an entrance fee for people to come in here and buy drugs?”
He looked up, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, and I shot him in the forehead. Sixteen bullets left.
I was in the zone, so tightly focused that nothing else mattered. The world could have ended and I wouldn’t have noticed. Everything slowed to a crawl. I felt like the Flash.
The room was three times the size of the other two rooms and was lined with couches on three sides, with an occasional floor lamp thrown in between them. Each couch had a beat-up coffee table in front of it that contained various drug paraphernalia and some beer cans.
The couch to my left had a passed-out body curled up on it. A man. I think. I let him be. The couch in front of me had four young men who were sharing a joint. They were wobbling and giggling like they were stoned out of their minds. When they saw me, they turned their heads sideways, like a confused dog, and moved their heads backward and forward as if trying to get me in focus.
None of them were Jorge.
The couch to the right of me had two men sitting on it, one standing in front of it, and another kneeling down and sucking the cock of one of the seated men. I recognized Jorge right away. He sat there with his eyes closed, one hand on the back of the little cocksucker’s head, the other holding a cigarette. He let out a few moans and his body started to tense up, the telltale signs of a guy just about ready to finish.
I knew right away that this image had already seared my corneas and that I’d be seeing it forever at the most inopportune t
imes. Jeez, the things I do for Debbie.
I shot the guy standing with his back to me—fifteen bullets left—the guy on the couch next to Jorge, and finally the little cocksucker that was kneeling between Jorge’s legs. His body started a death quiver, and Jorge took it as a sign of a special oral technique, and he let the guy know how much he appreciated it.
“Yes. That’s it. Don’t stop!”
The little cocksucker finally finished his death dance and slid to the floor. Jorge started shooting his load, and when the little cocksucker’s mouth slipped off his penis, he opened his eyes to see what was going on. In between jets of cum that were shooting impressively high, we made eye contact.
I smiled. His eyes widened when he saw the Glock, and he grabbed his penis, which was shrinking faster than a bank account of one of Bernie Madoff’s clients, and shoved it in his cum-drenched Levi’s.
“Hi, Jorge. Don’t mind me if we don’t shake hands.” I pressed the silencer against his forehead. “Stand up, turn around, and put your hands behind your fucking head.” His bug eyes were blinking a mile a minute, and he looked like an ugly version of I Dream of Jeannie trying to blink away a nightmare. Which I was. His worst, of course.
He stood up and his pants slid down to his ankles. Jeez. “Pull up your pants, you fucking idiot.” He bent over, his puckered brown eye winked at me and he farted. He farted. In. My. Face. That bastard. I almost puked.
He yanked up his pants, and this time I gave him enough time to fasten them, which took him a while because his hands were trembling.
I whistled along with Tina’s “Private Dancer” and looked around to make sure that no one else was a threat. They weren’t. The sleeping beauty on the couch on the left was still out like a light. The four stoned guys on the center couch were now completely passed out. Lucky for them, they were so out of it that they wouldn’t remember a thing.