by Aaron Cohen
They succeed. The two muscle heads see the big guns, and the big man, and turn tail and run. They don’t seem to be in a mood to die either.
The guards retreat down the hall and take cover around a corner.
Hank and Charlie burst through a door to their right, a door with a big bright EXIT sign hanging over it.
Downstairs they go and enter at the top of a large theater, 2,000 plush chairs spread out before them, facing a stage that is done up like a lush rain forest. They stop just long enough to see Luke swing across the stage with Leanne in his arms.
“The kid is going to get points for that stunt,” Hanks says. “I might have just lost a nice piece of ass.”
Charlie snorts a laugh.
“Laugh it up, fat ass!” Hanks says and takes off running again, Charlie right behind him.
Around a corner and through another exit, they meet Luke and Leanne.
“You again?” Leanne asks.
“Nice to see you too,” Hank says. “Once more, you’re welcome. It was my pleasure to jump in front of a couple guys shooting guns to save your ass. Now can we get the hell out of here?”
Luke has his ear pressed to his phone.
“Okay!” Luke says, in that annoying boyish way of his. “Artie says we are almost there. Follow me!”
He takes off running, this time holding Leanne’s hand.
I’m getting tired of running after this kid.
Chapter Forty-Four
Ben rolls again, the gold dice floating from his hand in a graceful arc. He’s hot. He hasn’t rolled a seven in 40 rolls, a personal record. If he was playing for money, he would be winning millions right now. But he’s not. What he’s playing for is billions, David’s billions. If he can stall just a bit longer, it will all be over and The Dark Star will never open. Maybe he’ll come back and buy some of the furniture at the liquidation sale. He likes the gold trim and black leather décor scheme the place has going. Classy.
The golden dice hit the green felt. Eleven. Lucky Eleven, bet it now and ride it to heaven. Ben had to smile. He loved it when a fucking plan worked, especially a plan like this, a plan built on a house of cards soaked in gasoline in a room full of chain smokers.
“I’m getting pretty sick of this shit,” David says. “Are you cheating?”
“Are you?” Ben asks. “They’re your dice. I’m just throwing them. You seem to be rolling pretty well yourself.”
“Yeah, but for some reason, you seem a lot happier than I am. Why is that? Why do I get the feeling I’m losing?”
“Just roll David, before your negative thoughts affect the dice. You know how luck works. She hates a sourpuss.”
David glares at him. Ben smiles back, but not too boldly, just confidently, as a man should when rolling well. He doesn’t want to tip his hand, not when he is so close to victory.
David tosses the dice with a flick of his wrist. They tumble around the end of the table. The first die lands at 5. The second spins for a bit, then lands on 2.
“Seven out!” Ben says. “Sorry about that. Looks like the house advantage didn’t work out for you. Now, where is Leanne? I’d like to be on our way.”
“You think you won, old man?”
“Did you or did you not just a roll a seven?”
“I did. But what does it matter?”
David reaches into his jacket pocket, takes out a set of brass knuckles, slides them over the digits of his right hand.
“That the way it is?”
“I’m a sociopath,” David says. “Isn’t that what you called me? I don’t care about morals or rules.”
“You have to at least acknowledge the roll I was on. What a streak that was, the stuff of legend.”
“All that luck, and it turns out you still had none.”
“Why the game then, you asshole? Why not just break my knee caps and throw me into a cement mixer? We could have saved a lot of time.”
“Because I wanted to see the light in your eyes go on and then off. I wanted you to win. And then I wanted you to realize that you lost anyway.”
“I lost because I trusted you. Always a mistake.”
Keep him talking, Ben thinks. Waste as much time as possible. Just keep him yammering on. He loves the sound of his own voice. Christ, I hope he doesn’t break too many bones.
Ben takes his knucks from his jacket pocket and drops them on, makes a fist, approving of the gleaming ripple of metal now encasing his hand.
“You are a miserable fucking old man and I will beat you until you cough up your own lungs,” David says. “Tell me what I want to know and I’ll only hit your face a little. You’ve earned at least that much from me.”
“You’ve already lost, David,” Ben says. “You dumbass, you greedy corporate ass-kissing sack of shit in an overpriced suit. How’s corporate life? Do you suck the cocks of the board of directors all at once, both hands and mouth full, or do you like to do them one at a time? Do you make them stand in line while you slurp down your lunch?”
Ben knows that the more pissed off David is, the dumber he gets, and he needs David completely stupid. That’s the only way Ben will be able to survive this fight.
David swings savagely at Ben’s head. Ben ducks under the fist and sends his own fist toward David’s jaw, an upper cut as fine as any Mike Tyson ever threw, but David’s jaw is gone before Ben’s fist has a chance to land. He hits nothing. All his mighty swing did was force David to take a step back and re-evaluate his opponent.
“You can’t win, David. If you kill me, you will be more ass-fucked than you can imagine.”
Ben lifts his fists to his face, his right hand in front of his left, leans over a bit, taking the boxer’s pose taught to him my Mickey “The Fist” Roccinni in 1962. Ben was just 12, a skinny runt who couldn’t get through a week of school without picking up a beating. To this very day, Ben doesn’t care for bullies.
“You should have stayed at the old folk’s home,” David says. “You should be eating pudding and banging broads with liver spots and colostomy bags.”
“Come on, tough guy,” Ben says. “You going to talk me to death? You pussy. You faggot. You corporate shit eater. You disgrace. You’d fuck your father if it would lift your stock price.”
Ben lowers his guard, inviting David to take another swing at his jaw. Come on! Swing! I’m wide open! Take a shot!
David swings, a wild, angered roundhouse right that Ben barely ducks underneath.
This time Ben doesn’t go for the chin, which is always a moving target. He goes for ribs. A fractured rib can hurt for weeks.
Ben swings hard, is rewarded with a dull CRACK. David moans deeply, blows out air, has trouble breathing back in. He’s hurt, but not enough.
David sends his left fist, the fist without knucks, into Ben’s ear, connecting hard. Something pops somewhere in Ben’s head.
The world gets blurry. David turns into a big black blob, a blob that gets bigger as it approaches. Ben can just make out a gleam of brass as it heads toward his face.
The metal cracks his two front teeth, wrecking a couple thousand dollars in dental work.
Motherfucker. I sat in that fucking dentist chair for three hours to get these new choppers. Maybe just dentures next time.
Ben takes a swing, but it’s weak and he knows it. He’s off balance with no time to recover. He can’t decide who is going to benefit more from David’s next punch, his dentist or his plastic surgeon.
He feels the bridge of his nose POP, the bone separating from the cartilage.
Plastic surgeon. Cha-ching! I wonder how Lenny is doing? It will be nice to see the kid. Nice Jewish boy. Kind of a cliché to be a Jewish doctor, but the kid is a stand-up guy. Last time I was there, barely felt a thing.
He feels a hand grab the hair at the back of his head. His face lifts. He opens his eyes and sees David’s blurry visage. He feels warm blood running over his lips. He can’t breathe through his nose and sucks in air through his mouth. He tastes iron, the oxidized rus
t that was running through his veins. An old iron man turned to rust. He smiles, waits for the final blow. Fuck you David. I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of begging. I’m going to grin as you kill me. My fucking face will haunt you the rest of your days.
“Ben!” It’s Luke. The kid is screaming.
About fucking time someone showed up.
***
A few minutes ago…
With Artie guiding them, Luke, Leanne, Hank and Charlie run through hotel hallways and up and down a dozen flights of stairs trying to find their way to an exit that isn’t guarded by muscle bound guys with guns and buzz cuts.
Artie finally takes them down a hidden hallway that is built to escort famous people to and from the hotel without being seen by fans or paparazzi. It ends at a door that opens onto the casino’s main floor. From there they plan to slip through one of a dozen emergency exits and be gone into the night.
So close to being gone, Luke thinks. So close to this being over.
Luke can’t wait to get the hell out of there. But the scene in front of him stops him cold.
David, the murderer, is holding Ben up by his hair. Ben looks ready to drop, blood running over his face.
“Ben!” Luke yells.
“Get the fuck out of here, kid!” Ben yells, blood and spittle flying out of his mouth. “This is none of your fucking business!”
David looks surprised and angry. And there is something else, a certain squint to his eye. Is it recognition?
“Leanne you fucking whore!” David yells. “Tell me what I want to know or so help me I will snap this old fucker’s neck right now!”
David grabs Ben by his throat and lifts, bringing him up to his toes.
“NO!” Luke yells. “Put him down!”
***
Ben can’t talk with David’s massive hand around his throat. But he can whisper.
“David,” Ben gasps out. “I’ve got to tell you something. I’ll end this right now.”
David turns to Ben and smiles just a bit. David’s eyes are cold, emotionless. There is no rage, just calculation. All his fury was just a show, just a way to get what he wanted.
We’ll see what he thinks about this.
“I need to show you something,” Ben whispers.
Ben unzips and shrugs off his velveteen tracksuit jacket, drops it onto the floor. He’s wearing a white cashmere T-shirt and two gold chains around his neck, one with a crucifix and one with a Saint Christopher medal, not because he gives a shit about the Catholic church, but because they were given to him by his mother, God rest her soul.
“What the fuck are you doing?” David asks from between clenched teeth.
Ben lifts up his T-shirt. Taped to his chest and nestled into a bush of curly gray hairs is a small black microphone. It’s connected to a wire that drops down to his side where a battery pack and transmitter have been taped.
“You are fucked,” Ben says.
David drops him, stares in angry disbelief at the black microphone.
At that moment, ten men in black military fatigues and carrying a ridiculous amount of weaponry burst in the door.
Half of the men point their M-16s at David. The others point their guns at Luke and his companions.
Ben looks at the lead FBI guy, the one he’s been dealing with for more than a month now. The guy isn’t completely brain dead, but he was still a cop and therefore not trustworthy. Ben hates working with the feds, but to bring down David, anything is worth it.
“About fucking time,” Ben says. “You people better have a good dentist. This fucker broke my new teeth.”
“Who are your friends over there?” the FBI guy asks.
“Nobody. They were just leaving. Keep them out of it. You’ve got me so you’ve got all you need.”
The FBI agent looks over at the odd gathering of people, a handsome guy, a hot chick, a long-haired hippie and a giant Samoan, and says, “Get the fuck out of here.”
“We’re not going anywhere without Ben,” Luke says.
“Luke!” Ben snaps. “Get the fuck out of here. I will be just fine. I’ve got my new friends here to take care of me.”
Luke obviously doesn’t want to go, and Ben loves him for it, but the kid needs to hit the road and finish the job.
“I said go,” Ben says.
Luke nods reluctantly and the group quickly, and quietly, walks away, Luke holding Leanne’s hand.
Ben thinks, That’s weird. Luke and Leanne are kind of like siblings, one of them David’s real child, one of them unofficially adopted. How fucked up would it be if they were related and didn’t know it and ended up getting romantic? Creepy.
***
David shakes his head, looks around, does not believe his eyes.
Two of the feds take Ben by either arm and help him walk away. Off the old man goes, headed for witness relocation, forever to suck off the taxpayer tit in some shit village in the middle of some worthless fly-over state. It is a fate worse than death. The old man can have it.
“I want to talk to my lawyer,” David tells the team leader.
“Of course you do,” the leader says.
David looks down at Ben’s red track suit jacket. Empty. Crumpled. And yet, somehow, mocking him, looking victorious.
David stomps on it. Once. Twice. Three times. He’s not sure why. But he does feel momentarily better.
***
In the Stork, Charlie is behind the wheel. He cranks the key, and the old beast revs to life.
“We’ve got to wait!” Luke says. “We need Artie and Cecil.”
“I’m going to give them about 10 seconds…” Hank says.
Artie and Cecil burst through the side door.
“Let’s go while the going is good!” Artie yells.
“Leanne, you are as beautiful as ever,” Cecil says. “I am happy to see you alive and well. And I’m glad to report we are alive to see you.”
She rushes at Cecil, gives him a big hug, then drops to her knees, comes face to face with Artie.
“You did it,” Leanne says. She throws her arms around the little man. “You saved me.”
“Nah,” Artie says, holding her tight, his eyes brimming with tears. “It was nothing. Just you know…”
“Yes, yes, it was nothing,” Cecil says. “We broke into a fortress, battled the forces of evil, and despite the long odds, we emerged victorious. It was all quite mundane. Can we leave now please?”
“For once, we are in complete agreement,” Hank says.
The Stork shoots backward and out of the loading dock. It turns, skids on the dirt construction road, and zips off into the night toward Las Vegas.
***
Once upon a time, The Stork was a regular RV nearing the end of its life, sitting in a corner of a junkyard, quietly rusting its way into oblivion. Then a drug dealer named Larry Call bought it, had it towed to a body shop on the edge of town, and paid an enormous amount of money to turn it into the perfect smuggling machine. After weeks of work, after installing a high-powered truck engine, nitrous tanks, a reinforced suspension, armored paneling, and various secret compartments, Larry Call was pleased.
Larry Call, before he could even test out his new delivery truck, played in a high stakes poker with two internet millionaires, a porn king and Hank Singleton. Hank seemed drunk, stoned and stupid. He had been playing for almost 24 hours straight. He was out of chips. He seemed to have credit to burn, buying marker after marker.
Larry drove up the betting, raising, raising, raising, pulling more and more of Hank’s money into the pot. Hank barely seemed conscious. It was like taking a joint from a passed-out stoner.
Larry had all his chips in the pot and wanted to raise again. Hank, with a mumble, agreed that The Stork could go into the pot. Larry dropped the keys on top of a giant stack of chips. Hank covered the bet with another marker for $100k.
Larry turned over four aces and a nine and smiled. He stretched out his arms, ready to rake in in a pot worth more than $1 million
.
“Hold on, skipper,” Hank said, now suddenly awake, the stoner haze replaced by clear eyes. “That is a nice hand, but I believe mine is nicer.”
Hank laid down a straight flush, hearts, 8 to queen.
Larry stood, ready to go at the cheating son of a bitch.
Then a giant Samoan stepped behind Hank, looked down at Larry with a blank stare and shook his head “no.”
Larry walked out, swearing vengeance.
Hank and Charlie drove away in The Stork.
“Did you cheat?” asked Charlie
“I’m hurt you could even ask,” Hank said.
Charlie never asked again.
Chapter Forty-Five
The FBI asshole in charge has a smirk on his face. David wants to wipe it off with a crow bar.
Cocky son of a bitch. Did he really think wiring the old man was going to get him anything? Did I say anything even remotely incriminating? Let me think. No, I don’t think so. They got nothing.
Well, except for battery, he supposes. He beat up Ben pretty badly. Then again, he was somewhat abused himself. He can feel a bruised rib aching every time he takes in a breath. He can feel a swollen lump beneath his right eye where Ben got in a lucky punch. That’s all it was, a lucky punch.
Fucking old man, play by the rules, we’re all part of the brotherhood, this thing of ours, still fighting with knucks like it’s 1950. It did feel good to have them on again, felt good to hit that asshole in his asshole face.
Isn’t there something in the fucking Code about wearing a wire for the cocksucking FBI? How long has Ben been working with them? How much do they know? Are they after the thumb drive too?
“Am I under arrest, dipshit?” David asks the FBI asshole, the guy who will not lose that annoying smirk.
Can’t anyone be the least bit professional anymore?
“Maybe,” the asshole says, his smirk becoming a grin. “What would I be arresting you for?”
“Fucking your mother in the ass. Is sodomy illegal in Nevada?”
The smirk is gone. That’s better.
David continues, “Oh wait, it’s not. It’s perfectly legal to stuff whatever hole your mother presents to me. I guess I’m in the clear.”