by Blake Banner
Then I said, “Archetypes. They are archetypes.” I remembered Jim and the IIC and sighed. “More than archetypes, they are role models we are meant to aspire to, even though we can never achieve them.”
“Is a crazy world, huh?” I nodded. “Instead of a luxury apartment in Seattle, I have a guest house in Watts. Instead of a career as a psychiatrist, I am a whore. And instead of a perfect love, I got a pimp who wants to turn my guest house, my second chance, into a whorehouse.”
“I understand, Maria.”
She smiled a lopsided smile. “You think I still watch TV?”
I shook my head. “I hope not.”
She gave a sad little snort. “You think I have no hope.”
I shook my head. “No. I think you have. But I think chasing somebody else’s dream about what life and people should be like is a waste of time and effort. Especially if that dream belongs to some asshole in Hollywood. You let Hollywood make your dreams for you, you may as well lie down and die. Make your own dreams, about real things and real people, then you stand a chance of making them come true, if you fight like hell and never give up.”
Her face didn’t change. All that changed was that a tear spilled from her eyes and trailed down to the corner of her mouth.
“I have lost so many people. People I loved, destroyed, their souls destroyed. So many people dead who did not need to die. They died without dreams…”
“I know. I’ve seen them die too.” I stood. “I have to go.” I held her eye for a long moment, then smiled and made a fair imitation of a German accent. “But I’ll be back.”
She laughed and wiped the tear from her cheek. “Another archetype.”
“I’ll help you, Maria. But I have to do this first.”
She gave a small nod and I left her gazing down at her hands on the table.
I returned to my room, slipped the Fairbairn & Sykes into my boot, put the Sig in my waistband, under the pullover, and stuffed a ski mask into my back pocket. Anything else I was going to need I had in the trunk of the Zombie.
I walked through the reception area and stepped into the night. I stopped a moment to look around. The streetlamps were listless. The roads were empty of traffic. The drapes were drawn over windows that showed only the flickering of televised reality, where even evil was idealized. Somewhere, out in the dark, urban sprawl, I could hear the thud and throb of speakers in a car: a car owned by some badass who had learned from some Hollywood role model exactly how to be badass.
I sighed and walked away, toward the church where I had left the Zombie. Behind me I was aware of a car approaching, cruising. From its smoked windows came the throb and buzz of rap. I ignored it and turned into 108th Street, but as I did, I was aware of the car stopping outside El Toro. I heard the four doors slam one after another, like a volley of shots. The throb of the bass followed me across the road and as I took my keys from my pocket it began to dawn on me what was happening.
Either she had known he was coming today, or she had orchestrated it. I remembered her in my room, asking what time I was going out. I sighed and turned back. I had no time for this, but I also knew I couldn’t walk away.
I walked back toward El Toro, with the throb of the bass growing louder. As I came around the corner I saw it was a BMW 5 series with tinted windows. The car was empty. But noise was still pumping inside. I glanced through the glass door of the guesthouse and saw four tough guys jerking their knees as they talked to Don. He looked scared. I walked around to the driver’s side, leaned in and turned the music off. Then I made my way toward the reception.
As I pushed through the door I saw that the four guys had turned and were gaping at me, and Don was gaping over their shoulders. Their expressions ranged from incredulity to rage. A bit farther back, Maria had come in from the garden and was watching the scene, frowning, curious.
I took a second to calibrate them. Maria’s pimp, Julio, was the second from my right. I could tell because, though he wasn’t the biggest, he was the craziest, and you could see that in his eyes. Maybe Jim and the IIC were getting to me, but as I looked into his eyes I knew that the TV had told him once too often that he was a psychopath and a sociopath; and that didn’t mean he was a sad, damaged person. It meant he was of above average intelligence, ruthless and sexy. And he was too damned stupid to realize that what the TV had told him was bullshit—invented by the TV to sell TV to people as stupid as him.
He was in his early thirties, with unintelligent pale blue eyes, a scraggy black moustache and an Italian suit as vulgar as it was expensive. On his left there was a fat guy also dressed in off the peg Armani. His eyes were almost black and he had a heavy gold chain around his neck. You could see by the way he strutted that he was proud of that chain.
On Julio the chulo’s right he had a boy of about eighteen, who obviously lived at the gym. He was going to be doing some kind of martial arts. I figured Muay Thai or kick boxing. The fourth guy in the gang was the real muscle. He looked like he did weight lifting. He had massive thighs and powerful arms, and his jaw looked like if you hit it you’d break your hand. He’d be looking for the clinch or the take down. He’d be slow, but he’d easily crush you to death.
I took that in, in about a second, while they were all still struggling with their above average sociopath IQs to understand how and why I had dared turn their throbbing dick music off. I pointed at Julio. “You the chulo?”
He was moving his chin in and out, jerking his knees, like a chicken getting down to rap. “Who de fock are you, pendejo? I’m gonna cut you fockin’ open, man!”
“Leave now, don’t come back, and I won’t kill you.”
There must have been some magic in the words, because they all took up the chicken dance and started jerking their knees and their elbows, and looking at each other with, ‘can you believe this guy?’ faces.
I pointed at the guy with the gold chain. “You first. I’ll break your neck with your chain.” I pointed at the big gorilla. “Then you. I’ll rupture your heart. Then you,” I pointed at the Muay Thai Kid. “I’ll break your neck. You?” I looked at Julio. “You I’m going to make an example of. Your call.”
They were nothing if not predictable. They did what they always did, and sent their gorilla in first to soften me up before the sociopath badasses came in for the kill. He barreled at me with his arms outstretched and an ugly snarl on his face, like he was planning to chew off my ear. I held his eye until he was two feet away, then I slipped my left hand behind his head, like I was going to kiss him, and rammed the heel of my right hand into the tip of his jaw, levering it hard to my left. I heard the cartilage crunch. The pain must have been unbelievable. He started screaming, short, hysterical screams and took two steps back. On his third scream I put all my two hundred and twenty pounds into a downward plunging punch into his solar plexus that dragged his belly and his diaphragm down, winding him and sending his heart into spasm. His eyes bulged, he tried to gasp through his broken mouth. I put him out of his misery. I delivered two massive punches straight to his sternum. He went into cardiac arrest. His eyes rolled back in their sockets and he went straight over backward. The whole thing had taken less than three seconds.
They were staring down at him with expressions of utter stupidity on their faces. I didn’t wait for them to react. I took a long step to my right, bitch-slapped the fat guy with my open right hand and grabbed his chain with my left. Another step put him between me and the other two, who were just beginning to wake up to what was happening. I yanked hard on the chain. He came toward me. I bitch-slapped him a second time and looped the chain around his neck so it formed a noose. Muay Thai was charging on my left and Julio was coming at me on my right. I took another big step back and hauled savagely on the chain, cutting off his wind. He clawed at his throat. I pulled him to the right so he stumbled into Julio’s path and, as he did, I moved to intercept Muay Thai on the other side.
The only real fighting he’d ever done was on broken people his gorilla pal had a
lready chewed up. All his martial arts, up to that point, had been in the gym or in his daydreams.
If you’re going to fight with kicks you need to be as fast as Bruce Lee. Anything slower is a death sentence. Muay Thai threw a slow sidekick at my head. I caught his ankle in the crook of my right elbow and kicked him hard in the balls. He fell awkwardly, wheezing and gasping. His right leg dragged down on the chain that was still in my left hand, choking the fat guy who was wearing it. It was a mass of confusion and Julio was on the other side of it, looking worried. I saw him reach for a knife in his pocket and smiled at him.
I let go of Muay Thai’s leg. He fell into the fetal position. I yanked hard on the chain. He was turning a nasty blue color. I spun him around, hooked my right forearm under his jaw and pressed the back left of his head. A small jerk and the fat guy’s worries were all over. I let him fall at Julio’s feet. He backed away, holding his blade out in front of him. I ignored him and stepped over to Muay Thai, who was still clutching at his busted balls. I kicked him in the shoulder so he rolled over, face down, and stamped on the back of his neck. I heard the vertebrae snap.
Julio now looked like a very scared chulo. I pointed at the corpses. “Just like I said. You like to beat up on women, huh? Abuse them and exploit them? You think you’re a badass because you abuse the weak?” I smiled. “That doesn’t make you a badass, Julio. That makes you a pussy.”
I stepped forward and kicked him hard and fast in the knee. I felt the cartilage crack and he fell, gripping his shattered joint and repeating, “Oh God! Oh shit, man! Oh God!”
I rolled him on his back and knelt on his chest. I picked up his knife and wrapped his right hand around the hilt. He was staring at me with bulging eyes as I positioned it over his heart. He whimpered, “What are you doing, man…?”
“I’m making an example of you.”
I held it in place with my left hand, like a nail, over his fifth intercostals, and hammered it savagely home with my right fist. He quivered and jerked for a few seconds, then went still. I looked up at Don. He was very still and very pale.
I stood. “You can take credit for this. It was an invasion of your premises. You were defending yourself, and Maria.” I shrugged. “Or you can say it was a passing stranger who came to your assistance. Either way, the cops are not going to argue on this one.”
I looked over at where Maria was still standing by the door and pointed at the man I had just killed. “Was this the guy?”
She nodded. “Yeah, that was him.”
I stepped into the street again. The streetlamps were still listless and the TVs still flickered behind the drapes. I turned and made my way back to the Zombie.
I climbed in and sat behind the wheel, pressed the starter and slipped away in silence, onto Kalmia Street and Santa Ana Boulevard, wondering why I had done what I had done. It was not my problem. I was here to do a job, to protect my family, to defeat an enemy that threatened me and those I loved. So why had I risked it all to stop a pimp from exploiting an ex-whore? I was not a hero. I was not out to save anybody—to save the world. That was Marni’s job, and Gibbons’ and Jim’s. Not mine.
So why had I done it?
I ended up telling myself it was because I didn’t like bullies. Because ever since I was a kid I had hated men like my father, who abused the weak to make themselves feel strong. And besides, what I was going to do that night at the vineyard could play out in a couple of different ways. And one of those ways could make Maria a useful ally. That thought made me feel better and I smiled to myself as I accelerated silently toward Santa Monica and the Pacific Coast Highway.
My mind turned to the fight I was facing when I got there. I had no idea how many Omega men I would be up against. There could be anything from three or four to a dozen or more. If Alpha and Beta were going to be there along with Delta and Epsilon, after the damage they had already sustained, they would be most likely to err on the side of caution. I had to expect at least a dozen men, plus Captain Bob; assuming he could still walk and wasn’t singing soprano in the California State Choir by now.
In addition, they would almost certainly be armed with assault rifles. They would be patrolling the grounds and they would be in touch with each other by radio. If any one of them went down, the others would know about it pretty soon. So the choices seemed to be either get in, take out as many of the Omega brass as I could and leave without the guards noticing, or take on everybody and kill everybody. I wondered what Sergeant Bradley would advise.
He’d say, “Never take on a fight you’re not sure you can win.” He’d wag his finger at me and say, “The Iron Duke, mate, the Duke of Wellington, he never lost a battle in his life. If he wasn’t sure he could win, he withdrew…” and he’d lean forward and stare at me with his diabolical Kiwi eyes. “And he’d draw the enemy to a place where he could annihilate them. Duke of Wellington, mate. People say Napoleon was a genius, but Wellington beat seven bales of shit out of him.”
Draw them to my battlefield.
And then there was the other thing: the thing I was trying not to think about because there was nothing I could do about it. Fenninger’s wife and kids.
They would be there.
I put it out of my mind and headed for the nearest gas station. I needed two gallons of gasoline and a disposable cell.
Fifteen
The moon had risen a little earlier that night than the night before. It was sitting, wan and mocking, half an inch above the tree line in the east. I was parked among the trees, just off the Old Topanga Canyon Road, about a quarter of a mile from the Spanish villa. I had taken the Emperor from the trunk and set it on the roof of the Zombie. Now I was seated in the car with my laptop and the remote control, maneuvering the drone high above the treetops toward the house. I had not thought to equip it with an infrared camera, but the house and the grounds around it were floodlit and the guards were clearly visible. It seemed, at first sight at least, that they were more concerned with scaring me off than trapping me or killing me.
From what I could make out, there were two guards at the back, on the lawn by the pool. They were armed with assault rifles, they were stationary and constantly in sight of each other, covering the sliding glass doors that allowed access to the house.
At the front there were four, two stationed in the parking lot and two on the steps outside the front door. Besides these six men, there were two more pairs on each side of the house. These were not stationary but patrolling back and forth
That was a total of ten, a small army, all brightly lit and all in clear view of each other. As well as these, there would be an unknown number inside the house guarding the Fenningers, but above all guarding the Omega top brass. They had no shortage of resources.
Normally, in a situation like this, you would make extensive use of fire and explosives to disrupt the defensive position, but I had assumed I would be operating within L.A., and I had not brought any C4 with me. My heavy artillery was going to be limited, and once used, I was going to have to act fast, in case the Fire Department or the sheriff responded.
I had a look at the roofs of the house. It was a complex combination of tiled gables set at right angles to each other to form the galleried patio where we had sat in the dining room and, beside that, on the left, two long gables set side by side, where the large living room was and, I figured, two other rooms beside that. The roof of the living room was going to be the ideal spot to set the drone down, on the chimney of the copper fireplace. I landed it nice and quiet, left the remote control on the seat and went to get my stuff from the trunk.
I took my backup Sig, two spare magazines, the night vision goggles and the bow. I had seventy-two rounds and twelve barbs against a small army with automatic weapons. It should do.
I took a long, circuitous route through the woods to the vineyard where I had fought with Fenninger. With me I had two gallons of gasoline. I made my way to the shed, opened the door just enough to slip in, and switched on my pencil flashlight. I smi
led at what I saw. Against one wall there was a dozen sacks of ammonium nitrate. I didn’t need them, but it had been even chances they would be there, and they were a definite bonus. I stashed the plastic gasoline containers up against them, soaked a rag and hooked it up to a detonator I’d rigged from the disposable cell. Then I slipped out again, leaving the door ajar.
Behind the shed there was a sparse hedgerow beyond a ditch. I scrambled across and, using my knife, I hacked a hole in the hedge big enough for me to squeeze through. Then I loped silently down to the row of conifers that separated the back of the house, where the pool was, from the fields and the vineyards. I found two trees that were sufficiently far apart for my purposes and hunkered down. Through the gap I had clear sight of the two guards standing in front of the sliding doors. What I did next was going to have to be fast, precise and very accurate.
I took two arrows, nocked one, took careful aim at the farthest guard and loosed. I didn’t wait to see if it hit its mark. I knew it would. I immediately nocked the second arrow, drew, aimed at the nearest guard and, as the first barb thudded home into his chest, I loosed the second arrow. It whispered. The nearest guard frowned at his partner, who was holding his chest, staring down at the feathers in his hand. Slowly he kneeled down on the grass. The second arrow found its mark and punched right through his sternum and his heart.
I ran. I left the bow and the arrows where they were. It was a matter of seconds before the two bodies were found, and by the time they were, I had to be somewhere else. I vaulted the first log fence onto the vineyard path, then the second onto the driveway, right in front of the two guards. As I landed I had my Sig in my hand. I swore loudly, like I hadn’t expected to see them there. I let off four rounds in two double taps. The first two took off most of the nearest guard’s head. The second two went through the creeping Russian vine and narrowly missed the two guards at the front door. I turned and ran back the way I had come, vaulting over the fence and running up the path toward the shed.