by April Lust
Instead of their usual biker duds, the Saints were wearing black commando gear, paintball masks molded to look like leering skulls, and plastic body armor they'd bought from a costume shop a few towns away. It wouldn't stop any bullets, but it still achieved the desired effect.
They looked frightening as hell.
And unlike the armor, the AK-47 assault rifles they carried—and the bullets in their magazines—were very real.
“What's the point of all this crap?” Cobra had asked as Hammer gave the clerk at the costume shop a wad of cash. “It ain't like we're goin' up against real hardasses or anythin'. It's just Morrow an' those inbred cousins of his.”
“First of all, we can't have them knowing who we are, or even that we're bikers,” Hammer explained. “Putting aside the fact that half of us are supposed to be dead and the other half are supposed to be gone, Morrow's dealt with the Saints and other MCs lots of times. That won't scare him off. If he thinks we're an X-factor he's never encountered before—like some super-commando squad from God knows where—then he'll be a lot less likely to give us any pushback. Besides, Murray Morrow's a fleabag piece of shit and I've never liked him, so this is gonna be a lot of fun. By the time we're finished with him, he'll feel like the Grim Reaper stuck a finger up his ass and twisted it.”
It had been almost a week since Brock's second date with Maggie. During that time, Brock had talked on the phone with Ricci a handful of times—first to say he'd wired the money to the rebels in Myanmar, and then to tell him that no, he hadn't received any word back from them yet. Hammer wasn't known for his patience, so sitting tight for so long hadn't made him too happy. But Brock had assured him this next step in the plan relied on perfect timing.
And now that it was finally time for him to act, Hammer had to admit he was having a hell of a lot of fun.
As the four Saints made their way through the mangroves and tall grasses, Hammer pushed aside a curtain of peat moss. He knew it was childish, but in his mind, he kept pretending he was Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now—stalking through the steamy jungles of Vietnam with his finger on the trigger and murder in his eyes, delivering grim inner monologues about the beauty and horror of war. It had been his favorite movie since he and Brock had cut class in the fifth grade to rent it.
“I wanted a mission,” he murmured under his breath in a gravelly voice. “And for my sins, they gave me one.”
“What?” Cobra whispered.
Hammer smiled under his mask. “Nothing. We're almost there. Remember, when we bust in, let me do the talking.” Unlike the others, Hammer had also opted for a cheaply-made voice changer from the costume shop, which he'd tucked into his mask.
A dilapidated tar paper shack stood a short distance ahead of them with battery-powered lamps in the windows. Hammer motioned for the others to remain silent and follow him. Then he crouched down and continued his approach.
Once they were close enough, Hammer peered into one of the windows.
Murray Morrow stood in the shack with his cousins, Kenny and Louie Wells. Kenny was in his late twenties, with watery blue eyes and scraggly blonde-white hair that looked like dirty corn silk. He wore a patched, stained pair of overalls. Louie was a bald, squat, troll-like man in his mid-thirties, with thick black hair on his arms and warts all over his face. He sported a filthy yellow t-shirt that said “Time To Rub One Out,” and a pair of cutoff denims that were so short his scrotum was almost visible.
The three men were ladling heaping amounts of white powder into styrofoam bowls of heroin and stirring them around sloppily, as a Country/Western station played between bursts of static on a battered radio in the corner.
“Didn't this asshole have three cousins?” Cobra whispered. “Or was it just the two?”
“Pretty sure it was just these two,” Hammer answered, re-adjusting the weight of the rifle in his arms. AKs were sturdy and reliable, but man, were they heavy.
“I ran out of baking soda,” Kenny announced with a belch.
“So use some of the detergent or rat poison to cut with.” Louie paused in his work to scratch his balls and sniff his fingertips. “An' let's hurry it up, okay? I gotta take a shit the size of a wedding cake.”
“I told you before, just go an' do it outside,” Murray said. “You ain't gotta hold it in. We got plenty of toilet paper.”
“An' I told you before, I ain't shittin' in no swamp. Had me a girlfriend who tried to do that once. She squatted down, an' the next thing she knew, she had a mud snake hangin' from her pussy by its teeth. You shoulda seen her come runnin' outta the bayou screamin', with that thing swingin' between her legs like a big black dick!”
The men in the shack guffawed loudly.
“I dunno why we're out here fuckin' around with this shit anyhow,” Kenny pointed out. “You still ain't heard nothin' from Ricci, have you, Murray? For all we know, he's found some other source.”
“He'll call,” Murray insisted. “If there was someone new slingin' this shit around here, I'd have heard about it. Naw, he's just playin' it up like he's some kind of big man so's he can watch me sweat about it. Them wops an' their bullshit power trips, man. They think us good ol' boys are nothin' but a bunch've dumb pig-fuckers who can be pushed around.”
That sure is what it looks like from here, Hammer thought.
Hammer looked around to make sure the other Saints were in position. Then he unclipped a stun grenade from his belt, yanked the pin, and tossed it through a window.
“What the—?!” There was a scramble of confusion inside, and a second later, the grenade went off with a blinding white flash and a thunderous bang.
Hammer kicked down the door of the shack and burst in, followed by the other Saints. Murray and the Wells brothers were sprawled on the floor, blinking up at them and moaning in pain.
“Murray Morrow. Kenny Wells. Louie Wells.” Hammer pronounced their names like a judge handing down a death sentence. With the voice changer set to its lowest setting, he sounded like Darth Vader.
He had never felt cooler in his life.
“Your sins have caught up with you at last,” Hammer intoned.
“You want the H?” Murray asked, his voice quivering. “Take it! It's yours!”
“You think you can bribe me with your cheap poison?” Hammer picked up one of the bowls of powder, flinging it at Murray and crumpling the styrofoam into a ball. The heroin caked Murray's face and he coughed.
“I am your Fate, Murray Morrow. I am your Angel of Death. There is no bargain. There is no escape. There is only penance.” He pointed a finger at Murray dramatically.
Murray dragged himself to his knees. He brushed the powder from his face, gagging and retching. Then he laced his fingers together like a man about to pray, looking up at Hammer pleadingly.
“Please...I'm so sorry...I never meant to hurt no one...my daddy left when I was two an' I got led astray, you gotta know that...but I will be good, I promise, I'll do whatever you want, whatever it takes, just don't drag me down to hell, Mister Skull Face, please...”
Suddenly, there was a deafening mechanical roar just outside the door, followed by a yowl of pain from Splinter.
Hammer turned in time to see a hulking figure in a tattered cloak that looked like it had been stitched together from varmint pelts. His face was broad and lumpy, and one of his eye sockets was sunken and empty. His snarl revealed a mouthful of broken teeth that looked like crooked fangs.
He brandished a large chainsaw.
Splinter was still yelling and clutching at the small of his back as dime-sized drops of blood hit the floor.
“Kill 'em, Shredder!” Murray hollered over the sound of the machine. “Kill 'em all!”
Shredder stepped forward into the room, swinging his weapon and mewling incoherently. Cobra and Splinter were already backing away from him, but Lash appeared to be frozen in mute horror.
“Get down,” Hammer commanded, raising his rifle.
Lash didn't move.
Splinter and Cob
ra lunged at Lash, tackling him to the ground. Shredder raised the saw, preparing to bring it down on one or all of them as he cackled madly.
Hammer took advantage of his clear shot, firing a burst from his AK directly into Shredder's chest.
The brute looked down at the bleeding holes in his body, the saw still raised above his head. Then he let out a shriek and turned, fleeing into the swamp again. The sputtering roar of the chainsaw followed him until it faded in the distance.
As Lash and Cobra silently inspected the wound on Splinter's back, Hammer turned and advanced on Murray and his cousins menacingly. Their butts skidded across the floor until all three of them were backed up against the wall in a row.
Hammer's blood was up and he badly wanted to pump these dickheads full of bullets, but that wasn't the mission he'd been sent on. Brock had said it was important they just disappeared without a trace, so Hammer couldn't risk leaving evidence they'd been killed instead.
“I shoulda warned you,” Murray sobbed. “I forgot he was out there, okay? I just forgot!”
Hammer slammed the butt of his rifle into Murray's torso savagely. Murray screamed, and Hammer heard several of his ribs snap.
“If you want to live, here's something you shouldn't forget,” Hammer growled. “Louisiana is off-limits to you and the rest of your demented family. Find someplace else to be a drug-peddling redneck. We'll be watching for you, and if you ever come back to this state again—even if you're just passing through—we'll know, and we'll make sure you're the one who dies with a chainsaw in his guts. Do you understand?”
“Y-Y-Yes,” Murray stammered.
“Good. Now go.”
Murray pulled himself to his feet, clutching his busted ribs and hissing in pain. Kenny and Louie got up as well, breathing hard, their eyes bugging out of their heads. For a moment, they stood, staring at Hammer and the other Saints.
Hammer pointed his rifle at the ceiling and fired off another burst. “Now!”
The three men pelted toward the door as fast as they could, running off into the bayou. Hammer looked down and saw trails of urine on the floor, marking their paths.
“How bad is it?” Hammer asked Splinter, pulling his mask off. The others took theirs off, too.
“Could've been a lot worse,” Splinter said, wincing. “This plastic armor may be cheap, but it still kept the saw from going in as deep as it could. A few stitches, an' I should be okay. Thank God he missed the spine, though.”
“Jesus, that was some fucked-up, horror movie shit!” Cobra turned to Lash, who was pale and shaking. “Where the hell were you, anyway, huh? What happened?”
“I, uh...just wasn't expecting a dude with a chainsaw, is all,” Lash said, licking his lips nervously. “I got kind of a thing about chainsaws. Do you think he's dead?”
“He took at least five rounds in the chest before he ran off,” Hammer answered. “If that didn't kill him, there's about twelve different infections he'll get from the swamp that should do the trick. And we know for damn sure the other three ain't gonna be a problem anymore.”
Okay, Brock, Hammer thought. Mission accomplished. What do you have up your sleeve next?
Chapter 19
Maggie
Maggie had been watching her father pace around their house for almost a week. She'd never seen him so nervous before—muttering to himself, wringing his hands, jumping every time the phone rang. Even when she was lying in bed at night, she could still hear his footsteps traveling from floor to floor, room to room. He'd always taken tremendous pride in his appearance, but now he was forgetting to bathe or comb his hair for days at a time, and his expensive outfits always looked rumpled.
She knew whatever he was waiting for had something to do with Gabe. She'd even heard him call Gabe several times, but after each brief conversation, he continued to roam the house nervously.
When Adamo told Maggie's father that her second date with Gabe had ended before it began, Turo interrogated her mercilessly. She couldn't tell him the real reason was because he'd refused to have sex with her again, so she stubbornly kept her mouth shut and her arms folded as he harangued her.
“I thought you said you liked him better than the others,” Turo yelled.
“Well, I was wrong! He's no different, and I don't like him anymore.”
Turo let out a frustrated roar, slamming his fist down on his desk. “Goddamn it, why couldn't I have had a son? Girls are so fickle. One minute they love some boy, and the next minute they hate him, and they can't even tell you why. It's enough to drive a man insane.”
“I'm not going to see him again.”
“Yes, you are,” Turo seethed. “You're going to have another date with him, and another, and you're going to smile and laugh and behave yourself on all of them. You know why? Because as quickly as your mind changed about Gabe, it could change back just as quickly. And I won't let you ruin this chance for yourself just because you can't make up your mind about what you want.”
And Maggie had stormed out of his office, and he'd slammed the door behind her, and she'd stomped up the stairs to her room and slammed her own door in response. It had become a familiar pattern.
Now Maggie could hear the phone ringing, and her father scrambling to answer it. “Hello?”
Maggie got up from her bed and opened her door, sticking her head out to listen. Was this the call he'd been waiting for?
From the short-tempered, disappointed tone in his voice, she guessed it wasn't.
“What do you mean, 'disappeared'? Did you check that cabin he's got out in the swamp?...Well, what about those fucking cousins of his? Kenny and Louie and that retard, what's-his-name, Cheddar?...Don't tell me that! Nothing 'vanishes without a trace!' Were there any signs they'd been bumped off? Any blood, or...'A couple of drops?' That tells me nothing! You're telling me nothing! Now find out what the hell happened to them, and fast. They were our only source for the shit. Hopefully, with this other deal I've got going, it won't matter—but still, we'd better find out what happened, just to be on the safe side.”
He slammed the phone down, and Maggie heard him let out a frustrated sigh.
Maggie couldn't believe how Turo was coming unraveled by this situation with Gabe, whatever it was. He never used to speak unless it was in an even and rational tone, and he'd almost never used foul language. But now...
Good, Maggie thought with a twinge of cruel satisfaction. Whatever's going on, maybe it'll give him ulcers and he'll die from them.
Still, she was sick to her stomach from all of it. Sick of the gangsters and the shady deals and the killings and the secrecy and the careful double-speak from fear of wiretapping. Sick of the whole wretched thing.
There was a knock at the front door, and Maggie heard her father run to it, flinging it open. “Adamo! What is it?”
“Gabe reached out, Don Ricci. He said he'd like to speak with you. It seemed fairly urgent.”
“Why? What's going on?”
“I don't know, sir. But whatever it is, he sounds quite unhappy about it.”
Chapter 20
Brock
Brock sat in one of the plush chairs in his hotel room as he practiced his most disapproving look. He felt like he had the expression itself down—stony, with a furrowed brow and a judgmental glint in the eyes. But he was having trouble deciding on the rest of his pose.
Both feet planted, both arms down on the armrests? No, it was too open, and it reminded him of the Lincoln Memorial.
Legs crossed wide, fingers steepled together in front of him? That felt better, but it still seemed forced somehow, like something a Bond villain would do.
Legs crossed at the knee, arms half-crossed with his chin in his hand? Pretentious. He was trying to intimidate a mob boss, not pose for an author photo.
Legs together, arms folded tight against his chest? What, was he a toddler refusing to eat or something? No.
“Have you figured out which pose is sexiest yet?” Robby asked from his seat in the corner. “I
mean, I knew you were vain, but Jesus Christ, enough with the primping and bullshit.”
“It's important to get it just right,” Brock replied. “Just stay quiet and remember your part.”
“Yeah, yeah, it ain't complicated,” Robby sighed.
Just as Brock was considering standing behind the chair with his hands clamped on its back—bold, adversarial, like a caged tiger who might escape and pounce—there was a knock at the door. Brock quickly decided to go with the Lincoln pose after all, and motioned for Crack to answer the door.
When Brock saw Turo walk in with Adamo behind him, he felt a spasm of sadistic glee. Clearly, the pressure and anticipation were making Turo fall apart. His tie was askew, his suit was unevenly buttoned, his hair resembled a white bird's nest, and he was missing a cuff link. His shoes were scuffed, and it looked like he hadn't shaved in days. He'd allowed his manicure to lapse, and his fingernails had been chewed ragged.