I stood before the dilapidated shop. The barber had left long ago, and the speakeasy had been forgotten by many. Not by all, but by most.
I wasn’t alone. The Eye’s actual lapdog stood behind me, looming in its overcoat, which hid its rusted skin and red bulbs from any people who might see us. The Rabbit was only back in the fold because she thought I was being irresponsible, because she thought I was going soft. For my sake, for the 5th’s, for Allen’s, I couldn’t let her think that.
“I KNOW IT’S BEEN A WHILE,” the Rabbit began, coming up from behind. I could hear the servos inside it buzzing and creaking as it moved. “SHE WANTS YOU TO TAKE CARE OF BUSINESS THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY, TO PROVE YOUR LOYALTY. YOU KNOW HOW IT IS.”
It slid a weapon into my right hand. It was an old wooden hammer. The head was bent and dented, the wood stripped of varnish, and the carved M at the bottom almost worn away. I grasped the handle, turning it over to see a hole in the head of the tool. The perfect circumference for a .46 calibre bullet. The machine’s other hand held a dozen or so of the aforementioned bullets.
“No,” I said.
“YOU DON’T GET TO CALL SHOTS, ROACH. THERE ARE NO MORE NOES UNTIL YOU MAKE UP FOR THINGS.”
“Not with this. I told her I wouldn’t touch this again.” Yet here I was, holding it tight. “I don’t work like that anymore.”
“YOU DO AND YOU WILL, ROACH. SHE’S PAYING GOOD MONEY FOR AN ENFORCER, AND AN ENFORCER NEEDS SOMETHING TO ENFORCE WITH, YOU SEE? GO IN THERE, DEAL WITH HIM, AND GO HOME. BUT IF YOU LEAVE THIS HERE WITH ME, SHE WILL TAKE IT AS A FORMAL RESIGNATION. YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT MEANS IN HER WORLD.”
I spat on the ground, half of me wanting to turn this weapon on the Rabbit, the other half wanting to use my gun. Neither half would act. When the Eye had first seen this weapon, she’d said I should give it a name, something stupid and contrived like Justice or Mercy. I never had given it one, and I never would.
“WE APPRECIATE YOU DOING THIS FOR US,” the Rabbit said smugly.
“I ain’t doing it for you.” I ground my teeth. “And it’s Roche, capek.”
“SHOULDN’T YOU BE WEARING A COAT? YOU HUMANS GET COLD, AFTER ALL.”
“I ain’t cold. You should warm up, though. Your servos might freeze on the job. You’re getting old, Rabbit.”
“NOT AS OLD AS YOU,” it snickered, disappearing into the cold air.
I gripped the hammer hard and fit the butt of a bullet into the hole. The magnetic ring caught the round without striking the primer. I sheathed the tool under my right arm and drew my revolver from under my left as I approached the barber shop. The chairs were gutted, the mirrors cracked, and the moveable wall that had hidden the stairs leading to the basement was cracked and strewn on the ground. I descended to the metal door and knocked. The first two knocks made the slider open so the guard on the other side could see my eyes. The second two knocks made him unlatch the door and run past me, up the stairs and to another city, if he knew what was good for him.
The scene I wandered into was like something out of an old Western. Everyone turned to face me, and the bartender hid under the countertop, which was on the left wall. There was also a hallway on my right leading to restrooms, and the central area in front of me was filled with bar tables. A total of twelve people were in that rotting old husk of a speakeasy: two at the barstools near the countertop to my left, one coming out of the bathroom, six at a table ahead, and two more at the far end of the speakeasy. And, of course, the hiding bartender.
The two at the far end of the speakeasy pulled revolvers from their waistbands. The six at the table dropped their drinks and cards, scrambling to grab their irons. The two at the barstools reached for unravelled Foldguns that had been sitting on the counter.
None of them fired, possibly wanting to confirm my knocks hadn’t been a mistake. Stupid of them. They shouldn’t have hesitated.
My left hand pulled my Diamondback’s barrel parallel to the floor, and my right hand fanned the hammer. The first round slammed into the barstool fellow farthest away. He took a round to the chest. The closer one was faster to grab his Foldgun, but a second bullet from my revolver flew into his head and launched his body over the counter. The bartender’s screams confirmed the kill. Bullets three, four, and five hit three unlucky bastards at the table; I’d aimed for the closest ones so their corpses would fall on the three behind them. Bullets six and seven blasted into the guys at the far wall — one in the shoulder, the other in the stomach.
I holstered my still-smoking gun and took out the hammer. The three unharmed men at the poker table pushed their dead friends aside, leaving their guns down and grabbing objects more appropriate for close-quarters combat; after all, a loaded gun could easily be taken and used against them. One had a knife, another held a broken bottle, and the last slipped on a set of brass knuckles with barbs on the ends.
The one with the knife took a swing at me, leaping forward to go for my neck. Moving left out of the way of the blade allowed me to send the hammer in my right hand upward, swinging to hit his jaw. The compression of the bullet against his skin and, consequently, the pin firing inside the hammer’s head sprayed most of his skull on the speakeasy’s ceiling. The recoil fired my arm back, resetting my shoulders for a second swing.
Both lackeys behind the fresh corpse were running at me, the one with the bottle going for my stomach, the one with the knuckles for my face. The body lying between us provided the perfect trip hazard for the guy with the knuckles. I moved to the left again and waited for his feet to catch on the fresh corpse. The brass-knuckled bastard stumbled and fell to the ground behind me.
As the two bodies tumbled, I focused on the guy with the broken bottle. My left hand grabbed the weapon, pushing it away, my hammer’s claw going for his head. It snapped into his temple, and I ripped it back out in one fluid motion. Both he and the bottle crashed onto the floor, the latter shattering.
I’d underestimated the guy with the knuckles. I was shocked when I felt the barbs and brass slam into my right side, cutting up my shirt and skin. I spat out a short scream and curled my back, swinging the hammer out of reflex, going too low to hit his stomach and instead bringing it down onto one of his knees. He fell to the ground in pain, the fall pulling the barbed wire out of me, along with a chunk of flesh. A large spot of blood seeped through my ripped shirt. I slammed the hammer into his other knee after he fell, hearing it crack and the kneecap shatter. He screamed bloody murder, but he would learn his lesson better if he couldn’t walk again.
A bullet whizzed past my head, and I turned to find the source: the guy at the far wall with the busted shoulder was alive and held a gun in his functioning hand, trying to stay lucid as blood pooled underneath him. I reached for one of the .38s on the poker table and unloaded the magazine into him. Overkill, yes, but I had to be sure he was done for.
I turned to the man who had just come out of the bathroom. He wasn’t there anymore. There was a flash of his black shoes at the top of the stairs beyond the open door.
“Shit,” I spat.
I grabbed a second loaded pistol from the bar table and stopped just before running out the door when I saw the bartender peeking out. He looked at me as one might a ghost.
“Sorry for the ruckus,” I said, and dropped a wad of bills onto the counter, making sure to keep it out of the blood. “Fix it up nice again. Keep it on the down low, you hear?”
The bartender nodded, took the money, and made his way far from the blood and bodies. I took my own leave from the speakeasy, ascending the stairs and jogging after my target.
He was making a break across the street of the scarcely populated neighbourhood. I put a few bullets downrange. One clipped his thigh and sent him tumbling onto the opposite sidewalk. Another bullet must have hit his heel, because he was crawling, unable to stand on the wounded leg. I dropped the gun and followed him, a thin trail of his blood leading me to an alleyway.
Poor bastard … that’s last place you want to crawl to.
Reaching him, I grabbed his collar and hoisted him up against a wall with one hand. He was pale, and it smelled like he had evacuated his bowels. The only sounds were his breathing and the faint screaming of the poor bastard with two fucked-up knees back in the Angel’s Share. I gripped his chin and cheeks with my left hand. With my right, I grabbed a fresh .46 bullet from my pocket, loaded it in the sweet spot of the hammer, and held the weapon at the centre of his noggin.
He’d made one mistake: he wanted out, but not on her terms. Stupid mistake to make. One I’d nearly made, too. I supposed this wasn’t just a job, but also a lesson for me.
“Vito Genovese,” I said.
“You can’t do this to me! You know what an asset I am! Let me go, bastardo!”
“You were helpful with some of the Five Families’ stragglers, but you made a mistake. You forgot that you don’t call the shots. I’m here to remind you of that. You have a debt to pay.”
“Wait, wait! Let me talk to her, parley with her, you owe me that!”
“She ain’t Masseria or Luciano. You don’t get to fix what’s broken. I’m here to punch your ticket.”
The hammer and the bullet slammed into his skull, blowing the back of it against the stone wall and splattering some of it onto my face and my shirt. He slid down and slumped in his own blood, and the tool went back into the holster under my right arm.
Having dispensed my justice, I turned around to find my mechanical peer standing too close for comfort. The Rabbit loomed high enough to cast a shadow that swallowed me whole. It looked pleased, seeing me like this. Fucking abomination.
“QUICK AND DIRTY, LIKE YOU ALWAYS ARE.” It held out an envelope full of cash. I walked past it. “IT’S PAYMENT FOR SERVICES RENDERED.”
“I don’t need the cash, freak.” I lit a dart and sucked in the nicotine, my stress levels dropping like a rock. “Get back and tell her Vito’s ticket was punched. I want a meeting soon. I got things to discuss.”
“SHE ISN’T IN THE TALKING MOOD, ROACH. DO SOME MORE JOBS, AND HER FAITH IN YOU MIGHT BE RESTORED.”
“If that’s all, you can fuck off.”
I didn’t hear it go. Turning back, I saw that it had left behind the envelope of money. I looked around before reaching down to grab it with my right hand, clutching my bloody side with my left. Walking around the city like this would draw attention. Good thing I knew someone who could help me.
“I usually require patients to book an appointment.”
The doctor looking me over was called Nightingale, and she was good. Too good, in fact. She was the kind of woman who could stuff a corpse full of fluff and make it look like it was still living and breathing. She’d used to be on the Eye’s payroll until she got out. The right way.
Her office was a hearse, with medical supplies adorning the blackened windows and a small table where she treated her patients. The ride was smooth thanks to the car’s powerful suspension, and her sewing was clean and precise. It didn’t even feel like she was stitching me up. Then again, I also had a few milligrams of morphine running through my veins.
I should have studied chemistry. I should have been making this chemical, not having it pumped into me.
“Not talkative today? That’s odd for you, Elias.” She finished the stitches and placed some gauze on the wound. “The old Iron Hand himself with nothing to say. Is it the drugs?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“I know how temperamental you are with morphine, but I had to give it to you. You weren’t looking good, and hydrocodone is in short supply.”
“I know.”
“You don’t like working for her, that’s obvious.” She put a bandage on me, reinforcing it with some medical tape. “I know you won’t take bedrest, so hopefully this keeps the bandage on. Please, change this dressing tomorrow. Don’t put it off like you do with your car.”
I laughed. They all knew my habits. “I’ll try.”
“I know you wouldn’t have gotten into this scuffle unless you had to. I’ve known you long enough to know you’re a good person, Elias.”
“I ain’t a good person, Doc. I just ain’t. I try to help, but things get worse. I’m fighting a losing battle. How the hell did you get out?” I turned to look at her. She had short brown hair and emerald eyes that had seen more of my veins than of my face. “How the hell did any of you get out?”
“Jaeger got lucky, because he never kept a paper trail. Crate hired someone better than him — shocking to think, I know. Moses disappeared, but he made sure to screw with any guns sent to Maranzano or Gould. Me … Something bad happened to a favourite of hers, took a bullet to the head — frontal lobe, you know how those go. I pulled it out, and he made a full recovery. She gave me a favour. I cashed it in. But you’re different, Roche. You can’t get out like we did. You’re too valuable.”
“She has the Rabbit. It’s more of an animal than I am.”
“She doesn’t want an animal, she wants a knife, and your name still carries weight in the circles she deals in. Something to slide in and cut out the affliction with minimal collateral damage. The Rabbit is more akin to a sledgehammer.”
We chuckled together. I pulled myself up and rested my back against one of the walls of the hearse.
“I’m tired of this,” I said. “I thought I was doing good work, skirting the line and helping out both parties. I really thought I was making a difference. But stepping back after everything, I can see that I’ve just been making things worse. I mean, this whole ‘peace’ I’ve helped set up … It’s not really peace if it can come undone because of some rogue FBI agent. I’ve wanted to get out for years, but with things the way they are now, that desire is … exacerbated. What the hell happened to me?”
“You’re not the man you were before. We grow, all of us. I’m sorry about James, but she can’t milk that rage forever. And neither can you.” Our eyes met. “Everyone can see you’re getting sloppy. If you were really as brutal as people expect you to be, you wouldn’t have gotten cut up today. Or the last time. I’ve seen the mighty Iron Hand fall from grace over the past two years, and if it’s obvious to me … If you’re serious about getting out, you’ll find that opportunity and take it.”
The hearse stopped outside my building. I crawled out the back. Nightingale whistled to me, handing me a small wrap of canvas with glass rattling around inside.
“Take some if the pain gets bad. I trust you not to abuse it.”
“Much appreciated. I’ll pay you back soon,” I said.
“On the house, Roche. Stay safe.”
She closed the doors, her associate got back into the driver’s seat, and the black vehicle disappeared. Turning around to face the door of my building, I saw Yuri sitting there with a dog in his hands, his eyes wide with worry. My clothes were caked in blood from my wound, and the bandage was visible through the hole in my shirt. Thankfully, she’d cleaned my face before letting me out.
I smiled to Yuri and walked over, putting some change on the cart and taking said dog from his hands.
“You die, Mr. Roche?” The thick Russian accent was almost comical, in my state.
“No more than usual.”
“Ah, good. If you die, I must raise prices to make up for lost money.”
We laughed, enjoying each other’s company in the cold. The Plate’s turbines were open. Unable to keep up with the cold, it was letting the snow fall through down to us. Some of it fell on the street meat, but it was no matter.
“Sorry about the blood.”
“Nah,” Yuri said. “I see more blood in War. You get paper cut?”
“Okay, don’t be an ass.” I laughed again, and he gave me a hearty chuckle back. “Do you have anywhere to go for Christmas, Yuri?”
“Christmas? No. Family is all in Russia. Maybe I go back one day, but no one here to celebrate with. No one out to eat dogs, either. I go to bar some days, see boxing fights, pay good money for seats one time. Save all year for it.”
Poor bastard. He h
ad no one here. No one but me. Well, if I was turning soft, I might as well make sure everyone benefitted. “I, uh, don’t do anything for Christmas, either. I usually work for the police, you know? Recent years, I take it easy, get some brandy, and just read a good book. Nothing special.”
“Da.”
“If you need a place to stay, I wasn’t kidding about that. In any case, if I do anything for Christmas, you should come with me. Just get out of the cold for a while, put the cart in the lobby, and live a little.”
I saw a tear well up in his eye. He quickly blinked it away. “I consider it, Mr. Roche.”
My touching moment had to be ruined, of course. I’d almost expected it.
I heard tires screech as a car pulled up in front of my building. My car. The horn sounded as I grabbed a second dog and threw down some more bills. Yuri tried to object, but I left to keep him from returning the money. Allen leaped out of the car.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I could ask you the same thing,” Allen said, staring at my bloody shirt.
“Cut myself again. Shaving accident.”
“Mm-hmm …” It pursed its metal lips, but didn’t dwell on it. “We might have something on the Edison Hotel murders. We called, but you didn’t answer, so we came to get you ourselves.” It seemed almost excited. “Time to get back to work.”
“You hungry?” I asked.
Allen grinned, taking the second dog from me. We got in the car, Allen slammed on the gas, and we rocketed northward.
Deep into Maranzano territory, in an alley near 72nd and 3rd, was a burning truck. From it came the smells of toasted flesh, melted steel, and boiled alcohol. I hadn’t made this fire — that alone narrowed down possible suspects. Aside from the crispy transport filled with bodies and illicit substances, another body was slumped against a brick wall with three bullet holes in his chest. The guy was underdressed for a funeral and overdressed for being a stiff.
“Why the hell are the 7th’s boys here? I thought the 11th ran the Upper East Side,” I commented.
“Why the hell are you looking like that?” Sinclair countered.
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