Things Could Be Stranger

Part 1

 

It was one of those nights; rain pounding the streets like a boxer’s bag, relentless, heavy, shattering into a million shards of water with every blow until the world looked stretched to explosion. The streets were mostly empty; not many would brave a night like this without being either paid a great deal of money, or suffering from hereditary stupidity, and as I think I comfortably fit into both those categories it well explained why I stood under the pink neon sign of a tattoo parlour, hunched into my trench coat, and wondering if a quick turn under the needle was worth half an hour out of the downpour.

The generous sprinkling of half smoked butts making a sodden pyre at my feet was testimony as to either exactly how much money I was being paid or how stupid I was, for suffering the abuses of this particularly miserable night, and as I tried to pull a few lungs from another before the rain extinguished it, despite all my leaning guard, I glanced up to the lights of a car cutting a distorted beam through the hurtling drops.

I didn’t need to see the plates to recognise the rumble and dimensions of a government wagon; stretched, sleek and jet, intimidating the night, bulletproof and equipped with all the necessities a ripe politician might need for an evening of debauchery and license.

As it purred to a stop opposite I slunk back into the shadows, more exposed to the rains trying to work their way into my skin, but deep in the shadows of the old brickwork making up this part of town.

Not many men from the hill made fell their way down here, and if they did it was usually without trying to draw such attention, but if I were right the man in that car was about as concerned with public opinion and reputation as the storm was paying attention to my self-wallowing.

Two of the doors opened and suits large enough to intimidate small countries rose into the night, oblivious to the rain they cast around the car for a moment, experienced eyes flowing over and through the night. I felt a tension rise in my chest which was only partly due to the three packs I’d hacked my through that day as they scanned the recess I was concealed within, but their eyes showed no sign of pause and in a moment they’d concluded their perfunctory if cautious rifle of the night.

Spitting open a generous umbrella one of the mutants opened the rear door to the stretch and solicitously covered the exit as another figure slowly emerged from the depths. He paused for a moment while the other brute lit his cigar, puffed out a veritable cloud and then the three moved over sidewalk towards a deserted featureless five storey building, climbed the few steps before the old heavy double wooden doors and disappeared into the lightless interior.

Although I felt just standing in this damn rain should earn my evening’s dough it wasn’t in the contract; hell, the contract wasn’t in the contract, but the retainers fee was paid, and spent, and I had a mind to collect on the rest of that promissory note and so padded across the street, lit by a couple of mellowed streetlamps and the neon into some 50’s rerun, while the rain seemed to be trying to warn me off as it soaked its way through my already chilled bones, and made cold feet all the heavier as the filled worn boots.

It didn’t seem prudent to enter through the front, so I cut down the alley running along the building, an obstacle course of dumpster and trash, puddle and oppression. The air thickened to stifling as I breathed in the wet summer humidity, and even with the dampening effect of the deluge the refuse stank worse than a French breakfast.

About halfway down the alley I vaguely made out a fire escape zigzagging up the side of the building, so manhandling a dumpster as quietly as I could I managed to jump for the lowest rung of the ladder and eventually, with perhaps more under-breath cursing than Sister Mary would have approved of, managed to haul myself up to the first platform.

I moved to the nearest window and tried to make out anything through grime so layered with time it might have held the ancient secrets to enlightenment somewhere in its pages, but all I could see in the dark interior was dark interior, so I carefully stole up the slick metal steps to the next level, to be met with similar secrecy.

It wasn’t until I reached the fifth floor I received some return on my investment; here through the now familiar grime I could barely make out a pale yellow glow of illumination spilling out from a room sunk into the midst of this floor.

Miss Luck might not have been in a dry humour today, but she’s as fickle a mistress as any dame, as she had generously left the window unlatched, and while older than the car I constantly paid out on to allow it to keep breaking down, it slid up on runners still spritely enough to keep grumbling from the retirement home.

As quietly as one can while squelching in boots wet enough to water the Sudan I slipped into the building and up to the nearest wall, waiting for a moment to see if my entrance had attracted attention, but for the moment all was as silent as the grave, although I was painfully reminded of trying to creep back into the orphanage after hours and making it all the way back to my bunk before good Sister Mary decided to introduce her presence with her favourite slipper.

After a minute or so I was just gathering enough confidence to shuffle a little closer to the light when I heard a dull thumping sound, followed by a muffled grunt. This was a sound I had no great need to waste time deciphering, as I’d been the recipient and utterer myself upon more than one occasion, and knew some poor guy was taking a beating within that lonely room.

I pulled out my Beretta Px4 nine mm and cocked its regularly oiled muzzle silently, then eased myself around the edge of the door and rolled my way down the corridor towards the sounds coming now at regular intervals from the dimply lit room in front.

Passing several other pitch black orifices I had images of thugs jumping out from the midnight shadows, but nothing disturbed my careful approach until I lingered for a moment just outside the empty frame. Edging my way a fraction around the frame I glanced into the room and drew back again. I’d seen some poor chump tied to a chair with his back to me, one of the mutants poised to lay another heavy one on him, and perhaps a glimpse of another man standing deep in the shadows at the far end of the room.

The math was uncomfortably unbalanced, but after another quick glance around didn’t see anyone else out here with me and the shadows, so I guessed he’d be somewhere on this side of the room, but which side of the door?

Odds and I have a history of disagreements, so I was in no rush to play, but moneys had been exchanged, and the fee to come could clear a lot of debts, more urgent than a dog on the moon, for me, so taking a deep breath I spun into the room, pistol levelled and tried to cover the whole room in my turn.

I was happily surprised when I found the other Neanderthal standing to the left of the punisher, that was right until the crack of something heavy pounded into the back of my neck, and as the world went dark the last thought to cross my mind was Sister Mary shouting at me to include the one…

 

Part 2

 

First came some sound; more a throbbing in my temples than anything recognisable, then, more like the hangover after a week with the bottle, a pounding in the sides of my head. Finally, voices made it through the smithy’s frenzy, and I began to pick out separate words distinguishing themselves from the mass for a moment and then diving back into the seething ocean of pain.

I let myself hang heavy against the bonds I could feel strapping my chest to a chair, feigning unconsciousness as I tried to sort out words from the seven dwarfs trying to chip a bypass through my skull. The muttering spikes eventually resolved themselves into tangible lumps, but as the words became clear so did their suspicion of my wakefulness and my head was roughly hauled back by the hair and my eyes pulled wider than Sister Mary’s girth.

One of the gorillas stuffed into a man-suit was grinning in front, the other I supposed had his hands tangled in my hair, the senator and whoever had been watching their captive, and had got the drop on my stupidity, were standing a little to the side.

The fat senator Richard Climes approached, a fat Cuban nestled habitually in his pudgy hand, and mused down at me from the elevated position of four chins. “It’s Malcolm isn’t it, Malcolm Disco… a strange name. PI to the shabby and worthless, those without the means to employ someone with any actual ability…”

I was sorely tempted to point out the fact they didn’t have enough money for someone better because he raped them of all their hard-earned money, but thought in my certain circumstances this might not be the most advantageous of returns, so just stared back at him. To be honest I had little choice in the staring, unless I fancied a quick examination of the webbed dank ceiling, but it was nice to keep up at least a little pretence over free will.

After a moment of this he gestured to the heavy by his side who kindly introduced his fist to the side of my face. The meeting was electric and some of my hair was ripped out as my head tore free of the restraining hand. Shaking it a little and tonguing a tooth in curiosity I spat out a little salty blood and returned my gaze to the senator.

By now my hands were beginning to stretch the rope they’d tied them with, but I wasn’t quite sure what I’d actually do if I managed to get them free, However opportunities inevitably present themselves, and best be prepared when they do. Sister Mary had always beaten ‘God helps those who help themselves’ into us, so everything in the room seemed strangely familiar as another blow landed on the other side of my face, quickly followed by one to the gut which had me retching for breath and wondering if I vomited I could get a little on the senator expensive shoes.

At a word the thug stopped tenderising me and I managed to heave a couple of breaths and bring my vision back into something resembling focus, only to discover them hauling the other poor schmuck who looked unable to stand on his own, and incidentally the husband of my employer I’d been paid to track down and return after his disappearance from his laboratory workplace, to stand directly in front of me.

“You came here to help this man…” It wasn’t a question, and I had too much blood in my mouth to bother answering “Here is how you will set him free…”

I strained at my bonds as my own pistol was raised in the hands of one of the thugs, and then a whole clip was pumped into the chest of my paycheck. Well, of all the rotten no good things to do; to steal a man’s wages with his own damn gun!

“It appears his wife will have to suffer from your awful vengeance and wrath Mr Disco, you really are a quite notorious man; I don’t think many will disbelieve your depravity. Take him to her home, kill her, then splash him down in whiskey and drive him into a tree; oh, and break his neck before the impact.” I wouldn’t give him many points for imagination, but at ruthless immorality he must have been pride of his school (probably beating his way there with the use of large school boys and copious bribes).

The senator and his lackey left the room, while I was treated to a fairly thorough going over by the balloon twins. After quite a lot of punishment I feigned a, very little, more incapacity than was strictly true, and was then roughly dragged to my feet, down the five flights of stairs and thrown into the boot of a nondescript car that had miraculously appeared from on the street.

It didn’t take much more worming to get my hands free, and with a little help from a toolset rather foolishly left in the trunk I managed to open the boot (waste not want not; one of Sister Mary’s near infinite clichés), keeping it close as the car sped through the hammering rain towards its terminal journey.

The moment it pulled up before my newly widowed client, a rather large house set back behind a flat expanse of lawn dotted with the occasional strategically positioned conifer (strategic for what I couldn’t fathom, but it had probably cost a great deal in planning and execution – ‘those not to reason why’ once more echoed Sister Mary), I rolled out of the trunk and sprinted directly away from the car, ducked into some bushes as the two thugs emerged from the vehicle, and began to slowly circle around until I held myself crouched at the edge of the lawn about halfway to the dark house.

Raindrops dripped through the leaves, apparently each and every one deciding the back of my coat to be the most direct route to the muddy earth, and the constant drumming on the leaves and ground nearly muffled the curses and obscenities coming from the thugs as they discovered my absence.

They had no way of knowing where I had absconded and milled around for quite a while as their peanut brains tried to formulate some strategy without the direction of their boss.

Much as I expected they finally decided on the most natural course of action for their particular disposition and started to make their laborious way over the lawn to kill my client and sort out any small temporal anomalies to their plan after the fact. As they lumbered forward I hefted a nice rock from the edge of the lawn and with a lofty throw managed to land it right on the head of the leading thug.

Predictably, if not pleasantly, they immediately opened fire on the bushes and trees I was secreted beneath, which didn’t do their stealth factor any favours and in a moment lights from the house and another one or two beside and across the road were flickering on.

This finally had the desired effect as after a conversation which remarkably enough only lasted about two minutes, they slowly withdrew from the lawn, climbed back into the car and drove off to, hopefully, make their report and receive whatever chastisement they would incur from their employer.

There was no way to be sure they had left for good, or how long it would take the cops to turn up, if they’d even been alerted to the gunshots, so I was up and running across the lawn to the house in a trice. On arrival I banged on the door a few times, but there was no answer so I tried the handle as a formality and then kicked in the front door.

Dashing into the house under such circumstances was perhaps an error in judgement and the last thought I had before whatever heavy cudgel-like object clubbed me into familiar unconscious was Sister Mary shouting over and over again about knocking…

 

Part 3

 

Waking up this time was, if not pleasant, then at least far less uncomfortable than upon the previous occasion, and rising unsteadily from the expensive leather couch and fingering the latest knobble to my skull I idly wondered how the poor eternally suffering thing still managed to hold together without the aid of superglue and duck-tape.

A generous glass of whiskey was placed in my hand before my eyes were working again, but the perfume of the giver smelled of beautiful and rich so I knew my client was the charitable beneficiary. I shot the lot and optimistically offered the glass, which was immediately refilled, but before I had a chance to down the next the inquisition began.

I lit a smoke for each of us as I broke the news about the demise of her husband, but she seemed far from inconsolable at his death. She was however more than frightened when I informed her of their intentions concerning her and she nearly bolted there and then.

There was little for it but to get her away from the house so in a few minutes the two of us were once more driving through the pelting rain, only this time in her spanking new Mercedes SLS AMG, perhaps not the most discreet of vehicles for a getaway, but certainly the coolest.

She drove under my directions to a bar whose owner owed me a whole handful of favours and stashed the car in a street one block away reached down another alley. Obtaining entrance through the kitchens we were soon ensconced in Reggie’s office and I was soothing my multiple cuts and abrasions with a bag of ice and a bottle of scotch.

Reggie had excused himself and was off doing whatever proprietors do when they’re not in their office and I was wondering at our next move.

“I’ve told you; I have no idea why they would want my husband.” Claimed the lying bundle of slender legs, slim waist, generous bosom and strikingly beautiful bundle of sexy all rolled into a long skirt and lose silk blouse through pouting lips begging for a kiss. I still had some hopes for granting that wish so didn’t press her on her obvious deception, but tried to come at the thing from a different angle.

“I have no idea what he was working on in his laboratory; he never discussed his work at home.” Came a fresh untruth from her falsely quivering full lips, which had somewhere managed to make the time to apply a little lipstick pleading so invitingly to be smeared off I was forced to down another full glass before I could compose myself again.

“As far as I knew he had no relationship to the senator, and I’ve never met him.” Was the final straw and I leaned back with my bag of ice and whiskey for a moment’s reprieve from libido as the combination of lies and seduction working their way steadily into my drying underwear had my concentration right on the ragged edge.

There was a sudden commotion from outside the office, and wouldn’t you know it all my pessimism about Reggie’s sudden departure turned out to be right on the mark. Leaping to my feet I ran to his desk, and kicked open the locked draw I knew he kept his Smith and Wesson M&P Shield, and grabbing up a couple of spare clips I darted to the far side of the door just as it burst open and we were treated to the great pleasure of another visit from the ugly twins.

The screaming of my client was suitably distracting so while the thug lowered MY pistol at my employer I put a couple of slugs into the side of his head, swung into the open doorway and dropped his ‘brother’ with two taps to the chest and one to the forehead, only to discover at least five or six other members of homo bloody huge standing around outside among the fleeing patrons, hefting a whole arsenal of fully automatic weapons…

Thinking this might be a good time to depart the premises along with all the other sensible souls I put a shot into the head of the nearest gun toting aggressor and hurled myself back into the room before the hail of bullets filled me with enough holes to make Swiss cheese envious, and the rats did indeed come running.

Scrabbling along the expensive carpet on elbows and hip bones I finally managed to scoop up my faithful gun and make it back to my employer without any new holes decorating my precious body, who on her hands and knees behind the sofa didn’t seem to actually need to pause in her screaming to breath, managing to continue the banshee wail (possibly doing more damage to the local glass than the continuous hail of flying lumps of lead), at a fairly steady and constant pitch.

Occasionally firing randomly over the sofa top I scanned the room for possible escape routes; knowing Reggie there just had to be another concealed way out of his office, but couldn’t see any hopeful prospects. Shouts were coming from outside the room and I guessed the guys were gathering themselves for a rush, so swapped clips, I palmed Reggie’s gun in my left, my trusty Beretta in my right and reeled up as I heard pounding boots, firing both guns into the narrow doorway and its outer edges hoping a few shots might pass through the walls on either side.

That gave them reason to pause, and dropping back under the returning hail of shots my ears once more came under close barrage from the unending peal of terror escaping from my employee’s now not so gorgeous mouth. Sliding new clips into place I surveyed the room again as the guys outside began working themselves up to another charge. I think I had downed another, perhaps wounded a fifth, but having no idea of how many were out there meant that I could take no comfort in my superior aim, or gratefully accepted luck.

There was little more I could think of, I saw absolutely no recourse, so reeling up once more and emptying my Beretta into the next room I scooped up my employer at the waist, and despite her struggles managed to take the three steps to the window and hurl the two of us through before any of the aggressors could take advantage of our vulnerability.

Shattering glass and splinters of wood accompanied our fall, the doll’s screaming rising and falling as she spun closer and away again from my tender eardrums, lights and motion as the surrounding city swung a crazy dance about my head and the damned rain still pounding down turned everything into anarchy in a cold shower.

We crashed into the dumpster I had prayed would be in its usual location and while I tried to once again breath, pull what might have been a used nappy from my face, and drag my client to out of her headfirst 7.4, I heaved myself to my feet and trained Reggie’s Smith at the remains of the window above.

Tipping the dumpster with a shoulder charge we rolled out of the thing onto hard tarmac; a combination of hard street and soft posterior bringing a most delightful squeal from my client and in a moment we were up and running for the alley opposite. Through the rain I could vaguely make out shapes massing around the front of the club, but with the weight of the downpour and general confusion I think we made it into the alley unnoticed.

She’d finally finished screaming as I stood her up against the brick wall and returned to the alley mouth to check for pursuit, but there was apparently none. I was then introduced to my third shock of what was becoming a really long night as what I only hoped wasn’t something too nasty descended upon my head once more; all too familiar stars leapt into vision and then faded out to the harsh voice of Sister Mary repeating ‘look at me when I’m talking to you’.

 

Part 4

 

Perhaps it was the constant repetition of hard blows to the head, perhaps hammering adrenalin, or maybe just damn stubbornness in the end cinched it, but this time I didn’t black out fully. I shook off the fog as I heard my double crossing client’s heels tapping away into the rain and managed to drag my knees back under me, then with a little aid from the stalwart wall wobbling shakily back to my feet.

As soon as I could manage I began to weave my way in the direction she’d taken off in, determined to get to the bottom of tonight’s fiasco, and soon arrived at where we’d left her outrageously expensive automobile.

Caution thumped me in the head, or perhaps the residues of three sharp blows, a general pounding and fall from a building into a dumpster, but whatever it was I pulled up short before running out of the alley; just in time to see my client being rudely spun from where she was rooting through the trunk of her car by yet another leviathan, another identical thug (wondering if there was a factory line somewhere just hammering them out), standing to the side, and wouldn’t you just know it… our beloved Senator Dick and his lackey holding his umbrella standing nearby.

At this point I’d had just about as my relatively long, under normal circumstances, fuse could manage. I crept out from the alley, keeping low behind parked cars as I approached the group, trying to spot if there were any more unexpected gifts for the back of my head in the vicinity, and trying to blink the unending rivulets of rain from my tired eyes.

Somehow unnoticed, I managed to get behind the senator’s big sleek stretch and eased my way down the far side until I was only a metre or two from the corrupt politician. Quite unsure of what to do next I took the very first option to spring to mind and slipped up behind the fat man, slid one hand around his many necks and dug the gun hard into his ribs (a job not nearly so easy as you might thing considering it was a compact).

Everything froze, except the damn rain… one of the thugs pulled the girl closer and put his gun under her neck, the other trained his generally in my vicinity, but I doubted he would risk a shot with the senator literally filling his line of fire, the secretary leapt away and stood off somewhere in between, nervous eyes twitching back and forth between the two groups.

“Now, now my boy; let’s not be hasty about things now. I’m sure we can find a peaceful solution to all this upset.” Came the oily voice far too close to my ear for comfort.

I just wanted a bottle, a packet and a bed by now and was in far too much pain and suffering from exhaustion to be very bothered with negotiations; telling them to drop the guns and depart and then I’d let the senator go.

I was truly shocked, as too apparently was the senator, when the guys slowly lowered their guns to the floor and took a couple of steps back. The secretary also eased away further from the conflict and I was left feeling rather pleased with my bold audacity. This was of course when the bullet went through the top of my right shoulder, spinning me off balance and releasing the senator to stumble to his knees (Sister Mary screaming ‘arrogance will be your downfall’ in my tortured ears)…

Of course the car had a damned driver I cursed my stupidity as I tried to raise my arm and return fire in the general direction the shot had come from. All I managed was to trigger up a few spits of tarmac, but it had the same effect anyway as the driver ducked back down behind the bonnet of the stretch.

Dropping into a sitting position behind the trunk I managed to wing one of the thugs as he gather up his gun, but before I could manage much else of anything the broad I was working for had somehow managed to procure the other heavy’s gun and proceeded to blast them both from existence, emptying the full clip into the two off them with while wildly inaccurate aim, close enough proximity to get the job nicely done.

The senator was cowering on his knees, flabby hands trying to engulf his head. His secretary had somehow taken one in the belly and was hunched over trying to hold his insides together, I thought that one might have come from the driver, and blood was soaking its way down the front of my filthy shirt and through the battered material of my trench coat.

Darkness and shock were creeping in from the edges now, but I couldn’t let the lethargy take me, so manfully staggering up to my feet I sent a bullet down the left side of the car as I turned to crouch my way down the left. As hoped for the driver had swung to face the direction of the first shot so I promptly let him have it twice in the back.

He wasn’t finished yet though and stumbling away into the street and waving his gun around in haphazard fashion he began to fire shots all over the place. I finished him with a head shot, and cradling my injured arm cautiously checked to see if he was really dead, then keeping a wide birth of the stretch (a little late, but Sister Mary and all that), made my slow way back to the sight of the most recent massacre.

It was then I saw my client leaning heavily against the floor. I hurried past the now either dead or unconscious secretary and the cowering senator to her side and tried to support her. She was bleeding out rapidly from a shot to her upper chest and even at a glance I could see it would end her.

I tried to hold her close, but all I received for my generosity was yet another clout about the head, this time quite feeble, but the butt of her gun landed right on a recent bruise and the shock shivered through my frame.

“What fucking use were you?” Were her last words as she tottered over to the other thug, gathered up his gun and finally slumped to her knees before the senator. He raised his head at the sound of her arrival and through hair matted to his head, and a mixture of tears and rain running down quivering jowls tried to utter a word, but she had no patience and just shot him in the mouth before slumping down over his corpse.

The rain stopped…

I thumbed a butt from a sodden packet, lit the end after a few attempts with a trembling zippo and looked at the street. I decided not to wait to explain all this to the authorities and as my client wouldn’t be objecting decided to appropriate her car.

Sitting behind the wheel, cigarette slowly drying as the hot ash burned closer to my battered cut lips, and a little Marley’s Three Birds playing from a stereo system that probably cost more than my apartment I was too tired to even wonder what it was all about (Sister Mary muttering something about ‘no rest for the wicked’)…