Friday, January 25, 2008

Two Guns 17 - Everything is Broken

Sharon stood in a ballet of snowflakes, performed on the windy pathways of Central Park. The ice danced around her, each frozen tear of God on a course more complex than the collected writings of Spinoza. She hummed an old tune and embraced the world, her coat open and her arms spread. With the patience of a deer stalker, Mark moved behind her, softening his steps until they were too faint for human ears. His breath was hot against her neck, his hands like intense sunshine on her belly. While he drew her closer, she reached back and grabbed his head, bringing it forward for a soft kiss.

“Hold me,” she whispered.

He pulled her tighter, and she turned around, resting her head on his shoulder. He drew his coat around her, sheltering her from the cold for a moment.

They danced with the snowflakes.

---

“I had a lot of fun tonight, you know,” Sharon said with a slight giggle as they walked down the hallway outside her apartment. The jaunt through Central Park had exhausted her - even the best snuggling can’t hold off dropping core temperatures for long.
“That’s, uh, good,” he replied, scratching an itch on the back of his head. “Vince helped me plan that, you know. I’m hopeless with wines.”
“So, how long have you guys known each other?”
“Oh, we go back. Almost shot him in ‘84, back when he was still with the Cosa Nostra…but he could tell that ship was sinking, so he changed teams.”
“Ratioli’s a rat?”
“Don’t say that around him, Shar. It’s been all uphill for Vince to get anywhere after that, but now he’s the boss’s bodyguard. That takes a lot of trust, so when I tell you he’s solid, he’s solid. You get his word on anything, that’s the truth right there.”
“And he knows his wines.”
Mark grinned. “That he does.”

The door was ajar. Mark froze in his steps and motioned for Sharon to do the same, then reached below his coat for a holster that wasn’t there.

Dammit, you get sloppy one time…

Sharon tapped on his shoulder to get his attention, then bowed down and raised the hem of her dress. With a deft move, she removed a small Walther PPK from her thigh holster and readied it. Mark gave her a questioning look; she just mouthed “Daddy” and gave him a small smile. Resigned to his fate, Mark silently stepped behind her, watching the hallway behind them. Sharon put her back against the wall and proceeded towards the door, elbows bent and PPK against her shoulder, ready to let it drop into firing stance in the blink of an eye. Reaching the door, she steadied herself and mentally reviewed her training. She would swoop into the doorframe, take a quick peek and fire at anything threatening. If there were no targets, she’d keep moving to the other side of the doorframe, take a breather, slice the pie around the corner. Piece of cake, literally.

“I’m also good with locks!” came Vince’s shout from inside the apartment. Sharon took a deep breath – cursing under the same – then spun into the doorframe, quickly sweeping the room but keeping her trigger finger in check. Other than Vince – in the process of cleaning her guns –, there was nobody in there.
“Goddammit, Vincent, don’t do that ever again,” Sharon said, lowering her gun and raising her voice. “I could’ve shot you.”
“The thought crossed my mind,” he said nonchalantly, wiping some oil from her Beretta’s firing pin. “But I thought that if I called out, I wouldn’t startle you when you come in – because I know you’re the kind of woman who shoots what startles her.”
“Hesitation kills,” Sharon remarked, switched the safety on the PPK back on and set her boot on the table to holster it again.
“Hey, Vince,” Mark said as he closed the door behind him. “Uh, thanks for the cleanin’, we hadn’t gotten around to that part yet…”
“I know you usually need a poke, and Detective Collins here just spread a couple pounds of half-melted muck on the table…” – Sharon checked the table under her boot, smiled sheepishly and began to take off the boots before she could spread the mess further – “…but that’s actually not what I came here for.”
“Oh. Oh!” Mark slapped his forehead. “Christmas Dinner! Man, I’ve been a total jerk, all this romantic dinner planning stuff and I didn’t even ask if you had a spot. Well, fuck…we didn’t get doggy bags, because we finished our stuff. Even the salad, that was kind of a weird feeling, empty plates and all. It just wasn’t a lot of food, I guess…in fact, I’m kinda hungry enough for seconds. Sharon?”
“I could eat.”
“Right! Chinese cool?”
“Chinese very cool,” Sharon said, wiping the muck off the table with some paper towels.
“Vince?”

Mark’s friend just shook his head slowly.

“Still not what I’m here for,” the Italian hitman said. “You forgot your cellphone…”

“…crap,” Mark said, faking surprise quite effectively. He hadn’t forgotten his phone, it was more like ‘deliberately left behind’. What could happen in a few hours?
“Don’t worry, I covered for you. But something came up and I had to see you, because we have to take care of that situation now.”
“Situation?”
“We got photos in the mail. Boris in a bed down at Dollar’s, with yesterday’s newspaper.”

That could happen in a few hours.

“That’s all kinds of fucked up,” Mark said. “Dollar is neutral, he wouldn’t do that.”
“Maybe not, but the Russians might do it to him.”
“So it’s a trap,” Sharon threw in.
“That’s the only fact we’ve got,” Vince said, nodding as he put the Beretta back together. “Trap at Dollar’s.”
“Yeah, that…” Mark began, but stopped when Vince pointed to a shoulder rig with two Browning Hi-Power pistols hanging off the chair. “Vince, where would I be without you?”
“Retired,” Sharon threw in. “Peaceful life, blowing your savings to hell with the girl you love.”

Mark gave her a glance, trying to figure out if she was yanking his chain or spilling more than she intended to, but Vince brought down the moment by handing Sharon the reassembled Beretta.

“This is my guarantee, Detective: When you’re rolling with me, you may be up shit creek, but you’ll always have a paddle.”

---

“I think you’re too trusting, Mark,” Sharon said bluntly as the trio walked down the alley to Dollar’s basement door. “I mean, there’s the family stuff, right? Alfredo was untouchable, Alexandra’s so fresh she doesn’t have her own business cards and you back her, Vincent can do no wrong – I’m sorry, Vincent, this isn’t meant to be a dig at your personal trustworthiness but still, this is messed up. It’s not just that, though, I mean, I can sorta understand that” – Mark knocked at the door – “but then we get to people like Dollar. This guy’s a bastard and yet you’re going in, fully believing he was set up by the Russians? And let’s not forget that the whole reason we’re here is this Boris guy, who’s a Russian but somehow definitely not in league with these guys, who I haven’t even met and who might be fucking dead already…just saying.”
“Are you done?” Mark asked sweetly.
“Pretty much, yes.”

Dollar opened the door. Mark socked him in the gut with a punch like a brick dropped from orbit.

“I can see what you’re getting at,” Mark said as he stepped in. “Sometimes, I’m just too nice.”
“Okay, now that was gratuitous,” Sharon said, wincing sympathetically at Dollar’s squashed guts.
“Just a second,” Mark said and turned to Dollar, who was quite busy writhing on the floor, his jaw locked up too tightly to scream out the pain. “Let’s make this quick. I know you’ve been fucked by the Russians, and I can appreciate that this puts you in a difficult position.”
Dollar moaned incoherently. Mark went on.
“I know that you were going to tell me everything anyway, because I know you are an honest man. However, we’ve never been in a direct conflict, so I needed to show you that I am serious and will do the safety dance on your kidneys if I smell bullshit. Are we clear so far?”
Dollar’s condition was improving – not only could he understand what Mark was saying, he also managed to nod.
“Good. Me and the gang need coffee, so we’re going to help ourselves to a few cups. You just get up whenever, we’ll be waiting in the lounge.”

Without further ado, Mark stepped over Dollar, while Sharon followed more reluctantly. Vince closed the door behind him and looked down to Dollar, shaking his head.

“Woah, that was a damn good punch. You okay down there, Doc?”
“Fuck…you…” Dollar managed to spit out.
“Sounds okay to me. Hey, guys, I’m gonna go black on my coffee, right?”
“Right!” Mark shouted back.
“Hell of a punch,” Vince said, then moved on.

Dollar got back on his feet. Eventually.

---

“Okay, mo’fuckers,” Dollar said, spreading his records across the table in the lounge. He seemed to take special pleasure in making Mark lift his cup of joe from the surface. “After reviewing my documentation real careful like, I got a theory on how ol’ Boris got into this mess. Though I don’t know why you crackers need that shit, seeing as I gave you the fucking business card…”
“Yeah, yeah, that tells us where the trap is,” Mark said. “We need to figure out what makes it tick, and that means we need to know the people who assembled it.”
“Right, whatever. Let’s start here. December 12th, some Russian guy came in and bought a handful of antipsychotics off me. Haldol, specifically. That’s what they use when crazy people need to go sleepy-sleepy, but it’s got real therapeutic uses and shit at lower doses – plus, honestly, why the fuck should I care? His cash was good.”
“They track down Boris,” Mark threw in, “then they knock him out with this?”
“Possibly. Anyway, loooong hole here. Don’t see any Russians here for a long time, but if they used all the Haldol and didn’t buy none from other dealers, that shoulda given them a week or so of having Boris under control. Enough time for torture, MKULTRA shit, whatever. By the time your meeting rolls around, they’ve broken him. They get him to call in, shit goes down, you end up here. At the same time, somebody does a smash & grab from the Russians, kidnaps Boris, takes him to the pier. Probably to kill him. But he just throws Boris into the water – me, I woulda put a couple slugs through the skull, just to make sure. Anyway, by this time, Nicolai’s there, he kills the kidnapper and rescues Boris, to hear him tell it. They both show up here, I do my thing, Boris gets better over the next couple days. I discharged him just a few hours ago.”
“Wait a second,” Mark yelled. “Boris was here while you treated me, and you didn’t tell me a thing?”

Dollar leaned back and smiled.

“Neutral ground, baby,” Dollar said.
“And how the fuck did he get in when Sharon was here?”
“You really think I have only one entrance, sucker?” Dollar said. “’sides, what were you gonna do to him here? I wouldn’t let you fight here and pickups are neutral, too.”
“Pickup? They kidnapped him and you helped them!”
“You seem to be under tha impression that I’m on their side, or maybe yours right now. Fuck that noise. I’m on the side of green and the Russians had deeper pockets, you hear me?”

Mark considered that a down payment for at least two more kidney compressions, but Sharon held him back.

“This is going nowhere. We need more facts. Who was the kidnapper?” Sharon asked. “And why does Nicolai want Boris alive so badly?”
“Fuck if I know, girl. That’s what makes this such a big fucking waste of time, you guys are trying to play puzzle but I got a third of the pieces here, tops.”
“Very encouraging, Dollar.”
“You want me to put on a skirt and do a little cheerleading dance for ya? Now, guys, lemme just say something here, kind of an Uncle Dollar’s Moral of the story: Screw this investigation shit. You wanna stick your neck out for poor old Dedushka, get the fuck on with it before the Russians cancel him for good. You’re proficient at wrecking shit, so wreck shit. If you make it, hey, you can just ask him to fill in the blanks when you’re having a brew together.”
“Alright then,” Mark said, rising from his seat. He spat out a “Thank you”, his mind still weighing the loss of face over starting a fight here with the satisfaction of caving Dollar’s nose in.
“Thank me with cash,” Dollar said. “Oh, and if you hit me again, I’m gonna hunt you down and sew your asshole shut, got that?”

Mark counted off benjamins from his money clip, noted Dollar’s facial expression and finally just gave him the whole thing.

“You’re the worst person I know,” Mark said.
“Oh, that’s real funny,” Dollar replied with a grin. “Seeing how I’m the only guy in the room who never killed a man…”
“I heard different things about ‘nam…”
That added a glint of madness to Dollar’s eyes, as something broke through the marijuana-addled surface.
“Fuck ‘nam, everybody’s talking shit about ‘nam but I didn’t kill nobody, says so right in my records, zero confirmed kills, and I only ever shot to scare Charlie! ‘sides, we didn’t murder them. I defended my fuckin’ country, unlike you pansies, so don’t you go telling me about fucking ‘nam. That was the will of the people, and we gave it to them good and hard until they cried Uncle! You wanna hear my theory of justice, Simmons? Y’all are DA jackpots waitin’ to happen. I pay my taxes as a medical fuckin’ consultant, my records are all in code, I’m so clean you can run a blood culture lab on my police file. Ask yourself, if a cop car stops you and runs your ID, what kinda judgement is America gonna level on you, as a person? I ain’t afraid of no all-white jury, how do you feel about twelve of your ‘peers’?”

Mark just stared at him.

“Violence is the, uh, the last resort of the incompetent,” Dollar recited. “Now go kill shit, I got work to do.”

Disengaging from that particular trainwreck, Mark turned back to the team, finding Sharon with a worried look and Vince on the phone.

“What’s the matter, Shar?”
“I’m…how do I put this? I’m not sure I should come with you guys. I mean, the Silvestro thing, I knew that was wrong but it wasn't going to stop until we put a bullet in the guy. I’ve no stake whatsoever in this, though, and I am a cop. I can’t just go around killing people.”
“Nikolai had you at gunpoint. He’s been fucking with us all the way. We’re just evening the score.”
“I’m not saying he should be free to do this, but can’t we do this without violence? I mean, we know where he is, I can call in an ESU team.”
“And how’s that gonna be different, Shar? You think there won’t be a gunfight just because those guys have badges?”
“Yeah, I thought about that.”
"So?”

Sharon sighed.

“That’s what I’m stuck on at the moment.”
“The problem is that I can’t just leave you behind.”
“I’m your assignment.”
“You’re also my girlfriend,” Mark said with a smile, “so I have to protect you twice as much.”
“This is how every crooked cop story ever starts. Rules become inconveniences. And I refuse to play this point of no return game. If I fucked up with Silvestro, if I made a mistake by getting involved with you, that’s a problem, but I won’t keep digging the hole.”

Mark sighed deeply. Say the right thing…

“You know what Jesus told the prostitute, right?” he said.
“Are you saying I’m a prostitute?”
“More importantly,” Vince threw in, “does that mean you’re Jesus?”

There was the glimmer of a smile on Sharon’s face, so he ignored the barbs and continued.

“He said, go forth and sin no more.” Mark lifted Sharon’s head by the chin. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”
"I just can't do this," Sharon said, playing with the strap of her shoulder holster. "DA's office is already on me for the hotel shootout, and this isn't really my fight anyway."
"I understand," Mark nodded. "But I can't leave you home alone."
"I'll just stay here."
"Aw hell no!" Dollar exclaimed, trying to punctuate his expression with an evil stare, but Mark beat him quite squarely at that.
"I don't like leaving you here," the assassin said. "On the other hand, I do like pissing off Dollar."
"So it's settled?" Sharon asked, a small smile returning to her face.
"Be back soon."

Sharon reached out, narrowly missing Mark's hand as he turned away and left with Vincent. Sharon stood there, arms crossed, until the sound of Mark's car faded into the distance.

"Fuck you, bitch," Dollar growled. "Fuck you and the gangster you ride in on."
"I'm thinking hot chocolate," Sharon said.
"Screw you. There, how's that sound? I figure, well, that bitch gets a lot of fucking, maybe she don't even hear that anymore. So, screw you. Wait, he does that, too, don't he? I bet he's all sensitive and goes down on ya real good." Dollar's face switched into a grin, as if somebody had flipped his switch from surly to sweet. "But if you into that shit, babe,you's wasting your time on white boy, 'cause I do like me women who know what they want, your standards can't be that high and we got some time to pass..."
"With marshmallows." Dollar took a deep breath for his next assault, but Sharon quickly continued her line. "If you don't have any, your teeth will do."
"I don't think you can actually pull that shit off, sugar. I'm a trained fuckin' soldier, US Army, I got me a Purple Heart and shit, and you..."

With a stunning economy of violence, Sharon elbowed Dollar right on the nose. He went down with a yelp and rolled around the floor in pain the second time in as many hours.

"No sugar," she said, then went off in search of somewhere to sit down.

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Two Guns 16 - Sweet Dreams

The streets of Manhattan were busy on Christmas Eve, but Mark and Sharon didn't seem to acknowledge that. They walked down 5th Avenue hand in hand, little snowflakes dancing around them.

"So what did you want to be?" she asked.
"Astronaut. I thought it was gonna get me closer to God."

Sharon smiled.

"Okay, you're smiling," Mark acknowledged. "But I'm still confused. This is your 'Keep talking' smile, not your 'I'm about to mock you' smile."
"How many smiles do I have?" she purred.
"Quite a few, but shouldn't you know?"
"I rarely practice my smiles in front of a mirror," Sharon explained. "That's like asking me about the hairs in the back of my neck, how am I supposed to see that?"
"I thought being a woman came with full control over all the little details that drive men insane."
"Maybe it does, but I traded my wiles for soldier's hands and sailor's tongue. Now I can cuss with the best of them, but strangely enough it scares them off when it comes to dating."
"Oh, come on. You're smart, you're hot, don't tell me I'm your first guy."
"Would you want to know if there had been others?"
"Of course I would! A good relationship can stand up to honesty and comparisons. Mind you, it's pummeling exes and potential rebounds with a baseball bat that really makes a couple tight."
"It figures I date a hitman just after the shrink lays my revenge fantasies to rest."
"You see a shrink?" he asked; they stopped at a pedestrian crossing waiting for the signal to change.

Sharon snuggled up closer.

"Many cops do. Police work is stressful, even when people aren't trying to kill you in particular. Why do you think I smoke?"
"Because you want to sound like Clint Eastwood?"

She gently elbowed him in the ribs, fortunately not on the injured side.

"Okay, message received, funny time is over," Mark said, trying not to wince. "So there's a lot of stress."
"I never wanted to buy into that 'thin blue line' bullshit. We're all just people, we're all trying to get through the day. I figured, hey, everybody knows the rules, occasionally they gamble and occasionally they lose their shit, but we're all human, right? That's what I used to think when I started, but around here, idealism seems to get you kicked harder. I get people like Silvestro, or even Nikolai, they're ruthless and it's all about power for them, but every now and then you go after a really sick bastard. I used to be in Vice, you know."
"Ooh..." Mark drawled, but Sharon interrupted him.
"Not undercover, don't get your hopes up. Anyway, we were crackin' down on this guy in Queens...well, long story short, child pornography."

Mark's hand tightened as they crossed the street.

"And it wasn't even that he had raped those kids, made photos and sold them...no, that was his fucking hobby. He sold them, but just to cover his costs. He wasn't even making any fucking money off it, and best of all, he'd been doing it for years. The only way we were able to track him down is because he'd lost his job, so he tried reaching out to new customers and got one of our informants."
"That's fucked up."
"We got a conviction on three cases. Three cases. That was all we could prove. He'd been doing it for God knows how long and we barely got him locked away for ten years. Now, that was extreme. I'm not trying to go for moral panic here, okay? Most of the time, we nailed those guys, we had a decent percentage of convictions, and he was like a whole different level, a freak accident. But if you ask me, even one's too many. The whole thing tore me up pretty bad, I asked for a transfer to Organized Crime. I figured, hey, at least these guys have a proper motive going on. The Mafia doesn't kill people because it gets them off."
"What would you have done to him? I mean, if you could've done anything you wanted."
"I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel like breaking his face, good and hard, but I wouldn't have acted on that. I'm a cop, I enforce the law and sometimes you just gotta be better than you'd like to be. Paperwork, gunfights, forget it - being a cop is doing it the hard way, every time."
"Character is what you are in the dark," Mark said with a rigid face.

Sharon pulled back and gave him a distrustful look. Mark shrugged.

"I read books, too," he said, and smiled.

---

Ded wasn't dead, and that was a crying shame. Sure, there was a basic gratefulness for being alive, but nothing compared to the feeling of sucking icy water into his lungs, the panic, the fear...and the knowledge that it was possible they'd do it to him again, just for kicks. Ded was too old to develop new phobias, or so he tried to tell himself. No more swimming for this Russian.

Then he opened his eyes. Bad move.

"All yours, chief," he heard Dollar say. Dollar...what was he doing here? His eyes managed to dial down the illumination from searing photon daggers to a more reasonable dimness, and he spotted Nikolai at the side of the bed, counting off cash for the underground doctor.

"You..." he managed to say, but found his hands chained to the bed. Even if they hadn't been, he was in no shape to fight.
"You'd best start sucking my dick now, old man," Dollar said. "Hypothermia, water in your lungs, no heartbeat, not to mention all the shit that happened to you before you stumbled into Superfund River - you were a mess when you came in, a big stinking mess. Thank your lucky stars that your pal here jumped in after you and dragged you out of there. By all rights, that shoulda killed him, too."
Ded looked over to Nikolai, who gave him a curiously friendly nod. "He's not my pal," Ded said.
"3000 bucks says he is," Dollar said, counting his bounty. "Oh, and I managed to set that finger right. No piano sessions, but you'll have some mobility."
"Why are you doing this, Nicky? Berkovitz was about to rid you of your biggest problem and you shoot the guy?"
"I never meant to kill you, Boris," Nikolai said. "I respect you. When the war is won, I will gladly return you to power - and keep you on the right path. Now, I had an agreement with Berkovitz that he would keep himself and his Captain out of this, but he thought he could make his own play. Instead, he suffered the fate he had laid out for you. It seems fitting, somehow. Anyway, we will keep you in a safe house until this blows over and we have eliminated Marcus Simmons."
"Simmons? What happened to the kid?"

Dollar looked to Nikolai.

"I patched him up," the doctor said. "I don't play favorites."
"I respect that," Nikolai answered. "You take the Hippocratic oath seriously."
"I also got me an accountant, tells me that makin' money is good."

Nikolai smiled, but Ded grinned.

"Nicky, I got news for you. You fucked it up. Simmons will wipe his ass with your moustache."
"You have been unconscious for the better part of a week, Boris." Nikolai scratched the back of his neck. "We have not heard a peep from your 'kid'. He is clearly marshalling his forces for a decisive strike. But rest assured, we are working on the problem. This time, we will tackle him at a location of our choosing."
"I won't help you, Nicky. If you think I'll trick him again, you'd better just shoot me now."
"Fortunately, this trick does not require your active participation. You remember Sasha, yes? He is my trusted lieutenant, and he likes you, too. Why, he was visiting you just yesterday..."

Dollar gulped, while Nikolai reached into his coat and produced a handful of photos.

"He thought it would be great if you had some...what is the word? Ah, yes...memento of your stay here. We will see to it that Marcus Simmons receives copies of these. He should recognize the place..."
"Hold on there," Dollar said. "3000 bucks one-time doesn't make me your accomplice, Commissar Backstabsky."
"I have considered this," Nicolai said, then handed a business card to Dollar. "I do not require you to lie for me. When Marcus Simmons shows up, simply give him this. I can pay you for the service, if you wish it so."
"I ain't leading Simmons into no trap of yours."
"Please do not torture yourself with the notion of choice, Doctor Walker. The photos are on their way already, which means Marcus Simmons will come here and ask you about anything you know of Boris's location. I suppose you could refuse to give him this address, but I believe he is rather liable to just beat it out of you. Feel free to protest that this was not your idea or that it will lead him into a trap. He is unlikely to care."
"The patient's ready to move," Dollar snarled. "I suggest y'all move before I develop a conscience and schedule you for brain surgery with my four-four."
"No hard feelings, Doctor Walker," Nikolai said with a smile. "I'd hate for a good man like you to start picking a side - especially the wrong side..."