by Adam Smith
Max nodded, then raised his hand and counted down silently on his fingers. Three, two, one…
Bones ground in his shoulder as Max hit the wall. The combined strength of the two charging men pounded into the weakened wall and punched a jagged hole through into the next room. Dust rose from the shattered drywall and made Max cough as he raised his pistols and glanced around. The second room was an almost identical copy of the first, right down to the nauseating perfume smell that was giving him a slight headache.
Kate screamed insults as she fired her rifle up the hall.
Beside him, Nick waved a hand to clear the air around his face. “Max, how many doors did you count in the hallway on each side?”
Max coughed again. “Five.”
“Same here. Probably another wall or two before we reach the targets.”
“Really giving me my workout today, Nick.”
“Sorry about that.” Nick raised his rifle and aimed at the wall. “You ready?”
“Do it.”
The next room was also empty. When they crashed through into the fourth bedroom, they finally came face-to-face with two startled gangsters. In a swirling cloud of dust, Max raised his pistols and dropped the two black-suited men.
Behind him, Nick’s rifle cracked. Three more gangsters stacked up against a doorjamb across the hall tumbled over each other as their corpses sprayed blood across the polished oak floor.
“Through the wall again?” Nick asked.
“Nah.” Max walked to the door and fired up the hall. From his new angle he easily blew away the men in the next doorway.
Nick crouched down, poked his automatic rifle around the corner, and gunned down the men on his side of the hall. He swiveled and sprayed the last few men huddled in the central doorway at the end of the hall.
Kate jogged up the hallway and met the two cops as they stepped out of the bedroom and ambled toward the central door. That doorway led to another hallway with only two doors: one at the far end and one halfway up the wall on the left.
Gunmen kicked in the far door and opened fire with automatic rifles. Max, Kate, and Nick had no choice but to hurl themselves through the door on their left to escape the barrage.
Darkness swallowed Max. The crash of gunfire intensified, and he prepared to be stitched with burning lead. When no searing pain came, he glanced around and realized he and his friends stood in a private movie theater.
Stadium seating for forty guests rose to the right. A projector descended from the ceiling and splashed a vivid scene across the wall to Max’s left. Pale women in brightly colored bikinis were swinging swords and machineguns around as they battled in a free-for-all against robots and werewolves.
“I can’t believe it!” Max said. “Even this pervert got to see Undead Bikini Bimbos before I did!”
“Is this number three?” Nick asked.
“No, this is number four, Jugs of Justice.”
“Ah, man. I’ve been wanting to see that.”
“You two and Papa Sal, you’re all perverts,” Kate sighed.
Both men shot her indignant looks.
“This is a great series,” Nick said. “The films are extremely faithful to the comics.”
“The action scenes are top-notch,” Max agreed. “And yeah, the writers stayed true to the original source material.”
Kate rolled her eyes. “You guys are even worse than perverts: you’re comic nerds.”
Suddenly, the far door across the theater slammed open. Two gunmen in business suits burst through and fired at Max, Kate, and Nick. The three friends hit the deck and returned fire.
One of the gunmen caught a bullet from Max’s pistol in his throat. As he gasped and wheezed for breath, his flailing gun continued to fire into the room. One of the bullets nailed the projector, which erupted in a shower of sparks. The movie screen faded to a dull white background.
“Damn!” Max yelled. “Again?” He nailed the dying man in the chest and put an end to the random shooting.
The last gunman fell, and the three friends stepped over the corpses on their way through the door. Behind them, Max could hear the tromping of many feet as more thugs joined the pursuit.
A short hallway and another door led to a private gymnasium, though the room was large enough to serve as a commercial facility for dozens of customers. Every machine was painted the same garish red as Papa Sal had splashed over the rest of his palace.
At the far end of the cavernous room, Max saw Papa Sal staring at him from a doorway. The crime lord raised the middle fingers on both hands and shot Max a fabulous double eagle before ducking through the blue door and disappearing.
Anger bubbled up inside Max. He charged through the rows of weight machines in pursuit of his target.
Unfortunately, more gunmen popped up from behind machines and burst through doors lining the far end of the room. Max was caught in a blistering crossfire and rolled behind a row of free weights. Bullets rang off the metal dumbbells lining the racks.
“Max!” Kate called to him. “Don’t go too far!”
“That greasy meatball is right in front of me,” raged Max. “I’m not letting him get away!” He wove between standing workout devices, narrowly avoiding the storm of gunfire.
Nick and Kate laid down automatic fire as they struggled to follow. Enemy fire intensified and filled the air behind Max, pinning his two friends in place.
Max blew holes in two gangsters who blocked his path and surged into the open. A ten-foot stretch led to the blue door Papa Sal had disappeared through only a handful of seconds before.
Gunfire tore through the air behind him. Bullets buzzed by his ears and clipped his flesh. He almost regretted the decision to rush ahead but knew that if he caught Papa Sal the reward would be worth any risk.
Max reached the blue door and slammed straight through it.
Movement flickered in the corner of his right eye, and pain exploded through the back of his head.
Max crashed to the floor. A cracking thud rang through his skull as his head rebounded from the floorboards. He dropped one gun but clutched tight to the other. In a daze, he lay face-down on the ground. His blurry eyes barely made out the red tiles under his face.
A pair of polished black shoes stepped into view. Max strained to raise his head and saw crisp white pantlegs above the shoes just before one of the feet kicked the hand holding his remaining pistol. Pain lanced through his hand, and Max screamed.
Then a voice like the rumbling of an oncoming storm filled Max’s ears and sent ice water lancing through his veins. “Nighty night, Cain,” Johnny Legion said.
Pain exploded through his head again, and the dark abyss of unconsciousness swallowed Max whole.
Chapter 25
Facing the Legion
Pain encompassed the world.
Light filtered through two narrow slits as Max drifted in a foggy stupor. In time, his memory informed him that the slits were called eyes, and seeing light meant his eyes were open. As awareness returned to Max, the pain intensified until he hissed in agony.
Discomfort in his rear end informed Max that he was seated in a wooden chair and had probably been slumped there for at least half an hour. Both shoulders ached, but when he tried to move them forward, clinking handcuffs held him in place.
Max’s eyes creaked the rest of the way open and showed him a room he’d never seen before.
Thick wine-colored rugs squished under Max’s booted feet and covered polished mahogany floorboards gleaming in the light of many lamps scattered across the room, like an old woman’s sitting room rather than the sleek corporate preference of recessed ceiling fixtures. Every surface in the office was made of carved mahogany, from the hand-carved wall paneling and ceiling to the thick pillars holding up the vaulted roof. Between the stout pillars stood more of the naked marble statues depicting women in var
ious states of nudity. Oil paintings lining the mahogany walls depicted more topless or fully-naked women. In the wall to Max’s right stood a painted maroon door.
An enormous mahogany desk took up the whole end of the room in front of Max, who’d been dropped in the center. Silver winked at him from the desktop, and Max guessed this was the key to his handcuffs. In a tall wingback chair behind the desk sat an old man in a maroon suit. One hand lay on the chair’s armrest and the other cradled a lined face crowned with perfect black hair as he studied Max.
Papa Sal.
The room’s only other occupant stood in front of the desk to Max’s right. The hulking killer in the crisp white suit leaned back against the desk and gazed at Max with the kind of predatory eyes Max had only seen on trips to the tiger pen at the zoo.
Johnny Legion.
“Look,” Max said, “before we begin, you should know that I’m not into greasy old dudes.” He rattled the handcuffs behind his chair and gave Papa Sal a sarcastic grin.
Legion’s meaty fist crashed against Max’s cheek. As Max twisted from the blow, another punch hammered into his diaphragm and drove the wind from his lungs. A last uppercut knocked his head back and shoved the wooden chair back onto two legs. Legion had to grab the chair to keep it from flipping over. As Johnny returned to leaning against the desk, Max worked at sucking air into his shivering lungs.
“So, young man,” Papa Sal said in a casual voice, something like an old grandfather about to lecture one of his wayward descendants. “You have created a lot of trouble for me, eh? Made a mess of things. I’ll spend a fortune cleaning up everything you’ve wrecked in the last several hours.”
Max gasped like a fish until he had enough breath to speak. “Yeah, it’s gonna be a bitch squeezing all that money from helpless victims.”
Another brutal punch to the side of Max’s head made the room spin. This time, the chair fell over sideways. Legion circled around behind him and righted the chair as Max struggled to remain conscious.
Despite the ongoing beating taking place, Papa Sal continued to smile indulgently. When Legion returned to his post in front of the desk, the old man spoke again. “After all the trouble you have put me through, I think I have earned some straight answers, no? Who hired you to attack my empire?”
Max coughed and spat blood. “No one hired me.”
Legion rose to strike him again, but Papa Sal forestalled his hired killer with a raised hand. “No one hired you?”
“Nah,” Max said. “This job, I did for free.”
The old crime lord studied Max’s battered face closely. “Tell me how this mess began.”
“Wrong place, wrong time. I was eating lunch and some punks ruined the meal for me. I went after them and ended up pissing off their manager: some bald asshole with a goatee.”
When Papa Sal looked at Legion, the hired killer said, “Antonio Marino. Runs drugs over on the west side.”
“Ah, yes.” Papa Sal looked back at Max. “Continue.”
The ex-cop coughed again and wriggled to sit up straighter. “Just kinda escalated from there. Your boys kept after me, and I kept mowing them down.” Max grinned. “And I enjoyed every minute of it.”
“So, Mister Cain, this fiasco all began with your lunch?”
“That’s right. I just wanted to eat my burrito in peace.”
“Your burrito.” The old crime lord looked incredulous for a moment, then broke into laughter. He reached down behind the desk and pulled out a plate holding a long cylinder wrapped in aluminum. Despite the circumstances, at the sight of a fresh burrito Max’s mouth began to water.
“You just wanted a burrito, eh?” Papa Sal chuckled as he peeled back the foil covering the top half of the burrito. With the metal gone, Max could smell the warm tortilla. Steam rose from the plump, floury surface.
Papa Sal circled around the desk and came to stand before Max. With the burrito clutched in his right hand, he continued to chuckle as he gazed at the young man before him. “A burrito, eh? You did all this for your lunch.”
The crime lord’s age-lined face twisted into a snarl as he raised the burrito and clubbed Max across the face with it. “You cost me millions of dollars for a fucking burrito!” He slapped Max again, and the tortilla burst open. Savory juices and smashed beans splattered across the side of Max’s aching face and spilled into his lap.
Papa Sal beat Max again and again with the burrito, shouting at him: “You killed dozens of my men, shamed me in front of my enemies, and wrecked my home for your burrito? Here, boy! Here’s your fucking burrito!” With every slap, more of the juicy contents splashed across Max’s face. The steaming juices burned his skin and dripped from his eyebrow and jaw.
Panting, Papa Sal paused in his assault. Rage burned in his eyes, and Max knew the next step would be execution.
But Max didn’t care. Fury rose inside him to match the anger in the old crime lord. Fury against the injustice running rampant in the city. Fury against criminal organizations smothering the people he’d sworn to protect. Fury against rich old men who thought they had the right to buy and sell human lives.
“All I wanted was a burrito,” Max snarled. “I had a shit day, I got fired, I was hungry, and I just wanted to eat my lunch. But you bastards couldn’t let me enjoy one meal. You had to destroy my moment.” He leaned forward in his chair, straining against the chains which bound him. Blue eyes blazed with animal rage. “So now I’ve got a new craving. Now I’m hungry for vengeance.”
Fire burned in Papa Sal’s eyes as he raised the burrito for another strike.
The crash of splintering wood filled the room. Max twisted to see over his shoulder but couldn’t shift far enough to get a good look. What he did see was Papa Sal and Johnny Legion tensing up and diving for the maroon door.
Legion slammed the door open with one meaty fist and held it for Papa Sal, who hurried through. As the hired killer hurled himself through after his boss, thunder roared behind Max, and bullets smashed into the door frame, shattering a nearby glass vase full of orange bird of paradise flowers. The water, glass, and flowers crashed to the floor as the maroon door slammed shut behind the two escaping criminals.
“Max!” Kate shouted as she ran up beside him and holstered her pistol. She grabbed his chin in one hand and looked him over. “Did they hurt you?”
“Nah, I was just about to make my move.” Max winced as Kate touched his bruised cheekbone.
“Tough guy,” the baker laughed.
Nick knelt behind Max and fiddled with the handcuffs. “I’ll get you out of these, bro,” he said. “Hold still.”
“Thanks,” said Max. “The key is on the d—”
The report of Nick’s gun filled Max’s ears with a dull roar. He shook his ringing head. “The keys are on the desk!”
“Sure,” said Nick, “but how often do you get to remove handcuffs with a bullet?”
“Fair point,” said Max. “Someone hand me a gun.” As he stood, he massaged feeling back into his hands. Max used the handcuff key from the desk to rid himself of the remaining metal bracelets. Now that he was standing, Max could see the office’s main door smashed off its hinges.
Kate pulled both pistols from her hip holsters and handed them over. Max took them, and the blonde baker drew another pistol from her chest harness.
Now that Max took the time to look at his friends, he noticed a huge shoulder-fired rocket launcher strapped to Kate’s back. Both had lost their rifles, and Nick was down to his last pistol. Kate had one pistol left across her chest. Max raised an eyebrow and asked, “What the heck have you two been up to while I was napping?”
“Oh, you know,” Kate said, “shopping.”
“We found a private military locker,” Nick told him. “We went through the guns and ammo already, but Kate kept hold of this special item,” he pointed at the rocket launcher, “just in case it became
useful.”
“Sounds like a great time. Let’s go again together after we waste these dirtbags.” Max racked the slide on both pistols and headed for the maroon door. His two friends followed close behind.
When Max kicked the door open, he saw a huge lounge on the other side. Old cigar smoke filled the air. Sunken pits ringed with sofas and tables lined a long walkway down the center of the room leading to the exit. Max guessed this was where Papa Sal held meetings for his whole organization. Two dozen gangsters in black suits were already standing from couches all over the room, and Max spotted the wine-red and white suits of Papa Sal and Johnny Legion at the far end near the exit.
As the army of criminals drew their weapons, Max charged into the midst of them and fired four times. Each shot drilled through a thug’s chest and blew a fountain of blood out the back of his suit.
As the gangsters returned fire, Max leaped into one of the sunken pits and hunkered down. Using the pits as trenches, he popped up, blew off the top of a black-haired gangster’s head, and hurled himself flat on the floor to avoid the storm of return fire.
Nick and Kate dropped into the pit beside Max. The two fired back over their shoulders as Max spotted more gangsters rushing in through the maroon door to pin him and his friends down.
“No guns!” Papa Sal screamed over the cacophony. “Stop wrecking my home! The repair bill will already be astronomical. I’ll personally kill any man who damages my home!”
“Switch to batons!” someone shouted. The gunfire began to dwindle as Papa Sal and Johnny exited the room.
Max took advantage of the pause to pop up and nail several more targets. Gangsters were hurled around the room in sprays of blood as Max unloaded both pistols and killed half a dozen men. With simultaneous clicks, both slides locked back.
Beside him, Nick’s pistol gave up the fight. Nick drew both long knives from his boots.
