by Alan Lee
Three total blasts. I hadn’t missed. Ernst was dead.
“Mackenzie!” shouted Meg again. She came up the ramp, medical backpack bouncing.
“Where’s Duane?”
“In the suite, I guess,” she said. “Ernst shot you.”
“I’ll live.”
“You’re a mess, Mackenzie.” She peered at Ernst and put a hand to her mouth. “I might throw up.”
“I bet you were a hoot during your emergency rotation in school.”
“Sit down. You need medical care.”
“Not yet. First we finish this.”
“You’re losing more blood than you think.” For the moment we were in our own self-contained universe. The fighting felt distant and we didn’t have to shout.
“I’m going for Duane. A promise to keep.”
“Okay, but first,” she said, and she set her backpack down. Got on her knees. “Let me administer a bandage to your stomach and an epinephrine shot.”
“Perhaps you failed to notice how triumphantly masculine I am,” I said, but she wasn’t wrong. I felt lightheaded and my shorts were getting slick with blood.
“You need to lie down. Hold this,” she said, placing a bandage in my hand.
“Meg,” I said. She flicked the top off a syringe and jammed the needle into my abdomen. A sudden motion, and her hand was shaking. “Epinephrine?”
She didn’t answer, pressing the plunger.
Uh oh.
I smacked her hand away. She gasped and the needle broke.
“Meg.”
She didn’t look up. Stayed kneeling, tense, her shoulders hunched, leaning forwardly, staring at the ground.
“What’d you do?” I asked.
No response.
I felt the familiar numbing sensation spread through my body. Muscles going dead. I half sat, half fell onto the floor.
“I’m sorry.”
“Do you know,” I said, slumping against the wall. I tried operating my body but it was sluggish, like from a remote with dying batteries. “How tired I am of your concoctions.”
My words slurred.
She wouldn’t look at me. Pulled out another needle and vial of liquid. “I really am sorry.”
“Darren Robbins?”
“Yes.”
“You’re the assassin.”
Yourethsassin.
“No,” she said. “I’m not an assassin. I’m a physician in a mountain of debt and no way to get a job, due to misunderstandings. After today, however, those problems are gone. Darren contacted me and his offer was very generous.”
“I’m disappointed in you.”
“Don’t you dare.” She lowered the syringe and glared. Maybe more of a pout. “You, with your perfect life. Tall, strong, muscular, perfect health.”
“You noticed.”
“Loving family and friends. You’ve never struggled,” she said. “You’ve never gone without. It’s hard being a woman. It’s hard living in a man’s world and doing what I must to reach the top and then being shamed because of it. You’d do the same, in my shoes. You underestimated me, because I’m a woman. You defeated the men but didn’t think twice about me.”
“No. I overestimated you. Expected better.”
“Yeah, well, you’re in a long line of men I’ve disappointed,” she said, and she drew medicine into the syringe.
“Do me one favor.”
She stopped. Kept her eyes steady on the vial. “What.”
“Pass my son a message.”
“I can do that.”
“Tell him my doctor sucked and to sue for malpractice,” I said.
“You think you’re funny.”
“I really do.”
“You don’t deserve it,” said Meg. “But this will be painless.”
“If you try to inject me, I’m going to bite you.”
M’gonbitew.
“You can’t move, hotshot.”
“My mouth can. A little.”
“Time to sleep, Mackenzie. I really am sorry about…”
Her eyes widened.
Someone kicked her in the face. It wasn’t a great kick but Meg shrieked and tumbled backwards. A woman stepped between Meg and me. A trim woman, strong, great architecture. She raised a gun and fired it.
Meg screamed again. Held her breath. Patted herself. Peered up in disbelief.
“I missed,” said the woman with a gun. “I can’t believe I missed. Hold still.”
“No!” shouted Meg. “Please, I’m a physician.”
“Not for much longer.”
Meg scrambled backwards. She closed her eyes and screamed again. The woman with the gun fired a second time.
Missed.
“Are you kidding me,” she said. “This is harder than it looks.”
“Stop, please, oh god, I’m so sorry, please don’t.”
“Let her go,” I said. “Let her be crushed by financial obligations.”
Fancelobagations.
The woman with the gun kept it trained on Meg. Waited. Said, “I’m tired of hearing gun shots. You’re in luck. Run away, bitch. And don’t ever touch my husband again.”
Meg stood. Looked as though she wanted to say something. Instead she turned and fled.
The woman with the gun remained. Oh, what a woman. Long legs, great ankles showing. Tawny hair piled in an updo. Her eyes were the color of the Mediterranean, waves of blue, sparkles of green. She was part southern belle, part Los Angeles starlet. The muscles of her jaw were strong, the skin tight and flawless.
A woman I was in love with.
She lowered next to me.
“Hello Mackenzie.”
“Hello Ronnie.”
Big fat perfect tears formed in her eyes. “You’re so beautiful my heart could break.”
“For our honeymoon, I brought you to Naples.”
“I hate it here.”
“Me too.”
“The men smell,” she said.
“That is not my primary complaint.”
“You’re shot.”
“I’ll live. Plus I was just pumped full of anesthesia.”
She pulled the broken needle out of my side. “I should have executed that little blonde harlot.”
“I politely disagree. I prefer mercy over retributive justice.”
“Do you still like me just because you do?”
“Yes, but the list of reasons I do is growing. How did you find me?”
“I’m kinda rich and cute. I get what I want. What I want most of all? A sexually active relationship with my husband. Can you walk?”
“I cannot. What kinda kinky sex would that be, anyway, walking?”
Behind her I saw Gennaro, my second favorite little boy, running up. “Here! I found him!”
Ronnie looked up. “Manny,” she said and her face widened into a magnificent smile. “There you are, I need help.”
“You brought Manny?” I said.
Gennaro stepped aside, beaming.
“Hola, Mack,” said a familiar voice. Manny came into view and squatted next to me. “I dig your new tattoo.”
“Shut up.”
“Congratulations on winning the Gabbia Cremisi, mijo.”
“Thank you. Cross that off my bucket list. It’s great you two are here. Almost makes us even,” I said.
“Carlos and I, we’re carrying you out,” he said.
“Make sure you tip Gennaro. Is that a rocket launcher on your back? What buffoon thought it wise to give you a rocket launcher?”
“They pass these out like party favors here. Mack, this place, Naples, it’s no place for honest amigos like us. But I love it,” he said.
A man named Carlos, a Mexican of whom I was fond, knelt at my waist and pressed a bandage against the bullet wound. “We must go. More soldiers and police are coming, and the hotel is on fire.”
“First,” I said. “You got another missile for that thing? I promised Ferrari I’d knock this whole place down.”
“Only one rocket. Not
enough.”
Eying the stained glass window high above, I said, “I know. But I have an equally grandiose and effective idea.”
55
Carlos and Manny locked arms behind my back and under my thighs and I contributed very little. They carried me to the roof, where the sky to the east was purpling. Three helipads were in use, and several more choppers hovered nearby, waiting their turn.
Marcus Morgan approached us and shouted, “Rossi’s helicopter is already gone. Need another idea.”
“You were going to take Rossi’s?”
“Good to see you, August. Long story.”
Manny said, “Could take my stupid tiny Italian Fiat.”
“No,” said Carlos. “Only one way into Vomero. It’s closed by police.”
“So we hijack one of these choppers. Need to go soon. Place gon’ burn up before long.”
“Hey, it American!” shouted a woman. Or rather, three women. Chinese, by the looks of them, and quite attractive. “It American, we bid on you!”
“Bid? Or bet?” I said, eyeing them. Because that’s about all I could do.
“Both! Haha!”
The women laughed and took turns kissing Manny and Veronica on the face. Manny and Veronica kissed them back.
One week with me gone and everyone goes nuts.
“Our helicopter was taken,” said Veronica.
“You come us!” shouted one of the beautiful women and she waved us to follow, towards a turquoise helicopter. Turquoise.
“Yes!” shouted her friend. “We love you! So pretty! We have sex American! In plane!”
Veronica laughed and shouted over the rotor wash. “He’s my husband.”
“Husband? You bid on Italian! You have sex Prince!”
“No,” said Veronica and cleared her throat. “That didn’t—”
“We saw you name!”
Marcus muttered to me, “Another long story.”
We boarded a helicopter, one of those luxury business models. We fit but not comfortably. I was buckled into a seat by the window, and one of the Chinese women sat on my lap.
“You get blood on dress!” she cackled. “We crazy bitches!”
“We have American! In plane!”
Veronica sat across from me, smiling. A deeply happy smile, enjoying my confusion. Without enough room, she was partially resting on Carlos.
Marcus moved to the cockpit and our helicopter threw itself into the violet sky.
“Mackenzie, you can go to sleep,” said Veronica. “You’re safe.”
The Chinese woman’s nose pressed into my cheek. She wrapped an arm around my neck and said, “You go sleep! We won’t touch. Much!”
The helicopter banked over the city. Flames were visible through the hotel windows, and police lights flashed in the surrounding neighborhoods. As the helicopter climbed, we saw the Teatro di Montagna in all its monstrosity. The great stained glass dome on top was shattered, demolished almost completely by Manny’s final rocket. As though the hotel had lost an eye.
56
I woke up to white noise. The faint hiss of air conditioning and cabin pressure. The steady drone of turbines. Soft voices.
A private jet. I’d been on this one before.
My head was in the lap of a sun goddess. Her chair was reclined backwards and she slept against a pillow, magnificent in repose.
I sat up inch by inch, testing and flexing each abdominal muscle. Swiveled to get my bare feet to the floor. And stood.
Yeeeeouch. There was no part of me that felt healthy.
Manny and Carlos slept in chairs on the other side of the aisle. Through the window the sky was a watery blue.
I went to the aft restroom. My face looked swollen. Lip puffy. Throat bruised. My shoulders throbbed. A bandage had been attached to my abdomen and the flesh underneath felt hot.
I found a suitcase with clean clothes. Silk shirts—must be Duane’s. I stripped out of the fighting shorts, stiff with blood, and pulled on a pair of his boxers. The shorts were too big and I couldn’t find a belt, so I pulled on one of his t-shirts and hoped no one minded the man in his underwear.
Marcus Morgan was up front talking on a cell phone and typing into a laptop. He had the front section to himself. Across from him, lying open on a leather chair, was a hard-shell briefcase overflowing with money.
He saw me, said, “Call you back,” and hung up.
I shook his hand. His fingers were long and firm, and he wore a silver Tag watch.
“Look like hell,” he said.
“Wrong.”
He grinned.
I said, “Thanks for coming, Marcus.”
“Summers wouldn’t hear otherwise.”
“She’s the best.”
“If you’d seen all the stunts she pulled to get to you?” he said. “You’d find a better word.”
“I am an independent and self-contained man. But some girls are worth letting in, I think. Because otherwise I’d be dead. You killed Duane?”
“I did.”
“I told him I would do the job.”
He shrugged. “You and me always been a little symbiotic.”
“I guess it still counts, even if you did it.”
“Does. Maybe you didn’t, but the pack did. The pack of which you a member.”
I waffled my hand. “A pack? Didn’t I just say I’m an independent, self-contained, and complete human being.”
“You an independent human being got himself in some deep shit and needed help. And now? Bout to become a legend.”
“I wasn’t before?”
Marcus pointed at his laptop screen. “Camorra still chanting about the Yankee who won the tournament, spared the Prince, killed Rossi, and burnt the place down.”
“Not bad, right?”
“Not bad at all. Especially cause I made a fortune betting on you.”
“That’s the money in the briefcase?”
“Naw. That’s Chambers’s money. I’ll check on his next of kin. Or maybe keep it.”
I said, “This is Duane’s plane.”
“Kings’ plane. Mine for the moment.”
“That so.”
“I reported the demise of Chambers. Temporarily, I have his seat on the board.”
“The King’s board of directors? Moving up in the world,” I said. “The sick, twisted, mercenary, polluted world of the mafia.”
“Till they vote. But I like my chances. And like this sick world or not, you in deep now.”
“Malarky.”
“You kidding me? You won the Gabbia Cremisi. You killed Rossi. Deep as deep can get.”
I said, “Your friends on the board aren’t gonna be happy with me after I deal with Darren Robbins.”
“Darren called me. Knows we’re coming home. He said you two square. You survived two contracts, so all’s even.”
I made a tsk’ing noise.
“Yeah,” he said. “I know. It ain’t even.”
“Tell him I’m coming. And hell’s coming with me.”
“That a quote?”
“You betcha.”
I got up and walked to the rear of the plane. Laid down and rested my head in the lap of Veronica Summers. She issued a soft murmur.
Music.
The End
A Note from the Author
You guys are great.
Thanks for reading.
This was Mack’s most intense adventure yet, on the wild and surreal side. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. But I’m glad he’s headed home. Leave your thoughts on Amazon and/or GoodReads—it helps me stay in business.
For Megan
Better Family Than I Deserve
And Because She Loves Dogs
Author’s note—
Anterograde amnesia is a real disorder. Other than leveraging artistic license to extend memory loss before the incident, I’ve done my best to be true to its complications.
A temporary peace was by these means produced; but it proved only a calm
before a more violent storm.
-William Russell
Chapter 1
January 2nd.
Ankles crossed on the desktop.
The devil may care, but not I—I get dirt on my workspace when I please.
Steely eyes fixed on the computer screen.
Emails? Answered.
Scotch? Sipped. Barely. Then replaced in the drawer.
First day back in the office since overthrowing villainous regimes in Italy. And since recovering for a month. Because toppling regimes hurt.
I missed forty days of work and the commiserating income, but I wasn’t worried. For one thing, I was married now and my doting wife had money and no qualms about disbursement. Not the most talented nurse, perhaps, but certainly the most affectionate and lavish. And second, I won a tournament in Italy and had been promised part of the winnings. To the victor goes the spoils, they told me, even though I burned down their house.
I didn’t know how soon to expect payment, however. Just in case, I wasn’t spending any of it. But I was declining a larger percentage of requests for my services than was financially responsible.
Because I didn’t want to serve warrants.
I didn’t want to locate lost spouses.
I didn’t want to hide out in a car with a camera.
I enjoyed these and other mundane tasks to an extent. But at the moment, scrolling through my inbox, much of it struck me as banal. I could handle banality in February. Why else have a February? But not on January 2nd, for heaven’s sake. It was a new year. I required stimulation and challenge.
The stairs outside my office door groaned, wooden slats creaking with use. Ah hah! Stimulation. A man leaned into my open doorway. Couldn’t see him from the waist down. Hard looking guy, hair cut close, his face all sharp angles. Jacket but no collar. With his left hand, he knocked on my doorframe.
I stood.
“How you doin,” he said. “Looking for Mack August. Got a job I need help with. You him?”
I picked up the Kimber 1911 pistol from my desktop. Clicked the hammer back and aimed the barrel at him.
