by Mark Russell
Carrasco swallowed hard and summoned courage. He counted to three then leapt in front of the shot-up table. He believed the blond youth who'd fired the shotgun was still shaken from its recoil to be properly on guard (the boy didn't seem experienced with a heavy-gauge gun). Keen to revenge Martinez's death, he triggered a sweeping arc of bullets.
What he saw shocked him.
His blond hair and Kauai T-shirt stained from other people's blood, Sixteen stood ramrod straight on the other side of the table. Carrasco's bullets tore into him as if he were a stationary target on a shooting range. Even so, Sixteen managed to squeeze the trigger of the five-shooter Remington. The punch-packing recoil lifted the shotgun up and out of his hands. As Sixteen's legs crumpled under him, the shotgun's lethal discharge ripped into Carrasco's lower belly. The Cuban gunman flew backwards and hit the hardwood floor, narrowly missing an already dead Martinez. He cried out and thrashed in agonizing convulsions. His submachine gun flew from his hands and bounced off the river rock wall framing the room's fireplace. With blood gushing from his shocking stomach wound, Carrasco struggled to remain conscious. Unrelenting waves of white-hot pain drove him towards a dark precipice.
Crouched in the dim light at the other end of the room, Goldman couldn't believe the carnage about him. He was all but numb from the violence he'd just witnessed. So many bodies ... and Michelle looked set to die in his arms. His eyes burned with tears. His woman muttered incoherently as he cradled her limp form.
'No, please.' His voice raw with despair. He had to get help for Michelle and whoever else was still alive in the house. But he didn't want to leave her side. He wanted to cradle and hug her for all time, for the two of them to be safely cocooned in a world devoid of cruelty and pain. After a long and agonizing moment, he lowered her back on the floor. He got on his feet and looked about the room. His eyes fell on the shot-apart telephone. 'No, no, no ...'
He saw a crazed man moving toward him. The man made a strange clicking sound from the back of his throat. His hard, bestial face glistened with sweat. 'So you're Goldman,' the man snarled, showing yellowish teeth. 'So you're the stinking DGI stooge the general wants dead!'
Goldman's ears pricked up. The general? ... Turner was behind this carnage?
'You're the sonofabitch reason why Gacha and Martinez are dead!' The big man looked at Carrasco's shuddering form on the hardwood floor. 'The sonofabitch reason why Carrasco will soon die!'
Goldman heard the sounds of other men at the front door. Only minutes had passed since Carrasco and his men had stormed the house. Unable to pick the back door lock, and hearing gunshots coming from inside the house, these other men finally opted for a front door entry. Heavy footfalls on the staircase carried into the room.
'Get ready to die, yanqui perro,' the big man said.
With a dry, metallic mouth, Goldman prepared for combat. His muscles tensed, his hands balled into fists. His back was against the wall and he had no choice but to fight. He looked at Michelle's limp form and couldn't entertain the notion of her dying. And these gunmen were only stopping her getting the urgent medical attention she needed.
He looked desperately about him and was attracted by the dull gleam of Carrasco's MAC-10. The submachine gun had landed on Goldman's side of the river rock fireplace. Like an apparition in the shadows, he dived for the gun. He snatched it off the floor and crouched behind the L-shaped divan.
He heard the new gunmen reach the top of the stairs. No sooner had Ramirez called out to them in his native tongue than Goldman jumped up from behind the divan and fired aggressively in the direction of the newcomers. The hail of bullets crippled the unsuspecting men. The compact size of the bucking weapon made it hard for the chemist to hold. Nevertheless he did his best to operate it. His finger repeatedly pumped the trigger as he moved the automatic pistol from side to side. Undoubtedly the gun had a fire selector mode, but Goldman was too involved in this sudden, brutal attack to better familiarize himself with the weapon.
In any case, all four gunmen were fatally shot from the ambush. They cried out in alarm and fell back on each other, toppling down the stairs in a profusion of tangled limbs and bleeding wounds. Ramirez cried out in protest as the last of his men were lost. He roared like an enraged carnivore losing its offspring to a single predator. Goldman spun towards the towering Cuban and squeezed the gun's trigger.
Click. Click. Click.
The MAC-10 was empty, its 32 rounds magazine depleted.
Ramirez unearthed a shuddering laugh. 'Ah, you're mine, yanqui perro, all mine.' He seemed impervious to the bullet lodged in his shoulder. His brutish face looked as if it were sculpted from cliff-face rock. Its hardness accentuated by the slanting light from the other end of the room.
'I'm going to kill you,' he said in a gravelly, liquor-scoured voice. 'For Gacha. For Martinez. For Carrasco.' He glanced back at the staircase. 'And for those foolish men.' He looked with reverence at the submachine gun in his hands, sensing the brutal power of the X-tipped bullets packed in the magazine. A perfect instrument awaiting his use.
No longer plagued by the head-storming rush of the drug he'd taken, Ramirez placed his weapon on the floor. He stood up and whipped out a hunting knife from a concealed holster under his jacket. The large serrated blade glistened as he tossed the knife from hand to hand, his preferred method of killing. Goldman sensed this stocky man was on some stimulant or other, which hardly bolstered the chemist's confidence for the approaching fight. He glanced at Michelle. She was frightfully still and pale, blood seeping from her parted mouth. Oh God please don't let her die! Her demise would be a blight that would plague him for all his days. If indeed he lived past these coming minutes.
'I'm going to cut out your guts, yanqui pig.'
Ramirez edged closer, teeth and blade bared. A deranged killer primed for detonation. He lunged forward with frightening speed and dropped onto Goldman. The two men hit the hardwood floor and slid past the L-shaped divan. Locked in a deadly embrace, they skidded to a halt. Goldman was on his back with his hands locked about Ramirez's thick, hairy wrists. He did his utmost to keep the gunman's knife at bay. However Ramirez's murderous will, along with his pressing bulk, was getting the better of the fugitive chemist. Goldman moved his leg about to try and gain leverage and knocked over a potted palm in the process, dry dirt spilling across the lacquered floor.
The two men gritted and grunted in a contest of wills. Ramirez's gleaming blade inched farther downward and Goldman sensed it might soon be over for him. As such he grasped that a universe of colliding galaxies and burning babies could subscribe to his demise without fear of significant disruption to the overall scheme. His strength was failing fast. He had to reverse the looming inevitability of his predicament.
A possibility presented itself. Something just beyond his reach. The plug of the grey electrical lead attached to Deuce's music and light show.
It was a chance.
With new-found will, he pushed against Ramirez's knife wrist (noting a small scorpion tattooed on the back of the gunman's hand). He swivelled his torso on the lacquered floor. Throwing caution to the wind, he let go of Ramirez's left wrist and fumbled for the nearby electrical plug.
Grabbed hold of it.
With his free left hand, Ramirez punched his opponent's face. Goldman's jaw flooded with pain and blood trickled into his mouth. Ramirez's snarling face loomed over the chemist like a grotesque crimson mask. Meanwhile the big knife inched ever downward.
Goldman pushed against Ramirez's knife-wielding arm. He prayed Deuce's music and light show hadn’t been touched since Thirteen pulled the plug on it the day Goldman first visited the house. He reasoned the system hadn't been used since then as the plug was still disconnected from the power point.
Ramirez slammed his fist into Goldman's face and laughed with manic abandon. Goldman felt a tooth loosen and tasted a fresh font of blood. He fumbled and struggled ... then the plug was in the power point.
The immediate result was akin
to an explosion. Loud music filled the darkened room and coloured lights, along with a dazzling strobe, arced every which way from the aluminium holding rail mounted above the system.
".. I wanna die die die, cause my need's like a disease, oh Sister Libertine, you're such a brazen tease ..."
Ramirez was startled by the unexpected show, which was all the more pronounced from the nearby overhead light having been shot out. Equally startled, Scarlett jumped from the back of the divan and landed on Ramirez's head. Sharp claws lanced the side of the gunman's face as the cat leapt from him in search of someplace to hide. No sooner had the animal absconded than Goldman shoved Ramirez off him.
Then the chemist was on top of the deranged gunman.
He repeatedly banged Ramirez's knife hand against the floor. The hunting knife (its blade free of blood) slipped from its owner's grasp. Goldman jabbed his elbow into Ramirez's solar plexus. The Cuban gasped in pain and fumbled about for the knife. Goldman smashed his elbow into Ramirez's face. The Latino's nose spread to one side like a piece of squashed fruit. Goldman slammed his fist into the side of the gunman's head, fracturing his cheek bone. Fuelled by inconsolable rage, he grabbed Ramirez by the collar and threw him up against the river rock wall.
"... living on the edge, one foot in the grave, oh Sister Libertine, I pilfered the love you saved ..."
Goldman torqued his elbow into Ramirez's face, violating further the fellow's misshapen nose. He executed a pounding set of Double Chung Choie fist strikes to Ramirez's torso. His bony fists rained with injurious precision. One of Ramirez's ribs fractured and punctured his liver. Goldman wondered how the dreadlocked Latino could stay on his feet in the face of such punishment. Indeed his puffed and purplish face was a sight to behold. His unseeing eyes had glazed over and blood bubbled brook-like from between his split lips.
Truth of the matter, Ramirez was held in place by a large nail jutting out from the river rock wall. His checked-flannel jacket had caught on the nail when he slumped forward from his legs not giving him support. The heavy gauge nail was from the previous Christmas when Trinda had hung a giant stocking of presents for everyone in the house. Held as such, Ramirez was only too vulnerable to whatever Goldman dished out.
"... I crushed the others to be by your side, oh Sister Libertine, you are my blackened bride ..."
Goldman had to act quickly if he was to save Michelle. She looked like a pale wax effigy on the blood-stained floor. An effigy who needed to be rushed to a hospital in the back of a siren-blaring ambulance. Again time was crucial. Goldman executed a perfect Three Inch Floating Punch (a damaging concussion strike he'd only practiced on sparring dummies in Billy Georgia's Baltimore dojo) to the front of Ramirez's head. The Cuban's skull all but split from the shocking blow, like a watermelon still intact from a great fall. Goldman executed a second, more powerful punch and was presented with the sickening sound of Ramirez's skull mortally fracturing. To Goldman's relief, the powerful blow dislodged his opponent.
Ramirez thudded onto the floor and twitched spasmodically, only to become as lifeless as a toppled statue.
Goldman was indifferent to his adversary's death, taking a step back from the corpse. His racy mind looked about the room, his limbs primed for further violence should anyone else attack him. He hadn't killed a man before and knew he would reflect on it at a later date – but certainly not now. He grabbed the electrical plug and yanked it from the power point, instantly killing the bright lights and blaring music. Silence claimed the shadowy room and only emphasized the all-out carnage of recent minutes.
He raced over to Michelle and stroked her pallid cheek. 'Oh God,' he sobbed, 'I'm so sorry ... so very sorry.' He wanted desperately to undo the horror that had happened, to whisk her away to a sunny land of happy endings, to dance hand in hand with her through an alpine meadow. But the body-littered room pressed in on him like the dreamscape of a hellish nightmare. It seemed he just might collapse, just might curl up and assume the catatonic position of the terminally broken. But he forced himself, if only for Michelle's sake, not to be paralyzed by the violence that had erupted in the house.
Amidst the silence he heard a faint chomping sound. Scarlett was feeding on Martinez's shotgun-blasted chest. Goldman recoiled, but returned his attention to the business at hand. He believed police would soon arrive, along with paramedics, but of course he wasn't certain. Only a few un-silenced gunshots had been fired. Large verdant grounds and tall walls separated neighbours in this well-to-do part of town. He looked with dismay at the shot-apart telephone. He wouldn't rest until he personally called the emergency number. He bent forward and kissed Michelle's cheek, only to get a better sense of her dwindling body heat and pulse.
'Hang on, babe! Please!' Tears welled in his eyes. He didn't want Michelle to suffer, didn't want her to die alone in this accursed house. How could he just walk away from her? His mind swam helplessly.
Still, he couldn't afford the luxury of aggrievedness. He had to act and save this special woman. There was no other consideration. He kissed Michelle one last time and got to his feet. He grabbed Ramirez's Uzi from off the floor and forced himself not to look at the lifeless bodies about him as he headed for the door. The coppery smell of blood and the biting smell of cordite from gunfire assaulted his nostrils as he neared the stairs.
He slipped on a spent bullet casing and stopped in his tracks. His drug formula was scattered on the coffee table. Leaving it behind would only connect him to the felonious mayhem in the house. He stopped at the coffee table and made an effort not to look at Sorenson and his girlfriend on the blood-spattered sofa.
But as he scrolled the formula's pages into the back of his jeans, he gazed at the murdered couple. The grisly tableau fixed him to the spot. Time and place slipped away as he moved back in time to when he was a teenager in Woomera, South Australia. One afternoon he and two local boys had gone off with rifles into the red desert. After cresting a rise, they came across dead animals. Kangaroos and dingoes shot, stabbed, and left to the elements. A young and impressionable Goldman had gazed at the remains of a kangaroo and her joey. An unknown party had shot the baby kangaroo and, by the look of it, stomped the poor creature to death, causing its digestive organs to burst open. The creature's fly-blown insides and blood-matted fur made Goldman vow not to kill wildlife again; and he'd made good of the vow.
Now, in this house of the dead and dying, Goldman stood gun in hand before Sorenson and his girlfriend, the fly-riddled carcasses from his childhood superimposed on the hapless couple. With the red sands of the past blowing hauntingly about his feet, he was conscious of primitive origins, of a primeval violence genetically encoded in his body. Tonight he'd killed to stay alive. Tonight he'd been forced into the competitive brain game that has played on this water-enriched planet since earliest dawns. It seemed his years of education, learned social skills and heartfelt vows of betrothal, had not expunged base instincts. He was at best a polished animal, or so he saw himself at this crestfallen moment.
Still, he was alive. He'd beaten impossible odds and his only hope lay in saving Michelle. She was the only ray of light in his ever darkening world. Her death would be his, no less. With unflagging resolve, he climbed over the dead gunmen on the stairs and hurried off into the night.
THIRTY ONE
Goldman crouch-dashed across the lawn. He moved past the black Porsche that used to belong to Sorenson, past the yellow muscle car which used to belong to Thirteen, past the silver Nissan Skyline which used to belong to Eighteen. He paused beside the rented Datsun Stanza before slipping into the shadow of the sandstone wall fronting the property. His frayed nerves and aching limbs spoke of an urgent need to rest. His throat was parched and his ears rang dully from the shotgun blasts back in the house. But he ignored his body's protests.
He moved out from behind the wall and looked up and down the street, noting only parked cars and the crisp, driven sounds of wind-blown leaves. He'd planned to climb over Thirteen's back fence and surreptitiously
make his way up to Westwood Boulevard. But he could get lost, could be encumbered by who knew what dog or fence. Nor did he want to drive the rented Datsun for fear of drawing attention should other gunmen be watching the house. Though many gunmen had been killed Goldman reasoned a worrying number could still be stationed outside, especially as he knew General Turner was behind the surprise attack. The general could have a small army at his disposal. From the top of his head, Goldman couldn't fathom how Turner had tracked him down, but he knew this was the case as Ramirez had mentioned the general's name back in the house. Ramirez, the man he'd killed ... Goldman brushed the thought aside and refocused on the business at hand. What to do?
He didn't want to ask a neighbour for use of their phone as his bloody, dishevelled appearance and impromptu cover story would probably cause most people to call police. No, he would only waste valuable time explaining himself on someone's doorstep. And he didn't want to be in spitting distance of Thirteen's house once authorities swooped on it, which could be any moment. Michelle's near-lifeless form flashed in his mind. He had to find a public phone. He gripped Ramirez's Uzi and moved furtively onto the street.
When Goldman stepped over the dead gunmen on Thirteen's stairs, Commando C member Bruno Lozano had crept along the outside of the house. Lozano was confident the men of Unit One had everything under control (the house was reportedly occupied by a bunch of teenage toughs). Hence he'd come alone, though armed, to find out why Carrasco had broken radio contact with the men of Unit Two. It was probably some technical fault with the radio headsets. Lozano tried the back door, found it locked. Surprised, he drew his unregistered handgun and sprinted to the front of the house. He braced himself and stepped through the open doorway.
