First published by Perfect Edge Books, 2014
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Text copyright: Michael Paul Gonzalez 2013
ISBN: 978 1 78279 311 3
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Dedicated to
Zenon Gonzalez-Lopez and Olga Gonzalez
Aleksandra Bienkowska
Carl Gonzalez
Ollie
Inspired by
Sigourney Weaver, Geena Davis, Uma Thurman, Michelle
Rodriguez and every woman who has spilled righteous blood on screen
Ronda Rousey, Bec Hyatt, Julie Kedzie, Gina Carano and every woman who has bravely stepped into a combat arena
Victorious warriors win first and then go to war,
while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.
Sun Tzu
Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written:
“It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.
Romans 12:19
“Death is too easy for you, bitch! I want you to suffer!”
Pam Grier, Foxy Brown
Sometimes the heroine has to write her own happy ending. There are usually rules to that sort of thing, some kind of formula. She can’t shoot people in the head. She can’t build incendiary devices. She probably shouldn’t slit throats and poison people. She’d be alive at the end. No, Disney won’t be putting this story to film.
Once upon a time, this city was postcard perfect. Now it’s known for three things: constant rain, a meticulous drainage system, and our murder rate. Dry spells here are few and far between. For the most part, the weather’s a boon to business; shopping malls, movie theaters, anywhere people can get out of their house and still stay inside.
For a crazy lady with a rifle, it makes everyday work a chore.
It’s filthy up here. Those dry times during the day, that’s when moss grows and birds crap and pollution settles down to earth. The rooftops are steep, coated with grime both natural and manmade. The moss clings to the gutters, sewage and stink seep across the gargoyles. Just add water, and it’s an instant stinking, slick, sludgy mess.
I’m up to my nose in it, loving every minute. Because I have a purpose. Because this is how things have to be. My forearms burn from the climb, but I won’t stop. It’s easy to do what you think you can’t. You just close your eyes and think of other things. Find a reason. Make one up if you have to. I have ten of them.
Our city was founded long ago by some European devotee who wanted to bring a little piece of the old country with him to America. So the buildings are large, looming, Gothic-Teutonic-Franco-Hispania-buy-a-postcard-and-show-people-where-you- visited. That’s the center of the city. The little nucleus from which the great beast spawned. The good part of it is the tiled roofs, which make my climb a little easier. I can punch into the tiny overlap of each shingle for finger holds. And the patterns on the roof, the contrast of dry tiles and wet, terra cotta and tin, help with my camouflage.
The bad part is the angles. This city fought so hard not to grow that the end result was buildings growing up before the city grew out. And unlike other big cities, we haven’t had the fortune of a disastrous fire to gut the town so a more sensible plan could be implemented.
So here, where I need to be, the streets are narrow and poorly lit. I suppose I wanted to start with a challenge. See if I was up to this whole thing. I’ve got work later in the warehouse district in more open areas. That’s if I don’t take a ride on the roof-grime express to the concrete down there.
I pull myself over an apex and begin my unsteady descent to the gutter. In planning, I had envisioned myself methodically lowering my body. In doing, I slid. Quickly, my body turning sideways and cracking hard against a gargoyle at the roof’s edge. What’s left of my left leg dangles over the edge, and I watch the rainwater cascade off my thigh stump and into the alley.
Here, any sane person would come to their senses, turn around, go home, plan for better weather.
What the hell, this isn’t the kind of thing you live to tell about anyway.
I close my eyes, the most taxing part of the journey still to come. Just move and think of other things.
A slight drizzle is commonplace here, no call for an umbrella or a hurried pace. Every once in a while, the wind will kick up and the skies will let loose a downpour with no warning, sending the denizens of the city scattering like rats in a sewer flood. This is the weather as Vasili’s limousine pulls up to the curb by Vincenzo’s Ristorante.
Below, the streets empty out as the rain picks up, a sea of ritzy umbrellas bob towards doors, hooded heads duck for cover under canvas overhangs. Soon enough, the sidewalk is completely empty. Above, I have a clear view of the tail end of his car through my scope: the rain sluicing down its sides, the two big goons moving to his door, watching both sides of the street without thinking to look up.
My left arm tenses as I pull the rifle in tight to my shoulder. I dangle by my right hand from the mouth of the gargoyle, ignore the rain that runs down the back of my collar and brace a stump against the side of the building. It’s easier this way, to take my legs off and leave them above on the roof. Taking a monkey shot, I like to call it. It means I can be closer, and it means the trajectory of the bullet will be harder to trace. Like I’ve done this a million times before. Or maybe I have, who knows?
This is not a full-on sniper rifle, one of those long-barreled heavy scope jobs. This is a custom assault rifle. More of an overgrown pistol with a light hunting scope. Easy to carry, easy to conceal, easy to fire.
What’s not easy is the fucking gutter pipe that obscures where I think Vasili’s head will be when he stands up. Change to a heart shot instead? I don’t want to risk it. I don’t want him to die from blood loss. I want him to see his final thoughts as they spill from the hole I put in the front of his head and paint the sidewalk.
Vasili’s goons grunt a few words to each other and open his door. My finger tightens on the trigger. It slackens as two pieces of arm candy shimmy onto the sidewalk and jiggle into the restaurant to save their hairstyles. Any true marksman will tell you that you don’t pull a trigger, you squeeze. I know this, so the two pneumatic blondes will live to leech off another man.
Vasili makes his grand entrance. He’s small, wiry, not the type of man who looks like a killer, but I know better. He’s got that slightly unhinged look in his eyes; not the coal-pit stare of a serial killer, watery eyes that shiver with nervous energy. He kills from a distance, never sees his targets up close. But he’s done his fair share. Counting down, he’s numbe
r ten on my list. Not that there are any numbers higher than ten.
Here is where I should say my memory is not that great, due to prolonged use of recreational pharmaceuticals. So there are things that I don’t remember. I’m pretty sure that there was only one other guy, not on the list, that has preceded Vasili into Hell. Or maybe I’ve got more notches on my belt than an Oklahoma gunslinger.
The point is, I’ve done it before, and I plan to do it again. Ten times, starting tonight. Starting right now.
Vasili is feeling boisterous tonight. He grabs one goon by the shoulder, doing that street-hug thing where guys will make as much arm and shoulder contact as possible while simultaneously slugging each other in a rough and manly way. It says they care, but not, you know, care.
How should I do this one? This fucking gutter pipe is killing me.
Head? Heart? Head? Neck? Knees, then head?
Moot point. I knew before I started my climb which spot I would choose. Any good hunter will tell you that a shot anywhere other than the vitals is a wasted shot. If I had a bow and arrow I’d have the satisfaction of watching Vasili run until he bled himself out, a shaft jutting from his kidney. Fun to imagine, but not as fun as what’s actually coming.
The simple path is always the best, but I like to give voice to the demons in my head. I like to let them savor slow and painful ways to do a person. It lets me focus on being methodical.
Good hunting sense says it’s a heart shot. But I’m not a good hunter. I’m a great hunter.
Vasili will not have the time to wonder what has happened to him. He won’t have time to suffer. He’s a bit player in my story, and he doesn’t deserve anything better. The empty space I leave in his skull will send a message.
Lightning cracks the sky and I begin to count the seconds. The storm is moving away, and at last check was about four miles. I make a final decision that the gutterpipe is old rusted iron, and no real problem for my steel-jacketed long-range round. And then, lucky me, he steps back to say something to the driver, and he’s in the clear. My sights dance in a large circle around his head, to his chest, his head, then his neck, his head, his jaw, and finally I’ve got my spot dancing on the base of his skull.
It’s almost as if he’s begging for it.
Three…two…
I squeeze the trigger a fraction of a second before a thunderclap hits. To anyone in the restaurant, it looks like Vasili has slipped on the sidewalk, comically stumbling into his thugs’ arms. The beautiful people inside are too busy with their meals to see the details: the hole at the base of his skull, the blood that stains the car and the sidewalk and rushes and rinses towards the gutters, the second henchman heaving his guts into the street because a stray piece of skull and brain hit him in the lip.
That’s all I need to see. Just enough to make sure he’s dead. No time to get misty about these new beginnings. Just get up top, put my legs back on, and move on. No sense being greedy. Greedy people get caught, and I have nine more people to visit.
PART ONE
Making a List and Checking it Twice…
Chapter One
Sloppy.
Everything was a blur after the shot. My body climbed on its own, I listened to the shouts of Vasili’s men, screams from the public. I lit the way to the top with my smile.
Until I got there. I had a tarp set up on the roof to keep my getaway gear dry, like I had drilled a thousand times, but something got to me. It was the whole idea of the list. Making the list was easy enough, but knowing that I was beginning this, finally, well, that was another story.
I bought one of those little powder-blue pillboxes at the pharmacists, the kind old people use to separate their daily doses of tabs and pills and whatever to keep their feeble hearts beating. I labeled it MLH and drew a smiley face on it, the way my daughter used to when she’d leave me a note. It was there, floating in a small puddle in my shooter’s nest, ready to crest the edge and sail to the pavement. But I saved it.
It has two weeks’ worth of slots. I cut the walls out of four of them to make a long tray for needle storage. The other ten hold one small glass vial each. I’ve allowed myself one hit before each hit. It helps me focus. I can’t remember much about the people I’m going after until I go under with the needle. And even then, if I try to remember more than one step up the list, the images become too intense and my heart feels like it will explode. And that’s when the drug is doing what it should.
It’s called Clearwater, a derivative mix of oxycontin and morphine, cut with some other basement chemical. I call it Mother’s Little Helper, and it’s goooood. It’s also expensive. So I have to ration.
A hit right now would be pretty nice, but with my heart pounding the way it is…I shouldn’t do it. I tell myself don’t do it as I’m taking the cap off the bottle. Don’t you fucking do it, don’t fill that needle, don’t flick it, don’t test it, don’t scratch your vein you whiny little unhinged shit! Even numbed by the cold rain, I feel the tip of the needle burning at my arm, licking it hot and lusty like a tiger over fresh prey.
But I stop myself. Focus on the list. The idea of finding the rest of these people, I imagine it’s the same way I used to feel about meeting a boy band when I was younger. That was another life. That was my life before. Anticipation is a much stronger drug, a much harder pull. The next kill will be better than what’s in this syringe.
I put the loaded needle back in my kit, put the vial I pulled from the slot marked S.S.-9. I punch a small hole in the tray slot labeled V-10 with my field knife, then I retrieve the spent shell from my gun from the little bag I taped over the ejection port. I put the shell where vial V-10 used to be. A job well done. I can only imagine what the other slots may look like as they fill up. I can’t just go around shooting everybody, so this could get interesting. You could fit all kinds of small trophies in this box. Pulled teeth. Gore-soaked garrotes. Poison quills. Remembrances of meetings past.
I stow the kit in my backpack, which is soaked, meaning I’ve got an extra ten pounds of water weight to haul down the side of the building. Looking at the mess up here, if I had legs, I’d kick myself. I planned and trained for weeks, and didn’t think to tie a solid knot. Check, check, and double check. The Mantra.
I was like a kid rushing to meet Santa Claus. So excited about getting the job done that I didn’t think about what I’d be coming back to. I rushed. Forgot to tie off one of the support ropes for the tarp. It wasn’t tight enough, it started collecting water. It sagged, broke. Sent gallons of water rushing over my climbing legs. Not what I wanted to see after such a clean shot.
Under the best of circumstances, prosthetic legs are not easy to put on. Mine are modified to come on and off quickly. They rely on friction and pressure clamps to stay in place. The inside of each one is like a Slip ’n Slide, full of water and squirming like a toddler. It makes them uncomfortable. It makes them twist around while I’m trying to climb back to the ground. I don’t know if I have enough left in me to make the climb down with just my arms. But I can’t spend the night on the roof. So I pull on my legs, sling my rifle on my back, shoulder my pack, and I start to climb down.
Thirty feet up, I shake my right arm to get some feeling back in my fingers, and the rifle slips off my shoulder. It happens.
I spread my legs to try and stop the rifle from going below my waist. It wraps around my body and butts me in the crotch before shimmying lower. In my past life, I would have wondered about the Freudian nature of such a thing. Now, I’m too busy trying not to fall. The strap from the gun catches the foot of my left leg and twists it almost backwards. The thigh cup of the prosthetic wrenches around, giving me an Indian burn as the leg swings out and away. The rifle is about to pendulum back into my right leg. If it hits, I’ll have to hope there’s a soft patch in the concrete down there.
I hold my breath and give the wall a death grip with my right hand while my left hand pushes the release on my leg. The weight of the weapon overcomes friction and the leg releases.
I watch my only means of defense and half of my means of locomotion tumble downwards into the blackness of the alley.
It takes everything I have to get my hand wedged back into the wall. My heart thunders in my chest loud enough to drown the noise of the storm. I hope my falling debris wasn’t too loud. Last thing I need is attention. Actually, the last thing I need is to fall.
But in the midst of all of this thinking I’ve scuttled my way back to the drainage pipe. I say a little prayer of thanks for the distraction. I say another brief prayer of thanks that the impact with the concrete didn’t make the rifle jar and go off. It would all be so meaningful if I knew who I was praying to. I shimmy down the pipe, cursing under my breath because my hands are sliced to shit from rusted iron and sharp bricks on the way down.
Sirens.
I squeeze hard onto the gutter, stopping myself about twenty feet off the ground. Public hits like this one, the cops move a lot faster, especially when there’s an upscale crowd involved. Chances are, they’ll fan out pretty quickly to establish a crime scene and find witnesses. Cleaning up after a murder, the cops see everyone, homeless or not. Up here, almost level with the downspouts and small gargoyles, I fit right in. I’m just a small, legless lump, a stone beast meant to keep bad spirits away from the building. I hear walkie-talkies echoing off the alley walls. Someone coughing. Someone rooting through my stuff by the dumpster.
I won’t be able to stand when I hit the ground. My remaining leg is going completely the wrong way. I look like a tortured Barbie doll. I hope it’s just a homeless guy down there. I pray it’s just a nosy street punk. I wish they would just move the fuck on, nothing to see here.
These operations are never light or easy. I have things stashed all over the place, none of it easy to hide. Parking close was not an option. My van is blocks away. I have a good set of walking legs down there, a warm overcoat, even a thermos of coffee.
Miss Massacre's Guide to Murder and Vengeance Page 1
