by CM Genovese
“With a hammer,” Matt said, his expression stone cold. “Did they suffer?”
“Very much.”
“Good. So, what do you want with me?”
“I need your help,” I said. “Honestly. If I try to explain it all to you, it won’t make sense. You wouldn’t believe me anyway.”
“Try me.”
“Later. If we get through this, I’ll tell you why it all went down.”
“And you’ll take me home after?”
“I will. Hopefully you won’t rat me out. If you do, there’s nothing I can do about it, but what we’re doing tonight has to be done.”
He nodded. “I should probably call my friends and tell them I’m okay. At least that’ll keep the heat off your back for a little while.”
“Give me his phone,” I called out to the guys in the front of the van.
“Are you crazy?” Rain asked.
“I trust him,” I said.
Rain handed the cell phone to X who handed it back to me. I gave it to Matt.
“I’m trusting you,” I said.
Matt dialed a number into his phone, and all I could do was wait to see what he said to whoever answered.
“Dude, where the fuck are you?” the tinny voice of his friend coming through the speaker asked.
“Sorry, man,” Matt said. “We had a family emergency. My uncle picked me up right after you guys went in the store.”
“You could’ve fucking told me!” his friend’s voice replied.
“I know. I’ll tell you more about it later.”
Matt hung up and handed his phone back to me. I considered letting him keep it, but if he changed his mind and decided to call the cops, we’d be fucked, so I took it and pocketed it.
“I’ll give it back to you after,” I promised.
24
When we arrived at the Sly Paw, BP was parked around the corner, in a back alley. He was alone. The strip club parking lot was about as full as it was the last time we visited. I imagined every person we kicked out of there was a regular. We’d probably barge through the front door to find the same six gentlemen sitting around the stage.
“This is him?” BP asked, looking Matt up and down. “You don’t have him gagged?”
“Why would they have me gagged?” Matt asked.
“Shh,” I reminded him. I’d told him to keep his mouth shut. “Yeah, this is him. He’s a good kid. He’s not gonna cause any trouble. Everyone else in position?”
“Yeah,” BP replied. “Oosik and Beezus are up on the hill. Nugget and Slitz parked around the corner. Frostbite and Carousel are back at the MC watching things there. X and Rain can stay with me here. We’ve got your back.”
“OK,” I said. “I’m going in alone. Y’all be ready.”
“You sure you want to go in there by yourself?” X asked.
“I have to go in myself. It’s the only way this’ll work.”
With everyone in agreement, I took Matt by the arm. Rain quickly tied his hands behind his back. Once we were ready, I held a gun to his side.
“I’m not going to shoot you,” I promised him. “But it has to look like you’ve been taken against your will.”
“I have been taken against my will,” he reminded me.
“You know what I mean.”
We walked across the dark street and through the parking lot.
“This place is going to stink,” I warned him. “You ever been in a strip club before?”
“No,” Matt said.
“Well you’re about to enter one now. Not that it’s the best first experience. Remember what I said. Don’t say a fuckin’ word unless you’re begging for your life.”
As we approached the door, I realized there was no music coming from the other side. That was odd. Strip clubs always had music playing. I wanted to look back over my shoulder and make sure BP was back there waiting in the darkness, but I knew someone could be watching me now. I didn’t want to give my brothers away.
If you’re going to back out, this is your only chance. Once you walk through that door…
I wasn’t going to back out. I couldn’t.
“You ready, kid?” I whispered.
“No. Definitely no.”
I reached out and tugged on the door. It swung open and nothing but total darkness greeted us.
Silence.
Not a fucking peep.
Shit. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea.
The door slammed shut behind us and I felt Matt jump.
For the first time since taking Matt from his buddies, I truly considered the fact that he might die tonight. That I might die too. At any moment, the darkness could be lit up by flashes of light from bullets gone off in the night. Maxim and his friends could unleash hell on us both right here at the door. They’d done it before. They’d done it in a packed arena with witnesses everywhere. What was stopping them from doing it now?
“Anybody in here?” I finally found my voice.
A pink light came on over the stage and I saw at least twenty Russians standing there with guns pointed at us.
Matt gasped.
We couldn’t even move without bumping into one of the Russians. It was a complete ambush. Guns clicked as the men holding them prepared to fire on us if necessary.
I glanced over at the bar and saw there was no bartender.
The DJ booth was empty as well.
The entire place had been cleared out in expectation of our arrival.
“This is a lot of guys with guns just for me,” I said.
“Put your gun on the bar,” a voice with a thick Russian accent demanded.
Maxim stepped out in front of the rest.
“Maxim,” I said as I moved Matt over and set my gun down on the bar.
“What is this?” Maxim asked, gesturing at Matt.
“It’s Matthew Pride,” I informed him.
“Oh, Matthew Pride,” Maxim said. He turned toward his men and laughed. “It’s only Matthew Pride.” He spun toward me and screamed at me, “Who the fuck is Matthew Pride and why is he here in my club?!”
His outburst caused Matt to flinch.
“Calm the fuck down,” I warned the kid. “You get jumpy, they get jumpy.”
“You’re gonna kill me,” Matt said, and his fear looked real.
It was like the truth suddenly hit him. We were all here for a reason, and I was going to do whatever I had to tonight. I wouldn’t have gone all the way to Wasilla to get him, making myself a kidnapper, unless I was at the end of my rope. Something drastic had to happen tonight and it was clear he was the key to it all.
Matt’s eyes locked on mine when I didn’t reply. “You’re gonna kill me,” he repeated. When I looked away from him, he flipped out. “But you said you wouldn’t hurt me! You said this was what you had to do but you wouldn’t hurt me!”
The Russians started laughing.
“You will probably die,” Maxim assured the kid, “but I still don’t understand how he is a bargaining chip. I don’t fucking know this kid.”
“Maaaaaaatheeeeeew,” the old crone at the back of the club called out.
All laughter ceased.
Total silence filled the air.
Somebody stepped on a loose board and the floor creaked, cutting through the intense silence.
“Wha… what is that?” Matt asked.
“Maaaaaaatheeeeeew Priiiiiiiiiide,” the voice stretched out over the air and brought a heaviness down over us all.
I knew the owner of that voice. I’d stood in front of her and told her to go fuck herself. I thought I’d be immune to any scare tactics she’d throw our way but hearing that God-awful sound erupt from her throat brought shivers to my spine. For a moment, I considered dragging Matt out the front door and yelling for backup.
But there’d be none.
All of my MC brothers were hidden in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to pounce. It was up to me to give them the signal no innocent lives were inside. No dancers graced the stage,
no waitresses handed out drinks, and no customers waited for the show to begin. As far as I could tell, no staff was here at all unless they were huddled up somewhere in the back.
“Wait a minute, is this the boy?” Maxim asked.
I glared at him. “Why the fuck else would I show up with a teenager?”
Maxim laughed. He didn’t chuckle but roared like it was the funniest damn thing he’d ever seen or heard. “This is the kid?” he said through all his laughter. “Here we are thinking you are showing up because of the war between our gangs and you only want to lift the curse.”
“That’s funny to you? She came after my family.”
“Of course, she did. That is the curse. For fuck’s sake. Go see her.” Maxim turned to the rest of his buddies and said, “Calm down. This is not the thing.”
“The thing? Oh, don’t get too cocky, Russki, my boys will be coming for you at some point. Make no mistake about that. You see this?” I pointed at my leg. The spot where it had bled through was now dried red. “I took a bullet in the ring the other night.”
“Those Samoans had to be taught a lesson,” he said. “You don’t make a deal and then break it. I think the lesson was learned, don’t you?”
“You shot innocent people.”
“Nobody is truly innocent,” he said in his thick, cold, Russian accent.
When I shook my head and turned to walk away from him, he added, “And your… how do you say? Your brotherhood still has a lesson to learn.”
I looked back at him, nodded at him, and said, “Likewise.”
Again, he roared with laughter and said to his buddies. “I like him. Likewise. Ahahahaha. He will see. They all will see.” He looked back at me and added, “The only reason I do not kill you right now is she…” he pointed at the dark cubby in the back where his grandmother sat, “… would be angry at me. She wants the boy. Of course, I could kill you and take the boy to her myself, but I will let you finish your deal.”
“Thanks,” I replied. “You’re a real stand-up guy, Maxim.”
He shrugged, not getting my sarcasm, and said, “Hmm… sometimes. I have my moments.”
You’re about to have your moment all right.
As I led Matt toward the darkness at the back of the building where I knew the witch waited in her manmade cave, Matt begged, “Please. I don’t know how honest you were being out there in the van, but I trusted you. You are a good guy. You saved me once. You can save me again.”
“Shut up,” I ordered.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“I said shut up.”
Lifting my phone only slightly out of my pocket, I looked down to make sure it was still set on BP’s number, and then I hit the send button.
In my head, I saw BP get the call and pass it to my brothers up on the hill and around the corner. Shit was about to get real.
I only needed to take my time back here with the witch until it all went down.
“Can you turn the light on back here?” I asked Maxim.
Walking straight into that darkness wasn’t a good idea.
“Sure, we can,” Maxim replied. He said something in Russian and one of his armed henchmen followed me toward the witch’s cubby. He flipped a switch on the wall and the dull purple bulbs flickered to life.
The henchman remained. He’d been told to keep an eye on things. I didn’t have my gun. It was on the bar, but nobody had frisked me, and I was grateful for that. I wasn’t seen as a threat. That was their mistake. Either Maxim thought I wasn’t bold enough to try anything with so much firepower around, he knew his grandmother was powerful enough to protect herself, or he didn’t care about her life one way or the other.
I imagined it was a mixture of all the above. His men were heavily armed, his grandmother was a witch strong enough to send a car full of demons after my son, and she probably bitched and moaned all day from her rocking chair throne. He was probably tired of serving her toothless ass soup for three square meals a day.
As the purple lights came to life, Matt gasped next to me. I put a hand behind his neck and clenched him tightly to keep him moving forward.
“Mmm,” the witch said. She sniffed the air like a Bluetick Coonhound. “Mmm… tasty.”
The sound of her wet gums mashing together, and her tongue darting out to swipe across them and keep them moist, was almost enough to make me vomit.
Beside her, the freakish interpreter bounced up and down in his seat. I imagined him clicking his heels together in excitement. He was a sick, disgusting little troll, and I could practically see him lying in bed with the witch every night, sucking on her tittie to get a taste of rancid milk.
“You know who he is?” I asked her.
Laughter escaped her lips, but they didn’t move. It was like it came from deep down in her gut. Like it was her soul laughing and not her body at all. A slight hellish giggle because her soul belonged to one place and was merely peeking out from the fiery pits to torment me.
Matt tried to escape from my grasp, and I squeezed his neck tighter. “Settle down.”
“No, let me go,” he begged. “Let me out of here.”
“You were a baby once,” she began, and this time she spoke English.
All that bullshit before about needing an interpreter was a fucking ruse. Was it all to freak me out? To make her all the more devilish? She didn’t need that sick bastard, and I sensed in his fiendish chuckle that he knew what I was thinking. They’d tricked me. They’d fucked with my mind. Now, more than ever, I knew he was some kind of inbred, tiny, timid twat tickler. He was her plaything. He was only around to keep her company and he fucking loved it.
“You were a baby boy,” the witch continued, speaking directly to Matt. “Matthew Pride. Your daddy owed money to some important people. To my son… Maxim’s daddy. A business venture gone bad. Yes, it was.” She cackled with laughter holding her bony fingers out in front of her in what I’d call ‘witch jazz hands’ as she repeated, “A business venture. Hee hee hee.”
“What does my father have to do with me?” Matt asked.
Keep this going. Keep the distraction going. The longer we’re back here the more time BP has.
“He didn’t only ask for money, young one,” the witch went on. “No, he wanted power and money. The money he was given, the power was delivered, but he was warned what would happen if he defaulted. Something personal, something special, something innocent would be taken from him.”
“Me,” Matt said.
She cackled again. “Smart boy. So smart. So damned.”
“And I got in the way of that,” I said.
“Hee hee hee. Yes, that innocence was saved. And so, the curse passed on to you.”
“And you placed this curse,” I said, making sure I fully understood the situation. “It was your curse.”
She threw her head back and laughed wholeheartedly, then snapped her face forward with her eyes rolled back in her head. Her demeanor went from wickedly gleeful old bitch to instant paranoia. Blank, white eyeballs glared at me. A finger shot out and pointed at me. “What are you doing?”
Whatever bullshit magic she possessed seemed to kick in. It was clear she’d figured out I was up to something. She knew this was part of a bigger plan.
“It was your curse,” I repeated, ignoring her sudden suspicion.
She breathed in deeply and her chest wheezed so badly I could imagine phlegm-covered cobwebs built up in her chest, blocking the oxygen from getting through her body. When she was as full of breath as possible, she screamed, “You!”
A BOOM resounded. Brick exploded as the far wall, closer to the back of the house and the opposite corner from which I stood, caved inward. The front end of an old ice cream truck barreled through the wall.
Beside it, an old junked up Cadillac tore through the building, taking out the stage and careening over several of the armed Russians. Their limbs went out in all directions as they tried to avoid the car, but too many tables were in the way, keeping the
m pinned in place.
Oosik and Beezus had let them roll downhill, unleashing those monstrous metallic beasts to feast on anybody in their way.
From the opposite corner, on the far side of the bar, came another roar as Nugget and Slitz drove their vehicles through that wall, catching the Russians who’d gone that direction to escape the ice cream truck and the Cadillac. They’d chosen to run head-on into the snowplow at the front of a Ford F-250 or the grille of a semi-truck.
Wood splintered, glass shattered, metal bent and broke away from the walls, Russians screamed, guns fired… it was all-out mayhem and it happened in a matter of seconds.
BP and X walked right through the destroyed front door and tossed flares behind the bar where all the exploded bottles of liquor lay in puddles.
The place went up in flames.
In front of me, the witch howled as flames danced in the shimmer of her eyes. She saw her world burning.
Maxim ran toward the back of the club but stopped when he saw Oosik and Beezus climb through the broken back wall. His club was completely demolished.
“My grandson!” the witch hollered, no longer concerned about me or the boy I’d brought for her tarnished, black soul to feast on.
“You said you needed his blood to end the curse,” I said.
She turned back to me. “Huh?”
“His blood,” I repeated. “The boy’s. You said you needed it. Then the curse would be over.”
She stared back at me, trying to make sense of what I was saying. Her gummy lips were turned downward in a frown. It was all over for her and her family.
“His blood,” she said weakly.
That was enough for me. It was confirmation.
With a glance over my shoulder, I saw the henchman who’d been sent to watch me was gone. He’d run into the fray inside the club. Gunshots rang out behind me as the war ensued. My brothers would be tearing Maxim and his men to fucking shreds.
It was my job to handle the witch.
Too fast for her to figure out what was going on let alone stop me, I yanked my ulu blade from my belt, slid it over my knuckles, and pushed the boy away from me.
“What are you—” he went to argue.
I swiped my blade across his chest, drawing enough blood to coat it.
