by Mike McCrary
Rasnick takes a big snort, taking down the last line of coke with authority. “The last asshole? Waingrow? No idea what the hell he’s sending out.”
9
A lump of a security guard sits at a desk across the sprawling marble lobby of a nondescript office building. His post, his place in life as it were, rests among this vast tomb of a space. It’s the kind of building you’d hate to work in, but have to.
The burned-out shell of a man nurses a cup of the building’s complementary, horrible, coffee. Starbucks? Coffee Bean? Those are a fantasy on his salary. Hell, it’s not even fucking Folgers.
He wears a fading gold nametag which reads LEON.
It sags crooked on his semi-pressed uniform. No gun, but he does have a belt with a walkie and a stick. Leon figures if something should actually happen he could use the stick to tap S.O.S into the walkie as he waits to bleed out from the bullet wounds. All this gear is designed to give the illusion of safety, the appearance of actual police; it’s not fooling anyone.
Dressed in his grey, unflattering guard garb, Leon stares out into the empty office floor. He’s barely hanging onto the handsome he once had, his once Greek God body now a shadow of its former glory. He can still gut through a mile run, maybe, but he’s not going to pass any tests at Quantico. Leon has seen some tough days since Mexico. He spins his wedding ring on the desk, eyes drifting back and forth from the hypnotic spinning ring to a slow-as-hell clock on the wall.
When is this shit over?
A janitor buffs the floor, adding a layer of white noise to the deafening silence. He glances over to Leon, feels for the man. Leon sits there night after night sucking down bad coffee, never saying more than four or five words. The janitor forces eye contact with an exaggerated wave. “Later, Leon. You be well.”
Leon slaps his hand down, stopping the spinning wedding ring cold. “Yeah.”
At the employee lockers just off the lower level parking garage, Leon changes from his guard duds into street wear. These clothes aren’t much better: tube socks, bad jeans, bad flannel…bad look overall.
He grabs his thermos.
Takes a squirt.
Clocks out.
As part of his nightly routine, he hits a bar on Wilshire not far from the building. At least it’s his routine when he works. On his nights off he rarely gets out of bed. Leon sits alone at the bar, whiskey shots five deep with a Bud chaser close behind. LA’s elite passes around him as if he was a pothole. The cocaine and boob job crowd have better things to do than pay attention to a guy they write off as some homeless dude at the bar.
Leon drains his shots one by one. It’s an assembly line process that he’s worked out—the assembly line of a fully functional alcoholic. He makes a face, upset that his head is still racing. The booze is supposed to at least slow that down. It doesn’t, and that pisses Leon off. The booze actually cranks up his thoughts, hands them a microphone, and shoves them into the spotlight. That myth he heard about drinking to forget? Utter shit.
Leon remembers everything. He can even recall a time in his life when he really didn’t drink at all. Wasn’t so long ago. He used to have a nice home with a great Labrador, surrounded by nice crap from Pottery Barn. He used to have a kind, beautiful wife. There were friends and cookouts and football parties and talk about having children. His head keeps spinning back to the kind, beautiful wife, back to his is time with her. Remembers the laughter and smiles, the time when he didn’t hate everyone and everything.
Not like now.
Now? Life consists of work, drinking, Seinfeld and Family Guy reruns, then some quick masturbation to free porn clips online before passing out. He doesn’t speak to anyone he doesn’t have to. Even prefers the drive-thru to communicating face-to-face at a counter. Orders things online when he can. Leon’s built a life that is contained, controlled and void of emotional interaction of any kind. It’s how he wants it.
He wanted that other life gone. Eased. Stuffed in a furnace and set ablaze. Wanted that house, the Lab and the wife to go away. And fuck you, Pottery Barn. He pushed it all away after Mexico. After Big Ugly took him captive.
Those days, weeks and months with that man have all bled together in Leon’s head. Time meant nothing after awhile. Leon doesn’t remember everything, which is probably best. He remembers flashes of dark places, moments of terror, sudden violence then days of nothing but breathing.
Oh yeah, there was humiliation too.
Then, completely out of nowhere, there would be a random day where a steak dinner would appear, served by a gorgeous blonde offering body massages and sex. Leon took the steak, but thanked the blonde for the offer and declined the sex. Sometimes Big Ugly would read Leon poetry. Or children’s books, Or pull Leon’s eyelids open forcing him to watch The Sound of Music spliced together with German snuff films.
On the last day, Big Ugly announced he was bored with Leon.
He calmly stated they were going to fight to the death. Leon’s mind was gone by then, but somehow he understood. He even thanked Big Ugly for the opportunity. Leon was brought to a room, a very nice room that had crystal chandeliers…and a cage filled with medieval weapons. It was a real gladiator style affair, complete with an audience of half-naked women and men in suits. After what Leon had been through, none of this seemed strange at all. Almost expected, actually.
It took a few minutes for Leon’s eyes to adjust after being in the dark during all the days prior. It’s mostly a blur, but Leon does clearly recall Big Ugly coming at him with an axe to start. There were punches thrown, along with near misses from weapon strikes. It was a brutal struggle that seemed to last for hours.
Then there was a moment that changed everything.
A tiny sliver of time where luck and skill came together. Leon landed a punch that caught Big Ugly completely off guard. It was nothing special, not some special martial arts kick or a devastating combination drawn from Krav Maga. Just a wildly thrown haymaker that happened to catch Big Ugly just right; a fist that crash-landed to the temple and knocked Big Ugly out cold.
The audience went silent when Big Ugly dropped like a sack of meat. They all stopped breathing. Their master was down for the count.
That didn’t happen. Big Ugly didn’t lose.
Leon gathered himself and dragged his battered remains to the door of the cage. A group of the suits quickly beat him unconscious, of course, but later Leon woke up on a beach in Santa Monica. He couldn’t believe it.
He was free, sort of.
Leon returned to the FBI and his wife. He tried to get back to his old life, tried hard to fall back into routines, but it wasn’t easy. He was a P.O.W returning home, and everyone knew it was going to take time. There were medical and physiological evaluations, and lots of counseling. But life was slowly beginning to take shape again…until that video went viral.
Big Ugly released highlights of Leon’s captivity. Moments that Leon didn’t even remember, locked away out of self-defense. Now they were posted online, and subsequently emailed to the FBI, Leon’s family, friends, and a special private message sent to his wife. What was on that video could not be unseen, could never be forgotten. No one ever talked directly to Leon about what was on the video, and Leon decided to never watch it. The expressions on their faces and the tone of their voices told Leon all he wanted to know. He heard the snickers in the hallways, the hushed tones that would go silent just as he entered a room. Ultimately it was the look in his wife’s eyes. She tried to hide it, but it was there.
He started to resent others for not living through what he had, began to hate them for not being him.
He hated himself.
Everyone told Leon it was okay, but he knew it wasn’t. He retreated deep inside himself, put himself into his own private exile. He pushed everything and everyone away. Knowing that his time with Big Ugly changed him forever and there was no going back, Leon left the FBI, his wife and his life. Hopefully his wife would find someone else who loved her, someone who wasn’t broke
n and could never be put back together again. Someone who’d love her enough to let her go if that’s what it took…like Leon did.
All of this passes through Leon’s mind each night as he relentlessly pounds booze, and every night it doesn’t get any easier.
He takes another shot, chases it, then slams another even faster. Leon’s machine is working overtime, but his little pity party routine is stopped dead in its tracks by a voice behind him.
“Leon?”
10
A mushroom cloud blooms behind Leon’s eyes as Cooper takes a seat next to him, motioning to the bartender for another round. He looks to Leon with great sympathy. “Sorry doesn’t seem to quite cut it…”
Smash.
Leon shatters his bottle of Bud on Cooper’s head, exploding from the bar stool and ramming Cooper into the wall. “What the fuck man?” yells the bartender. Cooper pulls his badge and calls out so everyone can hear him clearly. “FBI. Please give us the room.” No one moves.
“Now!”
The bartender and the few remaining tipsy stragglers stumble to the exit. Leon is on fire. His eyes bulge. He can taste strangling the life from of this man and decides to give it a shot. “You left me to die in Mexico.”
Cooper fights for air. “I’m here to make it right.”
“Make it right? Look at me. I’m leftover scraps, a fraction of a fraction. Make it fucking right?” Leon lets him go and takes a seat—goes back to his booze. “What do you want, Cooper?”
Cooper puts pressure on his bleeding head. “I have an offer.”
Leon throws back a final drink then heads for the door. “I’ll counter with fuck your mother.”
“There’s been a Big Ugly sighting.”
Cooper’s words stop Leon dead in his tracks. He can’t help but think of the implications of Cooper’s statement. Cooper knows he has his full attention as he continues. “Doren and the other heads of state are putting together some fellowship of psychos to go after him. I can get you in.”
“To do what?” asks Leon.
“Kill Big Ugly.”
Leon turns to face Cooper.
“I’m offering you a chance for the big payback. A chance to silence all that shit rattling around your head,” says Cooper. He shifts his tone, uncomfortable to even talk about it. “I know what he did you to.”
Leon explodes, “You know shit!”
“I know you escaped within an inch of your life. I know you got laughed out of the FBI. I know you swept your wife from your life. And I know Big Ugly’s been a big fuckin’ pain in your ass.” Cooper sucks in through his teeth. “Sorry, wrong thing to say.”
Leon fires eat shit eyes at Cooper—that last statement was unnecessary, a cheap shot. He resets, explains as if to a child. “I escaped, and there’s a lot I don’t remember.”
Cooper lets it go. “Look, I can give him to you. I can serve him up real special, but there’s something you need to do for me.”
“Takes some serious balls to show up looking for a favor. I lost everything. I got within a foot of that monster, and you served me up real special to him.”
“Everybody was ordered off of him, even though we had an ocean of evidence. They destroyed his files, closed all open cases and investigations against him. They wiped him off the books, off the grid…off the earth.”
“Why?” Leon asks.
“Big Ugly took out a den of high-end call girls before he disappeared. Killed the madam, shot the girls, then tore the place apart. Back at the Bureau there’s a belief, one I happen to share, that Big Ugly found something, dirt on people who don’t like to be dirty. Senators, Supreme Court justices. Don’t know what he’s got for sure. Could be video, audio, accounting records. Nobody’s talking, but whatever it is, it’s made Big Ugly untouchable. That’s why you were left twisting in Mexico.”
Leon slides back onto his stool, reaches across and pulls a Wild Turkey bottle from the other side of the bar. Taking it up a notch.
Cooper knows he has to get to the point, fast. “I can’t send anybody else. Any involvement by me or the Bureau and word will spread. You’re not FBI, you’re not on anybody’s radar. There are no eyes on you. Technically, this conversation isn’t happening. But I’ll set you up right; I got a big fucking bag of guns out in the car.”
Leon takes a pull straight from the bottle. Cooper drags up a stool next to him. “I can’t do a thing about the wife, but I can get your pension back. Get ya back your badge, maybe some of your pride and a bit of your soul. But that’s if, and only if, you can get whatever Big Ugly has. We can put away some serious assholes and do some real good, Leon.” Cooper is getting to him. Leon takes another gulp. “You used to care about that kinda shit, Leon.”
A slow burn snakes up Leon’s spine.
He lowers the Wild Turkey from his lips.
“You had me at kill Big Ugly.”
11
Brobee, Rasnick, Oleg and Vig stand waiting next to a small hanger which houses a Gulfstream G280. Brobee is not happy. “The fuck is everybody?”
Rasnick, annoyed beyond reason, is forced to suffer this fool. “They’ll be here.”
Brobee bites a nail. “Fuckin’ hungry.”
“Stop talking,” Rasnick snaps.
“A bit parched too…”
Brobee’s bitching is stopped short as he’s distracted by the sight of Pike and Patience strutting in. Pike is shirtless, a black blazer barely covering his two shoulder holsters. Patience’s sundress clings to her sultry body. She loosely holds a Beretta in hand, a submachine gun slung around a shoulder. A Rambo worthy strap of clips parts her breasts. A little extra accessory, just to make sure you notice them.
Brobee notices. He stares, bug-eyed. “I just might love her.”
Pike and Patience take positions in front of the group. They speak over each other, completing the sentence started by the other. Not in a rude way, or that I know this person so well, married 20 years kind of way. Their speech reflects the deep bond between them. It’s a reckless, bottomless well that borders on—well, not borders…it is—violent obsession.
Pike announces, “Pike and Patience, ready to…”
“Make a buck and…” Patience continues.
“Kill a fuck,” Pike finishes.
Rasnick’s eyes roll. Are you kidding me?
Pike and Patience lock into a deep, tongue-wrapped kiss. It’s nice for them, but dammed uncomfortable for everybody else. Brobee stutters, “Ahhh, I gotta frisk ya.” He moves toward Patience, trying to figure out how to touch her in a way that won’t repulse her, too much, and still work in his needs. Pike slaps him with a firm, open hand. At least he spared Brobee the embarrassment.
Next to join the party is Chats. It’s as if ice could walk. Everybody immediately tightens up, not even really knowing why. They are all armed and have been in some pretty ugly spots, but when this guys walks in—shit. Chats walks past them without even a hint of eye contact and boards the plane without ceremony.
Pike looks to Brobee. “Gonna frisk him, ya fuckin’ freak?”
“I’ll…maybe later.” Brobee motions to Pike. “Come on, tough guy. Open the jacket. Arms up.” Pike humors the little guy and allows Brobee to pat him down.
Leon hovers outside the hangar watching it all. He can’t believe he’s here. What the hell am I doing? He pulls a flask and fires down a swig. He lets the whiskey burn down his chest, knowing he has to do this, has to go in there and do this thing. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, the kind of second chance most people will never get. It’s what people fantasize about after someone does something shitty to them. If I’d only done X or said Y to that asshole. Most fantasy do-over’s don’t contain the levels of violence and human suffering as Leon’s case, but it’s all relative. Leon takes another swig, swishes it around his mouth and makes his move inside.
Everyone gives Leon a look as he walks in. The group of killers lay hard eyes on him with blank expressions, giving Leon nothing in the way of greeting. None
of them recognize him. Leon takes in their stares. Nothing new, he thinks. Just tough guys being tough.
Patience looks him up and down, perhaps a bit too long for Pike’s taste. Brobee pats down Pike, finds a cell. Drops it in a bag and says, “Nobody’s calling anybody, nobody’s tracking us anywhere.”
“Why’s that, Sports Fan?” Pike asks.
“You motherfuckers are on a need-to-fucking-know basis, and you don’t need to fucking know where the fuck we’re going. I know how this movie ends—I tell you how to get to Big Ugly, you don’t need Brobee anymore, you shoot Brobee. Not today, bitches.”
Rasnick tries not to smirk.
Brobee tries not to drool over Patience. “You’re next, beautiful.” Patience is all too aware of her gifts and their ability to crush the superficial male. Her words glide from her tongue. “Be gentle.” She lets her guns and ammo drop…then her sundress.
Patience is a jaw-dropping display of a woman. A Victoria’s Secret model, criminally insane edition. Brobee doesn’t know what to do.
She locks eyes on Leon. “See anything?”
Pike can’t take it. He slaps Patience with a hard backhand. Everybody goes silent. Patience touches her lip with hurt in her eyes, but she’s no garden-variety abused spouse. She puts a foot to Pike’s balls, releases a war cry and pounces with reckless abandon. The lovers punch, spit and claw at each other. Rasnick motions to Vig and Oleg to break it up. They pull the two off each other, Patience’s feet still flying as she’s dragged away from Pike.
Patience and Pike catch their breath, then shove Vig and Oleg aside. They rush to each other, colliding in an anger-soaked kiss. Hands groping. Moans vibrating. Bloody lips pressed hard together. The others share a look between them.
