Johnny Wylde

by Wynne, Marcus

  A cellphone on his lap buzzed on vibrate. He looked down at the text message.

  “IN PLACE. YOU, OKE?”

  The man sitting cross legged was older, maybe 50, with a good gut on him, stubbly grey hair and a scar on one cheek, a ragged star. He picked up the cell phone and tapped out a text message: ALL SET. ON YOUR MARK.

  In the storefront, Deon looked down at the text message, set his phone down.

  “We’re good,” he said to no one in particular. “So let’s see what the day brings our way, eh?”

  ***

  Nina had been to the scene, a giant to-go cup of coffee in her hand. The go-juice had kicked her up long enough to get what she needed, which was confirmation of what she already knew. The girl was a stripper, was probably followed into her building, taken in her apartment, stripped, beaten, raped, beaten some more, raped some more, left for dead.

  Darko modus, that’s for sure.

  Nina tapped her fingers on the butt of her Glock.

  Stalked off and got in her car, drove away. Found herself circling the block aimlessly, the sudden sadness and silence that comes from riding the liquor and no-sleep train all night crashing down on her. Tears in her eyes. From what, she didn’t know.

  She needed sleep.

  She needed someone to lay against.

  She took a deep breath, cleared her head. Turned the wheel towards home.

  On the horizon, the first hint of light.

  She’d get some sleep, crash in, then get up and hit the bricks. Leave a message for Oozy, let him know the deal.

  The drive to her house passed in a blur. Her hands were shaking when she got out of the car in front of her small duplex. She owned it and lived on one side; the other side went to a quiet Nigerian graduate student at the State University. She let herself in, looked around her front room. Clean, neat, tidy -- everything in its place. A soft green sofa with a comforter folded across the back, a low teak coffee table in front of mid-size television set with DVD and VHS player, a small bookcase with a few books and a lot of photos. That needed dusting, she thought.

  Sat down. Took off her Converse boots. Lay back on the couch. Pulled out her Glock and put it on the table. Kicked her feet up for just an instant. And fell deep into a dark sleep.

  Just as the first light of day crept through her windows, falling across a framed picture of Nina, and a smiling muscular man her age, his arm wrapped around her.

  ***

  The same light lit the street outside Deon’s gun store.

  And fell through the windows of Jimmy’s bedroom across Jimmy and Lizzy.

  And filtered through the tinted windows of Sergey’s Cherokee, parked a good three blocks away from Deon’s gunstore.

  And into the sprawling modern kitchen of the restored farmhouse on the outskirts of Lake City, where the city fell away on one side into old farm land and tangled forest, and rose on the other side into the low foothills of the Laurentian Mountains; in the kitchen where Irina Komorov sipped her first cup of espresso and smoked a Sobranie and stared idly out the window, while a young man with a shaved chest and a leather hood over his head, knelt at her feet, a spiked dog collar round his neck and a leash leading to the arm of her kitchen chair.

  Chapter Thirty One

  Aleksander did the first walk by. He strolled along, a cup of coffee in his hand, looking like a working man on his way to his job, stopped to look in the windows of the gun store, through the sign that said Benoni Guns painted on the glass. There were no guns in the windows; only posters and advertisements for manufacturers like Beretta, Glock, Sig, Taurus, a few handbills advertising shooting classes and upcoming combat pistol competitions. The gray haired man used the opportunity to look behind him, scan the street in the glass reflection as he pretended to study the bills.

  Nothing.

  No movement inside. He looked around the street, innocent, as though he were just waiting for someone. His gaze lingered on the vacant storefront, moved on to the old warehouse beside it, the street.

  Nothing.

  In the parking lot, a pick up truck with a shell, a battered and rusty old VW, beside that a small convenience store.

  Aleks took his time walking around the side of the building, went around to the back, checked the rear door, a heavy metal door set flush with the wall, no exterior handle, just a heavy duty lock. There was one window with heavy metal bars welded across it, making a cage that left enough room for the window to open out slightly. Probably a bathroom.

  He cut across the parking lot to the convenience store, carefully not looking too closely at the pick up truck, went inside, bought a fresh cup of coffee. Then out on the street, he walked back three blocks to where Sergey and the rest of the crew waited.

  “I don’t like it,” he said to Sergey in the front seat of the Cherokee. “I have a bad feeling about it.”

  “Why?”

  “It is a good place for an ambush,” Aleks said. “There is a storefront, abandoned it looks like, and a warehouse across the street. There is a truck parked in the lot with the rear gate just slightly cracked. I think there is someone in there. If there was, and we approach from the front, or the rear of the store, we could be pinned down if they have someone across the street or up high in the warehouse. They would expect us to come here. Do we know where this South African lives?”

  “As far as we know, here,” Vladimir said. “No one knows where he lives if he lives elsewhere. There’s a small room at the back, with a bed. He eats out, and he drinks at that bar.”

  “Bar?” Aleks said. “Perhaps that would be a good place…”

  “I don’t think he will go there,” Vladimir said. “He knows we will be looking at him for this. So he will stay mobile, look to find us first. Does he know about the farm?”

  “He’s never been there,” Sergey said. “But it is possible. We don’t have customers out to the farm. He may be able to find it…”

  “We could leave some people here, to watch for him if he returns. He must have some place else to store his merchandise, because the ATF can come here and inspect any time. He has a legitimate business…” Aleks said.

  “We don’t know where that is,” Sergey said. “We have people looking, asking, but no one knows. Or they won’t say.”

  “Perhaps we should burn his store down,” Vladimir said. “That will get his attention.”

  Sergey laughed. “Not a bad idea, Vladi. Pain makes you innovative.”

  “This could be a good thing,” Aleks said. “But the light of day is not the time to do this thing. Tonight. Leave someone here to watch his place in case he returns. We can be here quickly if need be.”

  Sergey’s cell phone buzzed. He flipped it open, looked at the number. Irina.

  “Yes?” he said.

  “Have you found him?” Irina said.

  “No. We are near his store. He’s not there. We are thinking of burning it down.”

  “Burn it, drive by and shoot it, do something!” Irina said. “You must do something to bring him out. We need to finish this quickly.”

  Sergey frowned. “I’ll see to this. I will speak to you later.” He cut the call short, and part of him quailed at how she would mete out punishment for that later. “I think Irina may be right. Let’s drive by and shoot out his windows, throw a grenade inside, that will burn it out enough. We’re here. Then he won’t be able to come near this place without talking to the police or the insurance…we’ll leave you, Aleks, and one of the boys here. We’ll go down and do what we must, and then move quickly on. Who has a grenade?”

  “I have some,” Yuri said. He held up a round Mk-26 fragmentation grenade. “I don’t know how much fire this will start.”

  “It will be good enough,” Sergey said. “Let’s go.”

  ***

  The man watching from the back of the pick up tapped out a text message to Deon: SHALL WE TAKE THEM IF THEY RETURN?

  The message came back instantly. YES.

  “So when they come back
, we light them up?” the M-60 gunner whispered.

  “Yep,” the older man said.

  In the storefront window, Deon said to Marcus and Joe, “If they come back, we’ll take them right here. Hit them long, hard, and continuous. Then we’ll break contact, see who we got. Then we’ll have to mop up whatever’s left of his people, out at his farm.”

  “Sounds good to me. I’m getting blue nut of the adrenal gland sitting around waiting for something to happen,” Marcus said.

  Joe grunted.

  “Poor Joey. Came to shit but only farted. You’ll get your chance to make good your fuck up, dude.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Marcus and Deon both laughed.

  ***

  “We’ll just roll up on the store, stop, everyone empty a magazine into the window and the store, then Yuri throw the grenade, we’ll go,” Sergey said.

  The new guy, Tim, leaned forward, his breathing ragged.

  “Easy, boy,” Sergey said. “You will give yourself a heart attack.”

  Aleks laughed. “Young boys. All the same.”

  “Here we go…”

  They rolled down the street.

  ***

  “Here they come,” Deon whispered.

  There was a stillness, the only sound the whisper of cloth on the floor as the men settled themselves with their weapons, spare magazines stacked at hand.

  ***

  “Ready with the gun,” the old man in the back of the pick up said. “As soon as I drop the gate, open up on them.”

  The M-60 gunner grunted in assent.

  ***

  The twin Cherokees squealed to a stop, the doors swung open, and Sergey and his crew got out, weapons shouldered, and they opened fire on Deon’s storefront, the glass shattering in a rain of shards across the sidewalk, the bullets sparking against the concrete walls inside, fragmenting shelving and countertops and showcases….

  ***

  “Gun up,” the old man in the back of the truck said. He released the bungee cord and dropped the gate.

  “Gun up,” the lean goateed M-60 gunner said. He squeezed the trigger to the rear and felt the heavy pig buck in familiar recoil, the metal plate slamming against his shoulder as he snugged it in tight, his eye fixed on the sights as he moved them slowly across the front of shooting men…

  ***

  Aleksander was the first to go, his torso torn into pink meat by the multiple impact of the heavy 7.62 rounds, the bup bup bup of the M-60 lost in the din of multiple automatic weapons firing…

  …then young Tim, as Deon’s M-60 gunner expertly walked the rain of fire across Sergey’s shooters….

  …Sergey just knew to turn and run for the cover of the Cherokees, and Vladimir, his survivor instinct in full roar, followed him, as bullets tore up the asphalt behind them, walking across the Cherokee in front, heavy rounds punching holes and shattering tires…

  ***

  “Now,” Deon said. “Fire right…”

  The storefront windows exploded outward as Marcus and Joe opened up with the SAWs, catching the remains of Sergey’s crew as they ran for what they thought was cover behind their Jeeps, a brutal cross fire that turned the entire street into a killing zone. The SAW gunners worked their weapons with the skill of a lifetime back and forth till all the men in the street were down, the vehicles perforated through and through, gasoline and blood pooling in the street.

  “Ceasefire!” Deon shouted.

  The SAWs fell silent, then, after a moment, the M-60 did as well. The street rang with echoes of gunfire, and the final clatter of falling links.

  Deon picked up his cell phone, to the open circuit. “Incendiary.”

  ***

  In the back of the pick up, the old man shouldered his M-203, pulled the trigger on the grenade launcher. A dull plop, and the projectile flew forward, struck the nearest Cherokee. The white phosphorus round ignited, spraying white and blue sparks, a shower like a deadly sparkler, that set off the gasoline and turned the scene into a raging ball of fire.

  ***

  The whoomf of the sudden explosion and fire send a percussion and hot wave of air across Deon’s face. He said into his cell phone, “Break contact.” Marcus and Joe were already throwing their gear into their own Cherokee.

  Across the street, the old man got out, shut the gate, got into his truck and drove away.

  Moments later, Deon and his crew followed.

  Time on target was less than four minutes tops.

  Far off, sirens rising and falling.

  Smoke rising from the carnage in the street.

  Burnt offerings.

  ***

  And on the outskirts of Lake City, Irina Komorov pushed her latest boy lover away, a terrible pang in her heart.

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Nina blinked awake, the light of morning across her face. She looked at her G-Shock -- it was only 7:30. She sat up, rolled the crick out of her neck, looked ruefully around her front room. Asleep in her clothes? Jesus. She rubbed her side where the magazines she’d forgotten to take out of her belt had stabbed into her skin. She dropped her gear on the table, then walked back through the duplex, shedding her clothes as she went, till she stood in the bathroom in a sports bra and her panties, studied herself in the mirror.

  Ah, Nina.

  Her skin was rough. Too much booze, too many late nights, not enough sleep. Her eyes looked like two pissholes in the snow -- yellow, rimmed with red, sunken in a pale face. She needed rest, sun…something else, too, but she didn’t let herself think about that.

  Instead she turned on the shower, hot hot hot, and stepped in, let the almost scalding water run over her skin, soak through her thick matted hair. She stood there for five minutes and just let the water run over her, then took a thick loofa and poured liquid soap over it, gave herself a real scrubbing. Washed her hair twice, then just as the water began to cool turned the tap to ice cold and screamed out loud for the ten seconds she made herself stay under the icy spray. Sprung out, dried herself, worked conditioner into her hair. Thought about shaving her legs but said the hell with it.

  In the kitchen, coffee in a gigantic blue mug, a double cup run through her Keurig brew master. Perched on a stool, wrapped in an old terry cloth bathrobe that had seen better days in every sense of the phrase, legs crossed, elbows on the butcher block table in the center of her kitchen, both hands warming on the steaming cup.

  Silence.

  Blessed silence.

  Only the taste of coffee, rich and hot and rejuvenating, her cells wakening in the luxury of a slow and languorous morning.

  She needed to do this more often. Too much time spent running from one case to the next, to the range, on the street, and the downtime spent in the bars pounding down shots to dull and block out…

  She put away that thought.

  It was time to ease up on the booze. She hadn’t been down to her combatives class in a couple of weeks, hadn’t hit the weights for at least a week, hadn’t run in a month. She was feeling it now. She looked up at the calendar.

  May.

  That fucking month. That’s what it was. A year ago…

  She’d blocked it completely out of her mind.

  Him.

  She set the coffee cup down with unnecessary violence, took a deep breath, then made herself lift the cup and sip the dregs slowly before she made another double cup. She watched the coffee drain into the mug and concentrated on that instead. Took the mug out to the front room, sat back down on the couch, kicked her bare feet up on her table, nudging her two pistols to one side, and picked up the remote to watch some TV.

  The missed call light on her pager blinked. Her cell phone was dead.

  Damn.

  She plugged the cell phone into the charger, watched the splash screen come up, saw the message light blinking. Looked at her pager, saw her boss LT Fabruzzi, her old friend Oozy, his number on five missed calls.

  Shit.

  When she called her voice mail, she had five mes
sages, all from Fabruzzi: variations on “Where the fuck you at? Return my call! Get in the office! Your fucking guy is dead…”

  What guy? And dead?

  It was going to be that kind of day.

  With a resigned sigh, she picked up her phone and looked at her pistols.

  ***

  Jimmy blinked awake, sluggish, or as his old team mates would say, drowsy with too much ass. He smelt coffee, and looked up to see Lizzy wrapped in her sheer nightgown holding a cup of coffee and smiling down at him.

  “For you,” she said.

  She sat beside him, the bed curving beneath her. Jimmy smelt her: warm skin, musk, their juices. A hint of lilac.

  “Where’s yours?” he said.

  “I’ll make some tea. Did you sleep well?”

  He just smiled. As did she.

  They had a quiet moment together, looking into each other’s eyes. Jimmy was the first to look away. Lizzy smiled at that, touched his face.

  “I need to go,” she said. “I need to get some clothes…”

  “You don’t need any clothes. Stay here. We’ll wash what you’ve got. Stay naked, I like you that way.”

  She stood, let the robe slip away, stood there in all her splendor.

  “I like me that way, too.”

  She plucked the coffee cup from his hands, set it on the floor, threw back the sheet and reached down to stroke him gently erect.

  Slid over him, settled him inside her.

  Closed her eyes and rocked herself till she came, then slid off and took him in her mouth, finished him there.

  Then slid down beside him, curled into his chest.

  Peace.

  Quiet.

  And faint and far off through the windows, the sound of distant thunder, though the sky was clear, and then the rise and fall of sirens growing in the distance.