by Richard Long
“Hhmmph!” Paul snorted, clapping his hands with delight. “Maybe you’ve been doing your homework, after all. Even so, you’ve forgotten the most important lesson of all. Don’t ever turn your back on me, boy!”
Michael gasped so loudly that Paul gave another booming laugh, craning his face to the ceiling like he was howling at the moon. Martin remained still for a moment, looking at both of them. Then he walked backwards out of the room facing Paul every step of the way.
“What were you guys playing at back there with all that knife throwing shit?” Michael asked nervously, hurrying to catch up with Paul as he stomped to the front windows.
“Exciting, wasn’t it?” Paul replied, peering through the dirty glass at the street below.
“Way too exciting,” Michael mumbled, clutching his chest again.
“I’ll bet you felt alive though. More alive than you’ve ever felt?”
Michael stopped to think about it. It was true, he guessed, not that he wanted to admit it, or even think about it. His head nodded anyway, as a more urgent question surfaced. “Why was that nutjob so pissed at me? I was totally cool with him and he tried to kill me!”
“Rule number one: never say anything about anyone that you wouldn’t have the sack to say straight to their face. Martin is far from a ‘nut job’ by any standard of assessment. As to his motivation for assaulting you, I’m certain he was much more irritated with me, dear boy. You simply presented him with a more vulnerable target for his frustration. I believe that’s called transference. My tale stirred up some uncomfortable memories for the lad, as I expected.”
“You were trying to piss him off?” Michael asked, his mind spinning.
“If that were my sole intention, I would’ve taken a more direct approach. As you’ve probably noticed, bluntness comes naturally to me. My prodding was more of a wakeup call. Martin is a very special man, with a very special destiny. The story I was telling of our encounter with Clan Firth marked a turning point in our relationship. Ever since that day, Martin has been running away from himself, his heritage and, most importantly, his duty. I was simply steering him back on track again, though apparently he doesn’t see it that way.”
“What happened? How did the story end?” Michael asked, his curiosity in overdrive.
“Stories never end,” Paul grunted, “at least not the ones I tell.”
“But what happened with the duel?” Bean asked, though he really wanted to know what happened to the girl.
Paul turned to look at him. To look through him. Michael recoiled and Paul turned away, staring down at the street again. When Martin emerged and walked down the steps, Paul’s stony expression melted into a smile. “That man down there, who was more boy than man on that fateful day, dispatched with Firth’s son in the time it would take me to trim my mustache. We assumed he was dead, not much of a stretch, given the scope of his lacerations. But as you’ve heard, he lived to fight another day, sadly for him. At any rate, with all the blood gushing from the poor lad, Firth knew all was lost, so he turned on Martin, determined to settle the score.”
“Wow,” gasped Michael. “What did he do?”
“Martin was always a force to be reckoned with, even back then,” Paul said, watching Martin’s slow, determined progress up the sidewalk. When he crossed the street, Paul stomped back down the hallway to a large closet with double doors. “Firth never knew what hit him. I pulled Martin off after the first few stabs, so I could relish his final humiliation. Then the girl started screaming and ruined that perfect moment.”
Michael stared at him speechless. Paul threw open the closet doors so forcefully that the doorknobs dented the plaster on either side. He bent over and opened a chest filled with every type of weapon imaginable. Michael gawked at the array of handguns, knives and other exotic killing instruments, some weirder than anything he’d seen in the movies.
Paul grinned and asked, “Don’t you want to know what happened to the girl?”
“Uh, yeah,” Michael muttered, unable to stop staring at the shiny weaponry.
“Martin tried to save her! He pleaded with me, begged me, in fact, to spare the girl…going so far as to forfeit his share of the treasure we’d plundered from old Lord Firth, even all that gold Martin loves so much, if only I’d leave her be.”
“The gold?” Michael asked with a greedy shiver.
“Oh, yes. Firth had gobs and gobs of the stuff. Martin was willing to trade it all away for the skinny runt. Well, he wasn’t talking sense, now was he? He certainly wasn’t being financially prudent. And since he wasn’t of legal age, and I was his de facto legal guardian, I needed to make sure he didn’t squander all his rightful earnings. So…”
Paul paused and stared at Michael, as if debating whether to continue.
“So…” Michael repeated, goading him on.
“So…” Paul continued with a sigh, “I told Martin that his wish was granted…that the girl could live, and because he’d been so noble, not only could he keep his share of the gold, but he could have all of mine as well. And we all lived happily ever after.”
Bean didn’t know what to say. He held the gaze of Paul’s twinkling eyes far longer than he would have thought possible, before his brain kicked his mouth into motion again.
“Did you get the book?” he asked. It wasn’t what he really wanted to know but it felt far safer than asking the other question nagging away at him—about what really happened.
“Hhmph.” Paul chuckled. “Now what do you think?”
Michael turned away sheepishly. “I guess you did,” he mumbled.
“Very good! I do believe you’ll be a full-fledged wizard in no time at all. But here’s a secret I don’t think you could anticipate so easily: I knew where the book was hidden before we even knocked on Firth’s door.”
“Then why go through all that stuff with the offers and the duels and all that other shit?” Michael asked, incredulous. “Why didn’t you just walk in and take it?”
“Well, my little friend, I can see you have very much to learn indeed. I did ‘all that other shit,’ as you so eloquently put it…simply for the fun of it!”
I hid in the shadows by the stoop and peered up at Rose’s window for a very long time. God, she was so beautiful…and so unreasonably happy.
Martin. Fucking Martin. It wasn’t long before I ceased basking in the warm glow of her beauty and began writhing in the molten lava of my shame, loathing and hatred.
The sound of a broken bottle and loud laughter coming from up the block shook me from my seething contempt like a train whistle. I craned my neck around the stoop and stared into the darkness, trying to make out the shapes under the broken streetlights. A group of five young toughs were on the other side of the street about forty feet ahead, muthafucking this and that as loudly as they could, laughing and swilling malt liquor from the requisite brown paper bags under the sole functioning streetlight. They looked like they were auditioning for an Off-Off-Off Broadway production of West Side Story.
I briefly considered a brisk stroll back home to the safety of a more remote viewing location. Then I looked farther up the street and saw the distant silhouette of a tall man walking with confident strides. It was Martin, coming right towards them.
I eagerly receded into the shadows again, hungry for the show to begin. Now this is going to be interesting. Too bad I didn’t bring any popcorn.
Paul reached carefully into the deep pockets of his coat and felt around for his knife. His pocket-sickle. He had it custom made in Germany, where they still knew a thing or two about craftsmanship and cruelty. The long semicircular blade was hinged in two places and attached to a stainless-steel handle with a 360-degree rotational swivel joint, so he could open it with one swift whip-crack motion, whereupon hidden metal dowels would lock all the hinges in place. It was a scary piece of steel even when it was closed…the razor-sharp edges facing in on each other. You had to be careful just reaching in to grab it because the hair-trigger spring could insta
ntly turn it into a bear trap in your pocket. Ouchy, wowchy.
Paul gingerly patted his pocket from the outside and smiled to himself. Ah, the simple joys of the hunt. He stared at the open chest, looking at all the shiny toys, debating whether there was anything else he wanted to bring. “Hmmm,” he murmured, eyeing the Uzi as he twirled his mustache. He was a knife man, rarely used pistols, but it could come in handy for crowd control.
“Uh, could I have a look at that?” Michael asked tentatively, pointing at a nickel-plated Luger Parabellum. It looked like the gun in the old James Bond movies, only cooler. Paul lifted it from its foam-cushioned box and placed it into Bean’s grateful palm. Michael’s eyes widened in delight as he hefted its sleek weight a few times. “Is it loaded?”
Paul laughed and shouted, “Is the Pope a theocratic despot who only cares about filling the coffers of the Holy Roman Empire while undermining all the fundamental teachings of the Good King Jesus the Christ?”
“Uh, I guess,” Michael replied, squeezing the grip of his super-cool pistol.
Paul grabbed Michael by the shoulders and gave him a heartfelt hug. “I like you, boy. And because I’m so curiously fond of you, I’m going to make you a special offer.”
“What?” Michael asked, his face suddenly flushed with anticipation.
“If you manage to show me some spine tonight, I’ll give you a peek at the greatest treasure in the universe.”
“What’s that?” Michael asked greedily.
“Why, the Book, of course,” Paul said with a strange light in his eyes.
“The Book?” Bean asked, pouting with disappointment. “I thought you said it was like a souvenir or something.”
“I lied,” Paul said, grinning like a maniac while he strapped the Uzi to a Velcro harness on the inside of his coat. “The Book can give you anything you’ve ever desired. Power. Wealth. Riches beyond imagining. How does that sound, laddie? Does that make your little pecker go pitter-pat?”
Michael nodded vigorously. “But what do I have to do?”
“We need to move fast, so there’s no time for details,” Paul continued, hustling down the hallway, Michael trailing behind like a bobbing dinghy in his wake. “Let’s just say there’s a level of risk proportionate to the rewards.”
“Uh, all right,” Michael stuttered, his legs struggling to catch up, his nostrils flaring with exhilaration and far less unease than he would have expected.
“Good, good,” Paul said, guiding Bean’s hand and the pistol it held into the pocket of his beat-up army jacket. “Then saddle up, doggy, we’re going for a walk!”
Michael was so excited that he almost wagged his tail.
All Martin wanted to do was go home. He was less than a block away when he saw the crowd of neighborhood punks huddled around the stoop they always used as their drug distribution/intimidation post. There were five of them tonight. Not his favorite number.
Martin had seen them plenty of times before. They never said a word to him or even looked in his direction. Wisely. But tonight Martin knew it would be different. They were predators and would surely sense his weakness. He was hurt, he was tired and he was stupid. He hadn’t brought a single weapon into Paul’s apartment, because it was forbidden. He also hadn’t left one hidden outside. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
He thought about crossing the street. But he was so close to them now they’d see his maneuver for exactly what it was—a simple act of cowardice. Not only would they come after him in all probability, but even if they didn’t, he’d never be able to live with himself. No, his course was clear. He had to keep walking. Past them.
Yes…just a little farther…a few more steps and…past the stoop…they’re behind me now…almost there…almost home…not a fucking peep and…
“Yo, bubblehead!” the leader called out—and Martin stopped dead in his tracks.
Rose was sizing up the kitchen window curtains when she spotted Martin standing motionless under the streetlight, glowing like her candles. What was he doing? Then she saw the five brutes ambling up behind him, all rolling arm movements, fingers splayed, heads cocked this way and that, like they were in some gangsta-rap monster movie.
“Martin!” she screamed, trying to lift the window. It was painted shut. Her fingers clawed at the frame and her wrists bent with the effort of trying to free it. It wouldn’t budge. She slammed her hands against the window in frustration, but even the glass taunted her with weaves of chicken-wire reinforcement.
She sobbed and screamed his name again, hoping he could hear her, hoping he would do something. Why was he just standing there? Couldn’t he hear them coming up behind him? Why didn’t he move? What was wrong with him?
The gang pressed closer. “Move, you son of a bitch! Turn around!” she screamed through the chicken-wire window. “Run, Martin! Run!”
Martin knew what was happening behind him. Knew they were on the move, knew they would be on him in only a few more seconds. He was so tired. He wanted to go home.
“Yo! Bubblehead!” the leader repeated. “If you a lighthouse, why don’t you blink?”
Martin remained perfectly still. The other gang members chimed in raucously, “Yeah, Carlos, make that muthafucka blink!” and “Yo! Fuck you, bubblehead!” Carlos silenced them all by calling out to Martin in his flattest, bad-ass voice: “Turn around, punk.”
When Martin moved, his only thought was speed. Paul’s voice whispered in his mind as he tensed his body for action. One of the first rules he learned from Paul was: “Never, ever get into a fight. Fighting is for sissies—for little boys who need to prove how big and strong they are. Real men don’t fight,” he said dryly. “They attack, they maim, they murder.”
“Cut off the head, and the body dies,” he advised on another notable occasion, immediately conducting a practical demonstration by throwing a fifteen-inch Russian military bayonet directly into the drunken heart of the leader of a local biker gang that had surrounded them outside a honky-tonk in rural Tennessee. The “fight” ended quickly.
Martin acquired firsthand knowledge of the wisdom in that saying on many subsequent occasions and was anxious to test its validity again. If he could take out the leader, there was a good chance the others would scatter.
Martin leapt into a flying roundhouse kick straight to Carlos’s chin. He missed. His boot sliced through the air directly on course, but two inches below Carlos’s stubbly beard. Oops. Nobody laughed at Martin’s mistake, least of all Carlos. The strength, poise and authority of his movements were much too impressive for ridicule. However, they didn’t start applauding either. They pulled out their guns. Not all five of them. Just Carlos and the bald-shaven, dark-skinned guy on the stoop directly above him to his…left.
Shit.
When Rose saw Martin kick and miss, her knees practically gave out. When she saw the two guys pull out their guns, they instantly straightened up again.
“Fuck this!” Even though she knew it was crazy…that she could be killed…she had to do something. She had to try to save the man she loved.
She loved? I couldn’t believe it either, but who else even thinks about doing something so reckless? If I’d been with her, really with her, I would have tried to talk her out of it. Risk your life…for Martin? “Wait a few more seconds,” I’d say, “while you still have the view.”
Would she have listened? Does anyone listen when they’re all pumped up with hormones? Not anyone I know. Certainly not Rose.
She ran down the stairs so fast that her hand got brush-burns from the railing.
“What you gonna do now?” Carlos asked theatrically, waving his pistol in circles.
Good, Carlos was talking instead of shooting. Martin would have kissed the ground in gratitude if he had the time. Unfortunately, like every other variable in the equation, time was against him. He sized up the other gunman on the stoop and saw more cause for optimism. He was scratching his face in the unmistakable manner of someone with an armful of low-grade Mexican heroin. Excellent. H
e had the itch. If he had the itch, that meant he was moving slow.
Now he was faced with a big decision. He could keep Carlos yakking until he picked the perfect moment to disarm him…or…he could jump to his left, snap the junkie’s wrist and hope that Carlos was too slow on the trigger to plug him before he gained control of the other weapon. He knew the latter option was his best bet. But it meant he had to jump to his left.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Martin was still mulling it over as Carlos’s face changed into that familiar “Welllll?” expression every bully gets after he’s cornered the school nerd and stuck out his hand for the milk money. It was now or never. Even one more second of indecision would turn the “Welllll?” into a “Kneel!”
Martin was tensing himself for a fateful leftward leap, hoping the extra jolt of adrenaline pumping in his veins was enough to marshal untapped reserves of strength, when suddenly a third contingency emerged he hadn’t figured into his calculations…and wouldn’t have expected in a million years.
“MARTIN!” Rose screamed, running across the street with a nail file in her hand.
Everyone looked. Carlos even stopped his gun-waving histrionics long enough to turn his head in a futile attempt to ward off her subway-brake shrieking. That was all Martin needed. He moved on the junkie with inhuman speed and strength. Dopey’s arm cracked like a pretzel log. He didn’t even feel any pain until the gun popped out of his backwards-angled arm and into Martin’s hand like a piece of toast.
Martin turned to fire on Carlos and Carlos swiveled sideways to do the same. Both of them were blindsided again as Rose vaulted into the air like the teen prodigy gymnast she’d been, landing squarely on Carlos’s back.
