by Holly Hart
"I'm gonna get ya, bitch!"
Another wave of adrenaline flooded into my system, wiping out the pain, wiping out the fear, and giving my brain only one thing to concentrate on.
Get. That. Gun!
My heart rate skyrocketed as the adrenaline did its job, and my senses closed in until every background detail faded away. I was in a world with no scent, a world where traffic noise and bird sounds and even the eerie moan of the wind whistling through holes in the brick facades of old, abandoned factories had disappeared, a world where all I could hear was the sound of footsteps crunching against the concrete behind me, taking the place of a ticking clock counting as my time ran out.
My vision narrowed, and I understood for the first time what tunnel vision actually meant. Nothing else mattered to me except getting the gun into my hands.
This is for Eamon, I thought, not you. Do whatever it takes.
My son’s image popped, implausibly and out of nowhere into my head, and it gave me the burst of strength I needed to keep going, as did the terrible, all-encompassing fear of dying. Not because I was afraid of death, but because it would mean leaving him in the hands of my father.
I couldn't let that happen.
"Stop!" I called out, my voice sounding weak against the noise of my hands and knees desperately scrabbling against the concrete. "I'll call the police!"
"Fuck the cops." The bum snarled. This time, his voice sounded scarily close – no more than a few yards away from me, close enough to –.
But I was close, too.
My hands closed against the gun’s inviting metal handle at the very same moment that the bum's shadow began to close out the light above me, and I spun round, landing heavily against my back.
My attacker was only a couple of feet away at most, his eyes hungry with desire – for me. I shuddered, dreading to think what he had planned. Whatever it was, I knew I wanted no part of it. He pulled up, lurching backward with shock as he arrested his headlong rush toward me. He toppled over, landing on his ass.
"Stop! Don't come any closer," I said. My voice cracked with fear. My trembling fingers closed around the trigger, and I began to seriously contemplate what might be about to happen.
Can you really take a life? Will you be able to live with yourself?
"Come now, girl," he said, his tone of voice changing in an instant to a whining, wheedling. "We can come to an arrangement, can't we, you and me? You give me what I need, and…"
And I spend the rest of my life in counseling? Tempting, but – no thanks.
"I said," I repeated tensely, the trigger half-depressed under the weight of a finger that was trembling with the pressure. Or perhaps it was from nerves. I wasn't a cop, or a police officer – I'd barely fired a gun before, something that had always disappointed my father. It was why I'd never bothered going to the range. I didn't want dad to think he'd won. But just because I didn’t practice, I still knew a thing or two about how they worked. At the end of the day, guns are simple. You point, and you shoot.
"Don’t you fucking move!"
He didn’t listen.
A gunshot echoed around the old factory yard.
The old industrial district abruptly fell silent, as though the whole world had stopped turning at the very moment I pulled the trigger.
A flock of black crows soared to the sky, their startled cawing reverberating off the factory's roof tiles and bouncing back, so the entire square became a maelstrom of noise, a cauldron of terrified wildlife sounds melding with the reverberating, sharp retort of the gunshot rebounding off every brick and roof tile around.
The bum sank to his knees with eyes wide with fear, grabbing his stomach as he collapsed to the ground. "You missed," he said, wide with shock. "You stupid bitch, you missed! I'm going to fucking kill you!"
I stood up with the weapon in my hands pointed directly at my assailant, legs braced and arms steady. In short, I was ready to kill.
"No," I replied firmly. "I didn't miss. I don't miss. I just decided I didn't want to deal with the paperwork."
It sounded good, in my head anyway, but I had no idea whether my bravado would stand up to the real test.
My would-be assailant stared at me with impotent fury, his eyes full of black rage and fists clenched together and trembling with frustration. I didn’t know whether he still had drugs coursing through his veins, turning off his brain's sense of risk and driving him to indulge in his basest instincts, and frankly, I didn’t care.
I knew he as wavering and it forced me into making a decision that I knew I would regret. I knew I'd regret it more if I didn't.
"Do you know who I am?"
"I don't give a fuck." He spat.
"Oh," I said mildly, "I think you will."
"Try me, bitch."
"You want to know where I got this gun?" I asked, gesturing with my chin at the black weapon cradled between my hands. I kept the barrel trained directly at his chest.
He didn't reply, just kept his predatory eyes fixed on me. I could see the wheels turning in a brain that had clearly been atrophied by years, maybe even decades, of drug abuse.
I pressed ahead. "I took it out of Mikhail Antonov's office," I said. I studied his face carefully, saw his eyes narrow at the mere mention of my father's name. "Oh," I chuckled. "You've heard of him, have you?"
"You've got it worse than I have," the bum said slowly. "Stealing a gun from that psychopath – you're crazy."
"Who said anything about stealing?" I replied, letting a faint smile play on the corners of my lips. I hoped it would make me look sinister, but on balance I'd have settled if it just let me appear relaxed. I didn't want the bum to know just how terrified I was, or I'd lose the only trump card I had left. I felt like I was a diver in a broken shark cage, and that at any moment the predators swarming around me would realize my protection for what it was – false.
"It was a gift." I said, quickly improvising. "A birthday present from my father."
"He's your –." The man stammered, reflexively relaxing his fingers as the enormity of his fuck-up became clear.
"Da," I said in Russian. "Yes."
I hated myself for using my father's name, even in the service of a good cause. But it worked. Holy hell, it worked. I saw his resistance like a child's sand castle in the face of a tidal wave.
I shouldn't have said it. Christ, it was the kind of thing you could spend half a lifetime regretting. But I was so revved up, so buoyed along by the title wave of adrenaline running through my system that, in that moment, consequences seemed to disappear, and. I leaned forward menacingly. "You know why I'm here?"
"Because you're a crazy bitch?" He spat.
I resisted the urge to pistol whip him in the face and knock a couple of those cracked, yellowed teeth out of his filthy mouth.
I cracked my back. "No. Because I've got a family to protect. So you know what, I don't want to kill you. But I will if I have to. If you're the one standing in the way of me getting out of this fucking cesspit of a city, then believe me, I'll kill you."
Shit, Maya. Tell him everything, why don't you.
For a second, my whole posture quivered as I realized the enormity of what I’d just let slip.
Pull yourself together. He probably didn't notice a thing.
I pointed the gun back to the road, and far away from me and my goal. I didn't care where he went, I just didn't want it to be here. My voice stayed level the entire time I was speaking. It was a marvel, or perhaps just more evidence of the incredible power of the adrenaline coursing through my veins. "Now scram, got it? I don't want to see your face again, because if I do you sure as hell won't like what happens next."
"Oh."
I kept the gun pointed at the road until the last sounds of the tramp's feet scrabbling against the rubble-strewn yard disappeared into nothingness. My heart was pounding at a hundred beats a minute now that the adrenaline my brain had dumped into me had begun to diminish, and if I'd felt cold before, it was a hundred time
s worse now as the chemical courage began to drain from my veins, leaving behind only a crushing, almost crippling sense of fear. I wasn't a gangster, wasn't a soldier – so what I'd just experienced was crazy.
I turned back to the old Ford building, the decaying factory that had been my target this whole time.
At least, I thought, you didn't get this close just to fail. Even if things didn't go quite as smoothly as you'd hoped…
I walked up to the old, moss-covered covered factory walls, searching for one particular rusted steel door, a door that I'd passed through just once before. I found it without too much trouble, and after straining to kick aside a piece of rubble that barred my entrance, heaved it open and passed through. Inside, the factory was dark, damp and dank – the kind of place I'd normally avoid. Last time I visited, it had been summer, and it hadn't seemed anywhere near as terrifying. Then again, last time, I wasn't chased by a crazed homeless man…
I shivered at the thought, or perhaps at the all-pervading chill. Let's get this over with, Maya, and get the hell out of here.
It was fifty steps to the old bell tower's stairs and I covered the distance in triple time, before bounding up an old concrete stairwell that smelled faintly of ammonia. I didn't want to think of why. My thighs were burning by the time I emerged back into the chill cold of the rapidly approaching Alexandria night. I kept my silhouette low, in the hope that no one was watching. I couldn't imagine that they were, but then again, it paid to be careful these days.
Other than a couple of old, yellowed cigarette butts on the floor, the place looked undisturbed. Were they here last time?
I moved towards my target – an old metal cabinet built into the brick tower – quickly, and picked up a loose red brick off the floor. I grimaced, this was going to be loud, but I didn't have another alternative. I bashed against the rusting steel as hard as I could, focusing on the corner I'd screwed shut months before. After so many years unpainted and exposed to the elements, It didn't take long before the thin red metal began to flake into a small pile of metal fragments around my feet.
Clang!
I dropped the brick with a thud as the metal door came loose. I crossed my fingers. If it's not there…
I thrust my hands into the cabinet and scraped away a pile of old newspapers and cans, looking for the priceless package that I'd gone to so much risk to collect. I held my breath after my fingers didn't immediately close around it, but my fears were baseless.
"Yes!" I yelled out loud with delight as my fingers closed around the plastic bundle. I pulled it out, delighted, forgetting for a second where I was, and that I was supposed to be staying quiet. The translucent plastic package was slightly muddied by its long period in hiding, but its contents were nevertheless unmistakable.
Two fake passports, one real birth certificate, and twenty thousand dollars in cash. Everything I needed to get me and Eamon out of Alexandria, and to make it so my father would never be able to find us again.
As I turned to leave, I felt a strange sensation of danger prickling against the back of my neck.
I should have paid more attention to it, just like last time. I should have known that the homeless man wouldn't give up that easy. But right then and there, it was the last thing on my mind.
15
Conor
You can tell a lot about a town from its strip clubs, and holy hell, Alexandria has a few. It's not so much a red light district as a red light town… You'd think that would make a man's life easy, right?
Wrong.
It took me the better part of half an hour to find an establishment whose door wasn't staffed by a brute called Alexey, Sergei or Boris. The way I saw it, Mikhail Antonov was costing me enough already – I wasn't going to put any more dollars in that psychopath's pocket, even if that meant giving up on the high class joints.
The Russians had the center of town locked up tight, and they'd thrown away the key. The rest of the city's criminal underworld was left to fight for scraps on the edges – so that's exactly where I was forced to go. The geeky, pale kid who ran the reception at the Sunset Motel wasn’t going to give any five-star concierge a run for their money, that was for damn sure, but he gave me a few tips.
I couldn’t help suspect that his knowledge of the city's criminal layout was more theoretical than practical, though…
Like I'd suspected, all the decent clubs were under Mikhail's thumb. If you didn't come from the old country, then you were paying him protection. And even if you did speak the mother tongue, had a daughter named Natalia and drank bath tub vodka, you still ended up paying him, you just called it a ‘gift’, and hoped to hell the boss decided you’d been generous enough that month.
The African-American gangs had the ghettos in the north of the city, up around Edmonton Avenue, but that seemed like a long way to go to drink bad, overpriced whiskey and watch a few cheap strippers. The Eastern Europeans had the suburbs sewn up, but they were just Russian-lite, so that was out too. Apparently the Hispanic gangs were making inroads, as well.
Things were looking desperate until he mentioned the Italians. Apparently they had a place not far away where the strippers were still on the right side of thirty. Still, Alexandria was crying out for a good, honest, old-fashioned Irish gang to knock a few heads together…
I gave the kid a few tips as well: stop jacking off behind the counter when he thought no-one was watching, hit the gym and get some sun.
Anyway, that's how I ended up at the Blue Moon, because it sure wouldn't have been my club of choice. It was a seedy joint that looked two decades past its best – and I doubted whether it's best had been up to much.
The bouncer on the door sized me up as I approached him. "Ten bucks."
"You're taking me for a mug, mate." I said, pointing at a notice pinned up above his left shoulder. "That sign up there says five!"
"Can't read." He replied, deadpan. "It's ten bucks – you don't like it, go somewhere else."
I grumbled, but I paid anyway. Ten bucks in was cheap, and we both knew it. And besides, I didn't have many other options. The Blue Moon was the shortlist, the runner-up and the winner.
I walked through the door and entered another world: a world whose soundtrack was crap European techno, and where days faded into night without anyone paying the slightest bit of notice. The windows were covered, and the only illumination came from the neon stage-lighting.
It was perfect.
"Hey," a waitress crooned into my ear. I could barely make her voice out above the heavy beat of the music. "How ya doing today? Can I getcha anything to drink?"
"Four fingers of Jamesons. My fingers, not yours." I replied curtly. She got the message – I wasn't here for conversation.
I didn't know why I was here at all. Strip clubs weren't normally my thing – they were sad, depressing places, populated by men stuck in depressing, sexless marriages and losers who couldn't even get that far.
Guys like me? We didn't need to end up in places like this. I could have a different girl in my bed every night, and the world would never run out of women willing to sacrifice their morals for a night in bed with Conor Regan.
And yet, for all my talk, I couldn't deny that I was in this tawdry club, rubbing elbows with the kind of men I despised. What the hell did that say about me? What the hell was this girl doing to me that I'd ended up in this mess?
"Here ya go, sir," the waitress said, startling me out of my reverie and clinking a dirty glass tumbler full of whiskey down in front of me. I thought about sending it back, but decided against it – I suspected that every piece of glassware this place owned would be in exactly the same state.
"How much?" I growled.
"Twenty-two bucks," she replied. "Want to start a tab?"
I fished a crisp green note with Franklin's face on it out of my pocket and handed it to the girl. "I don't do credit cards."
"Uh," she stammered. "Okay. You want change for that?"
I looked at the girl like she was stupid. "
You think I'm giving you a seventy-eight dollar tip for carrying me a drink?"
Her face fell. "Oh, no – I guess not."
I might have felt bad, but I was in no mood for self-reflection. I made my money, more honestly than most men, by putting my body on the line, so it figured that I should get to spend it how I wanted. I wasn’t a charity. Hell, it was hard to believe that someone could fail to understand that just by looking at me.
And yet, for all that, I relented.
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Uh, Alice."
"Okay Alice. Stick it behind the bar for now, okay?"
She hid a nervous half-smile. "Yes, sir."
I'm no sir. I don't know what I am, but I know I'm no sir.
The waitress wandered off, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I kinda wished she hadn't. She seemed two raisins short of a fruitcake, but maybe that was me talking. She was a sweet enough young thing. Maybe a bit naive. This place would soon knock that out of her.
I knew the drill. Some guy would see her walking down the street, tell her how beautiful she was, and promise her she could make all the money in the world. She'd start as a waitress – because girl, you're too good to be a stripper. But that's a lie. Once you're in, you're in.
A little short on rent one month? It's fine, just do a couple of spins on the pole. The regulars love fresh meat, you'll make a killing. Just this once.
I'd never really thought about it, but the more I did, the more I realized that places like this were no less a punishing school of hard knocks than the mean streets of Dublin.
Hell, maybe they were even worse. At least back home it was honest thieving, and if you could hold your own, then people respected you. This place, though, was manipulative. Exploitative.
I'd always worn the hardships of my youth as a badge of honor – the scrapes and bruises and cuts and scars acquired through dozens of fights forming a protective armor that had carried me safe for years.
