RUFF STUFF

RUFF STUFF A

Novel by Smcallis.

This is a work of fiction. No similarities between any person living or dead is intended, and any such similarity is purely coincidental. All characters © 1992 by Smcallis.

Chapter 13

KNIFE FIGHT IN THE DARK THE OLD MAN SAT IN HIS WHEELCHAIR, a lap blanket over his legs, calmly smoking a Bolivar Royal Coronas. He was an old man; his legs virtually paralyzed with phlebitis. His heart was weak, his eyesight failing, his hand trembled, not from fear. Nothing scared him, anymore or evermore. There was no cold wind that blew that was colder than he. His failing heart pumped pure ice water through his veins; it was they that should fear him. Perhaps though, a little Schnapps, a little Schnapps before you die. Drat that god cursed Granddaughter of his. “No smoking, no drinking.” He puffed with great satisfaction on his cigar. What the fuck did she think was going to kill him, a bullet? He should be so lucky. His cursed granddaughter had deliberately set the bottle out of reach. He needed a monkey to reach it. Fortunately, the old man smiled to himself. He had a monkey. “FRAULINE!” He shouted at the girl playing on the floor with a puzzle game. “Frauline!” Again, there was no reaction. The child was deaf. He cursed his granddaughter. “Eighty-nine fucking years-old and I’m reduced to being a goddamn babysitter to a dumb deaf mute. FRAULINE!” He picked up an apple and hefted it in his hand, once, twice, contemplating his wicked deed. He pitched the fruit hard at her, part of his lunch, now more useful. The errant fruit smacked the girl in the side of the head as surely as a well-placed OSS dagger. At least he got her attention. “FRAULINE!” The old man motioned for the girl to come to him. She was not afraid of him, she was not angry for having been besotted by a flying vegetable. No, there was honesty in this girl. “I could teach you to shoot one day.” She had beautiful oval face, brown skin exactly the same color as pure white oak. Her large brown eyes were full of years. Initially he was not enamored with her, initially he hated her, rejected her. Initially he demanded that Lea remove the insect from the premises and never should she ever speak of such a creature again. That was initially, of course, initially, he hated everyone, but Lea persisted, she knew her grandfather’s one weakness. She knew he had a soft place in his heart for children, but a brown skinned-cracker girl? That was almost too much for an old Nazi to bear. He considered her a Negro, an inferior, not Aryan, she was not blonde, blue-eyed, and she was certainly not one of the “Master Race.” Old prejudices die-hard, eventually the old Nazi learned to respect the girl’s spirit, her spunk. He saw in her what Lea saw in her. She was not one of “them” not one of “the other.” However, she was special, she could learn. Practicality has a way of leveling the playing field. After a few weeks, the old man learned she was all he had. The two became fast friends, she the little brown-skinned cracker girl and he the impossibly ancient Nazi. “FAULINE! Come here. Ja, good girl.” The old man beckoned, “Der schnapps,” he gestured to the bottle that sat tantalizingly out of reach on top of the refrigerator. “You go and bring the bottle to Grand-Pa-Pa.” The girl veritably beamed, she understood. The child was an absolute wizard. Deaf as a stone, yet somehow, she intuitively understood. Luka scurried up onto the refrigerator and retrieved the forbidden bottle of liquor. The tantalizing prospect of a quick tot of schnapps was interrupted by a knock at the door, not the knock of the friendly neighborhood Fuller brush-man, less of a knock, than a boom, a thud of an attempted forced entry. The door was steel-clad reinforced, solid core oak; three Slag dead-bolt locks held it shut. “YOU BETTER OPEN ‘DIS DOOR OLD MAN OR WE’LL BUST IT DOWN!” The girl was virtually on top of him, she knew what was happening, and she had felt the vibrations through the floor. She did not want to leave him. Ten-years-old going on eleven, and he, who had killed over 400 men, his brave little cracker-girl, she was trying to protect him. “Come and get me you little Schwanzlutscher!” For the first time in twenty years, he felt alive. Luka was visibly frightened, in her short life she knew what this meant, she knew about hits, about drive-by shootings and gang warfare. “Shhhh, Frauline, it will be OK.” He stroked her hair, wiped a tear from her eye.

“Into the kitchen Frauline, up you go, you little monkey, open the window, out the fire escape. This is the one thing that Grand-pa-pa still knows how to do.” For the first time from under the lap robe, he revealed the pistol. Clad in .99 fine silver and embellished with intricate engravings of Quezetacotal and all manner of other fantastic Aztec deities. He had only one pistol; he had given the other one to Lea. “GIVE US THE GIRL, YOU DIRTY OLD MAN, AND NOBODY GETS HURT!” “Fick dich selber!” He drew back the slide on the M11911 Colt auto pistol one would be enough. The door splintered once, then twice. The Silver Angel did not wait. He emptied a mag into the door, the massive forty-five caliber slugs tore through the door and the flesh beyond. There was a long pause, a silent pause which, which gave the old man plenty of time to count out seven new bullets and push them into the mag, and re-cock the slide. He heard the kitchen window open and close, and the rattle and clattery bang of the fire escape descend. Now he could die. Luka had escaped. He had killed at least two of them with his first fusillade, of that he was certain. The Old man had the last laugh. He had scared the living fuck out of them more likely, all to his advantage, he would not shoot blind again, and he would mark his targets. He would kill them one by one. He had seven bullets. There had better be eight of them, or they all would die today. They rushed him a second time. The crazy automatic weapon fire was pure Hollywood. Seventy-five yards, that was the preferred killing distance; at seventy-five yards, he knew he was invulnerable. In his last gunfight, in the living room of his home, less than fifteen feet separated him from the door, a knife fight in a closet. The old man knew that today was the day he was to die. It was anti-climatic, seven shots, seven thuds and then the hush of utter silence. From the bottom of the stairs, High-Top counted seven shots fired. First four shots, followed by a cacophonic chaotic burst of automatic fire, then three calculated shots, High-Top counted them, one, two, and three. All of his men were dead. Zoomer, Da kid, Cleveland, Old Moe, Knuckles, Fish, Razar, his whole crew was dead. “God damn that old man!” High-Top picked his way past the bodies of his former compatriots, a tangled heap of humanity, most were boys, frozen in a macabre death grip, each one their head exploded as 200 grains of steel-jacketed soft lead collided and burst against flesh and bone. On the street nobody gave, much real thought to the technical aspect of shooting. Oh, they knew how to load and point, what end the bullet came out of, but as for real shooting, accuracy, the only real tactics was spray and pray. High-Top stood amidst the smoke and death transfixed, he was beyond dumbfounded, for a street hoodlum, High-Top was intelligent, intuitive. He understood finesse, and before him, was the act of killing elevated to the level of art by Rembrandt. He worshiped that old man. “There’s no fucking way anyone could shoot like that.” Yet he had seen it, seven shots, seven men lay were dead, two more bodies lay smashed at the bottom of the stairs. Nine gangsters in all, nine men one old man had killed and he was no closer to getting the girl. Isaac had told him to bring back the girl, alive. He was beginning to believe that wasn’t possible. If it wasn’t for the fact that it had been a twenty minutes since he had seen or heard any shooting from the doorway, High-Top himself would have fled in abject terror chased by a mortal apparition of some terrible old man in a wheelchair. Instead, High-Top did what any competent middle level manager would do; he spent the next ten minutes on the pay phone, summoning more unsuspecting bodies. More goons, more cannon fodder to face what ever it was, he didn’t know, but it had killed nine of his people and as far as he knew, it was still in that room. Two hours later, High-Top managed to assemble what amounted to a small army. It turned out nothing was necessary. Rocket propelled grenades, high-powered ordinance; High-Top picked his way through the blasted splintered door of the apartment and peered into the interior in disbelief. There was no old man there was no wheelchair. There was only a huge shaggy black object. High-Top screamed and blasted the carcass with AK-47 fire but it was already dead. A monstrous animal, its fur matted and moth eaten, pure white around the muzzle, a massive Kodiak bear, and very dead.

* * *

LUKA'S NAKED TOES touched the cold hard iron of the fire escape. The unforgving lattice burned like fire. She flinched; it was freezing cold in the January thaw of a Michigan winter. Unprepared for her sudden flight, the cold wind clawed at the thin cotton fabric of her camisole, a great icy hand clutched her stomach where her supper lay. Forty feet above street level, the fire escape represented a most unforgiving, uninviting place. She wanted so much to return to the safety of the warm confines of Grand Pa Doc’s apartment. Luka couldn’t imagine in her little world, a ten-year-old-girl, going on eleven, what possible catastrophe, what calamity caused Grand Pa Doc to force her out into the cold. She didn’t know he was a Nazi, she didn’t know his past was full of enemies; he was a mass murderer, a war criminal. Full of innocents, she the little brown-faced cracker girl, and he the impossibly ancient Nazi. She had know idea when she played with her puzzle book on the warm confines of his living room floor that she played in the presents of a cold-blooded killer. All she knew was she loved Grand Pa Doc, and Grand Pa Doc loved her. Luka crouched and shivered at the window. Her eyes were sharp as eagles; she missed nothing, she was bright, smart, and intuitive. Her sense of smell, keen as a bloodhound, acutely aware of every sensation, every vibration, nothing escaped her. She remembered people’s faces, she watched their lips, and she probably knew more about people and her surrounding than anyone else. She was a deaf girl. Perceived as stupid, by her peers, her family and the ghetto society, she was an outcast, the village idiot. Luka bit down on the window sill. She felt the vibrations. Her sharp eyes counted the muzzle flashes from beyond the kitchen wall. She knew Grandfather’s guns held seven bullets. She knew this from the days, the weeks; she stayed with Grand Pa Doc. Each night she watched him lay out a clean white cloth and un-load, clean, and load those pistols. He chuckled, blew smoke rings and told stories; he smoked cigars and drank cognac. Little of what he said she understood. She tried to teach him how to make signs, but the old man rebuffed this effort. Grand Pa Doc mostly spoke German, which made no difference she couldn’t hear him anyway. What did matter was he spent time with her; he paid attention to her. Then there was the counting―the loading of the seven bullets. He tried to trick her by hiding a bullet under a saucer. She always caught him; it was a game between them, resulting in such laughter that before it was over, both were in tears. Luka was a silent witness, three days ago, when Grand Pa Doc gave his granddaughter Lea, one of his pistols. This was not a happy occasion, the passing on of a treasured family heirloom. It was an angry event, lots of shouting, arguing, Luka hid under the gate-leg table, and made herself very small. In the end, Lea took the weapon. That night when they cleaned and reloaded the one pistol, there were no games. Luka didn’t understand what caused Grandfather to be so adamant; why he gave away his most valued and prized possession. Grand Pa Doc had only one pistol. Now it was, that men came for him. Not Nazis, ex-Polish patriots, nor Communist or Baader Meinhof or members of Black September, none of the men who Grand Pa Doc killed or wronged. In the end these were her people, Isaac’s men, who came for Grand Pa Doc. They came for her―Luka felt ashamed. The sore spot on her leg chaffed, where Isaac had savaged her with a needle. She knew the men came for her.

Luka cringed. She counted the muzzle flashes four, five, six, seven. There was nothing but silence in her world. Luka knew she’d better go. It was a long way down to the street, and she didn’t posses the weight to actuate the mechanism of the fire escape. Grand Pa Doc always called her, his little monkey now was the time to prove it. Half way down, Luka shook with the force of an explosion. Fire and debris fell around her. Luka knew her only chance was to hurry. She scurried down to the street level and around the corner. GOT’CHA. YOU LITTLE WHITE NIGGA! . . . “

RUFF STUFF

RUFF STUFF

A

Novel by Smcallis

This is a work of fiction. No similarities between any person living or dead is intended, and any such similarity is purely coincidental. All characters © 1992 by
Smcallis.

CHAPTER 11

SIX EQUALS SIX, REDUX

IT WAS ALONG AN ABANDON RAILROAD TRACK, amidst the squalor, that was now the urban sprawl of Hamtramck that she came. The year was January 1993. Snow was on the ground, it fell in great white flakes that filtered down and collected on the brim of her Detroit baseball hat. The wind blew in icy gust, she did not care, there was no cold wind that blew that was colder than her own icy heart. In her pocket was a notebook. Recorded in her neat methodical hand, all the information she had collected over the weeks of her investigation. She was if nothing else, organized and precise. She had three warrants folded neatly in a manila envelope. One for a Reginal Carr a.k.a. “High-Top,” felony drug trafficking, racketeering, murder and conspiracy to commit murder. An Otis Marcus "Big Dick" Alexander also wanted for felony drug trafficking and manufacture of meth amphetamines, and a Crispin “Crack’n Coke” Larsen. Wanted for kidnapping, murder one, and felony drug trafficking, a nice bunch of choir boys.

No, this was the right location. Her snitches on the street confirmed it. Her keen detective intuition told her this was the right place, and she was seldom wrong. They were here, the girl was here too, they took the girl so she would come, poor dumb bastards, didn’t their mother ever tell them to be careful what to wish for? Well now, they got their wish. If the girl was harmed . . . it didn’t matter, Lea was going to get the girl, and she was going to kill them.

The snow covered gravel crushed softly under her feet. There was an abandoned burned out car, a Volvo; it was hard to be sure. She past heaps of trash, a dead dog, and her feet literally crunch over garbage strewn in the streets and vacant lots. The height width and depth of the urban decay was devastating. No wonder these wretched people turned to crime and drugs just to eek out a miserable existence. That was as far as her sympathy went. Lea grew up in hard times. Lea’s family knew poverty, hunger, going without. Lea could not imagine her father turning to crime, not even to feed his family. No, these people were drug dealers, murderers, and racketeers. They didn’t care about their own people, they had kidnapped Luka, threaten to kill an innocent child, just to get back at her. They were used to getting their own way, this time they had bitten off more than they could chew. They hadn’t counted on Lea Swift. They didn’t know that she was not afraid of them. They didn’t have brains enough to know it was they who should be afraid of her. Her grandfather dwelled within her, he had taught her too much. She was a killer she was death. Today Lea Swift had come for them. Lea continued her approach towards the towering tenement building, “The Hornets.”

A bullet thudded into a tree behind her. Lea was still two hundred yards from where the shot came. If they hit her at this distance, a bolt of lightening from the blue might as well strike her down. She did not draw her weapon she did not react. Cold frost blew from her lungs as she continued her trek.

There were six men, not four. Curtis Isaac had two brothers, Maurice, and Jamie. Isaac stood in the doorway, behind the others. For a brief instant Lea considered that the odds against her were not good. Then the words of her grandfather boomed in her head. “Frauline, shoot as I tell you to shoot, you will kill them. Kill them Frauline, kill them all.” Lea’s heart hardened, kidnap a ten-year-old girl, threaten to kill her and then face down one woman with five armed thugs. Isaac was a coward and a user to the end, it made no difference, they all would die today.

“Curtis Isaac, I’ve come for you! I've come for the girl!” Why even bother to warn them? This was a mystery even to her, in the end, it was the gunfighter’s code; even though she intended to kill them, it was a point of honor that they at least know why she had come.

“Fuck you white bitch! Come and get her!”

“Tell your boys if they don't want to get killed, it’s best they clear out now! “

"ALL RIGHT, DAT’S ‘NUFF, KILL ‘ER BOYZ! CAP ‘ER HEAD!”

A bullet whipped past Lea's cheek like an angry hornet. She never reacted. From somewhere behind a huge cement planter, came the chug, chug, chug, heavy slugs from a MAC-10. A hail of gunfire erupted from the foyer, in an uncoordinated symphony of death. Lea found herself in the worst possible situation, shot at from all directions. Wild, undisciplined, highly inaccurate fire, fifteen-year-old boys don’t shoot too good. Still, the volume of fire was deadly; Isaac and his thugs were feeling confident, one woman against six, one woman against six hardened gangsters.

Lea struck a vulnerable pose, slightly built, oddly out of place, a blonde, blue-eyed white girl in a Detroit baseball cap, lost in the middle of the darkest urban of sprawls that was the decay of Hamtramck. Lea remained unperturbed, even as bullets kicked up chips of concrete, thudding into the trees behind her. At seventy-five yards, she knew she was invulnerable.

The flap on her leather jacket opened and the skeleton holster released the Ruger. Menacing, oiled, and blue-black, this was a modern-day gunfighter’s weapon, loaded with deadly hollow-point bullets; it remained a revolver, and traced its origins back to the Wild West and the days of Wyatt Earp and Wes Hardin. There was no fear in this woman’s eye as she drew back the hammer and pointed the weapon down range. In any critical instant, some men blink an eye; some men draught a breath, Lea swift used that first quarter second to squeeze off two shots, piercing the glass door of the foyer, a double tap.

Six equals five. The cylinder rotated like a gattling gun. Three seconds later, there was no one left to oppose her. The silence of death broken only by the icy frost she blew from her nostrils. The gunfight lasted just three seconds. She had expended six rounds and killed five men. Behind the cement planter, a boy lay dead, along the fence line, dead. Presumably, these were men; they were only boys Isaac had sent to the slaughter. Now they were dead. Shell casing from the Ruger spattered to the pavement. The brass of six fresh bullets flashed in the sunlight of the January day. The Ruger snapped shut, loaded for death.

Isaac retreated into the squalid depth of the Hornets, retreat being a relative term. Isaac fled, fled like a craven coward. He had watched in horror as Lea Swift shot his men down. Isaac pissed himself. He knew he was a dead man. He knew he was so fucking dead―unless he got to the girl; this crazy white woman was going to kill him.

“Luka! Yeah, that’s the ticket.”

Isaac always hated that little white nigger. The girl was a nuisance and stupid, worst of all she wasn't really black . . . at least she wasn't black enough. Isaac laughed a cruel laugh; he actually took pleasure in the memory of the last fleeting glimpses of a child's terrified face as he shoved her down and shut the door.

The refrigerator was a derelict, an old-fashioned model from the ‘50’s with the locking handle. The plan was that the child would suffocate. The girl didn’t need to be alive to remain useful. Retrieve the money, whack High-Top, stuff them both in the fridge, and dump the whole mess in the Detroit River. End of problem, end of Lea Swift. Isaac clutched his AK-47, now Lea Swift came for him. Isaac calculated just how much air there might be, the girl was small, she may still be alive, she was his only hope.

RUFF STUFF
A

Novel by Smcallis

This is a work of fiction. No similarities between any person living or dead is intended, and any such similarity is purely coincidental. All characters © 1992 by Smcallis.

CHAPTER 12

OUT OF THE PAN AND INTO THE FIRE

LOOMING GREY AND MASSIVE, with every window broken, the derelict project, The Henry B. Horner building was a menacing entity all unto itself. Covered meticulously with random friezes of rival gang graffiti, there was no sound save the sporadic drip, drip, drip of a window air conditioner and the constant flap of laundry from the upper windows. The “Hornets” sat a cold, toothless giant, a failed testament to the policies of the Johnson era Great Society.

Lea Swift, stood alone, incredibly vulnerable, surrounded by a vast chain linked enclosed courtyard that had once perhaps been a passably pleasant place for families to picnic while the children played on the swings. Decades of urban neglect and gangland warfare left little to appreciate. Weeds choked the cracks of the sidewalks. The grassy areas worn to dirt, the trees, once a noble row of oaks and maples, hung their heads, in a craggy un-kempt file of neglected forestry.

Now, there was nothing but silence. Death was everywhere. Five men lay dead, boys really, she killed them. As surely as Wild Bill Hickock squared off against Davis Tutt, in a modern day translation of that 1865 duel, Lea Swift shot them down at seventy-five yards. The echoes of the violent gun battle rung her ears, the acrid smoke of gunpowder hung in the air; the barrel of the Ruger red hot from the sudden furry of her gunfight.

Lea watched as her quarry, Isaac, disappeared into the blackness. His men were dead. Isaac stood alone, naked, utterly transfixed in horror, as Lea shot his men down. Effortlessly, methodically, the entire gun battle lasted less than five seconds. Isaac, he’d seen enough. Not even the firepower of his AK-47 machine-gun gave him security against a foe that could seemingly kill at will. He ran, he ran away like a craven coward.

Lea found herself alone.

Grim faced, Lea flipped open the cylinder on the Ruger Redhawk, letting gravity cast the spent shell casings to the pavement. In a well-practiced ballet of function and movement, she expertly inserted a fresh load, the revolver snapped shut, Lea pulled back the hammer to full cock, an action so well rehearsed it was second nature. The weapon actuated with all the precision that exacting German engineering could muster. The cylinder rotated smoothly, bringing the next shell into firing position. Loaded for death, now the real business of killing began. Lea raised the Ruger to combat position, like an attack dog sniffing for prey, the woman and the gun pressed forward. Luka was somewhere in the building. She would kill Isaac, that was secondary, she would find the girl, of that she was certain.

A mere three-second dash separated Lea from the shattered interior of the foyer that was the “Hornets.” Seventy-five yards, that was the remaining distance. Not even a full sprint this was no challenge. Lea was fast, even at thirty-five, she was still faster than a champion sprinter. Three seconds, Lea recounted to herself, her heart pounded, her lungs sucked at the air, any second she expected to be cut down in a hail of automatic weapon fire. There was nothing. She burst through the shattered glass doors, and entered the dust-filled confines of the “Hornets.”

Her gift of great speed was not matched with endurance. Lea’s legs felt weak, her body shook, her chest heaved, she was winded. Lea leaned against a post until she caught her breath, then began to pick her way past the blasted battered bits of the foyer, as her eyes became accustom to the gloom, she foraged deeper into the uninviting depth of the “Hornets.” She found herself at a severe disadvantage, not knowing the lay out of the building, death lurked around every corner. The Ruger lay at full cock; she closed her eyes, and listened. There it was again, Isaac was coming.

Lea’s first inclination was to lie in wait. Her position was strong, with a solid concrete pillar for cover. Her thoughts turned to her Grandfather, what would he do? Grandfather, he was never one for ambush, caution was not his forte. His was a direct approach; he feared nothing. It was they who feared him. He used this fear to his advantage, as long as they were afraid of dying―then he intended to do the killing.

Lea’s thoughts returned to a time, to Stillwater Okalahoma, that faraway fate filled day of that cold January morning; she could still feel the weight of the Webley revolver, as Grandfather pressed the weapon into her small hand. His words boomed in her head, words she remembered as a girl, ten-years-old, going on eleven.

“Kill them Frauline, kill them all.”

Lea's grip tightened on the Ruger, “All right.” She left the safety of the pillar. At once, Lea’s vision was shattered with a crazy-quit blast of automatic weapon fire. Chunks of ceiling tile cascaded down from overhead; bits of concrete dust pummeled her, bits of grit drove in between her teeth and down her throat. The air was filled with the cacophony of a full mag of 7.62 mm bullets smashing into the floor, the walls, the ceiling. Bullets collided all around her. Only when the mag was empty, only when the shooter stopped to reload, did Lea scramble to safety.

Lea felt a trickle of blood run into her eye. A chunk of concrete pierced the brim of her Detroit Tiger’s hat, and cut her forehead. Such was the force of the onslaught. The air was a swirl of choke-filled debris. She couldn’t hit what she couldn’t see. From her belt, she pulled out her mag-light, 2000 candlepower pierced the swirling dust. She heard the tale-tell swoosh, of the elevator doors open. Isaac was comming.

Lea shook her head; dust cascaded from her blonde hair. “Okay, Isaac, you bastard, you want to play rough, have I got a little surprise for you!”

Lea had one advantage not enjoyed by her Grandfather. Her Ruger Redhawk was more than two-and-a-half times more powerful than Grand Pa Doc's venerable Colts. She flipped open the revolver cylinder, six unspent shells dropped into the palm of her hand. She carefully pocketed the rounds. From another pocket in her jacket, she broke open a wax packet and inserted six fresh bullets, one at a time, these were hot loads. Lea permitted herself a wicked smile. Steel jacketed with a tungsten core, armor piercing bullets, with this load; the Ruger could punch a hole in an engine block at 200 yards.

The elevator doors swooshed open. Isaac cut loose with a second blast of spray-and-pray AK-47 fire. Concrete dust exploded all around her.

“Isaac! I have come for you!”

“Fuck you white bitch!” More machine gunfire.

“Isaac, give me the girl! I’ll kill you another day.”

Isaac wasn’t finished with this white bitch, not yet. He was going to say something, he probably would have said something, if his newfound surge of testosterone driven ghetto impudence weren’t cut short by a telltale clack-click of a jammed weapon. “Oh, shit!” Was in fact what he did say, muttered under his breath, followed by the swoosh of the elevator door closing.

That was the only opening Lea needed, she came out from behind the post and fired. The stainless steel elevator door now afforded about the same level of protection as Swiss cheese. Isaac never knew what hit him. The Ruger punched perfect holes in the gleaming steel door, blasting whatever it struck on the interior, the tungsten cores continued on burying themselves a full fifteen inches into the cinderblock structure beyond. A perfect pattern of three shots, about man high, not a sound or a movement ushered from the elevator.

A full minute passed. Only then did the needle begin to move, first a jerk, then a steady progression towards the sixth floor. Whatever was on the other side of that elevator was not dead, wounded or trapped. Lea didn’t care one way or the other. She launched herself at the stairs.

Twenty-seven steps each, six floors. Even Lea with nearly superhuman athletic prowess couldn’t beat the elevator to the sixth floor. For what seemed like an inexcusable eternity, she lay at the bottom of the uppermost stairwell, winded, exhausted. She took off her Tiger cap, smoothed her hair, her hand came up covered in blood. Lea grimaced, “Alright Isaac, let’s do this.”

Because of the building layout, the stairwell no longer opened directly towards the elevator foyer. Worse yet, Lea had know idea where Isaac had gone. She took up a combat position and inched closer to the corner.

An old woman, a nosey neighbor, opened her apartment door.

“What’s going on out here?”

Lea whirled and pointed. “Get down!” The old woman retreated, no idea how close she came to death.

Lea kicked a can. The soda can skidded out from behind her position into the open, making the most grand and glorious clattery-bang. As if on cue, the corridor was lit with an uncontrolled burst of automatic weapon fire. The shells spattered, stuttered, stopped, and started. Bullets arched crazily all around as if someone had a hold of a tornado.

Lea listened for the clack and then the click. She burst from behind the corner. Whatever, whoever was on the other side of that corridor she fully intended to kill. The Ruger was at full cock. Lea was ready, her instincts were primed, she was ready willing and able to pump Curtis Isaac’s ass full of lead. She wanted to kill him . . .

What hand of providence prevented her from pulling the trigger, even to this day, she did not know. Lea found herself pointing a fully loaded .41 magnum revolver straight at the face of young girl . . . a child, a small round faced African-American girl, maybe ten, not more than twelve, clutching the most enormous assault-rifle, struggling to insert a new magazine. The girl succeeded at the last second in pushing in the magazine, and pulling back the breach block.

Lea faced down the girl, her pistol never wavered. The inscrutable question remained, was Lea actually prepared to kill this child? Her Grandfather, he could have killed her―quashed her like an insect. Murder, death came so easily to him, it was never a question of IF―it was only how many? Fortunately, Lea never had to answer the question.

“You don’t want to do that.”

The barrel of the Ruger flicked, as if to give emphasis to her words, “Put down the gun. We’ll talk.”

The young African girl looked at Lea, covered in dust, her white blue-eyed blonde face smeared in blood, yet the pistol still pointed, the hammer drawn to full cock. The woman meant exactly what she said: Put down the gun.
Shaila dropped the gun, and burst into tears. It was only then that Lea lowered the Ruger, and released the hammer. She sheathed the terrible revolver to the confines of its skeleton holster. The child was not the enemy. Lea rushed forward to console the girl, she smoothed her hair. Lea hated Isaac even more.

“What’s your name child?”

“Shaila . . .”

"I'm Lea, I'm your friend. I'm here to help you. We’ve not much time. Shaila, where’s Luka?” Lea looked into the girl’s tear filled eyes. All the guilt, all the meaness Shaila had ever done to Luka came pouring out. Lea knew she did not know and had no reason doubt her.

“Where’s Isaac?”

Shaila only shook her head; his hold on her was too strong.

“He told you to stay here, didn’t he? He told you to kill me.” The girl was inconsolable. Lea held her tight. “Hush child, don’t cry. Run and hide. I’ll come for you when it’s all over.”

“. . . Are you . . . are you going to kill him?” Her face was full of years.

Lea’s answer was direct, instead of the Ruger, from behind her back, she drew t her Grandfather's Colt, a .45 calibur M11911 Colt-auto pistol, clad in .99 fine silver, etched from barrel to butt plate in the most fantastic mythological Aztec deities. Lea looked Shaila in the eyes. “I’ll kill him for you baby―I'll bring his head back on a platter. I promise. He’ll never hurt you again.”

* * *

Was Isaac dead? Killing Isaac was unavoidable; Guy Painter was just going to have to wait. The problem now was, without Isaac to question, where was Luka? Lea faced the stark reality of six floors, 179,000 square feet of dilapidated tenement building to search. Time was not on her side. Luka could be anywhere. Lea could bust down every door and terrorize innocent occupants all without any guarantee that Luka was even here.

It wasn’t that Lea didn’t know what to do―Lea didn’t want to do what she knew she had to do.

There was only one possible way to find Luka.

Lea took off her clothes.