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 14

EAGLES HUNTING EAGLES

CURTIS ISAAC WAS DYING. The elevator needle crawled slowly, in the longest assent of his life. The fucking bitch shot him! Isaac’s hand clutched his black tattooed belly, great gouts of blood pulsed between his fingers with every heartbeat. Isaac lay a wounded animal; his thoughts were a haze. First, he couldn’t fathom how it was possible to shoot someone you couldn’t see, secondly, the elevator door with a combined thickness of fifteen inches, clad in stainless steel, to his way of thinking represented an impenetrable barrier. The fucking bitch shot him―straight through the elevator door. Isaac was dying and he didn’t even understand why.

The AK-47 up to this point, so important, clattered to the ground, useless. He didn’t have the strength to hold it. Blood seeped from his arm, his lung and his liver. Isaac coughed, blood spat from his mouth. The only reason he wasn’t dead outright, was the bullets that cut through his flesh were armor piercing. The hard tungsten cores smashed through the stainless steel elevator door, and pierced his body like a pincushion; the resulting trauma was three neat holes. Isaac continued to bleed out. Lea Swift, viciously understood the dynamics of a gunshot wound. She knew only too well that she only needed to pierce the intervening barrier and smash the flesh and bone beyond to kill.

Isaac scrambled across the floor, fell, clawed and stumbled his way down the corridor. He clutched his stomach, where his liver lay. Blood seeped between his fingers. His breathing was labored, each second his life pulsed before his eyes, he grew weaker. He wasn’t done yet. He hated Lea Swift. He hated her so much; he tried to figure out a way to harm her. His grip tightened his 9 mm Glock, even as he slumped down between the wall and against the back of the refrigerator. He felt a feeble thump, the girl was still alive. Isaac felt a warm sinister flush, before a sort of veil came over his consciousness.

“Yo, dawg, you is busted up!”

“Reggie?” Isaac groaned, he never knew such pain.

A familiar face loomed over him. Loyal to the end, it was High-Top. High-Top opened Isaac’s shirt. He didn’t like what he saw.

“Dawg! You is fucked-up.” High-Top searched the room for a compress, he found a clean baby diaper and used it to apply pressure on the worst wound to Isaac’s stomach. He had some experience in this matter, and the bleeding seemed to slow. At least it wasn't an artery.

“It’s over man, duh boyz, deh all be dead. We is alone. Crack’n Coke, Big Dick, dat bitch shot ‘em through the head! Like they wuz noth’n. You is gonna die too, less’n we get you to the hospital.”

“Reggie . . . I'm shot." Isaac was incoherent, he continued to babble. "The bitch shot me! She’s here, somewhere in the building, that crazy white bitch is gonna kill me.” He tried to get up, his legs buckled underneath him. For the first time in thirty years of thug-life, Isaac knew fear . . .

“I know dawg, I know. I’s gonna try to call her off. Give her the girl home, she just wants the girl.”

“Kill ‘er brother.” Isaac raised his Glock weakly.

“No fucking way!" Anger flash on High-Top's face. "I did what you wanted dawg! You say dat job don't amount to noth'n, just one old man. Let me truthenzie you muthafucker! Dat one ole man he kill my crew! Dey all be dead. Dat ole man, he be duh devil! Now, you tell me, go cap dis white woman. Dat bitch is dangerous, dat bitch is a killer. I say we git duh hell out of 'ere, give her what she wants, I gits you to the hospital. Dawg! Listen to me, its Reggie talk’n,” High-Top took a hold of Isaac and shook him back to consciousness. “Stay wit me dawg, stay wit me.” High-Top slapped his boss; Isaac’s eyes rolled back in his head and finally came into focus. “Dis is important dawg. Where is the girl? Where did you put the girl?”

Isaac shook his head. He hated that dumb little nigger-girl almost as much as he hated Lea Swift. He felt a faint thump on his back, the refrigerator. It gave him cruel pleasure. He was determined to ride this thing down in flames.

“The girl―the girl is the money. The girl is the money . . .”

High-Top was no stranger to violence; his three decades on the streets were a long litany of drive-by shooting, murder close-up. His own heart was hardened; he was a callous killer, a man to be feared. Yet he had no idea the height width and depth of Isaac’s monstrous depravity. That such cruelty existed, he had no doubt. He was a businessman, a businessman with a gun, but to kill a child with out justification, or profit, such an act simply did not make sense. What twisted logic gave Isaac continued pleasure in the grips of his own death throws was the knowledge that just two feet beyond, entombed in the blackest ignoble hell of a derelict Frigidaire, a child lay suffocating.

High-Top didn’t hear the child’s cry or feeble thumps.

“What ‘cha all talk’n ‘bout dawg? The girl is the money? Where you come up with dis bullshit? The girl is the money? You is fucked up in your head.”

For a fleeting second, High-Top turned his back on his boss.

“No, you is fucked.” Isaac pointed the Glock and fired.

* * *

Lea heard the report. A single gunshot, down the hall. She considered the implications, it either meant that the gangsters settled all business, or Isaac had shot himself. There was no time to waste.

Lea Swift took off her clothes.

First, she took off her cap, her jacket, and holster and revolver. Then she laid down Grand Pa Doc’s pistol followed by a couple of .45 clips of ammunition. She kicked off her shoes, socks, and pulled down her pants. Her white blouse, along with her bra and panties went next into the heap. Lea Swift stood naked in the middle of the foyer on the sixth floor of “Hornets.”

“I am the beast, and the beast killed five people . . .”

The beast did not come upon her. Lea tried again, she got down on all fours. Still Phoebe did not come; Phoebe had abandoned her. Lea was left hanging in the breeze, naked, vulnerable, feeling foolish.

Lea was naked, she didn’t have time to waste getting dressed, she grabbed Grand Pa Doc's Colt from the pile. Luka, was out there, somewhere, dying. If Phoebe didn’t want to help, then Lea was going to have to do it herself. Isaac, that sonofabitch, if he was still alive, she would deal with him. There was a copious blood trail; a blood trail Lea hoped would lead her to Luka. She would kill Isaac, and find Luka, of that she was certain.

The trail to where Isaac lay dying and to where Luka was entombed was not all that difficult. Indeed no Native American tracking was required. There was blood; pools of blood, splashes, droplets of blood directly from the elevator door, with three neat round holes punched in the car, to the last room on the left hand side of the corridor.

The trail led to here.

Lea Swift stood naked in front of Room 629 in the upper most South West corner, the last room in the Henry B. Horner Project building. Lea didn’t really mind so much being naked. Isaac was in here. She cocked the slide on the Colt auto-pistol. She paused long enough to run her fingers over the weapon, for a fleeting instant she was transported back to a day in Stillwater Oklahoma, as a little girl she remembered well each fantastic Aztec deity cut deep in fine silver. She heard Grandfather's great laugh, as he puffed his cigar and regaled her with tales of fantastic myth, magic, and legend. This was Grand Pa Doc's pistol. She recalled she'd never actually pulled the trigger. The weapon seemed to exude a power all its own.

Lea threw her weight against the door.

“ISAAC! YOU ARE SO FUCKED!”

Isaac was dead.

He bled out; he lay there slumped to one side. A pathetic testament to a wasted human life. Another man also lay dead, shot at close range through the back of the head. Lea turned him over, it was Reginal Carr. It appeared that today was the day that the Curs settled all business. The room was conspicuously empty. Why was there a refrigerator in the Living room? It was singularly the only object in the room. Lea rushed forward and actuated the lock mechanism.

Luka appeared to the entire world to be dead.

“ONE, TWO, THREE, BREATH! Lea did chest compressions, until there was a gasp, a stir, Luka had aspirated her own vomit, but she was alive.

For a long time, Lea sat and held Luka. She stroked her hair, and sang softly, a song her mother often sang, when she was a little girl . . .

♫ Missus Pussy slick and fat, and her kittens four, sat upon the mat, by the kitchen door . . . ♫

Lea sang even though she knew the child couldn’t hear. Lea examined the girl all over; there were no apparent wounds, until she found the place on the child's leg along her pantie line, still swollen, where Isaac savagedly etched sixteen numbers. Sixteen numbers tattooed in cigarette ash on the thigh of ten-year-old girl. Sixteen numbers was the cause of all this carnage and death. Lea recognized them for what they were, these were bank security numbers, dead or alive, this child was worth a great deal of money.

* * *

“LEA SWIFT. You are positively every bit as beautiful naked as I could have possibly imagined.”

Guy Painter sat ensconced in his armored black limousine. The smoke glass windows rolled down. One hundred thousand dollars worth of gold sparkled on his impeccably manicured fingertips, his black Armani suit shown with a special luster and immaculate sheen that was the style of billionaire, Guy Painter.

“I trust everyone is dead?" Guy sniffed his carnation, "You did kill all of them, didn’t you? That’s what I pay you to do.”

“Guy!” Lea didn’t know what to say, she was in shock. She wasn’t ashamed; there was no shame in being naked. She was standing there, holding a child clutched in her arms. The child was alive, but weak.

“Guy! Am I glad to see you. We need to get to the hospital.” Lea rushed forward, her path was blocked by two goons Lea had never seen before. They cut her off and made it very clear that something was amiss.

“Tut, tut. Lea Swift you are a marvel. Butt naked in January and you still act like you’re in control, well, you’re not in control. I’ll take it from here. Just put the girl down, and go back inside and put some clothes on. Boris, Ivan, get the girl. Miss Swift needs to go and get dressed.”

“The Russian Mafia! The fucking Russian Mafia! Guy! You sonofabitch! You used me! I thought you were my friend. I trusted you!” The tangled twisted nature of the situation came crashing down. Lea tried once more to appeal to their long time friendship.

“Guy, don’t do this to me, you have to help me . . . we’re friends, we go way back. I thought you were my friend.”

“I am your friend, Lea, for about five more seconds. I’ll only ask you this once, give me the girl Swift.”

“Step off, Guy!”

“Your Grandfather’s dead.” Guy seemed to relish this revelation. “Oh―in the end, we had to blow him up, but that’s one Nazi sonofabitch who’s finally dead. Good riddance! You are in no position to bargin; you don’t have any of your naughty guns. Give me the girl, Swift, or I’ll have Boris and Ivan kill you . . . we don’t want more bloodshed, now do we? Be a good little kraut-mick and give me the girl!”

In a flash of pain and stupidity, Lea knew Grand Pa Doc's Colt lay somewhere forgotten on the sixth floor of the Henry B. Horner building. Her face didn't betray her anguish. Lea somehow knew Grand Pa Doc was dead. She felt his presence strongly; she wasn’t going to give Guy the satisfaction.

“Fuck you, Guy!”

“Kill her.” Guy said, with a cold-blooded inflection that conveyed no more sense of emotion than if he were ordering pastrami on rye at a deli.

Boris, the heavy set Russian pointed an enormous .50 caliber Desert Eagle, he was slow and clumsy to pull the trigger and he fired at Lea’s dust. Ivan, the laser sight of his MP 5 danced and arched across the courtyard, cut loose with a full mag of 9 mm. Lea was already gone.

Furious, Guy was so angry he bolted from the limousine, crushed his cigarette under foot, and waved a pistol in the air, such stupid henchmen! In the instant the limousine door swung open, what Lea did not see, what Lea could not see was on the floor of the limousine, lay Grandfather’s Colt. The other pistol, its menacing luster tarnished, the fine ivory grip blackened from fire, imbued with a mystic power, that neither Guy nor Lea could comprehend, the pistol was an entity, it lay in wait, ready to kill again.

Lea turned and ran. Lea lightened her feet and ran like the wind. Faster than a leopard, even the extra seventy-four pounds of the child’s weight made no difference. Naked, free, the one thing Lea Swift knew how to do was run.

“Kill her! Kill her you fools! You let her get away!” Guy shrieked his Irish brogue in full evidence. Now it was his turn to be afraid. “You fuck face Reds! Kill her! I tell you, she’s dangerous!”

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.

Ahoy thar DAKOTA!

06.13.07

PHILADELPHIA ENQUIRER, DeVito's scene on "The View" had its sweet resolution . . . Danny DeVito (Matilda) still needs backers, however, for his latest Jersey Films project ― The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, based on the popular children's book.

“I've got Morgan Freeman, Pierce Brosnan and Dakota Fanning, but the studios are giving me a hard time,” says DeVito.

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, by Avi, © 1990 Orchard Books.

SYNOPSIS: Charlotte Doyle (Dakota Fanning), is a 13-year-old Schoolgirl who boards the merchant ship Seahawk in 1832 for a voyage from England to her home in Providence, Rhode Island. Charlotte is raised in an upper-class family and, wants very much to be a proper lady. Her family has already gone to Rhode Island and she was left to come alone in order to finish her year of schooling at the Barrington School for Better Girls. As the other families that were supposed to accompany her mysteriously fail to appear, Charlotte finds herself the only passenger on the transatlantic voyage and the sole female on board.

     Charlotte is devastated by the deplorable conditions on the ship and thinks of the crew as her inferiors. Captain Jaggery (Pierce Brosnan) is the only person Charlotte can relate to on the ship. Early in the voyage, she meets Zachariah (Morgan Freeman), an old African cook. Zachariah gives Charlotte a small dagger “for her protection” and tells Charlotte that the crew seeks revenge against the captain for some of his actions. She later has tea with Captain Jaggery. During this meeting, Captain Jaggery tells Charlotte that he has a few muskets and that these are the only guns aboard the ship. As the voyage passes, Charlotte slowly mingles with the crew and reads to them from her books.

     Later, Charlotte finds herself watching a member of the crew sew. The needle snaps and Charlotte offers to get a new one for him. She goes into the forecastle, the crew's room. While looking for the needle she sees a pistol (contrary to the captain’s words) and a round robin, a pact telling of an imminent uprising of the crew against the captain. Charlotte goes to tell Captain Jaggery, who then calls the crew on deck. They arrive with weapons, ready to attack, but none do so because of the captain's muskets. Charlotte is forced to take sides in the mutiny. A member of the crew is killed and Zachariah is flogged mercilessly by the Captain. Charlotte does not think as highly of Captain Jaggery anymore and feels that he is rather cruel.

     Charlotte decides to join the crew to make up for causing the death and whipping of the two-crew members. She is at first rejected, but then the crew agrees to let her join if she can climb to the highest point of the ship, the royal yard. After an arduous climb, she comes back down successfully.

     The captain leads the ship into a hurricane. In the commotion, the First mate is killed with Charlotte’s knife. The captain charges Charlotte with the murder of the ship’s First mate. The captain finds Charlotte guilty after the trial. Though sentenced to be hanged, she ends up confronting the captain on the bowsprit and as Captain Jaggery was about to fall over board, Charlotte had the option to save him, or let him fall to his watery death. The captain falls into the ocean and drowns. Her friend, Zachariah, tells the crew they need a new captain, and Charlotte is chosen to be the ships new captain.

     A few days later the Seahawk docks in Providence, Rhode Island, where her family lives. However, Charlotte finds her family unwilling to believe her story, and they disapprove of her outlandish tales. Eventually she decides to leave her family and return to life at sea, the place where she now believes is home.

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 10

ON A FAIR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER
THE FAIR CAME TO TOWN. In all its glory, the sights, the sounds, the smells, the crowds. A great Farris wheel dominated the midway, spinning tantalizing in all its neon glory, like a great eye, beckoning young and old alike. "Come to the fair." There were switchbacks, corkscrews, bumper cars, cotton candy and hot dogs. Blue ribbons for the prize hog, pies by the dozen, tractor pulls and demolition derby. All the talk at school was about the fair. The fair brought excitement to the sleepy town of Stillwater Oklahoma. Lea was miserable, she couldn’t go, and she didn’t have any money. There was no money for anything as frivolous as the fair. The roller coaster, the cyclone, the pony rides these were the things a ten-year-old girl, going on eleven dreams were made of. Only the smell of cotton candy, the sweet scent of the Cracker Jack and pop corn, wafting over the fence this was as close as a farm girl from a poor family was to come to the fair. The neon lights and call of the calliope seemed only a distant dream.

Kate, she had money, her family owned the general store. On Friday night, Kate took great wads of 20-dollar bills from the cash register, and took all the girls from the sixth grade to the fair. Kate boasted a new dress, she had fresh ribbons in her hair, Kate invited Emily as her special guest, Lea, who was in the fourth grade, was not invited.

Brad had fifty cents, Lea had twelve cents, it cost a whole dollar to get onto the midway. Even if they picked up bottles along the road all weekend, they couldn’t make the two dollars it cost for admission, let alone buy tickets to ride the cyclone. The fair seemed as far a way as the moon.

That was when Grand Pa Doc came to town. He drove an enormous twelve-cylinder Mercedes-Benz Touring Sedan, all black and shinny with bulletproof glass and electric windows that went up and down at the touch of a button. He brought a great hamper full of presents for all the children, a turkey and great sausages and good black German bread. Grand Pa Doc came home; it was like Christmas in July!

Lea’s mother, his daughter, hated him; she barely tolerated his presence in the house. Lea’s father a tall good-looking ruddy Irishman, hardworking, longsuffering, even he was afraid of him. Uncle Bernard, Lea’s uncle, that was a different story, he wasn’t so scrupulous, he always figured good old dad was good to tap for a couple thousand dollars. Grandpa Doc usually stayed with Aunt Irene and Uncle Bernard. When Grand Pa Doc was in town, Uncle Bernard spent, he bought a new tractor, new carpet for the living room, and a new Chevrolet coup appeared in the driveway. The family was greedy for what Grandpa Doc brought, after all, Grandpa Doc was rich, he was fabulously wealthy, infamous, and wore expensive clothes bought in the most exclusive shops in Europe. His car, always the latest and most expensive models, when he came, his visits were an occasion to lavish food and fabulous gifts on the unwashed masses of his family. The family, the Bernard half, was cynically willing to except his largess. Lea’s mother, the Swift half, took virtually nothing, and remained forever skeptical of his past, fearful of his reputation.

The sheriff, the deputy DA at the county court house in Oklahoma City, they too took notice when Grand Pa Doc came to town. They all had questions, papers, a stack of warrants for his arrest. Yet, they never came around. They had families, they too were afraid. Grand Pa Doc was a man best left alone, he had powerful friends in Washington, London, Moscow, he came and went as he pleased, and this was one hornet’s nest the law was content to leave alone.

“FRAULINE!”

He scooped up Lea in his great powerful arms. He was a huge man, broad brimmed hat and a mustachioed face. He lifted his favorite granddaughter up in the air, his waistcoat parted just enough, for Lea to catch a glimpse of those terrible silver pistols, one cradled under each arm. Lea was not afraid, she was never afraid of Grandfather, she was not afraid of the gold Nazi Swastika pin he wore on his lapel. She was not afraid of the whispers of rumors that he was a terrible murderer. That he was a killer, a mass murderer, a Nazi war criminal, she didn't even know what that ment. None of that mattered. He was her Grandfather, together, they shared a special bond, a kindred spirit, and they understood each other implicitly

“Your mother, say, you can only stay four hours with me. It is Saturday afternoon, ve get ice cream, go to the moving-picture show, no?”

“Grandpa, can we go to the fair?” Her desire to go to the fair, literally burst out, Lea was at once ashamed to be so selfish and greedy.

The old man chuckled.

“Can we take my friend Brad? Please, Grandpa Doc; I want to ride the cyclone and the pony ride.”

“Ja, Frauline, ve go to the fair. You ask this young Herr Bradley, ve go to the fair.”

Lea was so happy her heart nearly skipped a beat.

This was one fair Lea made sure to do right. They rode the Cyclone, the Hurricane, the Tilt-A-Whirl and the bumper cars. They got lost and stupid in the house of mirrors, the haunted house. They ate hot dogs and cotton candy until Lea thought she was going to throw up. It was the most grand and glorious day of a lifetime. Lea even met Kate somewhere on the midway, Kate sneered incredulously, until she saw Lea still had a fist full of tickets, Kate had only two. Somehow, however mean it seemed, it was very satisfying. Lea and Brad rode the Cyclone again, and again just for spite.

On the way out, they passed the Carney booths where you “Guess your weight,” “The ring toss,” “Whack the Mole.” For the first time all that long afternoon, Brad actually took a hold of Lea's hand. Lea thought it took forever. Together, they walked hand-in-hand past the shooting gallery. Brad squeezed Lea's hand and told her to take a shot. Lea still had four tickets left. At first Lea didn't want too, ashamed of showing off. Bradley urged her on. Huge stuffed animals of all kinds hung tantalizing in the gallery as prizes, the target, the size of a paper plate, less than fifteen feet. It didn’t seem quite fair. Brad had seen Lea shoot, Lea was a crack shot; she paid her four tickets and loaded the four .22 caliber rim fire cartages into the rifle. “Which one should I shoot?”

“Go for the Koala bear, n’ the Mickey Mouse.” Brad said. Lea carefully squeezed off two shots, both misses. Lea appeared frustrated, embarrassed, there was no possible way she could have missed. Lea concentrated, controlled her breathing just as Grandfather had taught her, and drew down on the two targets, two more shots. Both missed.

“Sorry kid.” The carnival booth operator was smug, it was a racket, he knew it, Lea now knew it, and she now knew she'd been cheated. “You got more tickets,” he smirked, he was a pimply faced fifteen year-old-boy, “I’ll give you another go . . . “

Grandfather, he’d seen the whole thing. He was to have none of it. “You cheat my Granddaughter!” The old man roared. From under his waistcoat, he drew two pistols, two pistols, clad in .99 fine silver, intricately engraved with all manner of fantastic Aztec deities, from Quetzalcoatl, to Tlaloc, two M1911A1 .45 caliber Colt Auto pistols, the absolute instrument of Nazi vengeance and Allied justice. It was an act of providence that caused the Carney operator to dive for cover. Stuffed animals, plates, targets, exploded.

“Oh, shit!” Lea pulled Brad to the ground.

Forty-four bullets later, the smoke cleared, Grandfather surveyed his carnage with satisfaction. The shooting gallery was a splintered shambles, all the targets, prizes, riddled with great black bullet holes. Save the two stuffed animals Brad had chosen, the Mickey Mouse and Koala bear twisted in the chaos, unscathed.

Seconds after the last shot fired, the smoke cleared, the ground glittered with spent brass. That was when the Deputy Sheriff came to arrest Grandfather. He was a good-looking young man, around twenty-eight, a native Oklahoman. Born, raised, grew-up all within the eight-mile radius of Payne county Oklahoma, he was honest, sincere, a hard-working farm boy. His is law-enforcement career up to now, uneventful, limited to arresting pickpockets and rousing sleeping drunks off park-benches. He was if anything completely unprepared for a standoff with a gunfighter.

The Old Man drew down on him. Lea hid her eyes, terrified, not for herself, not for Grandfather, she feared for the life of the deputy; certain Grand Pa Doc was going to kill him.

Grandfather, was cool, he was so cool, he drew back the hammer on his pistol, one click, then two, and pointed―the Colt auto-pistol glinted in the sunlight. He was a man who had stared death in the face, faced down six desperate men armed with submachine guns, and killed them all. One pitiful deputy, from a backwards county in Oklahoma, represented no threat. Grandfather, the consummate killer, faced him down, their eyes met. The poor lad, quaked in his boots, he knew he was dead―one heartbeat away from death.

“You don’t vant to do that.”

The Deputy now functioning less on bravery and more on pure adrenaline and dumb training, mumbled something about how Grandfather was under arrest and that he was to . . . Grandfather, he ignored the young deputy as irrelevant, with a swirl of his waistcoat; he turned his back, and walked away.

“Get your Koala bear Frauline, ze Mickey Mouse doll too Herr Bradley. Ve go now.”

It wasn't until long after they got back to the car, out of the parking lot, through the one stop signal in downtown Stillwater, and had made the turn onto the dusty gravel 10 ½ mile road, that Lea realized, Grand Pa Doc didn't have any bullets left.