The sunlight hurt my eyes as I stepped from the dark recesses of the bar. I looked toward my car, and noticed some punk monkeying around with the rear tires. I wanted to see what he was going to do, so I leaned against a “No Parking” sign, and locked my vision on him. In broad daylight it appeared that the kid was stealing my mags and tires. He was unscrewing the lugs now, so I decided I had better put a stop to it.
The teenager didn’t hear me come up behind him, but he knew it when I bent down, and put my hand around the back of his scrawny neck. I squeezed hard, and said, “What the hell are you doin’ with my car, kid?”
The longhaired squirt jumped about three feet, and stuttered as he told me his story. I’ve heard some wild tales before, but this one took the prize.
“Some guy came by, gave me twenty bucks, and told me to take off the lug nuts on the rear wheels. Twenty bucks is twenty bucks. I didn’t ask any questions.”
I said, “Where’s the twenty, kid?’
He pulled a crisp twenty out of his pocket and remained silent. His story now sounded more legit.
For some reason I liked the kid, and I think he saw it in my face that I wasn’t going to hurt him. I reached into my pocket, pulled out a fin, and told him to tighten the nuts back up. While he was doing it, I leaned against the car, and lit up a smoke. The kid had enough balls to ask me for one. I not only gave him one… but also lit it!
I think I knew why I liked the boy. He reminded me of myself when I was his age. I was no angel as a teenager. In fact, I recall stealing a guy’s tire when I was grabbed around my neck.
My memory reflected back about fifteen years. Yeah, the guy hoisted me up by the neck, and asked me what the hell I was doing with his car. The recollection came in clear. He was big, ugly, and you could tell he was nobody to fool with. The funny thing about it was, we became friends. No, it was more than that…he became my mentor. He was the meanest private investigator in the city. He taught me the ropes, the angles, and how to think. I might have been a bus driver if I had never met him. He’s gone now, and I haven’t thought of him in a while. We were two of a kind. Both private cops, both packed .45’s, and both of us are and were known as the scourges of New York City. Only now, I was the only one alive.
A tug on my coat told me that the kid had finished tightening the lugs. I slapped him on the shoulder saying, “Kid, There is no way to make easy money, and not get hurt. Understand?”
The way I said it sounded more like a statement than advice. The kid gave me a look as if I was a prophet, and stretched out his hand. We shook, and he walked off. I hopped back into the heap cutting the wheels for the office.
The traffic was slacking off now. It was already four o’clock, and I was at least fifteen minutes away from the office. I hoped Lola would still be waiting for me. When I’m in a rush I seem to catch every red light, and I caught eighteen of the twenty I had to pass. The traffic going uptown was getting packed with suburbanites on their way home. I flipped a Camel out of my pack, punched the lighter on the dash, and lit up.
Reaching 238th Street, I hooked a right into the municipal parking lot, and locked up. I dug into my pockets for a nickel to feed the meter, but my hand came out with two quarters, a dime, half dollar, a Canadian penny, and a slug that some son of a bitch had slipped me. The slug was the size of a nickel though, so I pushed it into the slot of the meter. It worked! Now it was the city’s problem.
I strolled across the street, and stepped towards the office. The hallway door didn’t squeak for the first time in six months. The janitor must have finally gotten off his ass and oiled it.
I took the stairs two at a time as I usually do, and opened the door to the reception area. “Lola baby, the farmer is back from the fields.”
At once, I felt something wasn’t right. Lola was not at her desk, and the joint was clean. Usually she had coffee cups, lipstick, powders, and other junk lying around. I caught a movement to my side, but it was too late to grab my rod.
I heard a, “Up with your hands Murdock.” There wasn’t much I could do. I put up my hands, and turned slowly around to see where the voice came from. There were three of them, and they all had guns pointed at my gut. Two of them I had never seen before, but the third was the mug that was driving the car when I shot up his buddy in front of the Red Hat.
One said, “Over against the wall big shot.” The smallest of the three came over and frisked me. He seemed a little nervous to come too close to me. As he reached for my rig, and pulled out my .45, I spit in his face. He jumped back, and wiped his puss off. “Short Stuff” wasn’t about to make any move against me. The one in the middle appeared to be the leader of the three. He was big, and I could see that he was the only one who knew how to handle himself. The third goon was all smiles. He must have thought he was fooling with Tinker Bell. The big one said to me, “Let’s go, somebody wants to see you.”
“Who?”
“Never mind who. You’ll find out soon enough.” Smiley pointed his gun towards the door blurting out, “You first, Maddog. Take it easy, and you won’t get hurt.”
This guy was too much. He must have thought he was Humphrey Bogart. Some people watch too many movies.
I frowned, and walked to the door as the three goons followed. Humphrey Bogart was behind me shoving his rod hard into my back. Just as I was about to turn the doorknob, the door swung open, and in burst the janitor.
This was the time to make my move. What a break! I grabbed the poor guy’s arm, and flung him into the muscles behind me. The goons were thrown off-kilter, and I knew just what to do. I grabbed the .38 from Humphrey, and ran out the door. I shrewdly made a sudden stop, and then a quick side step on the other side of the wall. Two of the goons jumped past the janitor, and charged out the door after me. They discovered too late that they had made a fatal mistake. The first one’s cheekbone was smashed by a slug that came out the other side of his head carrying half his brain with it. The mess splattered against the wall like a splash of globby red paint.
The second thug was standing not more than six inches away from the barrel of my gun when I squeezed the trigger three times. The blast sent him flying into the air, and when he landed, his stomach was lying beside him on the floor. His guts looked like a pile of puke, mud, and wiggling reddish brown worms. I could see that the guy had eaten steak for lunch. One more was left, and he was still in the office. I stuck my head out from behind the door an inch to see where he was. A shot sounded sending a piece of lead whizzing past my ear. I fell to the floor. It was an academy award performance.
I laid there as stiff as a board, fighting to hold my breath. The jerk came out to see if he got me. What an amateur…and this is the one who I thought was experienced. He turned to see the severed bodies of his companions, and turned pale. That’s when I made my move. His foot was near my hand, close enough to grab. I gave a firm yank, and he collapsed to the floor. His gun flew out of his hand, banged against the wall, and landed inches from my mitt. I scrambled to get my hands on it before the lone leader knew what was coming off. The gun was in my hand now, and I pointed the muzzle at him.
“Get up fat boy,” I said. He grunted as he got up, and looked at me with eyes that begged for mercy. Sweat formed on his brow, and saliva flowed from the corners of his mouth. I pointed my gun towards the office door grunting, “Get in there.”
I guess he was in a state of shock, for he was gazing at the spongy looking material oozing down the wall, and the bloody guts of his other buddy. The body parts smelled like a mixture of rotten eggs, and rancid garbage. It was getting to the guy, but I wanted it to be emphasized. I put my hand into his partner’s stomach, and pulled his intestines out. The stench grew worse. With a smile on my face, I dropped the mass of bloody gunk onto the floor, and stepped on it. I could see in his face that he knew of my reputation. I wiped my hand on his shirt. If he had, a gun in his hand now he would have probably used it
on himself. If he had hurt Lola, he would soon know what extreme pain was.
I pushed him inside the reception room, and shoved his body into a chair.
The janitor was still on the floor with his hands waving over his head, and a horrified look covering his face. I said, “It’s OK pop, beat it.”
The poor guy jumped up, and shot out of the office faster than lightning. I’ve never seen him move so fast. My door would probably never be oiled again after this.
The unarmed gunman was cooperating with me fully. I walked to my desk, opened the bottom drawer, and pulled out a bottle of Four Roses. The lip of the bottle entered my mouth, and I hauled back for a long one.
I looked at the slob and said, “Where’s Lola?”
His lip started trembling. He couldn’t push any words out of his mouth. Once more, I repeated myself. This guy was too afraid to tell me, and I was having a difficult time keeping control of my temper. I walked over to him, stood by his side, and screamed into his face, “What the hell have you done with Lola?”
With that, I lifted my hand, and the bottle of Four Roses went crashing into his face. It sounded like a rock hitting soft ground when the bottle met his nose. The bastard let out a howl, as his body slammed against the back of the chair, almost flipping it over. He pleaded with me not to hit him again. The goon’s speech was barely intelligible. His nose looked like it was broken in at least three different places. I laughed, and this time when I asked him the question, he pointed to the inner office. Some guys you just have to handle rough. I walked to the door, opened it, and found Lola sprawled across the floor, blood flowing from her head.
I stepped to her still, lifeless body, brushed her bloody matted blond hair from her face, and called out her name. There was no response, no movement, not a twitch. I instinctively opened one of her eyes, by lifting a lid, and saw only emptiness. My hands gently lowered her head back to the floor.
She was dead.
I now became a “MADDOG.” I slammed the door behind me, and returned to the front room. Never have I been so enraged. Flame flowed from my mouth, and hate beamed from my eyes. I was going to mutilate this guy so badly that it would make those hoods in the corridor look as if they were just suffering from a cold. What drove three armed men to kill a helpless woman? The goon was still in the chair. He would never walk out of this office. He knew that when he looked into my eyes. The slob made his last desperate move. He jumped out of the chair, and lunged towards the door.
I lifted the rod in my hand, and pulled the trigger… once …twice…three…four times. The roars sounded throughout the building. The pig fell to the floor moaning in pain, and he had a right to be moaning. Both his lower legs were hanging by hairs of sinew. I had shot the son of a bitch in the kneecaps.
I picked him up and dragged him back to the chair, listening to his cries of pain. The poor guy needed some comfort and attention. I don’t know about comfort, but he was gonna get a lot of attention from me. The mug didn’t know what pain was yet. He squirmed, and slid out of the chair onto the floor, gliding on his own blood. I reached down for his leg, or what was left, and twisted it. The strings of muscle and flesh snapped after several turns and yanks. It sounded like plucking a loose guitar string. The mug screamed, pleaded, and cried. The calf parted from the knee, and I threw it across the room. I tried doing the same to the other leg, but the ligaments held firm after two full revolutions. I dropped his limp foot to the floor, and smirked into the sorry bastard’s face.
A pool of blood formed around the raw pieces of bubbling, fleshy stumps. The protruding artery hung out from the muck of glob squirming like a slimy worm ripped in half. The murdering bastard was wriggling in excruciating pain. The splintered bone protruding from his thigh looked like a giant maggot swimming in a pool of deep, dark blood.
I thought of poor Lola again, and I guess I went nuts. I pulled out my pocketknife, and jammed it into his eardrums. He shrieked the mother of all shrieks. Unfortunately, now he wouldn’t be able to hear himself scream. This is as close to justice as I was gonna get. I needed to mutilate him… oh, how I reveled in it. Not for the sake of being violent, but for avenging the killing of my dear sweetheart. I grabbed his bottom lip, pulled it out, and sliced it off with a couple of sloppy strokes. My finger jabbed him in the eyes for good measure.
The sound of police sirens could now be heard. They were coming closer until they stopped outside the office. If I was going to finish this sucker, I had to do it now. He was on the floor, swimming in his puke, blood pouring out of his torn, shredded legs. His nose was grotesquely smashed. His lip was missing, and his ears oozed dark red fluid. My body towered over him. I visualized his head as a football. My legs stepped back five paces, and stopped. Through the window, I could hear the police getting out of their cars. I went rushing forward with every muscle in my body pitched to its peak, and brought my foot smashing into the cripple’s head. SLOOP! Blood splattered everywhere. I looked at the remaining glob and muck. His mouth was open showing the ripped gums shedding their teeth, the tongue floating in a well of blood, and the cheeks completely ripped apart. My foot had connected at the cheekbone, and had sent parts of his head across the room. One of his swollen, blood-red eyes was in the flower pot on the windowsill. His mouth, or what was left of it, was gaping open as if it was a large mouth bass. I was glad I did it. It was a sickening sight to look at… that is, for anyone else but me. His head looked like a squashed, blood red cantaloupe… one that was over ripe.
Here I was, in the best of humor this morning, and not wanting to hurt a fly. I looked around me, and saw the brains, intestines, eyeball, and other parts of human anatomy flung around the office and corridor.
Then the police walked in.
* * *
CH 7 WARNING! Don’t Mess with Lola.