Murdam put it together on the drive to the warehouse district. Johnny had shown up alone. Roberto was likely not Chuck, and probably not a fourth member of their crew. He checked Albert’s phone. A text from ten minutes ago: “Where the fuck RU”. Maybe Roberto’s phone goes off at the same time and Johnny goes over. Roberto and Johnny were targets and got a full clip each. The rest were collateral. The Asians were after whoever Johnny was meeting, but they didn’t know what the target looked like.
Johnny’s crew was expendable bait, but the Asians didn’t set them up. Somebody hired two crews. Somebody gave Johnny’s crew a lead in shape of Deuce, then hired the Asians to move in when they made contact. That somebody’s going to find out that Roberto is not their target, but in the meantime they may want to finish covering their tracks. Time to pay Chuck a visit.
Murdam drove back to the warehouse that Deuce had tried to lure him to. He pulled the top up, pulled up to a set of sliding metal doors, and tapped the horn twice. A minute later the door slid up. A short bodybuilder wearing designer jeans, a wife beater, and a wide bandana over his forehead stepped out.
“Dude, you said you were going to text a password before...” Murdam cut him off with the front bumper of the convertible. Chuck slid onto the windshield. Murdam slammed on the brakes when he cleared the door, sending Chuck tumbling on the cement floor. A pistol fell out of his belt and slid away.
Murdam stepped out of the car and walked up to Chuck as he crawled, one hand clutching his hip, the other reaching for his gun. Murdam put all of his weight down in a hard stomp on Chuck’s injured hip. Splintered bone snapped, and Chuck’s screams echoed through the empty warehouse. Murdam walked over and picked up the gun.
“Deuce, get your ass out here!” Murdam called out. The warehouse was small, with only some empty shelves and pallets littering the floor. Deuce walked casually out of a small office in the back.
“What took you so long?” Deuce had dull eyes, his lips chapping into sores.
“What took me so long? You sell me out to these motherfuckers and complain that I’m late?”
Deuce dismissed Murdam, shaking his head. “Shit, I knew you could take these busters.”
“Just the three of them?”
“Yeah. I don’t have to guess what happened to the other two.”
“I haven’t killed either of them.” Murdam gave Chuck’s hip another stomp to keep him down. The screams started again. Murdam pulled off Chuck’s bandana and shoved it in his mouth. “Shut up for a fucking second. How’d this go down, Deuce?”
“These three guys slide up at Keegan Housing and ask if I’m Deuce. I figured they were looking to get hooked up, so I say yes. They show me their toasters and we go for a ride here. They say ‘That big guy you’ve been giving tips to, get him here’. So I calls you.”
“They knew your name, but not mine?” Murdam asked as he started sifting through the pallets and debris.
“Nope. I guess they found out after I called, though. Then they hid around with theys guns waiting for you.”
Murdam found a pry bar. “Anybody else ask about me recently?”
“Nah. People know about yous by reputation. They knows if you and me have a talk, somebody dies.”
“Any Asians hanging around the Keegan?”
“Just a few Vietnamese families been there a while. Nobody new.”
“Hold on a sec.” Murdam brought the pry bar down on Chuck’s elbows. The bandana barely muffled the squealing. Deuce looked away and pulled his shoulders up. “Deuce, you got options in other towns?”
“I know people places. You figure I better skip town?”
“It’s either that or kill you.” Murdam pulled Chuck’s wallet out from his back pocket and gave Deuce the bills. “Bus station, now.”
“There a reason you keeping me alive?”
“You’re useful. I may need that memory again. Just as long as you forget my face.”
“That’s funny, soon as you’re not around, I forget what you look like. For reals. Like my eyes don’t want to know.”
“You’re eyes are smart. Now get out, I’m expecting some people and things could get hot.”
“Stay strong, Stonewall.”
Murdam piled debris in front of all the entrances. Not enough to keep anyone out, but enough to make it noisy. There was a line of skylights in the center of the ceiling, and a row of windows fifteen feet high along the sides. There were no buildings in Murdam’s sightline if he sat on the floor in the unlikely case of a sniper. A quick sweep didn’t find any electronic surveillance.
Murdam checked on Chuck. He hadn’t passed out, but he gave up on trying to stand and just shivered on the floor. Murdam popped the trunk of Johnny’s car. Jumper cables and a tool kit. Murdam pulled up the edge of the carpeting and uncovered the circular gap meant for the spare tire. Latex gloves, a coil of rope, duct tape, handcuffs, a stun gun, mace, an extendable baton, a small blowtorch, pliers, ski masks, and a box cutter.
Murdam came back to Chuck. He kicked at him until he rolled over on his back. Murdam pulled out the bandana. “Let’s see if those arms work.” Murdam pulled his dick out of the front of his pants and pissed over Chuck’s face. Chuck squirmed and thrashed his head around, but his arms barely flopped at his sides. “Good enough. Now let’s have a little talk.” Murdam had found a baggie of white powder in Chuck’s wallet. He pinched some off and pressed it into Chuck’s nostril. Chuck willingly sniffed it up.
“Here’s the deal, Chuck. You’ve got a broken pelvis and multiple breaks in both your arms. If I think you’re keeping secrets from me, I will break those bones into smaller pieces. I break them into small enough pieces and they’ll have to be amputated.
Tears dripped down into the urine on Chuck’s cheeks. “I know why this is happening.”
“Why’s that, Chuck.”
“Because of what I did to Alicia.”
“What did you do to Alicia?”
Alicia was Chuck’s sister or something. He didn’t know if they were blood or step or how, but they were both raised by Chuck’s grandparents. Popa would beat the soles of little Chuck’s feet with a cane if he thought Chuck was being a sissy, so Chuck would do whatever he could to be a man. When he turned thirteen, he would practice being a man with his little sister Alicia. Alicia wouldn’t tell because she knew Mema would blame her. When Popa took what was his as the breadwinner of the family, Mema found out and made Alicia douche with bleach while praying for forgiveness. The things Chuck made her do weren’t as bad.
Chuck got bored of Alicia and made her bring her friends over for playtime. The third one told a teacher, and Chuck went to juvi. Child Services got involved. Popa went to jail, and Mema ended up wandering into the freeway in her housedress. Alicia went into foster care, got pregnant, and took an overdose of her foster mother’s medication.
Chuck had to do a couple of sissy things in juvi before he got strong enough to be a man and make somebody else a sissy. When he was released there were no foster homes available and he was housed at an At Risk facility, a combination of displaced juveniles and abused women’s shelter. Chuck was becoming quite the man by the time he was sixteen, and he hooked up with one of the caretakers, who turned a blind eye to what he would make the other residents do.
Chuck would spend most nights in clubs downtown. If he needed money, he would hit the gay bars. He would let someone take him to their home, then kick their ass and take their shit. Chuck didn’t go to school, he went to the gym. When the shelter kicked him out when he turned eighteen, he became a bouncer to pay for his rent. He got into steroids. His cock didn’t work as well anymore, so he had to turn to other things to get him off.
Chuck got into cocaine, but couldn’t afford it. He was a big guy by now, and he worked off his drug debts by collecting for some dealers. He’s never killed anybody, but he’s put some people in the hospital.
Chuck knew Johnny from the clubs. Johnny would hint that he’d killed people before, but he was no hit man. He was a “player”, as he put it. Chuck wanted to be a player too. Johnny needed some muscle to hit a lick. Chuck figured it was like rolling queers, only a bigger score. There’s this guy that has serious bank, but he’s a tough guy, so Johnny needed some help to roll him. Don’t know his name, but we can find out from a crackhead named Deuce at Keegan Housing.
Chuck doesn’t know where Johnny got his information. Chuck doesn’t know anything about any Asians. Chuck wants to know if Popa and Mema went to heaven or hell, because he wants to go where they aren’t.
It was late morning, and Murdam was bored. They’re either waiting outside, or they aren’t coming. Chuck was half passed out, waking with a start whenever a shift in his weight ground a broken bone.
“Come on, Chuck, time to go.” Murdam grabbed Chuck by the belt and hefted him up. His arms still hung loosely at his sides. Murdam supported him under his armpit and guided him to Johnny’s convertible. It took him a second to remember why Chuck smelled like piss. Murdam sat him down in the front passenger seat and buckled him in. “You’ve got one working limb, Chuck. Don’t be stupid enough to try to do anything but sit here and keep quiet.”
Murdam went into Johnny’s secret stash from the trunk. He slid on a ski mask, put the crow bar in the center console, and stuck Chuck’s gun in his waistband. He slid up the garage door, returned to the convertible, and drove out of the warehouse.
The docks were active with trucks and forklifts. Murdam’s mask was obscured by the tinted glass. He drove slowly, taking the most direct route to the surrounding neighborhood. He looked for tails, his eyes quickly cycling through the car’s mirrors.
It took two blocks, after Murdam turned onto a block with little traffic. A motor scooter darted out of an alley with two helmeted men riding. He couldn’t see their faces, but the seating arrangement was definitely an Asian hit technique. The rear passenger was seated facing backwards. Murdam couldn’t see it, but he knew the passenger was armed. The scooter would pass him, pull in front, and empty a clip into the windshield.
Or it would have if Murdam hadn’t kicked the driver’s side door open. The edge of the door caught the driver’s leg, and the scooter slid out from under the two. Murdam slammed on the brakes, popped the gear into park and grabbed the pry bar. The scooter hadn’t been going too fast, and the two were already starting to get to their feet. The rear passenger had a MAC-10 with a strap over his shoulder. Murdam gave his helmet a running baseball swing with the pry bar. The casing cracked and the helmet shifted.
Murdam turned his attention to the driver. He was stumbling away from Murdam, fumbling at his waist for a gun that he lost in the spill. The driver looked around desperately, seeing the pistol on the asphalt. As he ran to snatch it up, the helmet obscured his view from the delivery truck that had turned the corner. The grill slammed him to the ground, the front tire stopped over his stomach.
Murdam returned to the passenger, who was grasping at his helmet, the MAC-10 swinging from its shoulder strap. Murdam snatched the gun up and pulled the strap to the passenger’s throat. Murdam turned, slung the strap over his shoulder, and leaned forward. They stood back to back, the still helmeted passenger lifted off the ground by his throat. His heels kicked back into Murdam’s thighs, his hands clutching at the strap. By the time his movement’s slowed, the delivery driver had stepped out of the truck.
“What the fuck?” Murdam dropped his weight and emptied the MAC-10 into the truck driver. Bullets chewed through his hands held out in defense, blowing chunks out of his torso. Murdam wiped the gun and dropped it. The scooter driver was alive for now. Murdam left him and returned to the passenger. He had fallen to his knees, but didn’t pass out from the strangling. Murdam yanked off his helmet. Another Asian. He turned the helmet backwards and put it back on the man, pounding it into place with a hammering fist.
Murdam dragged the man to the car and popped the trunk. A few cars had the sense to stop before coming up on the scene, and some curious faces looked out of storefront windows. Murdam tossed the man in the trunk, quickly handcuffed him behind his back, and wrapped his ankles in a couple layers of duct tape.
Murdam pulled away from the scene. He wasn’t worried about witnesses when he killed the delivery driver. He wanted more heat associated with a dead Asian. If they were after him, he wanted the police after them. Murdam drove the speed limit to the nearest highway and headed to the city limits. If VCPD got a decent description of Johnny’s ride, they weren’t likely to share it with the Sherriff before he could ditch the car.