Josh Stallings - Out There Bad

Pasha the giant towered over me. I swung up, my fist bounced ineffectually off his gut. It was like hitting an iron plate. His fist flew down towards my face. Rising, I took the blow on the chest. I bounced off the door, leaving a dent. I gasped for air that wouldn’t come. Meat paws grabbed my shoulder, lifting me to my feet. His arm cocked back, ready to take my head off.

“Blin! He needs to tell us where the girls are.” A pale hood held Pasha’s hand back. It took a lot for Pasha not to swing. This was what he was built for. Slowly, the tension left his face.

“Where are they?” The pale boy pushed a pistol barrel into my crotch, snapping back the hammer. The blade made no sound cutting through his throat. His blood splashed down onto my face. The man fell, revealing Mikayla standing behind him, the wet razor in her hand. Pasha stood stone still. Gregor pressed the shotgun barrel into the back of his head.

“Dude, please, tell me where they’re holding Anya. If I take the leash off my girl, it will get messy, and I’ve had enough blood to last a lifetime.” We were parked on a quiet dirt road in Griffith Park. Pasha hadn’t said word one since leaving the parking lot.

“Fuck it, boss, time to start taking souvenirs.” Gregor hobbled over to the front of the car, using a shotgun for a cane. Pasha was bound, leaning against the hood, his eyes bored. Gregor flipped the gun up by the barrel. The butt broke Pasha’s lip and I could hear teeth snapping off.

“Chill.” I pushed Gregor back, he was getting ready to hit the Russian again.

“Fuck that, Mo, he knows where Anya is.”

Mikayla had her back to us, smoking. All this talk made her uncomfortable. Cut him and be done, was her plan. Always.

“I’m telling you, big man,” I said, moving between Pasha and the mad Armenian, “I can’t hold this shit together much longer. Just tell me where she is. You walk, Anya walks, happy fucking ending.”

“Nyet.”

“You speak, that’s something.”

“No happy ending.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Maybe just a less ugly ending. Could we try for that?”

He closed his mouth into a tense bloody line.

“Enough talk.” Mikayla lifted her freshly cleaned razor and walked toward the giant.

“No, cut him one tiny bit at a time, turn him into so much ground chuck and he still won’t talk. Trust me.”

“We’ll see.” She raised the blade, resting it against his ear.

“I’ve run out of options, or I’d never ask you to do this.” Nika studied my face. The other girls were in Helen’s living room watching MTV and eating Spaghetti-Os.

“Will this get my sister back?”

“I don’t know, but it’s what I got.”

She nodded her head and followed me into the garage. Pasha was trussed up in the back seat. It took some pleading but Mikayla and Gregor had been convinced not to take him apart one piece at a time. I had lost some tough guy points in their eyes, but fuck it, I was too tired of destruction to care.

Moses closed the car door behind Nika and stepped away, leaving the teenage girl alone in the back seat with the giant. For a long moment, they stared at each other.

When she finally spoke, it came out as a whisper. “My name is Veronika Kolpacolva, I come from Yaroslavl. All I wanted were pretty clothes, a house with a swimming pool. That was forever ago. My sister is a good woman, she’s not trash to be thrown away. You are not trash. I need you to remember, please, remember. Once you were young and hoped life would be more.”

Pasha looked at this little girl. When had life gotten so ugly?

“Tell me where my sister is. I need her to be alive and safe. You can be a hero instead of this. Be a hero. Save my sister.”

I stood in the shadows of the garage, watching Nika. She was brave beyond her years, after all that men had done to her, she had the courage to sit in the car with this giant. I could barely hear her murmured Russian. After what seemed like forever, the giant spoke. Nika nodded her head. They spoke more. She leaned up and kissed his cheek.

“Here.” Nika handed me a slip of paper. “They are holding Anya there. Get her back.” The young bend but don’t break easily. Old fucks like me, that’s a different story.

Peter printed a map off the computer, the address was in Redlands, tucked between the Santa Ana river and the foothills of the San Bernardino mountains.

“You coming with us? See how it all ends?”

“My guy’s guy almost cracked the laptop. The wire’s crackling with an explosion in Chatsworth, bodies found. The story goes to press Friday. I’m up to my ass in fact-checking.”

“I wasn’t going to let you come anyway. Someone has to survive to tell the tale.”

When I returned to the garage, Mikayla was in the front passenger seat. Gregor was in the back. “Not this time, Gregor, I want you to sit this one out.”

“No.”

“Pal, look in the mirror. You’re done.”

“They have Anya.” Something in the way he said her name told me all the talk in the world wouldn’t get him out of the car.

“Where’s the big Russian?” I asked Mikayla, sliding in behind the wheel.

“The trunk.”

“Alive?”

She looked at me like I was an idiot child. I wanted to ask her why, but I knew her answer, we had what we needed and he was one less scumbag on the planet. I hoped she was wrong, hoped that redemption was possible, but I suspected she was right.

It was still early enough to avoid the parking lot the 10 became after quitting traffic. Gregor sat rigid, the mixture of Helen’s Percodan and Peter’s coke had taken his pain and sealed it into a soft little lock box.

“Put these on.” I passed him a pair of Ray-Bans. His crazy eyes were more than I needed to see.

Mikayla was counting out a fat wad of cash. She had given the wallets and documents to Peter. The cash and jewelry were her spoils.

“When this is over, where will you go?”

“It is never over.”

True for her, not for me. I was done, fried and baked. My life up to this point had been one long battle and I was ready to see it end. The citizens with their nine to fives looked real good.

This was bad.

Tired and weak was a quick way to get dead. Anya was out there, waiting. Nika was counting on me to save her sister. I owed her, hell, more than I could repay.

It was Clash time. Crank up the guitars. Turn the stereo to attack. Mikayla cringed at the sound, but said nothing.

“Give me a line,” I barked at Gregor. Dumping a fatty on the top of my hand, I took a blast. It was alligator heart time. Dump rage on top of the machine gun heartbeat. Angel, my beautiful pup, was still touch and go, the vet didn’t give her good odds. Fuckers have to die. Anya, her lips on mine, could have been true love, they fucked that. Her tears. Nika’s broken cherry, her blood on my cock. Mikayla’s severed breast. Fuck fuck fuck. Ahhhhhh!

My scream rose above The Last Gang In Town . In the rearview, Gregor grinned. He might not walk real good, but he was ready to take some heads.

Xlmen lay on his belly, in amongst the white sage he was all but invisible. Ripping a piece of deer jerky, he kept his eyes on the ranch. It had taken him a long day to discover that the gringo had been driven to Tecate. Bodies in the borderland had been found with the bitch’s cards. He had lost their trail in the southern tip of the Mojave. In the two days since crossing the border, he had followed the Russian. He figured they would not let what happened in Ensenada rest. Sooner or later, they would go for the big gringo and the tarot bitch or, the two would come for the Russians. Either way, he would be waiting. Senor Santiago had instructed him to let the assassin be, she was gone and that was all he wanted. A weak move. He had been sent to kill her. And he would. If he let this bitch best him, what would come next? He could feel the breath of old age tracking him, getting closer. He knew if he fell, the young street dogs would feast on his bones. His reputation was all that kept the curs at bay.