David Robbins - Nevada Run

Only the giant wasn’t there.

Blade had lowered the Bowie to protect his stomach, but he had also shifted to the right at the same instant. As the mobster’s arm swept the survival knife up, leaving the trigger man’s midriff completely unprotected, Blade drove his Bowie into the man’s abdomen to the hilt, then twisted.

With a strangled wheeze, the mobster stiffened and started to sag.

His enormous arms bulging, Blade used both hands to slice the Bowie from the mobster’s stomach to the sternum. He yanked the Bowie out and stepped aside.

The mobster’s eyes were wide and unfocused. His intestines and organs were bulging through the abdominal wound. He tottered forward into the railing and clutched at the top rail for support, but he couldn’t seem to get a grip on it. Slowly, so slowly, he limply sagged over the top rail, his arms flailing weakly. With a pathetic whimper he pitched over the railing.

Blade wiped his Bowie on his pants and faced the stairs leading upward. He stopped and retrieved the Commando.

Geronimo was sitting on the step below the bend, the Browning in his lap, his legs drawn inward, staunching the flow of blood from his injured left thigh with a strip of cloth torn from his shirt. He grinned. “It’s nice to see you haven’t lost your touch.”

Blade dashed up the stairs. “Can you walk?”

“I can hobble,” Geronimo responded. “But I won’t be running any marathons for a while.”

“Maybe Helen can…” Blade began, then stopped, his eyes narrowing and searching the stairs above. “Where is Helen?”

Geronimo jerked his right thumb upward. “She went after Mindy.”

“What?”

“She took off for the third floor while you were using that mobster for carving practice,” Geronimo explained.

“Damn!” Blade snapped in annoyance. “She’s not supposed to make a move without any orders.”

“She’s a woman, isn’t she?” Geronimo remarked.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Blade demanded.

Geronimo chuckled. “How can you be married and ask such a ridiculous question?” he rejoined.

“We’ve got to go after her,” Blade stated. “Here. I’ll give you a hand.” He extended his right arm.

“No,” Geronimo said. “I’ll slow you down. Go on alone. I’ll wait here.”

“You’re coming with me,” Blade declared, “and that’s final!”

“Fine by me,” Geronimo agreed, taking Blade’s arm and rising. He stared at his friend for a moment, then grinned. “Has anyone ever told you that your cheeks twitch when you’re mad?”

“Don Giorgio!” Ozzi blurted out.

Don Giorgio entered the chamber, Sacks right behind him. The Don carried his Weaver Arms Nighthawk in his left hand. Sacks was armed with a pump shotgun.

Giorgio gazed at Ozzi’s face. “What the hell happened to you? You look like you lost a collision with a cement truck.”

Ozzi wagged his Bushmaster at the Warrior on the floor. “Hickok,” he said simply.

Giorgio frowned as he looked at the Warrior. “Is he dead?”

“No,” Ozzi said. “Just unconscious.”

“Then we’ll finish the son of a bitch off before we leave,” the Don stated.

He shifted his attention to Mindy. “I want her alive.”

“I want to waste her!” Ozzi protested.

“We need her alive,” Don Giorgio reiterated. “She’s our ticket out of here. Don Pucci’s men are in the casino. They’ll be here before too long.

We’re leaving while the leaving is good.”

“Where will we go, boss?” Sacks inquired.

“I have hideouts Pucci doesn’t know about,” Don Giorgio replied. “He hasn’t won yet! I’ll reorganize and throw everything I have at him.”

“Where can Kenney be?” Sacks asked.

“We’ll worry about him later,” Giorgio said. “Right now, I need to grab my papers from my safe. You two stay put.” He walked to a door on the left side of the chamber and went into the next room.

Ozzi glanced at Sacks. “I want the honor of snuffing the Warrior.”

Sacks shrugged. “Suit yourself. He means nothing to me.”

Mindy gazed from one hit man to the other. “You two are despicable!”

“Listen to who’s talking!” Ozzi retorted.

“I hope I’m around when Blade catches up with you,” Mindy taunted Ozzi. “I want to see the look on your face.”

“Shut up!” Ozzi barked.

Mindy’s loathing and resentment supplanted her caution. “Big, tough man, huh?”

“I said shut up!” Ozzi growled.

“We have babies at the Home who are more manly than you’ll ever be!” she mocked him.

Ozzi took a step toward her, scowling in fury. “Keep it up, bitch!”

“Ozz!” Sacks said. “The Don needs her alive.”

“But he didn’t say I couldn’t rearrange her face a bit,” Ozzi hissed. He jabbed the Bushmaster stock at her face.

Mindy instinctively raised her hands to screen her head.

Which was the reaction Ozzi wanted. He smirked as he rammed the stock into her stomach instead.

Gasping, Mindy doubled over.

Ozzi laughed. “Want some more, scuzz?”

Mindy looked up through tears of anguish. She saw Ozzi cackling, and near the doorway Sacks was staring in disapproval at the younger button man. Sacks started to open his mouth, to say something, but the words never came out.

There was a swishing noise from behind Sacks, and a scintillating, streaking, metallic object swept into the rear of his head.

Sacks arched his back and uttered a choking, inarticulate, panting sound. His eyes bulged, his arms dropping loosely to his sides, the shotgun falling to the floor.

“Sacks?” Ozzi said in surprise.

Sacks took a single step, then keeled over, his head bending downward as he fell, revealing the rear of his cranium; his head was split open from neck to crown.

Mindy straightened in amazement as her gaze alighted on the person responsible for Sacks’s demise. “Mom!” she cried.

Helen stood in a martial-arts stance, jodan-no-kamae, her bloody machete held in the same manner as the traditional katana. Her amber hair was disheveled, her black leather vest and pants spattered with gore.

Blood caked her right cheek and chin, and her right shoulder was awash in crimson.

“She’s your mom?” Ozzi blurted out, and tried to swing the Bushmaster around.

Helen was faster. She closed on the hit man and swung the machete, her blade deflecting the Bushmaster barrel to the right. With the deadly proficiency born of years of practice, she employed a reverse strike, slashing the machete across Ozzi’s chest, the keen edge cleaving several inches into his flesh.

Ozzi screamed and frantically tried to back away.

Helen wouldn’t let him. She took a measured stride and swung the machete with all her strength, catching the hit man in the throat and nearly decapitating him.

Ozzi was dead on his feet. His head flopped to the left as blood gushed from his ravaged neck, and he sank to the I floor in lifeless silence.

Helen glared at the mobster for a second, then moved to Mindy.

“You’re hurt!” Mindy exclaimed in alarm.

“It’s nothing,” Helen said. “A scratch.”

For a moment mother and daughter gazed into each other’s eyes in mutual love and devotion, and then they embraced in a hug.

“Oh, Mom,” Mindy said, sniffling.

“It’s over,” Helen stated. “You’re safe. No one will hurt you now.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” commented a sarcastic, gruff voice.

Helen spun in the direction of the voice, putting herself between Mindy and the man in black six feet away. She raised the katana.

“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” the man remarked, pointing his Nighthawk at Helen.