Getting Ugly (6 page)

Pike looks to Brobee. “Gonna frisk him, ya fuckin’ freak?”

“I’ll…maybe later.” Brobee motions to Pike. “Come on, tough guy. Open the jacket. Arms up.” Pike humors the little guy and allows Brobee to pat him down.

Leon hovers outside the hangar watching it all. He can’t believe he’s here.
What the hell am I doing?
He pulls a flask and fires down a swig. He lets the whiskey burn down his chest, knowing he has to do this, has to go in there and do this thing. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, the kind of second chance most people will never get. It’s what people fantasize about after someone does something shitty to them.
If I’d only done X or said Y to that asshole.
Most fantasy do-over’s don’t contain the levels of violence and human suffering as Leon’s case, but it’s all relative. Leon takes another swig, swishes it around his mouth and makes his move inside.

Everyone gives Leon a look as he walks in. The group of killers lay hard eyes on him with blank expressions, giving Leon nothing in the way of greeting. None of them recognize him. Leon takes in their stares.
Nothing new,
he thinks.
Just tough guys being tough
.

Patience looks him up and down, perhaps a bit too long for Pike’s taste. Brobee pats down Pike, finds a cell. Drops it in a bag and says, “Nobody’s calling anybody, nobody’s tracking us anywhere.”

“Why’s that, Sports Fan?” Pike asks.

“You motherfuckers are on a need-to-fucking-know basis, and you don’t need to fucking know where the fuck we’re going. I know how this movie ends—I tell you how to get to Big Ugly, you don’t need Brobee anymore, you shoot Brobee. Not today, bitches.”

Rasnick tries not to smirk.

Brobee tries not to drool over Patience. “You’re next, beautiful.” Patience is all too aware of her gifts and their ability to crush the superficial male. Her words glide from her tongue. “Be gentle.” She lets her guns and ammo drop…then her sundress.

Patience is a jaw-dropping display of a woman. A Victoria’s Secret model, criminally insane edition. Brobee doesn’t know what to do.

She locks eyes on Leon. “See anything?”

Pike can’t take it. He slaps Patience with a hard backhand. Everybody goes silent. Patience touches her lip with hurt in her eyes, but she’s no garden-variety abused spouse. She puts a foot to Pike’s balls, releases a war cry and pounces with reckless abandon. The lovers punch, spit and claw at each other. Rasnick motions to Vig and Oleg to break it up. They pull the two off each other, Patience’s feet still flying as she’s dragged away from Pike.

Patience and Pike catch their breath, then shove Vig and Oleg aside. They rush to each other, colliding in an anger-soaked kiss. Hands groping. Moans vibrating. Bloody lips pressed hard together. The others share a look between them.

That’s fucked up
.

The ragtag crew cruises through the clouds toward their mission of murder, surrounded by the Gulfstream’s plush leather and luxury.

Leon keeps an eye on everything and everyone, sizing them up one by one. Breaking up his analysis is a constant, dull, thumping coming from the bathroom. Pike and Patience are joining the mile high club. Muffled, awkward grunts and moans seep out from the lavatory, along with bits of dirty talk.

“Spit in my mouth,” barks Pike.

Leon shifts uncomfortably in his seat. Rasnick looks at the ceiling. Vig and Oleg share a vodka bottle. Chats locks an icy stare out into nothing while he cleans his teeth with a tactical knife.

Brobee eyes Leon. “I know you.” Leon turns to find Brobee about two inches from his face.

“No, you don’t.”

“Yeah, yeah I do. Where do I fucking know you?” Brobee asks.

The pleasure moans and thumps from the bathroom get louder, now sounding like rabid monkeys trapped in a box.

Brobee doesn’t let it go with Leon. “You been on TV?”

“No.”

“Prison?”

“No.”

“Punch my nipple,” orders Patience.

Vig leans over, offering Leon a hit from his bottle. Leon declines. Vig insists. “Drink.”

Leon tries being polite. “I’m good.”

Rasnick joins the conversation. “You should take that drink.”

“You my sponsor?” asks Leon.

“You a gay?” asks Oleg.

Vig pushes the bottle at him again. “Drink it.”

Leon works to remain cool. “I’d rather keep a clear head before this…exercise.”

Rasnick says, “Sauce helps Vig and Oleg. Frees the mind.”

“The soul,” add Vig and Oleg in harmony.

“And the soul,” grins Rasnick.

Leon flashes a blank stare. “Congratulations.” A knife flies, sticking with a thunk about an inch from Leon’s face. He whips around to see Chats staring. “What the fuck, man?”

Rasnick puts a hand on Leon. “Chats doesn’t talk. That’s his way of asking, ‘What’s your fucking problem, fucko?’ His words, not mine.”

“Ever consider sign language?” Leon asks. Chats shakes his head.
Nope
.

A Comanche war cry booms from the bathroom as Pike’s climax rattles the cabin. A moment of silence, then Pike exits. “Now I can get my murder on.” Patience slips out adjusting her dress, flicks something from her finger. She notices the eyes on Leon, the tension in the cabin. She lets the words slip out like releasing a pressure valve. “What’s up boys?”

Rasnick turns back to Leon. “Who are you, dude?”

Pike joins in. “Yeah, chief. I know these other bitches from around the way. Work acquaintances and so on…” Pike’s words are cut short by Patience sliding in with sleepy, bedroom eyes on Leon. She wipes the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand then addresses Leon. “Who the hell are you?”

Tension picks up a notch.

People start fingering weapons.

Brobee addresses the cabin. “Easy, you animals. I’ve seen this guy somewhere, just can’t place him.”

Leon takes a breath. He really thought this wouldn’t come up, but realizes now there is no way to ignore the situation. He clears his throat. “Waingrow asked me to come as a favor to him. I know Big Ugly. Been tracking him for years. Came close in Mexico, but he got the jump on me.”

“But you’re alive,” states Rasnick, a note of disbelief in his voice.

“Yeah, this motherfucker, this Big Ugly?” Pike says. “From what I hear, live and let live ain’t his way.”

Leon tries to deflect the subject. “It’s not important. What is important is we need to…”

“Fairly important, I think,” says Pateince.

Pike wraps an arm around her waist. “Yup.”

“I agree,” Rasnick adds. “I mean, we need to know everything about our team and our target, right?” Chats flips his knife with a nod. Leon takes a beat trying to sort through his words. “He wanted to make an example of me, send a message. So he set me free.”

Brobee heads snaps up. A light bulb goes off, then shatters. He can barely contain himself, fumbling to get the words out as fast as he can. “Holy fucking shit! I remember. Ah man, it’s you! I’m fucking sorry, man. Oh my God.”

“What?” asks Rasnick.

“Nothing. He’s got the wrong guy,” says Leon.

“No, no I do not,” Brobee continues. “Big Ugly and this poor bastard…there was video online.”

Eyes around the cabin go wide, even Chats. Leon’s lip trembles ever so slightly as he speaks. “I escaped, and that’s it.”

Brobee keeps riding his train of thought. “Fucking awful, horrific. Bad, bad, bad.”

Pike just wants to know. “What happened?” Brobee leans in and whispers into Pike’s ear. Pike makes a face like he swallowed a bug wrapped in dog shit. Can’t even look at Leon, all he can do is glance to his shoes.

Leon spits out, “Nothing happened. I busted out and escaped. Nothing happened.”

Patience is almost bouncing out of her seat wanting to know. Pike whispers in her ear and her gorgeous features melt into a response similar to Pike’s. She looks to Brobee in disbelief.

Brobee says, “It was all over the web. There was this comment forum; it was big deal.”

Leon’s anger ripples just below his skin. “I said nothing happened.” He stops as he watches the whisper-wave spreads the story through the cabin and the remaining members of the crew.

Brobee asks, “Somebody got a laptop? I’ll pull it up”

Leon loses it. Cover be damned. “Nothing fucking happened, you fucking retarded cocksuckers! Now shut the fuck up before I execute every fucking last one of you.”

The cabin goes silent.

Really, what do you say?

Leon takes a shaky breath, pulling it together best he can. “Do you people have any idea who we are going after? This guy will burn down your dreams and eat your soul. If he likes you, he’ll
just
kill you.” Silence as the crew shares looks. “He is absent conscience, heart, or any form of reason. Living, breathing evil with 2400 SAT score. Do not, please, do not take him lightly or we will all die, badly.”

The crew takes a moment to soak in Leon’s words, his sincerity. It’s all over him; he has seen things that no man should see.

Slowly the cabin begins to swell with laughter. The crew can’t contain themselves. Patience is close to rolling in the isle. Chat snorts.

Pike busts out, “It was on the web?”

“Oh yeah, man, it was epic,” wails Brobee.

A good time, all at Leon’s expense.

I
n the hall in front of the penthouse suite, the same penthouse where the crime lords met, two armed goons guard the door, another at the elevator. The elevator doors open, and as the goon on elevator duty turns he catches a silenced 9mm to the head.

Goon one down.

Buster and Talley spring from the elevator wearing ski masks, black painter coveralls zipped to the neck, shoes covered. Buster blasts out the camera overhead while Talley takes out the two remaining goons at the door with head shots. The whole thing takes four seconds, maybe. Impressive, to say the least.

Inside the penthouse stand more goons, shoulder holsters heavy with guns at the ready. Cherrito and Waingrow are watching a Lakers game. Bosko sits in a chair reading
People
. Doren is resting comfortably in another room.

The room’s door lock clicks, light going green. The door flies open as the masked Buster and Talley storm in. Their movement is constant, efficient, with not a single motion or bullet wasted. Controlled three round bursts. These are not meth-zombies shooting up a trailer park in search of a hundred bucks and a roll of quarters. These are highly trained individuals who do this kind of thing for a paycheck, pension and dental. The goons are dead before they can even draw their weapons, let alone fire a shot.

Cherrito and Waingrow are next.

They are unceremoniously removed from this Earth with a shots between the eyes. Bosko barely looks from his magazine, a crime lord thinking he’s untouchable, that nobody would have the sack to even think about doing what they are doing. Bosko mutters, “Cocksucking…” before being silenced by Buster’s bullet between the eyes. A plum of blood pops as Bosko’s body is blown back over his chair.

Buster and Talley scan the room for Doren. The cowboys from hell slip into a side bedroom, where they find Doren sitting up in bed, enjoying soup. Doren looks them over, acknowledges his fate. He knew this day would come. Rarely do people like Doren die naturally. He says, “Just do it.”

Done.

Buster and Talley remove their masks, quickly moving back to the living room. They tear away their coveralls, revealing blazers and slacks that look a lot like private security garb. Much like the uniforms the dead goons in the hallway were wearing, actually. They exit into the hallway, where they stand on either side of the penthouse doors with 9mms drawn as if they are about to go into the room for the first time. They wait. Buster rolls his eyes, impatient as hell. Talley knows his brother and instructs him, “Wait for it.” Buster’s eyes dance, his impulsive streak running wild as he spits out, “Fucking useless security shit stains.”

“Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”

“You shut up.”

Elevator dings.

Buster and Talley get into character, snapping on the looks of panicked, dumbfounded, dipshit security guards. They start with the heavy breathing and plant looks of fear and concern on their faces. A team of security guards pours out of the elevator with guns drawn. Everything about them is identical to Buster and Talley. The lead guard slips up next to them, looks them over. He doesn’t recognize them, but they are wearing the correct uniform and a good supervisor tries to avoid looking like an idiot at all costs. “What happened?”

The two brothers give the performance of a lifetime. Talley pants like a mutt, fakes terror and stutters while saying, “I think…I think…they’re still in there, sir.” Buster squeaks out, “They’re armed, sir.” The lead guard puts a calming hand on Buster’s shoulder. Buster looks into his eyes and nods.
I’ll be strong for you sir.
The lead guard motions for the rest of the team to move in around the door. As they do, Buster and Talley slip back toward the elevator. The lead guard address whoever he thinks is in the room in his best movie badass voice. “Okay, let’s not get anybody hurt.”

The elevator door closes.

Buster and Talley are gone baby gone. In the elevator, Buster giggles.
That was enjoyable.
Talley pulls out the GPS monitor that’s tracking their brother, Rasnick.