Mad Dogs (19 page)

“Wooo!” yelled the bartender behind us and she clapped. “Go old guy!”

I told Zane: “That's for you.”

Got back: “That's for all of us.”

On stage, Russell plucked a jangling, off-key string of notes out of the guitar.

Embarrassment hushed the crowd. People shuffled on the dance floor, hoping the guy on stage would go away if they all kept quiet.

Then,
oh then
, Russell hijacked their dreams.

Heartbeat strumming the guitar, leaning in and giving them something they'd never heard, his acoustic guitar rapid fire slammed a Richard Thompson classic:

“Feel so good I'm gonna break somebody's heart tonight,

“Feel so good I'm gonna take someone apart tonight…”

Third line in, he
owned
them as his fingers flew on strings, a crescendo of poetry.

Zane drifted to the brass haired manager. I saw her laugh, hold up her left hand, point to her fourth finger and shake her head
sorry
.

Zane! I thought with happy awe.
'Xactly!
Ride that breakthrough! Take a shot.

Russell ripped out a last strum. Stepped back from the mike to catch his breath.

The crowd went wild—screaming, clapping, hooting.

Across the crowded room I saw Terri and her band standing and cheering.

Russell plucked a waterfall of notes. Announced the well-known
“All For You”
by a group named Sister Hazel. But instead of singing it, he kept plucking Waterfall notes, repeating and building that chorus into a rhythm he rode as if waiting for something to happen. I wondered why, of all the songs he knew, Russell picked that one to play.

Terri ran from her band, charged across the bar to stuff our cash in Zane's shirt pocket, bound on stage and grab a mike. Russell smiled to the night, didn't look at her, leaned towards his microphone, sang the first line of the song, fell silent as Terri chimed in singing the second line. Then he looked at her. And she realized this was a perfect song for a call-response duet, each of them alternating singing lines of love and time lost.

Her band was on stage, a second guitar strumming behind Russell as her keyboard player handed Terri a guitar while the drummer picked up his sticks, marked time—

And all of them came in together with a joyous song as the crowd roared.

Our bartender behind us yelled: “Rock out!”

Eric jumped into the crowd to obey her order.

Hailey jumped after him, commanding: “Stay with me! Obey only me!”

And they were both rocking, Eric waving his arms in absolute ecstasy as the best woman he could ever love danced with him, laughing in spite of dying.

Two hundred people jammed the dance floor. Opposite the stage was the sound booth, a rear wall platform with a low bank of sound and light boards, dials and switches. The tech jerked his head for me to join him up there for the best view.

On stage, the band frazzled through the ending of “
All For You
.”

Russell cut loose with the
dun-dun, dah dah dun
opening electric guitar riff that came to Keith Richards in a dream for The Rolling Stones' “
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
.”

Terri glowed at Russell. Her ebony curls cascaded. She arched her hips toward the man in a
noir
leather jacket as they ground out the song about what they couldn't
get
.

On the club floor, Zane and Hailey and Eric rocked out.

On the sound booth platform, I glanced beyond the crowd to the front door where—just like Derya—a woman I'd never met walked in and rocked my world.

That night was The Stone Pony, not Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia before 9/11.

That woman was Cari, not Derya.

Cari flowed into the Stone Pony. Two men in long coats flanked her. A familiar magic crackled around her from her cropped blond hair to her hunter's face to her dark jacket and black shoes. Then the cosmos brushed open her dark jacket so I saw her holstered gun and I stone certain knew she was Agency. Knew that she and her crew were our perfect assassins.

33

“… sa—tis—faction!”
sang Russell on stage at the Stone Pony. Terri's black hair swayed as she stroked her electric guitar and her band rocked the song.

Cari and her two gunmen paused just inside the door to let their hunters' eyes adjust to the spotlit blue glow of the bar. Both of her killers wore long coats. The one in brown leather was bald, the hulk in black space-age fiber sported a crew cut.

“Hey hey, hey!”
sang Russell.

The crowd on the dance floor surged with the song.

Eric ‘rocked out,' as ordered, a pudgy, bespectacled
white boy
jumping up and down completely off beat, waving his arms above his head like he was stirring the stars.

Dancing with Hailey shot joy into Eric's obedience. Shepherding him justified Hailey being on the dance floor, but her grin said that she was also having a great time.

They made an extraordinary couple: white boy geek, classy ebony woman.

Cari spotted them from clear across the jam-packed club.

I fled the sound booth platform. A busboy stacked empty pasta bowls on a tray. I stuffed dollars in his shirt pocket, slid his heavy tray onto the palm of my right hand.

Holding the tray level with my face let hunters see only a busboy.

Zane stood beside the manager. His gun held three bullets, one for each assassin, though he couldn't see them across the crowded room. He sensed my
intense motion
and turned to see me, tray balanced on my right palm while my left forefinger cut my throat.

On stage, Russell and Terri improvised a chorus of alternating ‘
I tried
's, leaning back to back, sharing a mike. They only saw their own world.

I flashed Zane three fingers. My forefinger pointed up, then my hand swept out to signify breasts:
one woman
. My fingers V-ed like scissors, pointed down:
two men
.

Zane's nod told me
got it
, his clenched fist said
GO!

On stage, guitar man Russell dropped to one knee in front of Terri. Her hips kept hunters from seeing him and him from seeing them.

The tech in the sound booth killed the house lights and bathed the guitar couple on stage with blue and red spots. I pushed my way through the mesmerized crowd of civilians. The tray hid my face as I circled for position, praying that no one realized busboys don't wear leather jackets or carry dirty dishes
away
from the kitchen.

Thirty, twenty-five feet away, Cari cupped the ear of her crew cut hulk to shout her command. He fumbled in his trenchcoat, turned towards the front exit.

Cell phone: too loud in here so he's going outside to call the cavalry!

I bumped a guy who yelled
‘Watch it!'
Bee-lined through tables, around the display cases with T-shirts, hurried towards the front door.

Crew Cut's trenchcoat floated behind him as he swooped towards the night. He ignored the busboy bearing in on him from his right.

The bar tech flipped on white strobe lights. We became stuttered images in a movie with a soundtrack blaring rage and sex. Life revealed itself in strobing white flashes punctuated by blinding blackness.

White flash
Crew Cut raises his cell phone from his side.

Black flash
blind can't see.

White flash
Crew Cut has his cell phone near his face.

“Oops!” I cried, staging a stumble towards Crew Cut.

I dumped the tray from in front of my face. Dirty dishes flipped towards him. He jumped back as bowls and bottles clattered near his shoes.

My knuckles jabbed his throat.

His eyes rolled. My palm smacked his temple. His brain sloshed. I spun his unconscious weight to a chair at an empty table. Chopped his neck to be sure.

On stage, on both knees, Russell leaned back like an opening jackknife.

On the floor: find cell phone! Got it, thumb it off!

Crew Cut slumped in the chair. I unsnapped a holstered automatic from his belt and clipped it on mine, tucked a pistol from his shoulder holster near my spine. Two ammo mags from the shoulder holster went into my jacket chest pockets, a pouch of mags went from his belt to mine. One trenchcoat pocket held a grenade, the other a pronged stun gun: they bulged my jacket. His three ID folders, wallet and wad of cash stretched my pants. I felt body armor under his shirt:
Can't get that
.

I crossed his arms on the table, buried his face on them alongside pasta bowls and beer bottles. He looked like a guy having a bad night in a good bar.

Pushing through the crowd, I saw the backs of the bald killer and Cari. Hailey danced with her back to them. Eric's eyes held only joy.

Hailey glanced to the crowd beyond Eric. Saw Zane's gun hand pressed against his thigh.
Realized
. She danced to Eric, shouted in his ear. His face churned.

Closer, I was closer, ten feet behind Bald Killer's back.

The bar tech flicked from strobes to spinning colored lights. Hailey whirled in a solo dance as on the stage, Terri straddled Russell. She ground lower each time they shouted the song's ‘
Tried!'
The crowd watched only them.

Cari and her partner locked on Hailey.

In the spinning colored lights, Hailey shot the assassins her middle finger.

Ran towards a neon red FIRE EXIT sign above a corridor door.

Cari and Baldy bolted after her.

Behind them, I struggled through the bouncing, whooping crowd.

Eric rumbled toward the two hellhounds chasing Hailey.

Baldy spun to meet Eric's charge. Zapped Eric with a pronged stun gun and whirled to run after his leader and Target Two.

Zane and I caught Eric. I shoved the pistol from my spine into Zane's hand and left him holding our stunned but
used-to-it
engineer as I charged towards the fire exit.

Through the exit door—bright kitchen, giant freezer, cool night breeze from around that corner…

Satisfaction
blared as I flew into the night. Solid wood fence walls made a half-block square outdoor arena. A stage rose from the asphalt, a stage with stairs Hailey ran up, Cari on her heels. Behind Cari ran Baldy.

Who sensed danger and whirled to face me.

Inside the bar, on that bandstand, Russell and Terri chorused:
“can't get no!”
She jumped back from straddling him, he flipped to his feet better than in our
gung fu
practice. The roaring crowd pulled his eyes from her—

And Russell saw Eric slumped in a chair.

Terri and her band hit the last chord of
“Satisfaction.”

Applause thundered out the back door to the starlit auditorium pen where no one in the audience could see Baldy explode towards me with a flying front snap kick.

Back/block it—block his follow-through punch, grab—Missed!

Baldy swooped an ankle kick but my empty foot took his strike like a tetherball and flipped up. My foot came down before his, lined up with his leg and I flowed forward, my shin wedging into his leg. He yelled in pain but whirled away from my crunch before I could do major damage. His hands disappeared inside his coat.

Weapons!
I jumped on his back to grab his coat lapels, pull them over his shoulders and down, pinning his arms with his own garment.

Rather than fight the brown leather coat and give me the second I'd need to slam his head, he leapt forward, his arms straightening and sliding free of its sleeves.

He didn't waste a beat to cross-draw pistols from the double shoulder holster harness on his weapons vest. His hands jabbed towards me. I arced hooks at him, more to keep his hands away from the guns than to hit him. He counter—

Zane slammed him from behind with an aluminum garbage can.

Baldy crashed face down on the concrete. His hands flexed.

Zane canned him again.

As I ran up the stairs of the outside stage.

To an awe inspiring sight. Black seashore night. A billion white stars overhead. A rolling dark horizon of icy ocean. Condo buildings three blocks inland where lights glowed in windows of retirees. A chilly breeze. Two extraordinary women kicking the shit out of each other on a bare wooden stage.

Hailey's standard Agent Training course in hand-to-hand combat taught her enough to stun Christophe before she hacked him to death with maniacal fury.

But Cari was an artistic warrior. She'd backed Hailey to the edge of a ten-foot drop from that bare wooden stage. Hailey's hands snapped to
guard-up
as she lunged with two-straight kicks followed by the textbook punch. Blonde Cari simply wasn't there for the kicks to hit. She blocked Hailey's punch and slammed a back-fist into her ebony face. Hailey fell to the boards like a sack of sand.

My ambush palm strike between Cari's shoulder blades would have knocked the wind out of her and snapped her hands out away from her gun like a crucifixion.

If she hadn't spun and blocked and kicked me in the crotch.

Except I twisted her target off line so her foot slammed my right hip.

I struck to her face so she'd block/not draw her gun. She hooked a punch I deflected as I dodged a kick to my kneecap. I feinted, she didn't buy it and rocketed a right jab I stuck to my left palm & flowed back/forward in
T'ai Chi
's
kao
, my shoulder slamming her centerline. She blasted backwards off the stage. I grabbed her hand. We hung suspended in time. Linked hand-to-hand and splayed out like a 1950's jitterbug couple. I jerked her arm and she flew back to me, her feet tripping across the stage as I pulled her to
o-goshi
, judo's hip throw that spun her over my back—again like a jitterbugger—and slammed her back on the bare wood stage. I saw her dazed green eyes, the soft pink of her cheeks. Before she sucked air back into her lungs I flipped her face down on the wood, pushed her hands out and dug my knee into her spine.

Zane pulled Hailey to her feet, offered me a stun gun that had fallen from Cari's pocket: “Put out her lights!”

“No!” I ripped a holstered gun from her hip. “Hostage!”

“You're nuts!” said Hailey.

“Yeah, but that's not it.”

I found handcuffs in Cari's left jacket pocket, a set of keys in her right. As I cuffed her wrist and bent her other arm behind her, I briefly worried that she might be a cop, but then I found three ID folders and a silencer for her pistol. Zane helped me jerk Cari to her feet.

Those green eyes flicked from him to me. Gave me nothing but hard.

We three marched down the stage stairs.

Baldy lay sprawled on the ground, the pockets of his pants turned inside out. His ribs moved, but Zane reported: “He's done for now.”

Zane scooped Baldy's brown leather coat off the ground, a gesture that gaped open the coat Zane wore. I saw Baldy's weapons vest now on Zane. Zane whirled the brown coat through the air, settled it on Cari's shoulders to hide her cuffed hands. He buttoned the collar to make it her cape. His pistol slid inside that coat to kiss her spine.

“You choose trouble,” he told her, “you get a wheelchair.”

Death is hard to picture. But a bullet shattering your spine…

Zane marched her out in front of us as a shield.

In, through the kitchen, past the walk-in frig, around the corner, back into the sweat-humid club to where Russell helped Eric to his feet. Revelers pounded Russell on the back. On stage, Terri and the Runawayz cheered. Nurse Death's Walther PPK bulged Eric's back pocket. Russell helped Eric fall into our parade to the front door.

On stage, Terri couldn't believe what she was seeing.

Russell:
Walking out
. Turning for one last vision of her. And to shrug.

Zane whispered in Cari's ear: “If there's guns in the street, all you win is mess.”

She kept moving, not
yes
, not
no
, not
please
. So cool.

Woosh
and we were outside in the night cold street light glare.

No shotgun blast. No bullhorns. No bright lights blinding our eyes.

Zane's free hand passed Baldy's car keys to Eric.

Bweep-boop
! Lights flashed on a sedan parked near our stolen BMW.

“Can't take their car!” I said. “It might have a built-in GPS tracker.”

Russell took Baldy's knife and jogged to our hunters' sedan.
Pwush
wheezed a tire he stabbed. We hurried to our BMW where Zane pushed Cari to me. Zane didn't waste time working the wheelcover off the kicked-in driver's side window. He back-kicked the passenger window of our stolen ride. Safety glass cobwebbed. Zane kicked again, and this time the glass flew into the BMW. He reached inside, popped open the electric door lock. Eric dove in, dismantled the other broken window's cover, fiddled with the steering column and tricked the engine to life. Zane pushed Cari into the back seat. Hailey climbed in beside her, Eric took her other side. Zane slid in beside Hailey as Russell ran to the shotgun seat. I leapt behind the steering wheel, peeled us out in reverse then roared away into the night.