THE POLITICS OF PLEASURE (44 page)

Sixteen lunged at the bookcase. Tottering from his painful leg wound, Martinez interpreted the youth's move as life-threatening. A second later he sprayed bullets at those he guarded. Aaron and two others at the table were mowed down. Empty beer bottles and a fresh bottle of Southern Comfort shattered smartly from the rapid fire of Martinez's 9mm Uzi.

Runaway Aaron fell forward with blood gushing from multiple chest wounds. Her head hit the tabletop and her mouth jerked open and shut like a fish out of water. Southern Comfort pooled with her blood, and the liquid mix soaked into playing cards with 777 SALOON, LAS VEGAS printed on their backs. Aaron slid off the table and thumped ungraciously on the floor. Dead and tomorrow's statistic.

Carrasco ducked down and moved like a phantom in the room's muted light. He saw the blond youth crouched behind the splintered wood table, close to the dead girl. With a shaky but resolute hand, the youth cocked a shotgun (Remington's 1979 1100 Tournament Trap, from what Carrasco could make out). Before Carrasco could move on him, the youth jumped up and shot Martinez squarely in the chest. Blood geysered from Martinez as he flew backward from the thundering blast. The Remington's powerful recoil knocked the raggedy youth to the floor.

Carrasco's ears rang from the shotgun blast. He squeezed his eyes shut and made a fist. He wanted to yell from a choking amalgam of frustration and anger. Clutching his MAC-10, he edged cautiously toward the card table in the south-end of the room.

At the other end of the room, Louis Ramirez growled like a tormented beast from the underworld. He wanted to kill these young misfits. He wanted to avenge Gacha's death ... and now Martinez's. That these
norteamericano
youths had harboured a DGI stooge was enough reason to kill them. But now two of his best street soldiers were dead, Ramirez brimmed with homicidal fury. The remaining
norteamericanos
were going to die by his hand, every stinking one of them.

Scarlett snuck out from behind a speaker box. The cat scampered round the divan and stopped in front of Trinda. It sensed there was something altogether wrong with its human owner. Trinda's eyes were open and unseeing as she slouched lifelessly against the seat (her copper-skinned beauty relegated to the memory of those who knew her and to the photographs and home movies which would document her cut-short life).

Scarlett pressed her front paws onto Trinda's sticky red stomach. The Birman Siamese cat was hungry. Like most times its food bowl was empty. Earlier on Eighteen had fought with Trinda over feeding Scarlett a can of salmon, pretty much the last of the house's edible food. Eighteen had eventually eaten the fish on less than fresh toast. Now, Scarlett lapped tentatively at Trinda's blood. However the blue-eyed creature soon stopped. As if in reverence of its former owner, the cat scampered off in search of another body from which to feed.

Goldman jump-landed at the bottom of the stairs. His eyes quickly adjusted to the room's overall gloom. He gasped at Michelle sprawled on the floor behind the L-shaped divan. Her chest was soaked with blood. Deuce lay close beside her. Eighteen, Trinda and Holly were sprawled on the other side of the divan. They all seemed lifeless. His eyes moistened and a nausea engulfed him to the point he had to stop from dry retching. He gulped down air and raced over to Michelle, cradling her upper body in his arms. Blood spilled from her slack mouth and multiple chest wounds. She was pallid and pale but, he saw, still breathing.

Unaware of Goldman's arrival at the darkened end of the room, Ildefonso Carrasco edged along the south wall of the spacious living area, stopping just short of the panelled extension. Bodies and shattered bottles were strewn about the base of the table, while pools of blood threatened to claim the floor proper.

Carrasco swallowed hard and summoned courage. He counted to three then leapt in front of the shot-up table. He believed the blond youth who'd fired the shotgun was still shaken from its recoil to be properly on guard (the boy didn't seem experienced with a heavy-gauge gun). Keen to revenge Martinez's death, he triggered a sweeping arc of bullets.

What he saw shocked him.

His blond hair and Kauai T-shirt stained from other people's blood, Sixteen stood ramrod straight on the other side of the table. Carrasco's bullets tore into him as if he were a stationary target on a shooting range. Even so, Sixteen managed to squeeze the trigger of the five-shooter Remington. The punch-packing recoil lifted the shotgun up and out of his hands. As Sixteen's legs crumpled under him, the shotgun's lethal discharge ripped into Carrasco's lower belly. The Cuban gunman flew backwards and hit the hardwood floor, narrowly missing an already dead Martinez. He cried out and thrashed in agonizing convulsions. His submachine gun flew from his hands and bounced off the river rock wall framing the room's fireplace. With blood gushing from his shocking stomach wound, Carrasco struggled to remain conscious. Unrelenting waves of white-hot pain drove him towards a dark precipice.

Crouched in the dim light at the other end of the room, Goldman couldn't believe the carnage about him. He was all but numb from the violence he'd just witnessed. So many bodies ... and Michelle looked set to die in his arms. His eyes burned with tears. His woman muttered incoherently as he cradled her limp form.

'No, please.' His voice raw with despair. He had to get help for Michelle and whoever else was still alive in the house. But he didn't want to leave her side. He wanted to cradle and hug her for all time, for the two of them to be safely cocooned in a world devoid of cruelty and pain. After a long and agonizing moment, he lowered her back on the floor. He got on his feet and looked about the room. His eyes fell on the shot-apart telephone. 'No, no, no ...'

He saw a crazed man moving toward him. The man made a strange clicking sound from the back of his throat. His hard, bestial face glistened with sweat. 'So
you're
Goldman,' the man snarled, showing yellowish teeth. 'So
you're
the stinking DGI stooge the general wants dead!'

Goldman's ears pricked up.
The general? ... Turner was behind this carnage?

'You're the sonofabitch reason why Gacha and Martinez are dead!' The big man looked at Carrasco's shuddering form on the hardwood floor. 'The sonofabitch reason why Carrasco will soon die!'

Goldman heard the sounds of other men at the front door. Only minutes had passed since Carrasco and his men had stormed the house. Unable to pick the back door lock, and hearing gunshots coming from inside the house, these other men finally opted for a front door entry. Heavy footfalls on the staircase carried into the room.

'Get ready to die,
yanqui perro
,' the big man said.

With a dry, metallic mouth, Goldman prepared for combat. His muscles tensed, his hands balled into fists. His back was against the wall and he had no choice but to fight. He looked at Michelle's limp form and couldn't entertain the notion of her dying. And these gunmen were only stopping her getting the urgent medical attention she needed.

He looked desperately about him and was attracted by the dull gleam of Carrasco's MAC-10. The submachine gun had landed on Goldman's side of the river rock fireplace. Like an apparition in the shadows, he dived for the gun. He snatched it off the floor and crouched behind the L-shaped divan.

He heard the new gunmen reach the top of the stairs. No sooner had Ramirez called out to them in his native tongue than Goldman jumped up from behind the divan and fired aggressively in the direction of the newcomers. The hail of bullets crippled the unsuspecting men. The compact size of the bucking weapon made it hard for the chemist to hold. Nevertheless he did his best to operate it. His finger repeatedly pumped the trigger as he moved the automatic pistol from side to side. Undoubtedly the gun had a fire selector mode, but Goldman was too involved in this sudden, brutal attack to better familiarize himself with the weapon.

In any case, all four gunmen were fatally shot from the ambush. They cried out in alarm and fell back on each other, toppling down the stairs in a profusion of tangled limbs and bleeding wounds. Ramirez cried out in protest as the last of his men were lost. He roared like an enraged carnivore losing its offspring to a single predator. Goldman spun towards the towering Cuban and squeezed the gun's trigger.

Click. Click. Click.

The MAC-10 was empty, its 32 rounds magazine depleted.

Ramirez unearthed a shuddering laugh. 'Ah, you're mine,
yanqui perro, 
all mine.' He seemed impervious to the bullet lodged in his shoulder. His brutish face looked as if it were sculpted from cliff-face rock. Its hardness accentuated by the slanting light from the other end of the room.

'I'm going to kill you,' he said in a gravelly, liquor-scoured voice. 'For Gacha. For Martinez. For Carrasco.' He glanced back at the staircase. 'And for those
foolish
men.' He looked with reverence at the submachine gun in his hands, sensing the brutal power of the X-tipped bullets packed in the magazine. A perfect instrument awaiting his use.

No longer plagued by the head-storming rush of the drug he'd taken, Ramirez placed his weapon on the floor. He stood up and whipped out a hunting knife from a concealed holster under his jacket. The large serrated blade glistened as he tossed the knife from hand to hand, his preferred method of killing. Goldman sensed this stocky man was on some stimulant or other, which hardly bolstered the chemist's confidence for the approaching fight. He glanced at Michelle. She was frightfully still and pale, blood seeping from her parted mouth.
Oh God please don't let her die!
Her demise would be a blight that would plague him for all his days. If indeed he lived past these coming minutes.

'I'm going to cut out your guts,
yanqui
pig.'

Ramirez edged closer, teeth and blade bared. A deranged killer primed for detonation. He lunged forward with frightening speed and dropped onto Goldman. The two men hit the hardwood floor and slid past the L-shaped divan. Locked in a deadly embrace, they skidded to a halt. Goldman was on his back with his hands locked about Ramirez's thick, hairy wrists. He did his utmost to keep the gunman's knife at bay. However Ramirez's murderous will, along with his pressing bulk, was getting the better of the fugitive chemist. Goldman moved his leg about to try and gain leverage and knocked over a potted palm in the process, dry dirt spilling across the lacquered floor.

The two men gritted and grunted in a contest of wills. Ramirez's gleaming blade inched farther downward and Goldman sensed it might soon be over for him. As such he grasped that a universe of colliding galaxies and burning babies could subscribe to his demise without fear of significant disruption to the overall scheme. His strength was failing fast. He had to reverse the looming inevitability of his predicament.

A possibility presented itself. Something just beyond his reach. The plug of the grey electrical lead attached to Deuce's music and light show.

It was a chance.

With new-found will, he pushed against Ramirez's knife wrist (noting a small scorpion tattooed on the back of the gunman's hand). He swivelled his torso on the lacquered floor. Throwing caution to the wind, he let go of Ramirez's left wrist and fumbled for the nearby electrical plug.

Grabbed hold of it.

With his free left hand, Ramirez punched his opponent's face. Goldman's jaw flooded with pain and blood trickled into his mouth. Ramirez's snarling face loomed over the chemist like a grotesque crimson mask. Meanwhile the big knife inched ever downward.

Goldman pushed against Ramirez's knife-wielding arm. He prayed Deuce's music and light show hadn’t been touched since Thirteen pulled the plug on it the day Goldman first visited the house. He reasoned the system hadn't been used since then as the plug was still disconnected from the power point.

Ramirez slammed his fist into Goldman's face and laughed with manic abandon. Goldman felt a tooth loosen and tasted a fresh font of blood. He fumbled and struggled ... then the plug was in the power point.

The immediate result was akin to an explosion. Loud music filled the darkened room and coloured lights, along with a dazzling strobe, arced every which way from the aluminium holding rail mounted above the system.

"..
I wanna die die die, cause my need's like a disease, oh Sister Libertine, you're such a brazen tease ..." 

Ramirez was startled by the unexpected show, which was all the more pronounced from the nearby overhead light having been shot out. Equally startled, Scarlett jumped from the back of the divan and landed on Ramirez's head. Sharp claws lanced the side of the gunman's face as the cat leapt from him in search of someplace to hide. No sooner had the animal absconded than Goldman shoved Ramirez off him.

Then the chemist was on top of the deranged gunman.

He repeatedly banged Ramirez's knife hand against the floor. The hunting knife (its blade free of blood) slipped from its owner's grasp. Goldman jabbed his elbow into Ramirez's solar plexus. The Cuban gasped in pain and fumbled about for the knife. Goldman smashed his elbow into Ramirez's face. The Latino's nose spread to one side like a piece of squashed fruit. Goldman slammed his fist into the side of the gunman's head, fracturing his cheek bone. Fuelled by inconsolable rage, he grabbed Ramirez by the collar and threw him up against the river rock wall.

"...
living on the edge, one foot in the grave, oh Sister Libertine, I pilfered the love you saved ..." 

Goldman torqued his elbow into Ramirez's face, violating further the fellow's misshapen nose. He executed a pounding set of Double Chung Choie fist strikes to Ramirez's torso. His bony fists rained with injurious precision. One of Ramirez's ribs fractured and punctured his liver. Goldman wondered how the dreadlocked Latino could stay on his feet in the face of such punishment. Indeed his puffed and purplish face was a sight to behold. His unseeing eyes had glazed over and blood bubbled brook-like from between his split lips.