Mask on, I can taste the sweat sliding down the nose bridge and the last wearers’ too. Sweat and blood with its sickening taste of acid after weeks on cheap wool.
"Don't take too long boys. Поднимай шум. Сжигай его. Убирайся." Igor warns before getting off his seat and taking a knee behind the front seat.
Lights and lanterns are flashing to the far distant end of this road slower and slower through the back window on the door, until Alek made a left turn.
Fucking balaclava.....
I scratch my chin that’s already sticking to the hair ball at the mask’s torn edge before I pull the handle back to the end, lock the bolt tight before sticking in my pinkie to check the one in the chamber's resting right. Hell, it’s probably cheaper than my 45 in holster.
I wouldn't be surprise if it doesn't shoot straight. But like he said, big motherfucks are good for first impressions.
Budimir passes a grenade to everyone including Igor. The canisters look suspiciously like the No.73 antiques Vel uses. If it's anything alike, the place would be cinders within two minutes. I thought while slipping it in my pocket.
The 10th Street lad switch off the safety on his piece, Har locks the first round in the carbine, Igor squints his eyes as the driver slows the car down.
I lean the rifle by the bench and put my hands behind the driver's seat's headrest. Har snorts as me and Igor inevitably block out their view. The sound of the first slug getting pushed in rings by my ear but as I look back, the mute's still in a half-asleep posture hugging the sawed-off pump by his arm.
Scouring the street on both sides of this narrow terrain with the combination of fire escape letters and concretes integrating with plastic canopy from trolleys resting in smaller branches of dead ends, used as garages by residents. And the second-floor windows are all barded and caged, even the tubes have padlocks on their lid. This place is the perfect presentation of the other side of Chinatown. Behind the stone lions climbing up the pillars of temples painted red like scabbed wounds and hundreds of them running circles around the inner rims. The unlucky ones hide in the alley, scrapping off what their grandparents survived on a different continent.
Even then I bet they're still under the monthly subscription of the Qin's 'protection'. And on top of all, there's a bloody Opium den in the neighborhood. That joint pumps out scrawny junkies at a speed never seen before. The addicts won't be able to get their nerves up by anything else in this world. Ask me, I'd take an eight-part heroin hostel over a stroll in these places, least the residents are willing to have a conversation with you.
Another left turn, a lane disappears by the sidewalks as the path crooks into two vaguely drawn red lines and four-seaters and scooters parked loosely across the view. Squeezing the already confined path till its barely accessible but also made the three-story high grey apartment building stand out as it's the only place with lights still on, another reason is the black SUV in front of it is free of any obstacles within a three-meter radius. The lights were killed off, but the hand sticking out the driver's seat with a lit cigarette is telltale that the engine's still running.
***
"Igor."
"I'm not blind."
Head hinging forward in anticipation like everyone else, the Opium joint is in sight. Sitting on the right side of an alley of no light, but it's the autos which draw our attention.
"Don't kill the lights, we're already out. Keep the pace, take a spin around the block." Alek hums and complies. Igor hinges his chin down for the span of a thought and turns to me.
"Take position, your sight's better." Igor retreats to the bench full of wondering eyes and the driver snakes his hand down to pull the lever of passenger seat which falls back like a folding bed.
Roughly 20 meters away, I crawl to shotgun clumsily with the holster dangling under my armpit and the Colt poking my waist.
Alek with hands on the lever, eyes on the road, foot putting just enough pressure on the brakes. He pulls the seat back up soon as I (Mostly) get to the front row.
I quench my beating heart and shortening breaths. Pull the mask off, roll the window down, resting my right arm on the frame with my hand casually hanging behind the window and my head leaning palm, eyes as dull and bored out of late night shift as possible when we pass the front of the den in ambiguous speed.
Its second-floor windows are still illuminated to a certain degree, through the half-closed heavy curtain, windows in mandatory breeze of this season's evening.
The first floor is entirely sealed away with the only entrance shut tight. But the electronic lanterns hanging beside the double door are still on, not much compliment to the shabby exterior as the lights are unable to reach the ground, they only portray each's shadow on the wall. Place ain't got any signs apparently, the overall concrete structure binding the marbles and wooden eaves stretching between the first and second floor and sitting in an alley strip of lights made it look more of a lonely shrine of gaunt.
And the man's face comes into view, pulling the arm back for a drag of cig as soon as he notices a car approaching. The faint spark lights the outline of his facial features and diligent eyes as well as the cuff of his black suit. I don't avert my eyes to his peering but instead, bring them slothfully towards with a tilt of brow and a prayer at heart that he doesn’t spot the 9mm right under the window from his point of view.
His gaze follows through that half a second of crossing and continues on the side mirror.
I forced myself to keep my line of sight flatly horizontal while my brain was scorching everything I learned down my memory lanes as the SUV moves out the window frame and the street follows....
Shit.
The good news is the backseat of that car is empty, the driver's all alone which also means the passengers are inside the joint. The bad news being the one on the street ain't alone. Behind the sidewalk, the alley directly next to the opium den parked a G wagon of similar model, through the gap between the buildings and cars and lamp poles and the light of cigarette and the dark of night on this cursed road. Through the obstacles and for only a second I can still be very sure it's loaded with Qins and pistols on the dashboard.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
The van keeps moving, the end of the road in 20 meters is a single beam of light glazed over the desolate.
"Two seven-seaters, the one in front of our target's short on 6. The other one's by the narrow alley to its left, that one's full. I counted three sparks in the dark and that's just the front row so... add ten up your 'two or three by the kitchen door'."
Glances are thrown over each other. The fellas in the back unconsciously peek through the muddy window on the back door. Igor inhales deeply, an index crook under his left eyelid, claws it, dragging a slit of muddy white under closed eyes.
"Alek, go around the block and back." The driver crux a look back but otherwise turns left on the branching path leading to Via Martinase. I pull the seat lever back and turn around to everyone's share peering at the man with none of the previous mocking and spontaneous demeanor.
"Stick to the plan." His palm strokes about the gray and the black by the side of his scalp. "Burn the place down."
He finally snuffed it.
"Do you always have a suicidal urge or is it just the time of the month?" I cough the words out as an ardent itch grows.
"None of the sources suggested that they moved the collecting day. And those windshields on trucks don't go well with the exterior no? репкий как бычья шкура." The hand rounds to the back of his neck as he leans back on it. "Budimir. What do you think it means?" The Russian asks the 10th street without looking. Kid jumped a brow from the abruptness but quickly found the simplest answer.
"There's a fat wig in the joint." The hand rubs into a dangling index pointing at his face as Igor grins.
"Chances are for the takers." He speaks as if the words are crushed peddles, dropping from the chipped lips of a gator.
The air's among the five of us thick enough to prowl a hole and turn a hide. We are currently en-route to hell and the mute is the first to speak his piece.
"Boss, this is distortion. Not a hit job." The kid gets off his quarter between the door and Har's arm for the first time, bending forward. Each word is as mindful as they are uttered.
Igor's eyes move before turning his head.
"Did I say anything about hit jobs?
This is a show of force, extortion. Reprimanding those gristle bitches they are not safe even in the most deserted part of city. And we know where they are. Whether it'll be a hit job or not, depends on your capabilities."
I laugh internally to the point I feel a pressuring pain in my chest and made my voice sound more breathless.
"Does that mean you're willing to get your hands wet again?" Gripping my right palm into a fist. The wraps absorb the boiling wretches in my mind and the veins turn numb, a honed pain from the cut comes as I can feel it water again.
"I'll deal with the alleyway." Igor nods with a purse of his dry lips as if it's an obvious course....
"You'll scout first on foot from the corner and take the one on the street." A hilt of eyes and the eyelids still pens it clear it's not for me to choose otherwise.
"As for the rest. Budimir will take the lead. Clear the lobby and move up to the second with Har while Nikto and Lee deal with the basement. Regroup at the front. And remember three minutes! That's how long it takes for the подарок to reach here."
Not prideful nor condescending, Igor issues the commands like a lectiophile among illiterates. And they listen dutifully with sweat running down the callus, scratches and fate lines of their palms. Especially Budimir, who's got the corner of his blue eyes lengthened with a straight stare into nowhere while the blue of his iris remain concentrated and refined. His facial muscles tense by the only indicator of his nostrils becomes slightly more agape.
Another turn, and we're back on the road before the alley. The street's partially lit by the LED tubes of some vendors and stands and stringless steel folding tables on red lines by the lanes without curbs. Old broken tiles on the exterior, canvas awing over tricycles filled with empty bottles and cardboard, not many on the street and those there are don't look like they would react to a gunshot or a couple hundred.
The atmosphere inside the Van is the polar opposite, you could smell the powder keg and the lingering nicotine mixed with other chemicals in the air. Glances, insecurity, suspense move their thumbs up and down the safety. There is a web weathed chains and meat hooks clinging onto every piece of object in the back of the car and it pulls and pulls and drags and cleaves everything into one.
Stripped of agency I can endure.
It's part of my job.
Used as a gun I'm willing, for that is what I'm good for. But being thrown as a glove...
What is done before cannot be determined.
Don't need to be a psychic to pull the vision from your mind, it's there like an old repeating VHS.
They won't make it, the VIP's life doesn't matter, and even the predicament of his existence doesn't. Those cars won't be there for no reason. And those dumb fucks at the back, they'd start a war in the pivotal of three different sectors. Dragging the city into flames.
I fold the revolting piece of wool in my pocket and pass the rifle carefully back to Igor as it wouldn't sell the act. He returns a nod and sets it by his feet.
"Stop here." Two houses before the opening between parked scooters and dusted four-seaters. Igor leans his torso forward to the front seat's glove box. Punching it down, he picks a Stechkin out strenuously. Holding it sideways, he pulls the slide halfway back with the chamber facing up before letting off.
A second of silence as he moved his gaze from the plain tool in hand to the street outside the windshield. No lord or deity could decipher his thoughts during that second. But from this angle, it looked damn close to solitude and resentment like a cage at a snowy peak.
Before he hilt his dark green jacket up and sticks it on his belt. Picking up the last balaclava in the crate and puts it over his head. The rest do the same. It used to be for the cops, nowadays it's to prevent retribution from different associates.
And we move as if crawling. Light off, the man at seat, head on lean, hands-on steel, listening to the racket while doubts set in. It's but normal, for me, them, even Igor. Who wouldn't question every choice before facing a sea of unknown death.
Alek steps on the pedal with a pianist's patience and precision as only the front window and the bumper's poking out the corner of the alley. On the passenger seat looking through is like staring at a lighthouse.
"Lee you know the work. Do the driver quietly, I'll be in position soon." Igor nudges the wooden forearm of the rifle out of habit as he turns to Alek at the front. "Bring them up when you see my sign or if the chinos start engaging..." Igor bumps his fist on my left arm signaling it's time. Alek unlocks the door.
Grip on handle, heart by the edge. The breeze of fresh air reminds me how much in reality it stinks inside. I tilt back for a quick gander without knowing why, maybe I was looking for someone I knew from all these Deja vu or I was trying to remember those dumb lads.
"One last thing for your peace of mind. I've learned long ago. The first 4 shots of any skirmishes will determine the outcome, it doesn't matter who you're shooting at, but all shots are fired by you...."
The voice of Igor's colloquial bullshit echoes in the windows as Alek leans forward with efforts to roll it up, our line of sight crossed for a second before he pulls himself back to the driver seat.
***
I stoop half a meter behind the car bumper with my right eye out at the end of the alley.
Too obvious. That single piece of side mirror on the SUV caught the entire alley. And with a shoulder holster out and a gun right under my armpit ain't the smoothest way to approach. The guy's posture and composure looked diluting but his eyes were sharp enough to find mine before it even came into his view. He's on edge too by being here.
A crooked smile forms as an idea comes to mind. How do you approach a Qin 30 meters away while armed?
I circle around the Van and a Japanese four-seater on my left. Left hand on the broken tiles under a green metal plate of '108' and nothing else.
Good fucking thing that most of the Piao Jie have the architectural choice of leaving a narrow walkway between the sidewalk and the driveway since the space's usually taken by parked bikes.
From his perspective, it'd look like I ran past the Van and into the alley.
I take a breath in and go through how absurd this is, good old adrenaline came as a substitute for my inhaler. As my mind travels through the specific thought, I promise myself to cut this cold turkey shit if I live through tonight.
I take a quick look at the empty but unquiet street behind me vertical to the alley, pull the leather holster tighter and check the safety of both arms. Then…
"E lao lai la!"
The Russians are here!
I holler in Chinese through a purposely shifted nasal voice and sprint into the alley.