Eleven: Butcher's Block

Quick fix and explanation: I'm skipping ahead a bit from the end of the last chapter. Previous to this story, Spears has made contact with the head bad guy, Angel Muerto and learned a little more about the organized crime in the area. Muerto has convinced Spears that Bulldog is the last member of Luis Colon's crew. Bulldog has taken matters into his own hands and threatened Spears' girlfriend, Kelly. Muerto is not unhappy about this development.

Bulldog’s new digs aren’t much. The brick walls are still strong, but worn on the edges from years of weathering. The mortar gaps in many places, and the brick bulge and hang loosely in spots. A black and white sign swings against the wind, it’s splintered and faded lettering whispering that it was once a wire factory. Who owned it is lost in the ages of rain and the darkness around the building. A lonely streetlight barely manages to cast a ray on the metal delivery door, which smells and feels of rust and iron. It is a heavy door, and still solid, still a formidable barricade.

The inside is much worse. Dust and broken glass litter the floor. Ashy spots darken the rough wooden planks where squatters lit fires in the night, playing Darwin in a game of chance that had hypothermia on one side and incineration on the other. The squatters have so far beaten the odds, as the building had yet to succumb to an out of control fire. The ceiling is twenty feet from the ground and metal support beams hang about five feet under it, still holding up the leaky roof. The beams are very dirty, having exceeded mere dust sometime in the 1970s. They are also very dark and of little defense against the constant wet draft that filters through the windows whose glass had been knocked out by passing teenagers. There are signs of life: the crumpled bedroll in a dry spot on the floor, cans of foodstuffs, and the random overhead lights that Bulldog has hooked to a stolen generator. Where they work, the lights are hot, but not hot enough to ward off the cold, nor bright enough to make up for their missing fellows. Also, Bulldog himself paces the floor in frenzy.

“I’m coming for your woman,” Bulldog says into his cell phone. “Gonna have a little fun with her. Hope she comes out of the coma. Be better if she wiggles around.”

“You’re talking about my girlfriend,” I say very quietly and calmly into my own cell phone.

“Yeah, shithead. What do ya think ‘bout that?”

“It’s a problem,”

Bulldog laughs in that husky, cough of his. He smiles in a way that reptiles would run from. He’s pacing faster and faster along the dirty plank floor.

“A fucking problem? You’re goddamned right it’s a problem. She gonna—“

“Didn’t say a problem for her, or for me, you stupid shit. You’re worrying about my girlfriend when you should be worrying about Muerto.”

“The fuck do I have to worry about Muerto?”

“Because he doesn’t like you very much and he thinks you’re going to ruin his cartel’s outfit in this city.”

“Fuck him, I am this cit—“

“Because you’re a pussy who threatens women when he can’t fight like a man.”

“Tough talk, asshole. I ain’t afraid of Muert—“

“Because you’re worrying about a woman in a hospital bed when you should be worrying about Muerto.”

“I’m gonna skull f—“

“Because Muerto left the door unlocked for me. You’re thinking about my woman, and that’s a problem”

I flip close the cell phone with an audible pop, so that Bulldogs hears it and stops to look up, right underneath me. I drop down from the ceiling rafter, my full weight coming down on top of Bulldog. The collision blasts my air away. If he wasn’t built like a fireplug, I would have just snapped his neck. Instead, we crash down together and he struggles to disentangle himself from me. He catches me with a foot to the face as he scrambles away, but there isn’t much on it. I grab the foot and pull myself onto him, grab his balls and squeeze. He screams and gurgles I punch him in the throat. He’s tough and has a neck like a rhino, so he has time to get his gun out. I grab his arm, let him force against me, let him think he’s going to get on top of me, but I control his hips with my legs. I keep rolling through his momentum, slide around to his back, and lock my forearm against his throat. I bend his gun-hand back until it snaps. A shot rings out into a can of beans. I crank on his arm so he can feel the pain. Then, I shut off his air for good.

“You thinking about my woman, Bulldog, is a problem,” I say to his motionless, broken form, “Because you should have been thinking about me.”

*

From the shadows, Angel Muerto emerged and turned off his video camera.

"Officer Luciano," he said into his cell phone, "I would like to report a murder."