He was a man halfway blind.
Medianoche swept him off his feet, sent him down into the broken glass and debris once again, the stench of sewage splattering up across his suit.
He grabbed Gideon’s neck, choked him.
Medianoche barked, “You think I give a shit about the son of a goddamn whore?”
Medianoche put his weight into his gloved grip, strangled Gideon.
Then when Medianoche found he couldn’t strangle the sonofawhore the way he wanted to, he pummeled the sonofawhore’s face again. Medianoche’s breathing was deep, ragged, labored from the running and fighting, his breathing shortened by the cold air that attacked his lungs.
But Gideon was suffering in the same winter storm, shirtless, exposed to the elements.
Medianoche yanked off his leather gloves, grabbed Gideon’s neck with his bare hands, the rainwater coming down harder, drowning Gideon as he was being strangled.
When someone was choked in the movies, they died right away, died a quick death, as if strangling was as fast as putting a bullet in the enemy’s heart.
Not in the real world.
It took forever to strangle a strong man. The fingers had to be strong enough to maintain the grip needed to cut off the flow of oxygen and create that hypoxic state to the brain, hands had to be strong enough to dig into muscle, strong enough to clench down and apply a deepening pressure, powerful enough to do all that while the enemy shifted and turned, battled to stay alive.
Strangling a man was the hardest way to kill a sonofawhore.
Strangling was the most personal way to kill a man.
And this was personal.
Medianoche choked Gideon until his hands ached, until his hands grew numb.
He choked that sonofawhore until he stopped struggling.
Until he was dead. It was time to bring the white tape and mark the dead body.
Medianoche pulled away, gritted his teeth as he struggled to catch his breath.
He opened and closed his fingers, the numbness up to his wrists.
He had done it.
Medianoche had killed the motherfucker that put a goddamn bullet in his head.
He had left Gideon dead, faceup, hands outstretched, on his back like he was on a cross. Medianoche struggled, slipped in the mud as he made it back to his feet.
Shit, mud, and debris covered his saturated clothing, added weight.
It was done.
Now he had to find his guns and go toward the package.
He didn’t have a sensor. He had to go where he had seen gunfire.
He had to catch up with his soldier.
Then.
Gideon coughed. He moved. The sonofawhore was still breathing.
Medianoche staggered across slippery terrain, rain falling from above and fires behind him, his world blanketed by music and screams. He kicked trash away, searched until he found a sharp piece of metal in the mounds of refuse and debris. He’d killed men with shanks before.
Gideon had made it to his knees. Then pulled up on one foot.
As Gideon scowled, Medianoche evaluated the beaten man in front of him.
Gideon had one swollen eye. The half blind scowled at the half blind.
Medianoche hurried toward him with the shank, its point as sharp as a steak knife.
He would make Gideon all the way blind.
An eye for an eye. Plus another eye for claiming to be his goddamn kid.
For the rest of his days, Gideon would be able to see only darkness. That sonofawhore would spend the rest of his days seeing the blackness that came with meeting Midnight.
Gideon charged at Medianoche
like a wounded bull, each step splashing sewage. Medianoche planted his feet, lowered his shoulders, twisted his hips, and swung the sharp metal like it was a right hook, swung it hard, a knockout punch that was aimed for his neck, for the jugular. But Gideon feigned high and went low, caught Medianoche off guard, grabbed his body and tried to pull his legs from under him. Medianoche’s blow went across Gideon’s back, took skin and blood before he lost the shank, trying to fight for his balance.
Gideon was quick. He was wounded but quick. Fighting like a wild animal.
Medianoche saw Gideon’s hands were filled with mud and sewage. He tried to slap the filth into Medianoche’s good eye. Medianoche moved his head, bobbed, weaved, turned his face away. The filth was smeared on his forehead and drained down over his eyes, compromised his vision.
Gideon wrestled him across sludge, grunted and pushed him hard. The loose ground gave, and some spots were like quicksand. Cold water and mud plowed up Medianoche’s boots to his ankles. Medianoche went against Gideon, man against man, ego against ego, brute strength against brute strength, but Gideon found footing and leverage and raced Medianoche backward until he was slammed into an abandoned car.
Medianoche hit the car hard, spun, and threw punches, hooks and jabs, managed to get in a knee to the face, but that didn’t stop Gideon. It looked like pain fueled him.
Gideon grappled, tried again to pull his feet from under his body.
Medianoche held on to the car, fought to keep his legs from being yanked out from under him, tried to throw blows with one hand while he held on to the rusty Ford Fairlane with the other. Medianoche maneuvered, got Gideon off him, wrestled and went for a choke hold, this one from the rear. But Gideon was slippery, skin covered in filth, hard to grip.
Medianoche countered the blows, broke away from Gideon, staggering, dazed.
Medianoche nodded, stood with his hands on his hips, tired. But determined.
He was a soldier. A warrior. No retreat, no surrender. Failure was not an option.
Gideon landed a roundhouse kick in his face. A kick Medianoche saw coming but was too exhausted to block. It was a swift kick that connected with his nose and sent him down into the mud. Then Gideon was behind him, holding Medianoche down. Medianoche struggled to get free as Gideon fought to get him into a sleeper hold. Medianoche threw an elbow, landed another solid blow to Gideon’s face, and Gideon lost his grip.
Then Gideon began pummeling him with big jackhammer punches.
Each jackhammer blow felt like being pounded with six hundred pounds of fury.
Medianoche went blow for blow, answered every goddamn punch.
He saw Gideon was breathing heavy, too heavy to go the distance.
Gideon bull-charged him again, and Medianoche still traded blow after blow.
Until one landed on his chin. That blow snapped Medianoche’s head back, stunned him.
Medianoche tried to recover, put his head down to avoid the rapid blows.
But he felt the pain come down as fast as the raindrops from the dark clouds above.
Countless blows to the back of his head led him to the edge of consciousness.
More blows were delivered to the side of his head, each blow on the same spot.
Then all right-handed blows, blows from a fist that came down like a hammer.
Blows that hammered the back of his neck like a metal baseball bat.
Medianoche was blinded by severe pain, choking on the blood in his mouth.
He tried to escape, crawled across the mud, hands numb, unable to feel.
But the rest of his body was a big ball of pain.
Gideon rode his back, held on, followed, delivered blow after blow.
He delivered big shots that left him sinking to the ground.
Left Medianoche unable to defend himself from the strikes of a madman.
Unable to defend himself against the son of a whore.
Medianoche collapsed, his pain incapacitating.
It was as if the world had been pulled from underneath his feet.
His back was against the world. Cold rain fell on his face like liquid ice.
He saw other shadows, mountainous silhouettes coming up behind Gideon.
It was a giant carrying an unconscious Señorita Raven over one shoulder.
A briefcase was in his left hand.
And a short-barreled shotgun was in his right hand.
The giant threw Señorita Raven on the ground, her limp body landing hard in the mud.
Then he aimed the barrel of his shotgun at the center of Medianoche’s forehead.
Chapter 43
the road to ruin
I didn’t remember much,
not for most of the next hour.
I was in bad shape. Felt like I had gone ten rounds with Manny Pacquiao.
The fight had punished me. The exposure to the weather had devastated me.
I was in pain. I shivered like I was naked at the End of the World.
All I knew was that I was inside a stolen car. The agony I felt was worse than death. Shotgun put the car’s heater on high and sped away, jumped in twelve lanes of traffic, had no idea where he was going. The big man helped me walk across railroad tracks and out near the Claro building, pretty much carried me when I moved too slow, and crammed me inside the backseat of a car he had hotwired, and sped away. The fires at the
villa
were going strong. The sirens were loud, the police and emergency crews entering from the opposite direction we had fled.
Raindrops the size of golf balls fell though the city lights. Shotgun passed
supermercados
, flower stands, and electronics shops while I struggled to stay conscious, afraid that giving in to the need to let my body drift toward being unconscious would send me into an irreversible coma. Tried to focus, read signs to stay alert. Saw a street marker for Avenida Dorrego. A billboard for the University of Palermo stared at me. Avenida Cerviño. Chilean-owned stores Jumbo and Easy. Centro Cultural Islámico Rey Fahd. Avenida Bullrich. Avenida Honduras. La Esquina Country Store. El Timón de Don Jesús restaurant.
We zipped through an area lined with crowded cafés, antique shops, and warehouses.
Shotgun still had the package. The briefcase was in the backseat with me, resting on the floor. He hadn’t come in contact with Arizona or Scamz. He hadn’t mentioned Konstantin.
That was bad news. Real bad news. I thought about what Medianoche had said.
They had caught them. Destroyed them like they had done the
villas
.
My hands sweated with hate.
Pain pulled at me, tugged me like a rope tied to a moving train.
Shotgun kept yelling, checking on me, his voice echoing and a thousand miles away. He drove like we were back in a deadly car chase. Each rotation of the tires made sounds that echoed like we were being gunned down. Streets were too bright, looked like grenades were exploding around us. Shotgun sped down crowded streets. He drove the same crazy way they did here. He knew how to drive like he was crazy. He was a taxi driver back home. I lost consciousness for a moment and dreamed, fell into a nightmare that we were on Avenida Rivadavia and Avenida Pueyrredón and had been rear-ended by Medianoche, had been forced toward the sidewalk, Shotgun unable to prevent running over pedestrians as he took out newspaper and flower stands. I jerked out of that nightmare, unsure if it had been real or not.
By the time I was able to pull myself up, the inside of the car was so hot, I was drenched in sweat. The stench that covered me was so strong, Shotgun had let down two windows.
I looked through my uninjured eye and saw he had turned onto a street in an Armenian neighborhood. We were on the edges of Palermo Hollywood, not far from movie and television studios, on a short block between Niceto Vega and Cabrera. I had Shotgun pull over in the middle of that section of Armenian culture. It hurt to move, but I had to get out of the car. Saw a school. Church named after San Gre gorio Iluminador. Restaurant Armenia. Blue Sun tanning salon. The Armenian nightclub was busy, crowded, music thumping. We were in an area with businesses standing three levels high. Tree-lined street. Roofs made for snipers. Fronts of buildings painted reds and greens and blues, but not over the top. Asociación Cultural Armenia. Unión General Armenia de Beneficencia
.
Saw a large sign declaring the area Centro Armenio. The street had the same name as the subculture that lived here.
Shotgun helped me get out of the car, held me like I was a helpless and decrepit old man.
While a crowd of Armenians watched, I stood on the curb and vomited a never-ending pool of anger and resentment. I wanted to go back and find Midnight. Wanted to finish this.
Shotgun held me up, didn’t complain about me soiling his shoes and pants.
The Armenians thought I was drunk. No one cared about a drunk, shirtless man.
Shotgun said, “We need to get you some clothes and get you cleaned up.”
I nodded. “I need antibiotics for these cuts.”
“Where can we get some?”
“We have to find an open pharmacy. But not now. We have to find Arizona and Konstantin. We have to get to the next safe house they had lined up. See if they are there.”
Then I vomited again.
When I was done, Shotgun helped me back in the car, put me in the front seat this time. He crossed Cabrera and as we sped into Soho, the area became like the village in New York meeting Melrose Boulevard in L.A. Ugly and crude graffiti became artistic and colorful markings outside rows of condo and shops. Trendy bars with long lines in the hippest area in the city.
Every ache I had was singing as Shotgun sped down Armenia, the stolen car bouncing on the cobblestone side streets. He drove until the graffiti became ugly and dangerous markings, cut in and out of traffic, passed by an Israeli school, and sped toward the Botanic Gardens.
He almost hit two city buses, a 152 and a 68, when he turned right and jumped into the madness on Santa Fe. By the time I saw the bright green sign for D line subte entrance at Scalabrini Ortiz, Shotgun had calmed down. Sweat ran down his face the same way the rain was falling, hard and steady. He was scared. By then I was sure we didn’t have a shadow.