TWENTY

Bang! The big Haitian named Toto cried out, blood gushing from a gaping hole in his left kidney. He twirled around on his feet, searching in stunned disbelief for the shooter who had just blindsided him.

Sierra Rico emerged from the shadows out across the dance floor, his smoking Colt Peacemaker raised.

“Drop the gun, you fucking savage, or else I’m dropping you!” Sierra said.

“What you be doing?!” Toto barked back at him. “Who the fuck are you?!”

“The man holding your life in his hands. That’s all you need to know!”

“Fuck you, kochon, you ain’t holding shit!” Toto spat blood and raised his assault rifle.

Sierra’s next bullet struck the big Haitian in the upper chest, sending him staggering backwards across the stage, his AK-47 blasting holes up through the ceiling before falling from his weakening grasp. Then Sierra fired again and the bullet smacked Toto right in the forehead, splitting the long strands of razor-wire from around his skull.

The big Haitian moaned, blood spurting from the massive hole in his head as he stumbled around like a drunk on his last legs, his senses still numb from excessive cocaine use. Somehow he reached up and dipped his pinkie finger into the raw bullet wound, putting it into his mouth as though he was sampling cocaine.

“Whoa…” Toto shivered, a crazed smile crossing his dying face, “that’s some damn good shit!” Then he collapsed over the edge of the DJ set, his body jolting on impact as he fell and smashed his face on the hard wooden floor.

…

Throwing Sakura aside to protect her, Kenji sprang to his feet and lunged straight at Kirby Kosta just as the Haitian drew back his knife-arm to attack. Although he saw Kosta’s blow coming and managed to step inside it, Kenji still got caught with a glancing blow across his ribs, the impact knocked him off balance. Kosta then sent him crashing hopelessly to the floor with a brutal head-butt to the skull.

“I’m gonna bleed you out slowly now, kochon,” Kosta laughed, rolling the groggy Kenji over onto his back, pressing down on his ribs with his big right boot. “This is going to be a fucking pleasure!”

“Fuck you!” Kenji spat as Kosta knelt down, putting the knife to his throat.

“No, I think I’ll be fucking your woman instead,” Kosta retorted. “Right next to your fucking corpse.”

But the Haitian’s fun was put on hold as Sakura suddenly ran up behind and jumped onto his back, clawing away at his eyes with her long fingernails, tearing on of his eyelids in two.

“Crazy fucking bitch!” Kosta howled. He reached up and grabbed Sakura by the hair, throwing her down hard to the floor. “Fine, you can be dying next; it don’t make no difference to me!” He reached down and wound her up by her hair, pressing the tip of his knife up to her throat with his one good arm.

“Scream when it starts to hurt, slut!”

Bang! Kosta stopped as another loud gunshot sounded from somewhere behind him. Remembering his blindside from earlier, paranoia got the better of him this time; he had no wish to get shot in the back twice in one night. He turned, holding up Sakura in front of himself as a human shield.

It was Fido again. The vigilante was standing there across the bar, his smoking sawn-off shotgun raised in one hand and an unused magnum revolver in the other.

“Hiding behind a woman, Kirby?” Fido scoffed. “I thought Loa Lacroix’s boys were supposed to be raised tough.”

“Tough enough to deal with fucks like you!” Kosta tightened his hand around the hair of his captive. “I knew it be you that shot me, white boy kochon. You never were above shooting a man in the back, were you?!” A nervous layer of sweat had started to appear on the Haitian’s face. The cocaine was wearing off and the pain in his arm was really starting to kick in.

“Scum like you?” Fido raised an eyebrow. “I’d shoot you right through the fucking balls and still sleep soundly tonight.”

“Then what’s stopping you now? You’ve got me dead in your sights, don’t you?” Kosta grinned and pricked at Sakura’s earlobe with the tip of his knife, just hard enough to draw blood. “That is, if you be willing to take a little… collateral damage.”

Fido said nothing, steadying his arm, searching for a clear shot.

“Ha, we both know you can’t shoot me.” Kosta forced a laugh. “You’re still too much of a pussy to bathe in an innocent’s life, aren’t you?!” He glanced down quickly to the Beretta M9 on the floor that Kenji had dropped earlier. It was almost within his reach.

“You want that Beretta, don’t you, Kirby?” Fido smiled as he followed the madman’s eyes. “I tell you what, if you let that girl go, I’ll let you have the gun.”

Kosta frowned. “How fucking stupid do you think I am?!”

“Still not enough incentive?” He dropped his sawn-off shotgun to the floor, stepping on it with his boot, then he tossed his Magnum away across the bar. “We’ll make this fair. One gun each, and mine’s bulkier than yours too, which cancels out the handicap of your injuries. Let’s dance. It’s your call, Kirby!”

“Fuck me, you’re a sporting man, aren’t you, white boy kochon,” Kosta forced a crazy laugh and nodded, then he threw Sakura roughly out of his way. He dropped his knife, placing his foot down on top of the Berretta by his feet. “Stupid, but sporting. You know I be killing this bitch anyway, right after I be done with you!”

Then, with a cry of desperation, the Haitian reached down and picked up the Beretta off the floor, opening fire. But before he could hit his target, Fido quickly dropped down onto his back, scooped up his sawn-off off the floor and pulled the trigger; the buckshot caught Kosta right between the shin bone and kneecap, severing his right leg completely, blowing the pulverised remains far across the floor.

“Kochon!” The Haitian howled out in agony, blood squirting out from the end of his severed stump like an unmanned fireman’s hose. He slipped to the floor in a shower of his own arterial spray.

Fido calmly ejected the spent shells from his sawn-off, reloading as he approached. He picked up Kirby Kosta’s knife off the ground, standing right over his wounded prey. “Any last words, Kirby? Go on, something to tug at the strings of my heart.”

“Fuck you, kochon! Fuck you straight to hell!”

Fido set aside his sawn-off, taunting the Haitian with his own knife. “So here you finally are at the end of your rope. Loa Lacroix’s little executioner. Have you ever wondered how many hearts you have cut out with this thing?” Fido asked the question rhetorically of the knife. “Thirty-eight by my count. But that’s only as long as I’ve been tailing you. If you tell me where Lacroix is, I’ll end your life quick. If you don’t, I’m going to fuck you up all night long!”

“Then you best be getting started,” Kosta grinned with bloody teeth. “Because you don’t be getting shit from me!”

“Really?” With a shrug, Fido obliged him, stabbing the knife into the Haitian’s gut. “Want to try that again?” He extracted the bloody blade, holding it teasingly in front of his victim’s throat.

“No… tonight… we be… ending this on my terms!” Kosta’s screams of agony gave way to a fit of mad laughter. He locked eyes with Fido over the knife that was still dripping with his blood, then suddenly he grabbed hold of the bladev, severing all but two of his fingers in the process, and used it to slash his own throat from ear to ear.

“Fuck!” Fido screamed out in frustration, wrenching the knife free of the Haitian’s grasp too late. He stood up and looked down as Kosta spluttered and choked, still laughing despite it all, death drawing nearer with every spurt of his blood from the gaping opening in his neck. He was dying, far sooner than Fido needed him to, and nothing could stop that.

Kosta’s mouth was wide open, as though he was trying to say something else in his final moments, so Fido took the opportunity to give him a proper send off. “No, Kirby, tonight we’re ending this on my terms!” He picked up his sawn-off from the floor and jammed the barrel straight down Kosta’s throat, knocking out several teeth on entry.

“Can you feel it, Kirby?! That excruciating pain?!” Fido hissed. “Consider this my parting gift to you, you motherfucker!” Then the sawn-off boomed again for a final time, flooding the floor red with the Haitian’s blood.