Club 92 (Here Comes Your Man) (913 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: noir
Rating: 1.7 on 28 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Stagger Lee (View user info) at 2006-03-05 01:39:13 EST
Part One: http://www.ubersite.com/m/84633
Part Two: http://www.ubersite.com/m/84695
Part Three: http://www.ubersite.com/m/84797
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It's the dirty end of winter. It's around eleven pm. The rain has ceased but the filthy slush remains ankle-deep in the streets. Cars pass along the darkened streets of the city and the glare from the streetlights bounces off them, occasionally lighting my position.
I'm standing in the deepest shadow directly across from Club 92, the club that is the informal headquarters of the organisation of which I am no longer a part. I've been led here by the inescapable conclusion that my brother's death could only have been ordered by one man. Silas Du Mar, leader and patriarch of the organisation. This is where he holds court, in the club/brothel/gambling den. I watch the patrons come and go. There are cameras throughout, of course. There's always between ten and thirty armed, ruthless motherfuckers inside.
My sleeve is still caked in Bridge's blood.
I wonder if they'll be expecting me. Either way, I'm going in. I'm familiar with the layout and I can hopefully find Du Mar quickly, and end him. Getting out will be another matter altogether.
I slip my hand into my coat and flick off the safety of the 9mm I took from Keeton's corpse. I walk across the street and into Club 92.
There's a desk in the foyer to my right. Directly opposite this is a set of double wooden doors. There's always only one man on the desk, and tonight is no exception. I take two precisely measured steps into the foyer. His eyes widen in recognition, though I do not know him. His hand reaches under his desk. I'm quicker off the mark, and I fire two rounds into his head. He spasms slightly and slides down his chair.
I hear footsteps start pounding in the hall. There's not one fucking second to spare. I stride across the foyer and slip the dead man's gun from the holster affixed to the underside of his desk. I level both guns at the doors and wait.
The handle on the left hand door begins to turn. I open up, peppering both doors. The guns punch holes through them as if they were cheap plywood. They should have reinforced them with something. I hear several grunts of pain, followed by several thuds. I discard the dead man's gun and reload my own. Which is also a dead man's gun, of course.
I move as quietly as I can across the room and open the door. Three men are lying on the floor in the corridor. Two are dead, and I observe, with something akin to wonder, that one of them has splinters from the door embedded in his throat.
One is alive, lying in a sticky puddle of his own and his companions' blood. He's in bad shape, and he raises one reddened hand in supplication. "Please," he says. That's all. I put a bullet in his heart.
Shortly beyond their bodies the corridor turns to the right. I round the corner. There are fourteen doors off this corridor, seven on each side. Du Mar's office is at the end. These corridors should be filling up with armed guards. Something must be amiss with their security systems. I don't question it for now.
I pass the first two doors. They're nothing but private rooms for men to take their purchased meat into. I stop at the second door on the left and open it. It's the security room. There are two men inside. One is crouched directly in front of me, as if he were listening at the door. The other is at the back of the room, frantically working on an intercom of some kind. They appear to have suffered a communications breakdown.
Without the comms, they have no way of knowing I'm coming, because they soundproof the rooms. Good fucking neighbours that they are.
The man in front of me raises his hands in surrender. As my gun comes up, I reflect briefly that at possible thirty-to-one odds, niceties are thrown away and anything seems fair. I blow his brains out. The man working on the intercom looks at me, and his face looks ragged and hunted. I shoot him three times. He collapses and sprays blood over a lot of expensive-looking equipment. I move quickly and rip a tape out of the VCR hooked up to the monitors. I pocket it.
I take a quick glance at the monitors. There are no cameras in Du Mar's office, of course. That fuck likes to play it quiet. There are a group of men in one of the card rooms, with four armed guards surrounding them to ensure that everyone plays like good boys. The rest of the club appears to be quiet.
I turn to the security room safe. I spin the combination. I'm not supposed to know it, but I'm a shady son of a bitch, so I do. I crack it open. Inside are two pump shotguns and a box of grenades. Stupid pricks should have cracked it and waited for me. I relieve the safe of a shotgun and a grenade.
I exit the security room and head for the gambling room. I open the door. It's a room devoid of furniture apart from the chairs and single round table in the middle. One of the guards raises his gun. I step quickly to the side and throw the grenade into the room. It rolls under the table.
The gamblers scream. The grenade goes off. Plaster and dust billow out of the room. I step in.
It's a quick snapshot of hell. The gamblers are all dead, in pieces of varying sizes. The table has fragmented. One of the guards has a sizable piece of the table slammed into his gut. He's still alive. I shoot him with the shotgun, and his chest caves in. He collapses.
Two more of the guards are still alive, but all are wounded badly. It's child's play to dispatch them.
I leave and head for the final door.
Du Mar's office is the most luxurious room in the building. He's an ostentatious fucker like that. He has a fountain in the middle of the floor, for fuck's sake. He also has a bedroom, not for sleeping, but for taking free fucks from the hookers that work this place. He has an imported mahogany bar and stolen paintings on the walls.
He's not in, so I assume he's out back in his bedroom. I fire the shotgun into his pretentiously sculpted plaster ceiling, and I wait.
Du Mar's bedroom door opens, and the first thing I see is the hooker. She's wearing a skirt and a bra. Blonde. Du Mar likes the blondes. I see her first because Du Mar is holding her round the throat, holding a knife to her throat and using her as a shield. He's pulled his pants up but he hasn't done up his belt, and he is shirtless. His normally smooth hair is a mess.
When he sees it's me, he grins a grin that makes me hate him like poison. "Well, fuck me," he says, in a jocular let's-sit-down-and-have-a-cigar tone, "You've come here. I never thought you had the bottle. You took out Sharpe and all his boys, and they were good people."
I say nothing. The hooker's eyes are flicking back and forth between the two of us. I'm reminded of the way a horse's eyes look when it's panicked.
Du Mar continues, "Obviously, dear boy, if you try anything, I'll kill her. You don't want that, do you?"
I say nothing.
"Why don't you put down that rather large shotgun you're carrying, and we'll talk," Du Mar says. Playing the protective uncle.
I shift my aim and shoot the hooker in the face. Her head practically explodes, bathing Du Mar's face in blood and gobbets of flesh. Because it's not about justice. It's not about protecting the innocent. My brother wasn't innocent. My brother was a bastard. It's about trying to do one thing right by a brother whom I mostly failed. I saw him grow up, I saw him grow sour and I did nothing. Now I'm doing something, and it may not be the right thing. I've lost the capacity to tell. But it's the only thing I can do.
Du Mar is left holding an empty, headless shell. He has no gun, just the knife. He bares his teeth in an animalistic sneer and attempts to charge me.
It's too fucking easy. I pump a fresh shell into the chamber and kneecap him. He smashes into the floor at my feet. He cries out, wordless. I step on his wrist and kick his knife away with my other foot. I lean down and smack him in the mouth with the shotgun.
I drop the shotgun. I haul him, kicking and screaming, to the bar. I leave him there and head into his bedroom. I return with a sheet, which I tear and use to tie his hands to the rail on the bar.
I pull my knife. I take my time with him. And as the knife slices for the first time into his exposed stomach, he screams and I think of Devon coming home from his first day of school and of me ruffling his hair and of the time he broke his leg falling out of his treehouse and me being the first one there and being so scared but staying with him the whole time until our mother fetched help and he was so grateful.
And I thought of finding his broken body in a dumpster and Du Mar screams again and there's fucking blood everywhere and I don't know how I ended up here and oh my god I'm so sorry Devon I failed you I watched you become a miserable excuse for a human and I'm not a single fucking bit better.
Du Mar is screaming and screaming, and I think I am too, but who knows? Tears are rolling down my cheeks and I'm helpless to stop them. I cry for Devon. I cry for the life he wasted. I cry for all the other lives the two of us could have led. I cry for everyone I ever wronged. I just keep cutting and cutting until Du Mar is bent and lifeless and bloody.
Then I howl at the ceiling like a wounded animal.
Time passes.
I'm sitting at Du Mar's bar, drinking his scotch just above his corpse. I've done my best to clean myself up, but it's a fairly poor effort.
I should feel like the bowler who just rolled a five hundred game, or the blackjack player who turns over an ace and a king on a $500 bet, but I don't. I feel tired, and disgraced.
Soon I'll stand, leave, and attempt to live. For now, I just wish I could appreciate my victory, so I drink my final victim's scotch in a miserable parody of celebration. Living's fucking hard.
User Reviews
Submitted by Beano312003 (user info) at 2006-06-25 08:25:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
For sure this could have been a two parter. There is so much action in here when he is moving from room to room wiping out the guards etc. Having said that, this was a great series and I'm off now to read your other stuff.
Cheers.
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2006-06-21 02:15:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I don't like you, but Orgasmatron does.
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2006-05-11 08:28:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
The last paragraph was good, but it felt there was something missing in the ending.
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-04-02 03:27:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I shift my aim and shoot the hooker in the face.
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I almost, ALMOST stopped reading after this. Well written as always, but just seemed like so much drawn out violence to me. I'm glad I continued, because you redeemed yourself immediately.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-03-09 20:11:14 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Ghola: Adverbs are not all bad, regardless of what Stephen King says. . .
Used judiciously, they are interesting. . .
Submitted by HighVoltage900 (user info) at 2006-03-07 20:55:51 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Just doing retal clean up, don't mind me.
Submitted by trent_nz (user info) at 2006-03-07 20:42:52 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
fuck-face
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-03-07 10:06:43 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
He was never really raging or insane until the paragraphs where it descends into babble.
Submitted by MyNameIsTim (user info) at 2006-03-07 09:58:30 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
this was an excellent series.
my only comment is this...i get the point that he's a lost man..doesn't give a fuck at all about anything other than killing the people ewho killed his brother...
but the point doesn't really come across well. he's too coherant to be raging, too smart to be insane.
i get it, it was awesome, but i wish the last part where he's reminiscing of helping his brother as a child was earlier on.
then again, i don't know much.
overall, awesome.
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2006-03-07 03:20:33 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I pull my knife. I take my time with him. And as the knife slices for the first time into his exposed stomach, he screams and I think of Devon coming home from his first day of school and of me ruffling his hair and of the time he broke his leg falling out of his treehouse and me being the first one there and being so scared but staying with him the whole time until our mother fetched help and he was so grateful.
And I thought of finding his broken body in a dumpster and Du Mar screams again and there's fucking blood everywhere and I don't know how I ended up here and oh my god I'm so sorry Devon I failed you I watched you become a miserable excuse for a human and I'm not a single fucking bit better."""
I like that a lot. I like the babbling helpless flow of it.
Submitted by charminglybeef (user info) at 2006-03-07 02:22:57 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I don't agree -- I read the whole thing over and was suprised to hear so much negative feedback about the howling. That was the point that he broke. That was the point that he wasn't operating with ruthless efficiency and instinct. It was a completely emotional and uncharacteristic turn in the story, but I don't think it was out of place at all.
Rock on, brother.
Submitted by simple_catalyst (user info) at 2006-03-06 09:07:14 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
there goes my gun.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-03-05 20:36:59 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by G-prime (user info) at 2006-03-05 19:11:39 (#)
Ranking: 2
Yeah, the howl was out of place. Not because it didn't fit the character, but because it doesn't fit the situation at all. It made me think of when somebody yells "NOOOOOO!!!" and the camera zooms upwards facing down on them.
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Yeah, that's what I thought after re-reading. Cheesy bullshit.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-03-05 19:54:16 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-03-05 13:15:34 (#)
Ranking: 2
Also - is that a Pixies line?
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Glad someone got it. Not just the line, but the song. I associated it with this story for some reason.
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Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2006-03-05 12:46:24 (#)
Ranking: 2
i like that you write in present tense. is much sharper.
avoid teh dreaded adverb and you will be ace.
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You're really not going to approve of my next post.
Submitted by G-prime (user info) at 2006-03-05 19:11:39 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Yeah, the howl was out of place. Not because it didn't fit the character, but because it doesn't fit the situation at all. It made me think of when somebody yells "NOOOOOO!!!" and the camera zooms upwards facing down on them. Something more fitting would have been the guy choking on his tears, clutching Silas' body, yelling, but the yelling muffled by the fact that he's buried his face in the dead guy's shoulder.
Still a kicker of all ass +2 though.
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-03-05 13:15:34 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Also - is that a Pixies line?
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2006-03-05 12:46:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
i like that you write in present tense. is much sharper.
avoid teh dreaded adverb and you will be ace.
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2006-03-05 11:41:27 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This was good.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-03-05 04:57:32 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Cheers, Geordie.
Great game last night for your lot. Shearer's still got it. The way Wanderers play makes me so damn angry, it's always good to see somebody just out-football them.
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-03-05 04:54:58 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-03-05 04:39:03 (#)
Ranking: 0
And, just re-reading it now, you're right. That howl bit absolutely sucks.
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Just didn't quite fit with the character I thought. Too emotive, less about his duty. This is still a damn good post however.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-03-05 04:53:48 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Goddammit, you too, Wildman? Balls I say! Note to self: read own work before submitting to Ubersite/showing to people.
Submitted by Wildman (user info) at 2006-03-05 04:52:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
I wasn't going to mention that because I have enough trouble writing a coherent review as it is.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-03-05 04:39:03 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
And, just re-reading it now, you're right. That howl bit absolutely sucks.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-03-05 04:30:47 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
My next post will be 100% certified howl-free.
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-03-05 03:58:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Other than that howl at the ceiling, this kicked ass.
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2006-03-05 03:12:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I shift my aim and shoot the hooker in the face. Her head practically explodes, bathing Du Mar's face in blood and gobbets of flesh. Because it's not about justice. It's not about protecting the innocent. My brother wasn't innocent. My brother was a bastard. It's about trying to do one thing right by a brother whom I mostly failed. I saw him grow up, I saw him grow sour and I did nothing. Now I'm doing something, and it may not be the right thing. I've lost the capacity to tell. But it's the only thing I can do.
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I liked this for what it does for the narrator, his motivations, and for how it sounds.
Then again, I like this series too.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-03-05 02:53:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
I made a decision at the start of the series to not belabour any description of the weaponry, and see how that went.
I think I tried to cram too much crap into this installment, maybe it should have been a two-parter.
I'm an extremely amateur writer, so action and dialogue are two things I wanted to work on, which is where this series started from.
Thanks for the feedback.
Submitted by Wildman (user info) at 2006-03-05 02:33:39 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
This is an OK series.
I would watch the dialogue a little closer and substitute terms such as; forsworn/essence(time is of the)/ avenge, and others...to words more suitable to the character.
Also, when you're dealing with weaponry, and the action revolving around it's use, a brief description of each gun goes a long way in the visual development of the person carrying, or shooting it. A gun is usually an extension of what the person is,, or thinks what he, or she, is.
It also helps the reader understand what happens after each shot is taken, or missed, and why.