\u201cNow. I\u2019m stark naked, holed up in a cramped room with two dead whores, my radio is shot to shit, and I\u2019m blue-balled all to hell.\u00a0 Twelve shots in the clip.\u00a0 I\u2019m estimating there\u2019s at least seven of \u2018em outside, and they ain\u2019t all going down with one bullet.\u00a0 My options were severely limited.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u201cHeadshots?\u201d\u00a0 Cristo asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeven headshots in a row?\u00a0 That\u2019s a wet dream even for Clint Eastwood.\u00a0 No.\u00a0 I just had to wait them out.\u00a0 Or so I thought.\u00a0 These weren\u2019t your regular gook gendarmes or even VC.\u00a0 These were some real deep country, bloodthirsty wolves brought in on some colonial power\u2019s payroll.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know which one, but I knew what they wanted.\u00a0 My tattoo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat, the hula girl?\u201d my barber asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, no.\u00a0 The hula girl came way after this.\u00a0 This was a tattoo of a number.\u00a0 Digits.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat digits.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t be trusted with that information.\u00a0 I was just the mule, man.\u00a0 Could be coordinates, or a cipher code or any number of things.\u00a0 Okay, quick aside.\u00a0 Two nights before a pouch is delivered at the usual drop.\u00a0 Inside is a little laminated card.\u00a0 Old school directions, you know.\u00a0 Left ten paces.\u00a0 Right sixteen paces.\u00a0 Pass the well.\u00a0 It leads me to the slums.\u00a0 Torchlight.\u00a0 Shit and piss running in the gutters.\u00a0 All the little shacks shuttering up as I walk by.\u00a0 I get where I\u2019m supposed to be, this tiny little grocer selling roots and sacks of grubs and dried rat tails, I don\u2019t know what.\u00a0 His eyes get real big like I was a vision he\u2019d hoped would never come true.\u00a0 He leads me in the back into this tiny room lit only by a candle.\u00a0 He hisses to this old man asleep on the floor.\u00a0 The old man sits up and they start chattering emphatically.\u00a0 Finally the old man grabs my wrist and sits me down.\u00a0 He pulls out a kit, rolls up my trousers, then gives me this tattoo down my shin the old way, hammering the ink in point by point.\u00a0 The ink stunk.\u00a0 Could\u2019ve been eel blood or scorpion venom for all I knew.\u00a0 But I just had to sit there and take it and think about how much I loved Uncle Sam.\u201d<\/p>\n
“So these guys wanted you bad.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBest case scenario, they would\u2019ve left me alive and just shaved my skin clean off my leg.\u00a0 But me and my Colt weren\u2019t about to let that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
The old man got a squint in his eye, the hard squint of proud memories.\u00a0 I waved the bartender away from my nearly empty pint glass and squared up in the stool.\u00a0 Whether he was a true forgotten hero or the city\u2019s best, I wanted to get the full effect.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a time in my life when I would\u2019ve stayed like that\u2014quiet and my back against the wall\u2014and waited for the doom to fly in through the windows.\u00a0 Take my chances from the defensive position.\u00a0 But that was before I\u2019d seen men cut and corded like firewood or dug my own living carcass out from under a dogpile of the stinking unlucky.\u00a0 Waiting and praying never saved anyone\u2019s ass.\u00a0 The only thing between you and a little white cross on the government green is the same thing that made a man out of anybody: pull up your bootstraps as high as your cojones and walk out the door shooting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cristo\u2019s eyes were wide now, his right hand unconsciously curled around a phantom gun.\u00a0 \u201cSo you gave it to \u2018em?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHo, partner.\u00a0 I gave it to \u2018em.\u00a0 I pounced through what was left of my window, still buck naked and covered in a righteous kinky sweat.\u00a0 I fired three shots across the street, all into one poor bastard\u2019s torso.\u00a0 He went down and the others scattered, forgetting their advantage, forgetting their firepower, forgetting everything but their mama\u2019s names.\u00a0 I sprinted with my head down, collected the dead gook\u2019s automatic rifle, then tore off after the rest of them shooting holy hell above their heads.\u201d<\/p>\n
He turned straight towards me, locking on with that gaze shared by all fundamentally needy barflies.\u00a0 \u201cYou see, Cass.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t need to kill them all.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t need to kill them all.\u00a0 It\u2019s not in me to take more life than I have to, whether the bastards deserve it or not.\u00a0 I just needed to set them running.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harvey drew another mouthful off whiskey then licked his lips.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ve bought enough drinks for one afternoon. \u00a0Let\u2019s see you guys cough up some green for an old vet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cristo, while wholeheartedly engaged in the story of the firefight, grew a little wary. \u201cHold on, hold on.\u00a0 I\u2019ve got an idea.\u00a0 Let\u2019s see those shins of yours.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brave Captain Harvey still said it the old-fashioned way: \u201cMother-fucker.\u201d<\/p>\n
I nodded.\u00a0 \u201cAnte up.\u201d<\/p>\n
The old man leaned back in his stool, swept one leg up on the bar, then rolled down his chinos with his spidery, spotted fingers.\u00a0 Spread over his entire lower leg was a blurry, fading tattoo of a giant black panther prowling through tall ferns.\u00a0 His tail curled outward, its tip lit like a torch.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the hell is that?\u201d asked Cristo.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s American, man.\u00a0 No old oriental did that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the hell did you expect?\u00a0 That I\u2019ve been walking around with some government secret exposed on my skin?\u00a0 The brass gave me two choices: burn it off or cover it up.\u00a0 Army doctor or Navy sissy boy with a needle gun.\u00a0 I figured, what the hell.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bells across the street pealed again, signaling Harvey\u2019s hourly pint of beer.\u00a0 I laid down a fiver in front of his little pile of cash.\u00a0 He grinned and cocked his head.\u00a0 \u201cYou think you could\u2019ve done what I did?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe,\u201d I said.\u00a0 \u201cBut I sure couldn\u2019t tell it like you do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cNow. I\u2019m stark naked, holed up in a cramped room with two dead whores, my radio is shot to shit, and I\u2019m blue-balled all to hell.\u00a0 Twelve shots in the clip.\u00a0 I\u2019m estimating there\u2019s at least seven of \u2018em outside, …<\/p>\n