I'm taking a walk down the Vegas strip. It's a lot colder out here in the desert than I thought it would be. The nighttime wasteland is as inviting as a pretty whore with a drug problem. All the neon lights advertising gambling and live nudes give me a headache. I pop a couple of pills. I find myself eating more and more painkillers just to stay normal. I guess it's an even trade. I haven't had a drink in over a year.
I came down here on a job. One of my friends from the force from Manhattan moved down to Vegas to be a narcotics detective and some wiseguy killed his wife. The mobsters here have their hands in the pockets of the police, so after he heard about what I did in Rio, he called me up to investigate the case. I wonder what it is that attracts me to dead women as I watch an obsolete building collapse, perfectly placed explosives going off and making the whole thing fall into a neat pile of dust and rubble. They're going to build something new there that'll meet the same violent fate, and the life cycle of Vegas buildings will continue, but most nights, I still don't feel like getting out of bed.
I duck into an alley behind a five star restaurant. A man at a bar tipped me off about drug deals happening behind a fine dining establishment, and I know this is the one I'm looking for, because there are no cooks sitting around smoking cigarettes, like I expect there to be. I hear a ruckus at the end of the alleyway. I pull my cold steel beretta from my shoulder holster and rush forward. This might be the break I need to get paid and leave this glowing neon hellhole.
There are five guys, three Armani wearing goombas for some unnamed mobster, and two other Italians. The latter two are wearing these leather jackets that say Morricone Brothers' Plumbing. One is shorter and fatter than the other and he kind of looks like a cross between Zack Galifinackis and Joe Pesci. The other looks similar, except for the fact that he's taller and he has a longer face. They're both wearing ball caps and sunglasses.
"You want some coke or not? You're wasting our time," one of the mobsters says.
"That's what I needed to hear," says the short guy. His English is even more broken than the goombas. The guy and his partner pull out small caliber sixguns and open fire on the goombas, who drop to the ground.
I do, too. These guys are insane. They're going to fuck up my entire case. The mobsters pull more expensive semi-automatic pieces and return fire. The other guys scramble for cover behind a dumpster while they reload. Like the washed up fool that I am, I jump out from behind my cover and empty a clip into the mobsters before they can advance on the other guys. Being the crack shot that I am, I accidentally kill all three of them. Their blood splatters and I can hear a commotion coming form inside the restaurant. Now the other guys are pointing their reloaded guns at me. I didn't think it would end this way. Shot up by chubby Italians. Ever since Mona died, I've seen myself in a gutter clasping a brown paper bag around a liquor bottle in New York's winter frost.
"Who do you work for?" asks the short one in his broken English. He must be the leader of the two.
"I work for John Hendrix, I'm looking for the guy who shot his wife."
"You better leave him alone, Mario. He's working for a cop." Mario's brother's English is even worse. He sounds like he just got off the boat.
"He's right. A lot of people will miss me." I tinge my voice with sarcasm. I can count the people who'll miss me on one hand and the people who want me dead on a million. I've killed hundreds in my drug fueled wars against gangsters. I believe that some of those men must have had wives, kids, mothers, and a host of other loved ones who'll never see them again, for better or worse.
"Alright, Luigi" Mario grumbles. He lowers his gun.
We hear sirens.
"Mario! We gotta get out of here! The police!" Luigi's looking around, nervous.
"Come with us, friend!" Mario invites as he rushes further into the alley.
I know the cops in this town are connected to the mob, and I don't want to get tied to a chair in a basement while some thug beats my head in with a baseball bat. Mario and Luigi lead me to a a large white van with the Morricone Brothers' logo on the side. We get into the van and Luigi speeds off. The sirens fade into the background.
It smells like shit in here. There are plumbing tools all around. "You can just let me off at the Motel 6," I say. I want to puke and I have a job to do. It's not turning out to be a good night for me. To be fair, it never does.
Luigi passes the Motel 6.
"Come on!" I complain. "This is bullshit!"
"You said you were looking for the guy that killed John Hendrix's wife," Mario began. "I know who it is."
"Then let it spill."
"If you come with us, you'll probably find him. He's an underling of Bowser."
I've heard the name Bowser before. Back in Jersey they called him the dragon. He had a thing for fire. He left a trail of scorched bodies that led all the way to the west coast and no cop was brave enough to chase him. If Bowser is enemies with anyone in this town, it probably has to be John.
"Fine. What's your story?" I'm not enthusiastic to hear Mario's story, but I know I'm going to. People like to talk.
"So, we come here with our uncle after some shit goes down in the old country," Mario begins. Back when I was hauling gangbangers to my precinct in New York, I heard a lot of stories that began the same way. "We start work for this bastard Morricone. We bust our asses wading through shit and god knows what just so we can afford a tiny apartment in the ghetto, and then we see these motherfuckers selling drugs and killing people and wearing fucking designer blazers. Worst of all, they walk around acting like regular guys like me and my brother don't deserve to kiss their feet."
"So you decided to take the law into your own hands," I interrupt.
"We figure, by knocking of the wise guys, we're making Vegas a better place."
"You ought to leave the gunfighting to professionals," I say bitterly. I take a moment to wonder why I've kept on fighting. I'm beginning to think it's just a sick, prolonged suicide. I'm playing kiddie poker for cyanide peanuts.
"Hindsight's twenty-twenty, friend," Luigi says.
"Call me Max."
"This is the last time, Max, I swear," Mario pleads. "After this, I'm throwing away my gun."
"Why bother with it this time?" I ask.
"They got Peach!" Luigi cries.
"Yeah," Mario says, voice shaking. "They got my girlfriend. She's a stripper over at the Harem."
I get a picture in my head of a middle aged hag with excessive fat. Peach. I've never heard a worse stripper name.
"Fine. I'll help, but it better be worth my time."
"When I have Peach back, I'll take you right to Bowser's stronghold."
I ride with Mario and Luigi to a construction site, sitting motionless in yet another night of tacky Las Vegas parties.
"I'll be back in a minute, I say." Before I walk away from the van, I check my gun. I can't seem to find my other clip. I must have lost it somewhere. Damn. How is it that I can still buy guns?
"I have a little problem," I say before explaining my situation.
The Italian brothers give me their twenty two revolvers, fully loaded. I fit them awkwardly into my shoulder holsters before walking to the construction site. The place is crawling with goombas and crackheads. A wise guy with greasy hair asks me what I'm doing there.
"I'm looking for Peach," I say.
The guy laughs like a hyena. "Maybe you oughtta try Georgia, bro."
It makes me a little angry, but I can't afford to start shooting yet. I'd hate to get Mario's ugly stripper girlfriend killed. "Well, maybe you can just tell me who I have to talk to score some blow."
"Yeah, follow me." The wise guy takes me to an unfinished room.
There's a big guy behind a little table stacked high with little baggies of coke and wads of cash. In the corner there's an angelic blonde in a skimpy pink outfit with her hands behind her back. She's been gagged with duct tape. I have a hard time believing that that fatass Mario bagged a girl like her. I look around for an old hag, but I don't see one. The dealer at the table is giving me a funny look. Christ. It's time for action. I smile to throw them off guard, and then I draw as fast as I can and focus, thinking of the way I could do the most damage in the smallest amount of time. I send one bullet through the cocaine bags and into the dealer's gut. Blood splatters and a cloud and it snows powdery white drugs. The slick guy next to me is distracted, so I pistol whip him in the temple and draw blood before I blow his brains out. I spin around to find two more well dressed lackeys burst into the room with assault rifles. I jump back, emptying the revolvers into them.
I land behind the table next to the chubby dealer. He tries to gut me like a fish with a switchblade, but I grab his wrist. I palm the dusty ground, trying to find something I can use against him. I clutch the cold metal handle of an uzi. That'll do. I put the barrel between his hairy breasts and hold down the trigger, putting something like twenty bullets into his ribs. I struggle to toss the heavy corpse aside.
Another guy takes cover just outside the doorway and shoots in with a desert eagle. I kick over the table. It won't give me the cover I need, but it's better than nothing. The fifty caliber rounds burst through the cheap presswood and hit the concrete wall behind me. I pop up when I believe my enemy is reloading and unload the rest of the uzi clip. I miss. I wait for the goomba to pop out from his cover again. When he does, I hurl the empty machine gun at him and tag him in the face with the heavy metal. He stumbles backwards. I jump forward and roll on the ground as I grab an assault rifle to finish off Mr. Desert Eagle.
One last guy steps out from behind a corner with a shotgun and hesitates. I don't. I put all three rounds of a three round burst into his forehead. If he had just pulled the trigger, I'd be dead and gone, and all my nightmares about Michelle and Mona and the Brazillians would have been erased. Oh, well. One more day. That's what the bums say.
I get up, dust myself off, and go back into the little room. I rip the tape off of Peach's mouth.
"Son of a bitch!" she yelps.
"You're Mario's girlfriend?"
"Yeah, I am. So what?"
"You sure like 'em short and chubby, lady." I start untying her.
"Mario's a sweety pie. He'd do anything for me. He's not like the assholes I used to date."
"Whatever you say."
"Where is he?"
I finish untying Peach. "Mario and Luigi are in a van out front. Go on ahead. I need to look around first."
From the corpses, I pick up the desert eagle and the magazine that it's user didn't get to load into it as well as one of the military grade rifles with a couple of extra banana clips. Also, I pick up that last guy's twelve guage on my way out.
I find Mario necking with Peach as I approach the van. I throw him the assault rifle and he catches it. "Are you ready to go kill Bowser?" I ask.
"Hold on," Mario says, smiling nervously. "I thought you said I should leave the gunfighting to professionals."
"I thought we had a deal."
"I don't know what deal you made."
"Fine. Just tell me where Bowser is. I'll take care of him."
"He's in this new place called Albion Castle. He has a VIP room."
"Can I at least get a ride?" I almost regret asking, remembering the smell inside the van.
"Sure. We can do that much."
Luigi drives the van down the strip to a building shaped like a castle with a big, animated light display of a knight killing a dragon on top.
"Thanks for the ride," I say. I get into the van. Mario, Luigi, and Peach drive away.
The inside of the castle is typical of what you'd expect from a Vegas casino: slobby middle-aged tourists lose their paychecks playing craps and blackjack. Occasionally, there's a young person in hipster glasses. The Beach Boys blare from speakers in the corners. At least it's better than the godawful mechanical shit that the teenagers listen to these days. I do my best to conceal my shotgun as I ask around for Bowser's location. Nobody wants to say, and they're not exactly letting old guys like me into the VIP rooms. I get pissed off. I pull the desert eagle and put a bullet in the ceiling. Everyone leaves except for the violent criminals, who pull their guns.
I kick over a card table and take cover. I pop out occasionally to bore through somebody's body with a fifty caliber bullet. I run out of them, but I still have plenty of enemies left, so I dive out from behind my cover to mangle two more men with shotgun pellets before I hit the ground and scramble to pick up twin glocks.
I jump behind the bar while the remaining thugs empty their clips into the wood. I pop up and focus to take out the last of the bad guys as I strafe the length of the bar. In doing so, I take a searing bullet to the shoulder, but I swallow a few painkillers to dull the sensation. I reload my handguns with clips I find on the dead bodies.
Bowser comes out of his room, toting a combat shotgun. He's a monster of a man, close enough to eight feet tall. His burn wounds, which healed long ago, disfigure his skin, giving it a scaly texture. Now I know why that dragon nickname stuck.
"Max Payne," he growls. "I never thought I'd ever have the pleasure."
"I'm here on behalf of John Hendrix."
"Oh, him. You already got the guy that killed his wife. Take your pick, any corpse in the casino. You could say they done it."
"I probably could, but you're the one who called the hit."
"Well, if that's how it has to be, I'm sorry you feel that way, Mr. Payne."
Bowser opens fire with the shotgun and I jump out of the way. When the pellets tear into the carpet, it catches the floor on fire. He has dragon's breath in that gun. He'll burn down the house just to get me. He keeps pulling the trigger, demolishing cover and spreading the fire. I can't seem to get a good lock on him as I run and jump to avoid the flames.
Bowser roars in laughter. "What's wrong, Payne? A little too hot for you?"
I see the cheap pun coming from a mile a way, but I'm not in the witty spirit to provide a snappy comeback. I look around and find an emergency exit. Almost as if he can smell my thoughts, Bowser blasts a huge sign hanging just above the door, causing it to crash down, burning into my path. I turn around and shoot at him while I decide what to do. There's only one way two ways out of here: I can kill the dragon or get blown away with the ashes. It looks like I'll be taking the latter path. As playing cards and money burn and flitter around me, the infernal scene seems like a personal armageddon, decades in the making. Bowser manages to hide his oversized body behind a table while I empty my guns.
To my surprise, Luigi bursts in through a side door with the assault rifle I gave Mario earlier. The tall Italian vigilante plumber takes a blast of dragon's breath right to the chest. His twisted, smoldering corpse flies back out the door. I would run through the flames to finish Bowser, but the journey would be a waste without a weapon. I can't take a guy like him with my bare hands. Little do I know, Mario has been sneaking around in the casino since I laid waste to the last goomba. He sneaks up behind Bowser with a sledgehammer and breaks one of the monster mobster's knees into a misshapen mockery of anatomy with a power swing. Bowser screams in a tone that catches me off guard before Mario breaks his head open like a watermelon with another powerful blow from the sledge. He gestures for me to follow him out, so I do.
Outside, Peach is tending to Luigi's steaming wound. I don't know where Peach got a fire extinguisher, but she's used one on Mario's brother. He's still alive, but he's bleeding out. He needs a doctor. Mario tells Peach to take Luigi to the hospital as fast she can. The stripper speeds away with her boyfriend's brother.
As Albion Castle goes up in flames, Mario and I hear the sirens of police cruisers, fire trucks, and ambulances getting closer and closer.
"I guess you changed your mind about helping me." I had Mario pegged wrong. In a strange twist of fate, I'm glad I did.
"It was Peach," Mario said. "I can't say no to Peach."
Mario leads us away from the fiery scene through a sewer tunnel. I'll be glad to get out of Vegas.