Human Flesh: A Max Payne Fan Fiction
Note: Parantheses indicate Spanish dialogue.
Chapter 1
Nuevo Canal, a shining, up-and-coming Central American hub packed with all kinds of characters from all faucets of Mexico, marking its trail from the footsteps of aspiring entrepreneurs from outside the city and over the world, and down to the sleaze which stood in packs outside clubs and bars, pledging their allegiance to one of the homegrown drug cartels operating in the area. The city felt young, pumped-up and naïve to the darkness surrounding the bright neon lights which hung dangerously from the rusted roofs. It was too soft to be Sao Paulo, but hard enough to beat the Bronx, and friendly enough if you ignore the stares of the local populace, wondering what a bald, crazed-out gringo from some spray-tan television state like California was doing in a college town deep in their country.
It was all quiet in Nuevo Canal, and it strangely felt like home.
And here I was, having just left one of Brazil's finest with a penchant for the organ trade walk with a limp leg and a health insurance claim at a bustling airport in Brazil just days ago, brushing out my conscience with heavy doses of native Tequila in a dive bar like a bloodstain on a white shirt, hoping that the painkillers don't wear off too quickly.
The bartender here, Eduardo as kids around here called him, was a middle-aged, olive-skinned man with a smile more genuine than half of New York. The man offered me more shots of Tequila on the house. My guess was that he was beginning to empathize with the fact that the kids were starting to gather an interest towards me. Fine by me, at least we're not in Hoboken with a bunch of macho mob types waving pistols and talking about how their dads killed suspected enemies-of-the-state.
"Here's another shot, Max, drink up." Smiled Eduardo. "And don't worry about them, they're just not used to seeing faces like yours around."
"Thanks… I'll keep that in mind."
At this point, a young man, no more than 25 years old, runs into the bar like he's seen the Wendigo, tears running down his cheeks and collapsing on his knees, pleading. If I had seen real, unfiltered pain fill every part of a man's face slowly, this would be one of them.
"Ayúdame… por favor!"
Didn't take me long to realize that Eduardo knew the kid.
"Alejandro?"
"(They've done Sebastian and took Lisa, those fucking animals!)"
From the sound of his voice, I immediately knew that things were not looking up for him. Everyone in the bar, myself included, rushed out of the bar and into the heavily lighted streets outside. A crowd was gathering outside a closed market, with only the horrified screams and the tribal-like clatter of footsteps to add to the cacophony. As I pushed through the crowd I finally saw where the whole ordeal sprang up from.
Back in Homicide, the dead and dying were routine things to look at, from the crime scenes to the morgue. Serial killers and psychos ruled the streets of New York, and it was our job to put the pieces left behind back together. Dealing with death was our MO.
It was nothing like this.
Poor kid was frothing from the mouth, taking sharp, hissing breaths in an attempt to stay alive, his entrails spread across the concrete from a large abdominal wound like some depraved murderer's shitfest. With each breath Sebastian took, the slower the wick of his life lighted, casting way to the darkness. His eyes were glassy yet so full of fear. The kid was tipping on death, and he wasn't prepared for it.
Someone wanted to send a message.
The man from earlier bolted across the crowd, cradling what's left. It's hard enough to lose a friend, let alone with his guts spilling out in the open for all to see.
"(They've killed my best friend, those sons of bitches!)"
"(Easy, Alejandro, take a moment of clarity and try and rem-)"
"(Oh fuck off, Eduardo! …Someone tipped us off, I know it!)"
"(Could you remember who? Is he here?)"
Scanning the crowd quickly, Alejandro quickly reached out his index finger, aiming at his prime suspect; a goateed man, dressed in a lime green football jersey and short cargo pants.
"(There's that motherfucker, somebody get him!)"
Understandably, upon realizing that he was the A-number one perp, the man ran for it, pushing through the crowd and mantling over a nearby fence. I felt my legs propel forward in the midst of this madness as I let my strength drive me towards this man.
I still don't know why I did it. You thought after the hell I've been through in New York and Brazil, I knew better not to peek into local business. I could rule out my guilt, my urge to protect and serve the weak and helpless or the painkiller-induced psychosis as causes. Didn't matter to me right now, all I could think of was how predictable this man was, and how close I was to tackling this son of a bitch in the gutter.
Running through the alleyways, I could see mothers quickly hiding their kids from the chase and young college kids singing their demons out in drunken splendor. As dangerous as this place may seem, an innocuous familiarity left its mark where crime infests.
Sliding across a parked Toyota, the man ran through the doors of a local family general store opposite it while its windows flung open, revealing two equally sleazy-looking men armed with a couple of MAC-10s. In parts like these, there was clearly a disdain for standard protocol for firearm usage. Somehow I am reminded of my first shootout in Nova Esperança as this was happening.
The rattle of the submachine guns grew louder in unison as I hid behind the Toyota, blind-firing my weapon in a piss-poor attempt at drawing their fire elsewhere. Upon hearing the halt of gunfire from the other end, I tried my luck and ran across the street, lunging towards the window and firing my gun at the first man, pushing his body forward from the force of the bullets before quickly switching my gun with that of the MAC-10 and firing it at the second gunman, slumping him against the display closet, causing shards of glass to break and shine like several irregularly-shaped blood-covered diamonds.
Out of the blue, the perp swung a baseball bat onto the floor I was lying on, missing me and hitting his dead friend instead. The man was clearly on some kind of drug, which probably explains why he didn't leave town like these rest of those chumps that did the kid.
"(You've been playing too many video games, you dumb gringo!)"
Swinging the bat madly, the perp attempted to subdue me by way of the home run. This man couldn't count on his own life if he wanted to pitch for the Yankees.
Exploiting a weakness, I quickly disarmed the bat, punched him in the left temple, twisting him around and locking his arm, causing it to snap like a twig, making him scream.
I dragged him out of the store, with my right hand against his neck, pushing his head down as I escorted him back to the crowd where Alejandro and Eduardo were.
"(Fuck you, you American piece of shit! You don't know who you're fucking with!)"
"No habla espanol, amigo."
"You know who I work for, puto?!"
"Enlighten me."
"That fag Alejandro fucked him and me over, and he's gonna pay for that! Hope that bitch of his is ready!"
This man was beginning to get on my nerves.
"Funny, I'm gonna take you to him, you small-time chump."
After some quality time, we finally managed to head back where we started, as Alejandro, with that vitriol-filled face of his, ushered me and the perp into some dilapidated building close to the bar I was just in.
Boarding up the door with a plaster board, Alejandro pushed the perp against the wall and placed the cold barrel of a 1911 against his throat, while slamming his broken arm against the wall, causing him to yelp in pain and revealing his open palm.
He was downright pissed.
"(Where did those guys take Lisa, Stefan? Answer, you piece of shit!)"
"(I don't know, but I bet she's sucking Juan's dick like an ice pop! You ain't getting me to talk!)"
"(Oh yeah?) Hey gringo, shoot this bastard in the hand."
Torture is usually a last resort, and this is coming from someone who has lost count of the number of people he has killed. For this piece of shit though, I'm making an exception. Turning the sights of the MAC to his exposed palm, I pulled the trigger.
The perp winced as he lost all sensation from his fingers, remaining delirious from the close proximity of gunfire as bits of skin and flesh splattered all over the room. A strange feeling gathered around my stomach as I wondered how far my sense of humanity has drifted off to. The perp was calm, as if he had already knew what fate was coming.
"(Feeling confident now, asshole?! Keep talking!)"
"(Okay… so they told me they were taking Lisa and a bunch of guys to somewhere south, they were planning on selling her to a bunch of traffickers.)"
"(Where south? Nacogdoches? Ciudad Gabriel?)"
"(I think it was… it was Puerto la Cruz. They're taking her, with a lot of other girls there to be shipped over the Venezuelan border.)"
"(To where?)"
The perp began to laugh.
"(You name it, Colombia, Brazil, I heard even as far as Thailand or something. But don't worry, you won't make it. No one fucks with the Rojas Cartel and gets away with it!)"
"(Shut the fuck up.)"
Alejandro fired his gun, sending brain matter splattering against the wall where the perp stood. After the deed was done he took extremely deep breaths, not unlike the ones Sebastian took before he died.
Jesus fucking Christ, just when I thought everything was over.
"…Hey, thanks gringo, I owe you one. What's your name?"
"Name's Payne. Max Payne."
"Fuck, the Max Payne. I've heard a lot about you man. Weren't you in Brazil working for some yuppie scum? It was all over the news."
I felt myself sitting against the wall as I placed the MAC on a nearby table.
"Yeah I did. They all died, and it's my fault."
"Shit, yeah, I've heard man. Guess I won't talk about it."
"Good call. Just to satiate my general curiosity, who's Juan, and what's his relationship with the Rojas Cartel?"
Alejandro paused momentarily, and raised his hands, sighing.
"What's there to know? He's an enforcer for the cartel and he's done some real fucked up shit, like throwing kids into vats of acid and scalping the corpses of football players that failed him. Used to be a dealer for him, then, he fucked me over."
"…Based on what your 'friend' told me before we got here, I'm under the impression that it was the other way around."
"…Look gringo, Juan's a goddamned animal, I wanted out of the game, I hated seeing what these drogas did to my people, okay? I wanted to go straight, start a family with Lisa!"
"And look where that took you, now Lisa's gone and Sebastian is dead."
"…Well there's no turning back now. I need to go and save Lisa."
"You'll get killed."
"Then I guess I will, man!" Screamed Alejandro. Hard not to feel sorry for the kid.
"Have to make up to all the shit I've done. You're gonna help me right?"
"My bodyguard days are over, kid. Look elsewhere."
The young man sighed and gave me an exasperated look.
"Ay Dios Mio Max, help me out, man. I'll pay you with the cash that I stole from Juan, 500000 American Dollars. Besides, the cartel will find us sooner or later and more people are gonna turn up missing, and they'll find you. So are you in?"
Reluctantly, I accepted the offer, not because of the high pay or the question of morality, but because I couldn't see another innocent person die for nothing. I had too much to carry on my shoulders and knowing that a girl would be shipped off to some shithole to turn herself out would be the feather that breaks the horse's back.
"I'll see you tomorrow morning then, Alejandro."
As I walked out of the building and back to the motel I realized that I had pulled myself back into the same cycle which began nearly 11 years ago. As I sat down on my bed and downed another bottle of painkillers before washing it down with booze I let my mind move away from my body, trying to swallow everything that has happened today in a short span of four hours.
This was my warm welcome to Mexico, and I'm prepared to embrace it with both arms.