Chapter 10: Funeral Bloodbath
Have no prayer
So, I keep the gun with me
I'll do it with no sweat
They mean business
No time for sissy pig
"Red Faction," copyright by Mel
"So they had me with this family in L.A. and..." Revy began.
Mike interrupted. "Los Angeles, how'd you get here?"
"No, no, no," she said impatiently. "Lewiston-Auburn. Up in Maine. Anyway this couple had about ten of us foster kids, kept most of us in the garage. It was total crap. So I burnt down their garage after a week."
They had met at an agreed upon spot. The crest of the Cedar Hill meadow in Central Park. It was late Saturday afternoon on a warm autumn day. The leaves were falling from the elms. They had been awkwardly silent most of the hour sitting on the blanket together.
"You're pulling my leg aren't you? How old were you?" he said laughing.
"I really did," she insisted. "I was ten, I think."
"You've been all over the place haven't you?"
"No one wanted me," she said, and regretted the words. She clenched her fist till the knuckles turned white under the skin.
"What do you have there?" he said, prying open her hand, she let him have the crumpled piece of paper reluctantly.
Mike unfolded it, looked at the scrawled sharp letters:
1. Do NOT loos temper
2. Breath befor talking.
"You spelled some words incorrectly," he pointed out. She grabbed the paper away scowling.
"I don't want you to hate me," and then she really bit her tongue.
"Why? Because you write notes to yourself?" Mike shook his head. "I was kidding."
"Working on number two," she said and was quiet for a few minutes staring across the field.
"You're looking better," Mike said quietly. "Don't look so sick anymore. Tony was fucking with you. All that weed and crack will mess you up."
"I never f.. slept with Tony," she said sharply.
"Sorry," he apologized. She shrugged.
"Are you going to go back to school now that you got new foster parents?" he asked.
"Maybe," she lied while carefully twirling a piece of grass. Stared a thousand miles away.
"It's so much better uptown," Mike said after a while. "Chinatown seems like the world until you leave. It's just a couple of city blocks and a bunch of idiots who don't want to change. You need to get out of there, hanging out there is bad news."
"Yeah," said Revy listlessly. Her pager went off. "Oh crap... I mean gosh, I guess I have to go. I'll give you a call again OK?
--
The Sunday morning skies over Manhattan had gone steel gray.
Martin Sai's Porsche led the black parade down Canal Street. A hearse followed along with over a dozen limousines and too many cars to count, all with their lights on. Revy was wide-eyed staring back at the line. Up till now she had had no idea of the numbers of Born to Kill. She was only familiar with the small group of Canal Boys under Tony Ngo.
From nowhere there had materialized, hundreds of Vietnamese gangsters. Some groups had arrived late in the morning from as far away as Canada to the north and Florida from the south. All dressed uniformly alike in their black linen suits, black sneakers and black sunglasses. Their hair spiked, all bristling with attitude and menace. Almost all of them under twenty years of age.
Revy had raided Noelle's clothing and had found a relatively modest black skirt, nylons, and a matching black jacket. A pair of flats had been chosen, she would not sacrifice mobility. She wore a pair of elbow white cotton gloves – her own sign of respect for the deceased
"It was a drive-by," Martin finally spoke to her. It was the first time in two days he had not been distracted with the arrangements, "Huynh Ngo was gunned down right there on the sidewalk. Of all the dai lows I had he was the best of them all."
The tone rang false, Revy stared sharply at her boss.
Huynh had been shot in retaliation for the violence she had begun There had been other gun fights and stabbings throughout New York City. But Huynh's death had been a great shock to the group, the dai low had been well liked. Martin believed the funeral show was necessary for the brotherhood's morale. Huynh's death, like everything else was something to be controlled and used.
"How about them?" she jerked her thumb at the police cruisers parked on the side with the lights flashing right before the entrance of the Holland Tunnel.
'What about them," Martin grunted.
--
At the gates of the Roseland Cemetery, gang members handed to each of the mourners a white carnation and a good-luck penny to be thrown in the open grave. Martin shook his head when Revy went to accept one.
"You won't need it," he said curtly. "Stay in the back and keep out of the way." Then he strode into the milling crowd with his lieutenants marshaled around him. Revy was uncomfortably aware of some hard stares, her reputation as Martin's gunsel was common knowledge.
"Well, fine then" she grumbled. "Arrogant piss-ass..."
But Martin was right about one thing. She did not belong in this crowd. All of the mourners whether male or female were had a common background. All of them refugees from the fall of South Vietnam, a lost generation in a land that would have preferred they did not exist at all. Reminders of a lost war that Revy only knew of from movies.
So the girl stood apart, fifteen meters back from anyone else in the crowd underneath a towering oak. The pallbearers came up the hill bearing the casket. Tony Ngo first on the right with a set face. Revy realizing belatedly that Huynh Ngo must have been Tony's older brother.
The pallbearers marched through the crowd. Smoke billowed from an open garbage can by the grave, the clothing of the deceased was being burnt so it would be available to him in the afterlife. The crowd grew quiet.
"Soooo, how does it feel to be a killer?" A soft voice said behind Revy.
It was Mr. Gaan. Dressed for the occasion in a gray trench-coat, but still somehow undistinguished in every way. He had come up behind undetected and far too close for comfort.
Revy felt as if acid was suddenly running through her veins at the sight of him. She stepped hastily away, turning to face Gaan.
"How does it feel to be an asshole?" she retorted.
Gaan crushed his cigarette with the sole of his shoe, his eyes narrowed to slits. "You've lost respect for your elders since you've strapped on those guns, little girl."
"I'll let you in on a secret," he leaned forward. "Never screw with a man's livelihood. I've spent too much time the last month cleaning up the mess you created with your little adventure, speaking with cops and so forth. If I had had even the slightest..."
"Why did you make me pick up the payment?" she hissed, letting the anger show. "Really rub it in that I hadn't really escaped, wasn't really free was I? Let me know that I owed my slightest breath to you? Don't think I didn't GET it, you sick fuck. Why do you think I wore that collar?"
"No one's ever really free," he responded levelly. "Best you learn it now. We all owe someone in our lives. Would you have rather not known?"
She was shaking, "Gaan, did you ever go down.. down into that goddamn prick's little torture chamber while I was there?"
"Of course," he replied, his eyes fixed on hers. "Who do you think was supplying our friend Slim with Asian girls? We were. You were just an extra bonus. The stray who walked in the door."
"Bastards," spittle flecked her lips. In a rage she stepped forward, with a spastic motion went for the guns beneath her jacket.
Gaan was faster. He moved in a blur; spun the girl around effortlessly, pinned her right arm behind her back. Something sharp came up between her legs and pressed against the right inner thigh.
Two of the mourners briefly looked back at the girl who appeared to be leaning back against the man's chest, possibly her father for support during this difficult time. Gaan nodded politely at them and they turned away.
"No respect for the dead I see," Gaan said, eyes glinting. "I can crush your vocal cords with a blow. The stiletto hidden beneath your dress will cut through the femoral artery in your thigh. Within a minute enough blood will have poured down your leg that you will start to feel dizzy. You'll lose consciousness before death comes. I'll hold you up till then. And not one person will know... or care.
He twisted her arm forcefully, she had to stand up on tiptoe. A thin noise came out of her throat.
"Give me one good reason why you should live," he murmured.
"I have five," Revy said painfully. "Coming up the hill on the right. They're not here to sing kumbaya and cry a river."
"What?" Gaan's eyes flickered.
"You're right," he said slowly. "We have a problem. It is time for the dance of the weapons is it not?"
They were spread out in a line walking up the hill towards the assembled mourners. Asian men in black trench-coats that flappeded out in the cool breeze, their eyes masked by sunglasses. No one but Revy and Gaan had noted their purposeful approach; heads had been lowered as they started to lower Huynh's casket into the ground.
Gaan released the girl with a slight push to the side, dropped the stiletto to the ground. "Eeyah, I should not have come," he sighed, "It is what it is. Clear the way, girl. We will close with them. Kill them all."
The gunmen stopped at the same time. Metal glinted as guns were jerked out of the trench-coats. Revy took out the Berettas, Gaan suddenly had large Thai blades in each hand that had been concealed in his long coat.
The rapid fire burst of Uzi's tore the air. Screams and shouts followed, the crowd broke as people started to fall and others took flight. There was the boom of a shotgun. The gunmen were shooting randomly into what had instantly become a terrified mob.
Revy hurdled a tombstone and a crawling woman. The Berettas crashed in her hands. The nearest gunman's head jerked back. He dropped his Uzi and fell.
Two of the gunmen had run forward and were shooting people on the ground. Revy spun and opened fire. They dove for cover.
The crowd burst past her, the fallen trampled underneath, people stampeding down the hill towards the cemetery gates. Out of the corner of her eye, Revy saw Martin Sai fleeing with astonishing speed. It was absolutely incredible, she was the only one there who had come with weaponry beside Gaan. No one had even considered such an extreme act of violence.
Bullets snapped by her, tore the ground at her feet. Revy fired wildly back without pretense of aim, sprinting past a mausoleum with marble chips spraying into the air.
One of the gunman, short and with a shaved head frantically tried to clear a jammed shell. Gaan came in low with both blades extended, one to the throat, the other to the groin. The gunman's scream was choked off in a gout of blood.
Revy rolled behind the thick base of an obelisk, fumbled for a clip and realized she had not brought any extra. "Fuck!" She tossed the empty gun aside, scrambled up and about.
Gaan danced as bullets stitched his midsection. The gray trench-coat flared out as he fell spinning onto his knees and then slumped onto his face.
Tony Ngo stood alone at his brother's open grave. He spit on the ground in defiance as the two leading gunman closed on him, unaware that their companions had been taken out behind them. The attackers were laughing, eyes dilated, iced up on meth for the job. The tall, skinny one pumped the gauge on his shotgun.
Revy ran hard with the one remaining Beretta clasped in both hands. She disposed of Gaan's killer with a shot from behind as she tore past the the shooter, then slid as if she was going for home at the feet of the man with the shotgun. Her last shots were fired up into his torso. He lurched forward and fell on Revy, his shotgun just out of arm's reach.
"The yin wa," shouted the remaining gunman, his teeth showing in a rictus. He stepped towards her swinging the Uzi around. Revy wailed as the barrel swept down towards her head and squeezed her eyes shut. Tony lunged forward cursing and took the gunman to the ground where they rolled kicking and slugging.
Revy rolled the dead man off and grabbed the shotgun from the ground. She crawled over to the fighting men and jammed the barrel of the shotgun hard into the face of Tony's opponent.
"Eat this!" she shrieked and pulled the trigger.
--
Tony pulled her up off the ground.
Smoke from the gunfire drifted by in the air. Sirens sounded in the distance. They stared at each other, dimly aware of the continued shouting and screaming at the base of the hill.
"Your gloves," he said. She blinked in confusion and then peeled the elbow length gloves off as directed and handed them over.
Tony took the Beretta and the shotgun from where they lay on the ground. He walked over to his brother's open grave and dropped the guns and gloves out of sight between the casket and the side of the grave.
"Get lost," Tony said straightening up, not looking at her.
She started limping away, somewhere in the confusion she had twisted her ankle. Then stopped.
"No wait, I can't," she said, stumbling back over the white overturned lawn-chairs, the dozen or so bodies that lay sprawled about the grassy lawn. Tony followed slowly.
"Hey, it's Mr. Gaan, what happened?" he asked stupidly, wiping the blood from his face.
Revy knelt down beside the body. Gaan was dead.
"He brought knives to a gunfight," she said.