The Expendables and Jimmy Bobo
Barney Ross was walking down a deserted, dimly lit street in the heart of New Orleans, Louisiana, enjoying the peace and quiet, when something in the air changed, and he stopped cold. As a trained mercenary and former soldier, he knew when someone was behind him.
Without a sound, he drew his .45 Long Colt and whirled around, coming face to face with a suppressed nickel-plated Browning Hi-Power held by none other than Jimmy Bobo.
"Barney?" Jimmy asked, sounding confused.
"Yeah. What were you doing, coming up behind me with your gun drawn?"
Jimmy unscrewed the suppressor from his firearm and tucked both into his suit jacket. "I didn't know it was you. I was here to kill a man named Robert Smith. Guy who hired me gave me information on the target, pictures, where he'd be at what time, everything."
"Didn't you recognize my pretty face?" Barney asked sarcastically, re-holstering his revolver and tucking it into the back of his jeans.
Jimmy shook his head. "Pictures I had looked nothin' like you from the front. In the back, in the dark, yeah, you looked the same."
"So, somebody set you up to kill me."
"Looks like it. You have anyone in mind who wants you dead?"
Barney stared at his old friend until the man relented. "Okay, you have anyone in mind who wants you dead, but doesn't have the gumption to do it themselves, and instead hires a hit man and gives him false information?"
"Not off the top of my head, nah." Barney replied, scratching his stubbled jaw. "You get paid?"
Jimmy scoffed. "'Course I got paid. One of my rules is half the money up front, the other when the job is done. So, since I ain't gonna kill you, half's all I'm getting."
"Unless you changed your fee, I'd say that a mil twenty-five for nothing is pretty good." Barney commented. "Much less than I make per job, but…"
Well accustomed to Ross's good-natured ribbing, Jimmy didn't take the bait. He simply rolled his eyes, and headed back down the way he'd come, intent on visiting his employer who'd nearly gotten him to eliminate a man he'd known since they were young and spry in the military.
"Hey. Where you goin'?" Barney called out, striding to catch up.
Looking at him like he'd lost his mind, Jimmy replied, "To go have a chat with the guy who tricked me into almost putting a bullet in your head. Where do you think I'm going?"
"That man probably thinks you've already done the deed and won't be looking to hear from you until the heat dies down a little." Barney reasoned. "How about instead you come to Point's first? Been a while since the guys have seen you. Hell, it's been a while since I've seen you, and we live in the same city."
Jimmy cracked a grin. "That's because I was smart enough to stay local. You and your boys decided it would be more fun to globetrot."
"Smart? You call nearly killing me smart? You're lucky I wasn't in a bad mood." Barney retorted. "Coulda killed you before you even blinked."
"Sure."
On the walk towards Point's, the bar where all the members of The Expendables hung out more often than they did their own homes, Bobo and Ross took the time to catch up.
"So. Still got the same team?" Jimmy questioned, narrowly avoiding a pile of trash that would have messed up his expensive shoes.
Barney nodded. "Plus some extras. Recruited some newbies a while ago to go after Stonebanks…"
"Wait, Conrad Stonebanks, the guy who founded The Expendables with you? I thought you killed him a long time ago."
"So did I. He had on enough body armor to survive and went into business for himself. Caught up to him last year, and this time, he won't be coming back."
Jimmy rose a brow skeptically. "You sure?"
"Shot him in the chest multiple times, and he didn't have body armor on this time. Oh, and then a building fell on him."
At a loss for words, the hit man looked at the mercenary with more respect than before and allowed him to continue his story. "Tell me more about the newbies."
"They're real good. Real good, competent. Able to keep the pace with us old timers and take our crap while dishing their own."
"That's helpful."
Barney nodded. "Absolutely. Also got a nut named Galgo. One of the finest mercs I've ever worked with, but he's only a little less off the chain than Gunnar."
"Yikes. How is the big lug?"
"Gunnar's doing better. Quit drinking, and this time I think it's for real."
"And the drugs?"
"Oh, he stopped doing drugs a few years back, and got into science. Turns out he's a lot smarter than we realized, when he's not Crankenstein."
Jimmy chuckled. "One of Tool's better nicknames. How is he? I've been meaning to freshen up some of my ink, and with Lisa home on bedrest, she won't be able to help with that for a while. But Tool did my original work, so he should do just fine."
"He's doing well. Working a lot less, but still comes in often enough to bust our chops, update our ink, and challenge Christmas and Doc to knife throwing competitions. They always lose. No matter how great they are, Tool's the best I've ever seen with a blade."
Jimmy nodded. "I remember. Saw him in action a few times, and even I was impressed."
"Know what's more impressive? He got himself a woman."
"Tool always has a woman. Part of where his nickname came from." Jimmy observed. "What's the big deal?"
Barney smiled as they approached the bar, its bright lights illuminating the gleaming chrome of motorcycles. His had sprung a leak earlier, which was why he'd been walking to the bar. And, come to think of it, the only way Jimmy's employer would have known he'd be walking was if he'd tampered with his bike.
"I think the man who wanted you to kill me killed my bike first."
"Makes sense. I never see you without your motorcycle."
"It's a great bike." Barney agreed. "Anyway, back to Tool's woman. The big deal is, this one's for real. No plastic surgery, no enhanced parts, just a real, good woman. We've all met her and approve.
"She got Tool to quit smoking, lose some weight, and even attend church with her around the corner at least twice a month."
"Wow. That's more often than I go." Jimmy quipped.
"Used to be more than I went too, but that girl, she's special. Got every one of us to go with her whenever we aren't busy."
"So she straightened him out?"
"Pretty much. He's still got his tats and refuses to wear more clothes to work or stop taking calls for us to get us jobs, but otherwise, he'd gotten much better."
"How did she manage it?" Jimmy asked, impressed.
Barney pushed open the door to Point's and they were immediately assaulted with sounds of raucous laughter from the guys, loud music blaring from the ancient jukebox, and knives being hurtled at the dart board with alarming speed and sharpness. It was good to be home.
Spotting the now familiar blonde at the bar, Barney canted his head towards her and said, "That's her. Sarah. Came into the bar crying about four years ago. We were all away, but Tool was here, and believe it or not, he can be gentle sometimes, especially with fragile women, and asked her for her story."
"Which was?"
"She and her husband were missionaries to dangerous foreign countries for years, and only three years after they got married, he was hit by a car in Colorado, and died. She'd been to New Orleans before, and figured it was far enough away to escape her emotions.
"Sarah was only planning on staying a short time, but Tool convinced her to stay longer, and over time, they healed each other."
"Touching story." Jimmy replied honestly. "I'm happy for him."
"Me too. Want to know something interesting?"
"Sure. What?"
"First time I met Sarah, after we'd come back home, she gasped and told me that I reminded her of the man who had saved her, a group of missionaries, and her then fiancé's life in Burma back in 2008." Barney replied.
"Was that you?"
"Nope. Never been to Burma and hope to never go. It's worse than a lot I've seen, and I've seen plenty of horrible stuff."
"Did you tell her that?" Jimmy asked.
"I did, and she told me that she knew I wasn't the same man, because the man who'd saved her had been thicker set than me, with longer hair, and no stubble or tattoos, but other than that, she said we were identical."
"Yeah right. Sounds for sure like you and that guy were twins."
Barney nodded. "Definitely. Not. Remember when I first introduced you to the team, after my original team was either killed or imprisoned?"
"Oh yeah. They all swore that we looked nearly identical as well. Maybe it's just you. You must just have one of those faces that looks like a couple other people."
Before Barney could reply with a good comeback, Caesar came from out of nowhere and wrapped him in a back-slapping hug. It was clear that the strong man was drunk, but not too out of it to ignore Jimmy, who he'd met a while back, and shared an interest in big guns with.
"Hey, man. Good to see you." He said, moving from Barney to Jimmy and hugging him before Jimmy could remind him that he wasn't much of a hugger.
"You too. How's your girlfriend?" Jimmy asked, aware that buying into Caesar's questionable love for his AA-12 was crazy, but better than saying so and getting up close and personal with the girlfriend's sister, a sharpened straight razor that Caesar could wield just as well as Christmas and Doc and even Tool could with their real knives.
Caesar smiled. "She's great, man. Just polished the drum magazine today. Ready to go whenever I need her, much more reliable than any real girl."
Hearing the genuine hurt in the muscular man's voice, Jimmy and Barney both could sense that it was time to leave him to his thoughts.
Walking further into the bar, Jimmy spotted Toll Road in a deep conversation with Trench Mauser, and looked at Barney inquisitively. "What's your oldest worst friend doing here?"
"We've kind of made up. Trench has helped the team a few times in the past couple of years, and once Toll Road caught wind of how screwed up Trench was inside, he made it his personal mission to get him into therapy. He's managed to get all of us in at least once, but Trench hasn't budged. Yet."
Jimmy, who hadn't spent time with The Expendables in a while, and had forgotten how similar all of them were, in certain ways, to him. Everyone always thought that mercenaries and hit men were just completely evil, but that wasn't true. Just because they sometimes did less than legal things, for the right reasons, didn't mean that they weren't humans who needed compassion as well.
"What's happening to me?" Jimmy wondered aloud.
Barney laughed. "Feeling philosophical?"
"A bit, yeah. That ain't like me."
"It's this place. I'm not kidding. This place is where we all come to escape the violence that surrounds us, and here is where our real personalities can come out. I can almost guarantee that there are more scholarly, intelligent, wise people in this bar tonight than at a major university party.
"Even though you aren't an Expendable, your career is close enough that you feel the urge to shed it when you step in here too. That's why you feel philosophical. Because deep inside, most of us are, in a way."
"Especially you." Jimmy agreed.
Barney, for all his bluff and bravado, blushed, and said, "I have to take care of somethin'. Why don't you go grab yourself a drink."
"You still carry Bulleit Bourbon?"
"Is my Toothpick Bowie still sharp enough to cut your head off if you ask anymore stupid questions?" Barney replied tartly.
Jimmy laughed, feeling lighter than he had in a while. Doing what he did didn't often inspire humor, and it felt good. He needed to visit Point's more often, and hang out with the guys, who'd always treated him like one of their own, not an outsider.
Barney watched his old friend go up to the bar and pour himself a glass of bourbon and smiled. It was great to see him, even if the reason they'd gotten together wasn't good.
Tonight, they'd mingle, and talk trash, and have a good time, but tomorrow? Tomorrow, Barney would accompany Jimmy to go speak to his employer, and they would get to the bottom of who wanted him dead.
Making eye contact with the bourbon sipping hit man, Barney gave him a nod which conveyed what he'd been thinking about the plan for the next day, and Jimmy responded in kind.
It felt good to have a plan, Barney thought as he joined the fray, looking for Christmas. He needed to let the British man know that his motorcycle had been deliberately tampered with, so that they could fix it properly.
He found Christmas about to get into another knife throwing match against Doc and sat back to see who would win.
The two men squared off, and were about to start, when a small, red-handled blade whizzed through the air and hit the skull in the center of the dart board.
Chaos erupted in the bar, everyone looking for who had thrown the knife.
Jimmy Bobo proudly sauntered over to the target and pulled his knife out with a smile, not saying a word.
Christmas, completely stunned, stepped closer to the hit man he knew fairly well, and said calmly, "There once was a man named Bobo…"
"I love poetry." Barney joked, eyes shining with mirth. The motorcycle conversation could wait. This was going to be good.
The End