Marv had a headache.
He had one bigass piledriver of a headache and opening his eyes didn't help at all. He took everything in around him. They'd left him alive, and that was their biggest mistake. Carmel – or whatever her name was – had made a good start on killing him, a few more of those and maybe he'd stayed down. Now he was going to have to get loose and kill a bunch of people. See what happened when you left a job half done?
Carmel was sitting on a table about ten feet away, dangling her feet nonchalantly. "Sorry about this, Marv. It's nothing personal." She didn't look happy, but she didn't she look upset, either. More than anything, Marv thought she looked bored. She watched him incuriously while he looked himself over to see that he had been duct taped in place as well. Versatile stuff, duct tape. A real pain the ass to get out of, too.
The pain in his head seemed to recede a little bit when he started to grin, so he grinned more, letting his lips draw back from his teeth in a smile that was millimeters away from being a snarl. "It's gonna be personal, Carmel," he promised, while he looked around for Sharon. His head exploded with pain when he turned it, but he saw Sharon over his shoulder, still taped to her chair.
"My name is Delia, not Carmel." She hopped down off the table and walked around Marv. She touched his head with gentle fingers and the big man jerked his head away from her only to be rewarded with another fireworks display inside his skull. "It's just business."
Marv pulled away when she leaned down and brushed her lips over his temple. "First you wanna kill me. Now you wanna kiss me." He pursed his lips and blew a waft of breath at her that smelled of a man who'd been drinking, fucking, and then asleep or unconscious; all without brushing his teeth. "Blow. Get away from me."
Just once I want a dame to want to go to bed with me and not turn out to be a psycho who wants to kill me. Just once I want a dame to want me to be her protector and still want to go to bed with me.
The crazy dames seem to know that I won't hurt them if I can help it.
She caught me off guard. Blindsided me like nobody's business and she really pissed me off, too. I felt bad for Carmel – a nice woman whose sister was in trouble. She seemed so scared for her sister. She was a damned good actress.
If there was an prize for best liar, she'd have it. If there was a prize for biggest patsy, they can pin it to my chest before they put my coffin in the ground.
I wasn't going to let her get away with it. She'd screwed me, the Old Town girls, and Sharon. She and Robson and his men were going to have to pay for this.
Delia walked away. Marv was completely unaware of the way she swayed her hips to try to catch his attention when she left. He was already testing the strength of the tape that was keeping him in the chair and stretching it with flexes of his arms.
Sharon spoke up for the first time, now that Delia had left the two of them alone. "They're going to kill both of us."
"Nah," Marv said with assurance he didn't feel while he kept working his bonds. "They woulda killed us already if they was going to."
"No, they're going to kill us on video," Sharon said dully. She already sounded completely hopeless. She'd escaped once, nearly escaped Sin City, been forced to make her own ransom video, and now her rescuer needed as much rescuing as she did. They were going to die. "What did they do to my sister? What did they do to Carmel? He kept asking questions about her. The things he did to me… I had to tell."
Marv looked up to see Delia returning to with three men. He recognized Robson from the video, the man in the noisy pants must be Cricket, which meant that the last guy was Zeke. Sharon had done a good job of describing everyone in her diary. Too bad these guys had her and the diary now.
He had an idea, but he didn't like it. It was going to hurt Sharon, but it was better than the kind of hurt Robson was going to put on her real soon.
Speaking of Robson…
Robson stopped in front of Marv and looked him over. "You're the best those bitches could send? I think they're slipping." He looked at Delia and made a face, "You fucked this thing? The Colonel told me that you did that, but I thought you'd draw the line at something like this."
Delia shrugged, "I like him. He's not a bad guy. Just ugly." She regarded Marv without expression. "It's just business, Marv."
Yeah, just business. So's this. "Delia, what happened to Carmel?"
Delia shook her head at him. He knew what she was saying, but he needed her to say it out loud. "She's okay, right?"
Delia shook her head again. "No, she's not okay," Robson cut in. "She's dead. Couldn't have her show up and fuck things up for Delia. Is that what you wanted to hear?"
Yes and no. Sharon began to sob and then to wail. It was a dirty trick to play on the woman, using her like that, but Marv would rather have her alive and hating him than dead. While attention was focused on her, Marv rocked and twisted violently in his seat, breaking the wooden back of the chair, which let him stand and bought him a little wiggle room to raise his arms.
He used that moment to kick Robson hard in the side while he raised his arms, bunching the tape more around his shoulders. Robson staggered back with the breath knocked out of him and Marv picked up the backless bottom of the chair he'd just broken and swung wildly. He caught the skinny man who'd been with Robson on the side of the head and watched him fall, blood fanning out across the floor where the man's head struck with a sickening hollow noise.
The others began to react to the sudden eruption of violence. Cricket lunged forward and grabbed Sharon's chair, putting her between him and Marv. Marv started after the weasely man, but spun around when bullets slammed into his back and shoulder. That was going to hurt like hell when the adrenaline wore off.
The big man lunged at Delia and knocked the gun out of her hands before practically throwing her at Robson, who had caught his breath and was just clicking the safety off of his gun. The two went sprawling and Robson's gun clattered across the floor.
Cricket had gotten his own gun out, but instead of shooting the guy who acted like he ate bullets for breakfast, he put the gun to Sharon's head. "Don't make me do it, big guy. Just let me get on outta here and I'll leave her outside when I get to my car."
Sharon tried to pull her head away from the muzzle of the gun but the man rapped her hard with the butt of gun. She stopped struggling and tried not to vomit from the sudden wave of nausea that somehow started in her head and spread out to her stomach in a sickening wave.
Marv wasn't the only one who could take advantage of a distraction. He was blindsided by Robson, who had drawn his bowie knife and shoved it easily into Marv's stomach while the big man was watching Cricket threaten Sharon. He grunted and grappled the other man, fighting for control of the knife.
While Marv and Robson struggled, Cricket went back to dragging Sharon's chair across the floor toward the exit. He winced when Robson scored a gash on Marv that sent blood flying in a wide arc across the room. It wasn't his problem. He cursed under his breath. Should have taped her to a chair with wheels, dammit.
Robson had worked his way up through the ranks of Sin City's organized crime. He knew how to fight dirty and neither he nor Marv were pulling any punches. They grunted and cursed while both fought to keep the other man from gaining the upper hand with the weapon.
Marv was grateful that he hadn't had a chance to get the duct tape off yet when the knife tangled in it. The added distraction helped Marv sweep Robson's feet out from under him. Robson clawed at Marv's face, sinking fingers into the meat of his cheek as he started to fall; he used his grips on the knife and the other man's flesh to pull the man down with him.
Cricket tilted Sharon's chair against the wall. She could struggle if she wanted to, but she'd just end up smacking her head on the wall or the floor when her chair fell. "I'm letting you go without hurting you. You tell the Hulk over there that I could have hurt you and I didn't."
With one last look at the two combatants, Cricket ducked out the door and ran for his life.
The two men rolled across the floor until they fetched up against the wall. With the hand not contesting for the knife, Marv grabbed Robson by the hair. He began to bash the man's head against the wall where he was pinned by Marv's body weight, and finally took full control of the contested bowie knife when Robson went limp. He turned it and rapped the hilt firmly between Robson's eyes, hitting the nerve bundle there and making the man jerk.
Couldn't get started with the fun yet. He had other business to take care of.
Where was Delia?
"Delia!" Marv shouted while he stood with his foot on Robson's neck. Every time the man struggled, Marv pushed down a little harder. He figured he'd break Robson's neck in about two more pushes. "I'm not done with you."
"You wouldn't hurt me, would you, Marv? You wouldn't hurt a 'dame' would you?" Delia's voice floated through the open door leading outside. "You found me beautiful, just this evening."
Marv looked down at Robson and let up when he saw the man was turning blue. Couldn't let him die that easy. "Honey, you got reeeal ugly when you shot me in the head."
"You've got Byron. Keep him. My contract wasn't to protect him." Marv grabbed Robson's hair and began to drag his unresisting body across the floor to the stage. He was just chaining the man to the bed where so many girls had died when her last words to him came through the door, "It wasn't personal, Marv. You're not a bad guy."
"Yes I am," Marv muttered while he finished manacling Robson's hands and feet. "And he's gonna find out just how bad a man I am."
He took Robson's bowie knife and used it to cut Sharon free. After fishing the mobster's keys out of his pocket, Marv gave them to the shivering and traumatized woman. "He's not going to be needing his car where he's going. You go home and tell Gail and Miho that I took care of things."
He began examining the video camera on its tripod, smiling when he made the red record light come on. "Tell them I'll send them a movie when I'm through."
Sharon leaned up and kissed Marv's scarred and bloodied cheek. "Send me a copy, too." She turned away to leave but turned back to give him a smile that wavered along the edges, "And thank you."
