Sin City: Prodigal Son
Chapter: 2
"Sachiel"
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After sleeping the rest of the night and most of the next day at a seedy motel off the highway, I found myself at Keidi's hitting the hard stuff. It was a place I'd gone to a lot in my youth, cutting class and heading down the back alleys. Girls who didn't want to go into Old Town and make a living on their backs could go there and dance for their wages. Keidi was the owner of the joint and the sweetest transsexual you'd ever want to meet. Who else would let a fourteen-year-old boy into a strip club? She told me that she knew what it was like to be a fourteen-year-old boy. She spent a lot of time playing soldier back then, as a way of overcompensating.
I was fighting the effects of the liquor, trying to remember everything Ritsuko had told me the previous night. The naked girls shaking and jiggling up on the stage didn't help my concentration any.
"Nobody knows how big the Angels' gang is," she'd told me. "But they have a core group of lieutenants who run things. Each of them goes by some weird, biblical-sounding codename… Israel, Ishmael, Email… shit like that. Except for the leader… they call him Adam."
"Adam's biblical," I told her.
"Shut up, smart-ass."
The list she had of their "favored hang-outs" read like a tourists' guide to all the gin joints in Tokyo-3. Some help that was. So I indulged myself in a trip down memory lane by going to Keidi's first. I always liked the music there; the best stuff Detroit had to offer. And I don't mean fucking Nugent or Madonna, or any of that post-Impact rap shit, either. I'm talking about Motown soul: Smokey and the Miracles, the Isley Brothers, Marvin Gaye… stuff you can laugh and drink and cry to.
The opening strains of "Keep Me Hangin' On" kicked up, and suddenly I was back four years ago. Everyone turned their eyes to the stage. A girl that I used to go to school with was making her way up. She'd dropped out at sixteen. It had been four years since I'd seen her, and she hadn't changed a bit. Still hot as hell. Still loved to shake it to that song.
She had us all panting before she took off a thing. That school-girl uniform, those pigtails…. By the time she was down to just her bobby-socks, every guy in the place would've killed to have that freckle-faced little girl smile their way. Hikari Horaki sure was something, all right.
I'd have been content to piss away the night on overpriced booze and Hikari's sweet ass, but fate apparently had other plans for me. I was trying to bum a smoke when I caught sight of somebody getting tossed by the bouncer. There was nothing strange about that; what got my attention was overhearing why.
"And don't you ever come in here again, peddling that shit!" the bouncer was yelling. He loosened the other guy's teeth with his fist a couple of times before kicking him out the door. He was mad as hell, but I could tell that he was holding back. The other guy was so scrawny; it looked like a solid hit would've broken him in half.
I threw back another shot before I made for the door. The little guy was still picking himself up off the ground when I got out there.
"Are you suicidal or something?" I asked him. "You don't go pushing inside Keidi's."
"Jesus Christ!" he said, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the alley floor. "I don't need you busting my ass too, man. I'm just trying to make a living. You know the fucking Old Town girls don't let anyone sell down there no more. Those bitches forgot who helped them build Old Town up from nothing, back in the day."
"I wouldn't talk about the girls like that around me, pal," I advised. The girls were indeed pretty hard-nosed about cornering Old Town's economy; no pimps, no mob, and no pushers allowed. Only room for one kind of "blow" for sale down there, I guess. "But I thought you pushers did plenty of business uptown. Those corporate fat-cats get bored screwing their trophy-wives; they turn to a little chemical recreation, right?"
"Sure, but that was before the Angels moved in on all the prime territory…." Bingo. I thought I smelled something rotten. I let that weasel of a drug-dealer whine at me some more. He probably didn't have many people to complain to, apart from bartenders.
"Shinra, Umbrella… all the big corporations buy from the Angels, now. You either find somewhere else to deal, or you're fucking dead. They don't play around. The guy they have in charge of their drug trade… "Sachiel" they call him… he offered to put me to work. Fuck that! Fucking pyramid scheme is what it is; too many fucking middle-men. All the Angels' shit is from outside suppliers. I got better sources for coke and smack. Plus, I farm my own weed, and I cook my own damn meth!"
Pride of the small-business owner… what a piece of work.
"Where can I find this "Sachiel"?" I asked. Maybe I sounded too eager. The pusher's gaunt cheeks pulled his mouth into a greasy little grin.
"What's the info worth to ya, mister?" he asked me. I pulled out Eva and let her handle the rest of the conversation.
He gave me an address pretty quick.
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I kept telling myself that this was only going to work once….
The address I got was an old warehouse down by the docks in Old Town. No wonder the Angels had run afoul of the girls. Still, if you wanted to bring in loads of contraband quick and quiet, this was the place to do it.
The sky was that deep blue you get just after dusk, threatening to go black on you in two seconds flat. There were a couple of guys milling around in the streetlights outside, trying to look like they had every right to be there and that no one else did. I took my hands out of my coat pockets, to make sure that they were visible… and visibly empty… as I approached them. Eva was tucked nice and neat in the back of my pants, invisible under my billowing coat.
"Beat it, kid," one of them said when he noticed me.
This was only going to work once, because nobody knew me, or remembered me from three years ago; four, if you don't count my time in County. For all they knew, I was just some fresh-faced kid, out to make a name. "Kid"? I guess I still looked like a teenager, even though I was twenty-one. Let them make all the assumptions that they wanted….
"You guys with the Angels?" I asked them. I tried to sound all innocent and eager.
"You lookin' to join?" one of them asked. The other one just kept eyeing me.
"Maybe," I said. The guy eyeballing me was almost making me sweat. I didn't recognize him, but I made plenty of enemies before I left town. Nobody with long memories, though, or so I thought.
"Well, that ain't our call," said the first guy dismissively. "We ain't that high up on the food chain."
"So, what, you're more like Cherubs then?" I asked. Shit! Me and liquor and my smart mouth. The nuns in grade school were always saying it'd get me into trouble, right before they'd smack me across the face.
"Oh, you're a funny one," said Eyeball. "I think maybe we should take him up to see the boss. The boss'll get a real kick out of this guy."
They grabbed me and I let them. I kept my head down as they led me through the warehouse. No sense drawing more attention to my face than necessary. All the while, Eyeball and his pal were snickering like they had a better grasp of irony than I did.
This was only going to work once, because nobody was going to be pulling Johnny No-names off the street and waltzing them into their HQ after what I was going to do. My escorts took me to a room with about a dozen other guys in it. Any one of them could have been the boss-man. But hadn't the pusher outside Keidi's said that Sachiel himself had offered him work? I decided it was time to change my tune a bit.
"Which one of you is Sachiel?" I demanded loudly. That impressed them, the authoritative tone, and me knowing the boss's name. The goons parted like the Red Sea. I walked a little way toward what they revealed, and the pack of them closed in behind me.
At the far end of the room, there was a polished metal desk. It looked out of place among all the wood; the crates, the doors, the rotting planks that were holding the building together. And behind the desk sat the man they called Sachiel, looking out of place himself amongst all the two-bit hoods.
He was a giant. He was bald, tan, and ripped; a mountain of a man squeezed into a tailored shirt. The distance between his shoulders was about the same as from my knees to my neck. It looked like he had a good two feet on me, too, when he got up from behind that desk. He walked right over to me, like we were the best of friends.
"I came to talk business, and I only talk business with the man in charge," I told him. I took a look around at all the thugs in the room. "And I don't like having an audience."
Sachiel smiled a little and then nodded at his men. They dutifully filed out like the sheep they were. The Big Guy was either very trusting, or he was very cocky. I was counting on one of those character flaws to make him very dead.
I'd seen a lot on the way up. No question he was muscling in on the drug trade, and hard. But I wanted to be sure. It wasn't like I was afraid to tangle with him. It's just a personal rule: you don't take a man down unless you're sure of your reasons, not even if he's an invalid sucking all his meals through a tube. So I made sure.
"So… I hear you, uh… "came to an understanding", shall we say… with the girls around here?" I ventured. His smile was big this time, showing all his teeth.
A smile is worth a thousand words, you know. Most of those words being "fuck", I might add. Like, "I just had a great fuck", or "I really fucked you over", or in this particular case, "I fucked those girls up pretty bad". That was all I needed to know.
This was only going to work once, because nobody knew of anyone crazy enough to walk right into a gang leader's hideout and blow him away. Nobody knew me… yet. But they were about to learn. I smiled Sachiel's smile right back at him, all the while hearing Eva singing to me her sweet song of death. I listened to it a little more before I reached for her.
A roundhouse kick took Eva out of my hand the second I drew her. When did I get so dumb? I was rusty and stupid and about to pay for it.
I blocked Sachiel's first punch, but his second nailed me in the ribs. I'd gotten soft, too. I used to be able to take a punch like that. I was hacking my lungs out when he went for my face. One, two, and I was down. The guy hit like a prizefighter. I tried to get up, but his heel on my spine kept me down. For an encore, Sachiel leaned down, grabbed my hair, and pounded my skull into the floor a couple of times.
I spent a while swimming in blackness, stars bursting in front of my eyes. My ears were ringing and buzzing. I couldn't feel anything, which was probably fortunate. When my senses finally did ooze back into my head, a pair of guys, one on each side of me, were holding me up by my arms. My face starting throbbing and it was wet with my own blood. I don't remember getting back on my feet, but I was probably hauled up. Sachiel's two flunkies were supporting me more than my legs could at the time.
"So what should we do with the little motherfucker?" one of them asked Sachiel. He was back behind his desk. You'd never guess to look at him that he just beat the hell out of me. Eva was there in front of him, way too far out of my reach. It was just the five of us in the room, counting her. The Big Guy himself actually looked like he was about to say something, but I beat him to it.
"What did you say?" I asked the guy who spoke. I was starting to get my wind back. The ugly fuck got right in my face and repeated himself really slow… like I was stupid or something.
"I asked what we should do with you…," he said, "you little… mother… fucker."
Remember how I said that I don't talk about my father? Nobody talks about my mother.
He wasn't ready for the Beast to come out. Neither was I, really. But there it came. I slammed my foot hard against Ugly's knee, enjoying the cracking sound and him howling in pain. He let go of my right arm before his friend could tighten up on my left. By the time he could even try to get a handle on me, I was already bloodying my knuckles on his face. He let go of my left arm, and I sent that elbow straight into his chin. He fell backwards onto the floor and didn't get up. His pal, Ugly, wasn't going to be on his feet too soon either. I stepped on his throat, though, just to make sure.
Sachiel and I looked at each other. It had all happened so fast; I was still panting. Our eyes fell on Eva at the same time, sitting there on his desk. We moved as one. Even though I made a running jump across the room, we both knew that there was no way I could beat him to my gun. But I wasn't going for the gun. The Beast hadn't left, yet.
I kicked forward in the air and my heel impacted his nose. That hit would've sent a normal guy back a few paces, but not this ox. Good. I landed hard on the desk and my hipbone complained, but I didn't listen. I just kept on kicking him; face, arms, chest, whatever I could reach with my feet. I think I was yelling. My throat was sore enough afterward. But I can't remember.
He must have gotten Eva despite the first kick, because I heard him drop her. I rolled backward off the desk and crouched low. He was standing on the other side, his face as bloody as mine now, looking around for where she fell. I guess he still thought I was going to try racing him to her. Now who's dumb, asshole?
I put my shoulder against it, and I shoved the desk into him as hard as I could. He took it right in the abdomen and stumbled back until I had him pinned against the wall, chair and all. He spit out a wet cough of surprise at the final impact. I pulled the desk out of the way so I could get to him, and he fell to his knees clutching his gut.
That shot with the desk probably tore up his insides pretty bad; bad enough to punch his ticket and send him straight to hell. My hands around his throat made certain of it. If anyone had asked, I'd tell them that I did it to conserve bullets or to keep things quiet. But choking the life out of him was really my way of putting the Beast back inside. Once it was sated, I picked up Eva and I got the hell out of there.
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I didn't have enough money for another night at the motel. In my condition, it wasn't likely that I would even be able to find it again. I managed to stagger my way past Sachiel's other men outside the warehouse, looking like maybe I was a homeless drunk that some frat kids had worked over for the fun of it. It happens often enough…. This city makes me sick.
The pain was really starting to get to me, now that the liquor and adrenaline had worn off; my hip where I hit the desk… my bloody, swollen face… my ribs. Eva kept me going, though. I couldn't lose her again. I knew that if I didn't find somewhere safe to crash, the derelicts hovering around would have their hands in my pockets before I even hit the sidewalk. Fucking vultures.
Misato's apartment was closer than Ritsuko's or Rei's, so I headed there. I got to the building and waited in agony for the elevator. Your body always starts screaming at you to quit, right when you're in the home stretch, you know? That little light above the door felt like it spent twenty minutes on each floor. The ding when it reached the ground made my head want to explode. I got in, and the trip up nearly had me puking.
I had no idea how late it was. I just kept pounding on Misato's door, no matter how much it hurt my hand or my head to do it. Finally she opened up, and I tripped across a sea of empty beer cans into her arms. Her place was a sty. I hope she took her Johns to a motel or something. Then again, they probably weren't too interested in the ambiance.
"Shit," she whispered at my appearance. I'm sure I was a sight. I leaned against her, pressing my body into hers for support and warmth. I bet she thought I was trying to cop a feel, but I just didn't want to fall over. Not onto that floor.
"No freebies, lover-boy," I heard her tease.
That's when I passed out.
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Continued…