FRIDAY NIGHT
APRIL 21st, 1989
MIAMI, FLORIDA

What am I going to do about rent?

The question had sprung into Adrian's mind like a resilient weed as he drove a petty thief to the police station earlier that week. Ever since it was left spinning around in his brain and continued to do so more fiercely than ever as he unlocked the door to his penthouse apartment and crept inside.

Never let a woman break up with you if she's paying most of the rent. I've got another month here, tops.

Adrian stepped into the kitchen and laid his denim jacket on the back of a chair nearby before wrenching his keyring from his pocket and tossing it onto the island.

It felt so odd to not have her asking him how his day was anymore.

He sighed and slumped his elbows onto the kitchenette's counter. His crestfallen gaze drifted from the half-empty bottles of fine liquor and across the countertop to the phone.

His stomach dropped when he noticed the small red light blinking on the answering machine.

Shit.

He considered ignoring it and fleeing to his bedroom, but ultimately decided to take the message—it wasn't going to go away if he didn't pay attention to it, no matter how much he prayed that it would. With a nervous scratch of the bandage on his nose, he put the handset to his ear and played back the answering machine, hoping beyond hope for it to be a legitimate call.

"You've got one new message! Today, 11:04 AM."

"Good day, this is 'William' from work. You've got one last parcel due for delivery tonight, very special. Have it delivered to the corner of 116 West End and Buchanan Avenue, top floor. No more delays, understand? Or you're fired."

Adrian slammed the receiver down and put a hand to his forehead.

What am I going to do? He asked himself, attempting to ignore the answer that came so easily to mind. He glared back over at the keys on the white marble countertop as he begrudgingly faced what he had to do.

He snatched up his keys and jacket, took a long drink from a champagne bottle and stormed out the door towards the elevator.

Rent will have to wait.

The walk from the lobby to the parking lot was an arduous one, and the drive out of Brickell was equally unpleasant. The cool evening breeze did nothing to assuage the tension and dread stirring up in Adrian's chest as he turned off the freeway and coasted under the overpass to his destination.

With his fists clenched, he stepped out of the sports car.

He looked up at the worn chain-link gate before him with a frown as he fiddled with his keyring. There was little in the way of light, save a lamp on the building across the fence, with moths congregating around its pale yellow glow like rowdy teenagers at a rave. What he would give to be here during normal working hours; he was so comfortable being here on a heat-stricken Saturday afternoon alongside Sam and not preparing to kill people. At last, he found the correct key in the moonlight and opened the padlock.

Adrian crept into the small lot, eyes fixated on the worn American flag hanging resolutely above the door of the mechanic's workshop.

He had little trouble finding the key to the metal door under the lamplight. Slowly and meticulously, as if not to startle someone unseen, he sneaked inside and flicked on the light switch. With a low buzz, the dusty room became illuminated under the sickly blue-green glow of fluorescent lights. An old blue Fiat sat to Adrian's left on a car jack—tarnished, battered, and missing a door—and next to it were positioned several low steel tables littered with various tools and an unplugged radio.

Adrian's footsteps were all that could be heard beneath the quiet drone of the lights. He made his way over to a long wooden table and drummed his fingers against it, gazing up at the well-marked map of Miami pinned to the corkboard on the wall. As his eyes darted around in search of the intersection of 116 West End and Buchanan Avenue, he discovered a sticky note. On it was written:

Adrian, I've moved your stuff under the metal table by the tool cabinet to make room. Hope you don't mind. —Samuel.

Adrian leaned beneath the table and, sure enough, an open cooler was there, full of lukewarm water and an abandoned bottle of cheap beer.

He made his way across the room to the side of the metal tables opposite the Fiat, and at last he found the safe waiting for him. With a shaky hand, he put in the eight-digit combination and pulled open the door. He cast a fretful eye to a black duffel bag amongst bundles of money and sentimental items and, with a huff, lifted it onto his shoulder.

How heavy is this damn thing?

The policeman heaved his equipment onto the table, glancing at the entrance to make sure it was properly closed. He looked to the silver zipper at his fingertips and slowly opened it up.

His eyes darted across pistols, a shotgun, an assault rifle, holsters and various cases of ammunition within. Methodically, he reached for an empty Beretta magazine and a box of bullets and began loading up as he allowed his gaze to travel to the two masks buried underneath the mess of dark metal and plastic.

The distorted, eyeless visages of the otter and the bald eagle stared up at him as he retrieved a second magazine and continued to prepare for violence.

It was time he served his beloved country—whether he wanted to or not.

• • •

Adrian checked his watch once again as he lounged in the driver's seat of his 1976 Mustang.

Time flies when you're contemplating murder. Had it only been twenty minutes since he arrived? It felt like he could sit here forever if he didn't have a job to do, or if his ass wasn't on the line should he not go through with it. His eyes flicked up at the hotel across the parking lot, and he brought his disguise to bear: the river otter mask. Something about the way it showed off its teeth reminded him of a grin, and it felt good—well, as close to "good" as involuntary wet work could ever come to feeling—to use something other than the bald eagle mask every once in a while.

Waiting around isn't going to make this any easier on my conscience.

He fitted two suppressed Beretta handguns into the holsters at his hips and crept away from his car, thankful for the cover of darkness so prevalent in this mostly barren lot. The ballistic vest he had on beneath his jacket wore on his shoulders.

With a deep breath and a quick prayer, he turned the safety off on his weapons and walked through the hotel's doors.

He had not taken two steps before a pistol was trained on him, and he reflexively fired. With a muffled crack, the Russian gangster behind the reception desk slumped over with a hole blown into his forehead.

A mobster across the sparkling white lobby brandished a butterfly knife before taking a bullet to the jugular and collapsing onto a zebra skin rug. The man groped at his exposed throat as his suit turned a nauseating shade of red.

Hesitantly, the otter drew his second pistol, and he fired both barrels into a trio of armed men coming around a corner nearby before any of them could get a single shot off, the hail of bullets tearing through them.

Bolshevik scum, just like Sam said.

He kept his friend's attitude towards his duty as a "real" American out of his mind.

He dashed around the corner and sank three rounds into two mobsters who were ready to strike him with their baseball bats.

He glanced ahead into a lounge/bar area, where a gangster strolled out into the lobby with a cigarette hanging loosely from his lips. He took a moment to react to the American's presence by drawing a Škorpion submachine gun, but within seconds he was full of holes. The otter dashed to the room as the men within cried out in surprise and panic. Pistols at the ready, he sprinted inside and opened fire.

Before he knew it, he had fired off his last remaining bullet into the mess of blond hair that was the back of a mobster's head. He holstered his empty weapons and picked up the Škorpion from the floor before stepping into a nearby elevator.

Too quickly for his adrenaline-addled brain to process, Adrian pressed the button for the top floor and leaned up against the wall, removing his mask and taking several deep breaths of the cold, dry air. He looked down at his blood-caked hands and noticed they were trembling uncontrollably. He held his mask close to his chest as he let his head hang low in contemplation of what he had just done.

With a chime, the elevator doors opened.

Adrian's survival instincts overshadowed any remorse when a gangster shoved the double barrels of a hunting shotgun in his face. The police officer kicked the mobster in the groin to disarm him and blasted the top of his skull open with a short burst from his submachine gun.

Another suited man exclaimed in Russian from across the room as he raised an M16.

Swiftly, Adrian gunned him down along with his three armed companions. He let his empty weapon clatter to the tile and picked up the double-barrel shotgun. With another deep breath, he put on his disguise and charged forward. No turning back.

The narrow corridor opened into a wider area, adorned with fancy leather furniture and a large magenta carpet in the middle of the room—or at least it used to be magenta before the blood of four men soaked it dark red. From here extended another hallway leading to the suites, bringing thoughts of Adrian's own penthouse apartment.

Damn it, I should really be in bed right now.

He raised his shotgun up to one of the doors and focused on listening past the ringing in his ears.

He could hear a distant conversation going on through the door, confused and loud.

He pulled the trigger.

The flimsy wooden door exploded into splinters and gun smoke and the otter kicked what remained of it from the frame. He caught a gunman in his sights and fired the remaining buckshot shell through his chest. He grabbed the hot barrel of his gun in one hand and used it to block the end of a golf club thrust down at his head. As the hammer and firing mechanism of the weapon shattered from the blow, he tossed the useless thing aside and dove for the dead mobster's handgun. He snatched up the Makarov on the hardwood floor, turned, and fired into his attackers.

For an indeterminate amount of time, Adrian laid on the floor and stared up into the hypnotically spinning ceiling fan above him. An unsavory combination of blood, sweat and tobacco smoke wafted through the brightly lit room as a kind of delirium began taking hold. For a moment, he doubted he was even breathing anymore.

A sharp pain from his arm brought him back to reality. He pushed himself up with his good arm and looked down at the large gash in his denim jacket and the slashed, bleeding flesh underneath. It did not look too severe; he could get it patched up after his work was done.

His stomach dropped at the prospect of more killing as he looked around the room.

At his feet lay three gangsters, all dead. One stared on at the far window with glassy eyes, throat torn and exposed by a gunshot—and Adrian found it incredibly difficult to tear his gaze away. A fourth lay on a red throw rug, leaning up against the sliding glass door to a balcony with two bleeding holes in his torso. Across the room sat two more Russians on a messy couch. One was face-down on the blood-spattered glass tabletop in front of him and the other lay slumped back with a profusely bloody nose—perhaps from the lines of cocaine he had been snorting, or perhaps from the bullet hole blasted into his skull.

Adrian looked down at the pistol in his hand and checked its magazine. It was completely empty.

His legs seemed hollow as he staggered to the door and took up a suppressed Beretta.

Two rooms to go.

He stumbled out into the connecting room and approached the door across from him. He stroked his hand down the smooth, polished wood and he steeled himself. With a bruised fist, he knocked and awaited an answer. Almost immediately, the door opened.

"Who is it?" the gangster at the door mumbled, clearly under the influence of a joint rolled up between his fingers.

The otter swiftly grabbed him by the collar and shot him a few times below the sternum, dropping him to the floor as he bled out.

One mobster cried out from the middle of the room as he fumbled for a pistol in his belt. A second and a third behind him drew their own weapons before their uninvited guest took action. The otter took aim and dropped the trio within seconds. He dashed into a small bedroom nearby where he shot one mobster in the neck and blasted a second's head off with a hunting shotgun. Yet another gangster emerged from a bathroom nearby before his brains and fragments of skull were splattered across the walls with a single shot.

Once he knew the room was lifeless, the patriot grabbed a revolver on a dresser and dashed back out into the hall.

One more room to go and he would be free again.

The last door he approached slowly and opened cautiously when he heard only a single voice coming from behind it.

"It's quiet now. No, no—listen—just relax. Your guys can take care of themselves, I'm sure. Forget about those fella's downstairs, I've got your best and brightest right outside my room... You want him to do what?" Adrian pushed the door in, gun in hand. The source of the voice was a man in a gray suit, sitting in a rolling chair and facing the bay outside from behind an ornate desk. "All right, I'll let him know. Mikhail, Mister Komarov would like you to—"

By the time the man had turned around to face the door, his mouth was agape. He placed the phone down on the table before bringing his hands over his head, moving as if he was underwater.

"Shit," he croaked.

The otter brought his gun to bear. This suite was practically empty; the only person present was this man, African-American, scrawny and looking to be in his early thirties, with his hands held motionless above his head.

"What the hell do you want?" he asked.

Adrian loosened the iron grip on his weapon. Should he escape now? Surely leaving a witness at the scene of the crime would not be appreciated by Fifty Blessings, especially one collaborating with the Russian mafia, but this poor bastard was an American who was clearly fearing for his life. Adrian found his gaze traveling to the bay behind him, dark and expansive under the light of the moon...

He hesitantly raised his revolver and pulled the hammer back. "I'm sorry."

He squeezed the trigger.

The scents of rubber and blood were overpowering as Adrian stood shuddering in the cold, brightly lit elevator.

They'll clean this all up for me, he thought, I've got nothing to worry about. He removed his jacket and wadded it up in his hands as he stumbled through the lobby on gelatinous legs.

Adrian ripped his mask from his head and stepped out into the night. He could not tell if he was hearing a police siren or tinnitus in the distance. As he reached his car door, he threw the wad of rubber and denim to the asphalt, leaned on the vehicle's roof and vomited.


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