The next morning, I woke up with my head throbbing. I'd spent the remainder of the night at the Malibu Club, and it had taken its toll on my brain, since I could tell that my alarm clock read 8:03. Quickly, I threw the covers off me, and ran into the bathroom. By 8:30, I had my shower done, and was shoveling a frozen TV dinner down my throat, before running into my closet, and grabbing my jeans and white wife-beater. I threw my brown leather jacket on over that, threw my Red Sox cap on, and headed for the door.
Outside, it was pouring rain, and I wished I had a hoody to wear. Who knew it rained in Florida, right? So, I waltzed down to the parking lot of the hotel I was staying at, and quickly climbed into my Phoenix, pulling the SIG P228 I keep under my seat out, and shoving it into the front of my pants. Starting the car up, I pulled out of the hotel parking lot, and began driving towards the hotel in Ocean Beach. I wondered if this deal would go well, seeing as drug deals seemed to be infamous for going wrong, in my opinion.
Pulling into a parking space in front of the hotel, I shut the car off, and re-checked my gun. Stepping out of the car, I walked towards the front of the hotel, and walked through the open door into the lobby. Frank was standing in one corner, with about eight other people, two of which I knew as Mike and Jimmy McClain; they were brothers, and Mike was a bigger player than Frank, in the Irish Mob. Mike had a clean-shaven, trustable look to him, while Jimmy looked greasy, and somewhat like a rat. Frank beckoned me over, and I casually waltzed towards the group.
"What's up, fellas?" I asked, and both Frank and Mike pulled me over. "Here we go, here's our final player," said Mike, "let's ship out." With that, we all began to walk back out of the hotel, towards two vans that were parked across the street. One held at least six micks, while our group piled into the other. I was sat between Mike and Frank, and Mike began to explain to me as we were moving.
"The deal is going to go down on Starfish Island; neutral territory for both the Haitians and us. This Vercetti guy, you know, the Italians, are fine with us dealin' in one of the abandoned mansions there, so long as we don't start any trouble." I nodded, and Mike continued, "You, Connor, are going to make the deal, what with your uh, negotiating skills, and all. We've got the weapons –" he gestured to a crate on the floor next to us "--and they've got the drugs, so you'll talk with them a bit, then we'll take the shit, and leave. Sound good?" I just nodded my head again, somewhat unsure about doing the deal myself, but not wanting to let anyone down.
By now, we'd arrived on Starfish Island, and we pulled casually into an obviously empty mansion, which would be run-down if it was anywhere else in Vice City. But for now, we parked in front of the steps leading up to the entrance, and all of us climbed out of the vans. All of a sudden, two Voodoo low-riders pulled in to block the exit. A few of us expected to be fired at, but nothing happened, so we pulled out two crates – one from each van – and walked into the mansion.
"Eh now, mon!" a heavy voice shouted from rickety old stairs leading to a second floor, "that tha' guns we axed cha' for?" he inquired. I walked forward, deciding this was my turn to speak. I was sweating under my jacket, and dripping from the rain outside, but I still felt confident – as confident as I could feel talking to the leader of a group of psychotic Haitians, anyway.
"Yeah, this is the weapons; do you have the drugs?" I asked him. He gestured to two men, who brought out at least a dozen thick suit-cases. They opened all of them up, and there was a variety of colors; in one case there was several bags filled with a white, powdery substance. In another, was bags filled with multi-color pills. In a third was bags filled with green, leaf-like substance.
"Y'got every t'ing y'could smoke an' snort under tha' sun right there, m'friend. Ecstasy, pot, co'-caine, hell, w'even threw in som' aspirins, ahahah!" All of the Haitians roared laughter. We didn't find it that funny, but you know, to each his own, I guess.
"Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. . . . ?" I inquired. Just as he began to say his name – some odd foreign name – a bullet rang out, mixed with the sound of glass breaking, my ears ringing. All of a sudden, Mr. Bibbly Diddly, or whatever his name was, was on the floor, bleeding, and everyone around me was scampering to get behind something. I was frozen, and out of nowhere, Frank tackled me to the floor – keep in mind Frank is a large man – just in time for him to get hit in the shoulder by a bullet meant for my head.
I turned to him, "Holy fuck Frank, are you ok –" I began to shout, but he silenced me, and told me to get to safety. There was no way I was leaving a man who had saved my life, so I pulled my gun out, and fired at the window, where a Cuban was standing, apparently having climbed a ladder. I hit him right in the stomach, and he grunted, then twisted around and fell, blood squirting onto the grass below before he even landed with a noise I could hear even from inside the mansion.
As more Cubans began to climb up the ladders and jump into the mansion on the second floor, I hauled Frank over to the side, behind the stairs. "Okay, Frank, you stay here – I'm going to fucking kill these dick-sucking hairy fucks, and get our shit. Shoot anyone who runs in here except for our boys – yeah?" He nodded, clearly in a lot of pain from his arm-shot. He was a big, big boy, so I doubted the bullet even got deep enough to do him much damage, but if I didn't get him to a doctor within a few hours, he'd be gone.
I quickly ran out of hiding, but slid to the floor as a bullet narrowly missed my nose. Firing blindly at its direction, I hit a Cuban in the leg, and he screamed in agony, falling forward and breaking the wooden banister on the second floor as he fell, and broke something vital to him when he landed. I quickly jumped back up and spotted our boys half-way across the room – they'd busted into the crates and taken out the AK-47s we'd packed in there, firing them wildly at Cubans, who were dropping like flies.
"COME ON," I shouted to them, "WE GOTTA' GET OUR SHIT!" over the loud roar of bullets pinging back and forth between Irishmen and Haitians, and Cubans. The Cubans had brought what appeared to be an army, since the combined forces of two dozen Haitians, and a dozen and a half Irishmen weren't enough to stop them.
Sprinting towards the middle of the room, I quickly picked up three suitcases filled with whatever, and held them under my arms, bolting towards the front doors as bullets trailed in my wake. But I was thrown over as the doors were kicked in by large, hairy men wearing Hawaiian shirts – Italians. The suitcases I had were knocked to the floor, and the contents of one of them spilled out, while the other two remained closed.
As Italian men pounded past me on the floor, one of them stopped and helped me to my feet, and then they all continued onward, firing at the Cubans. In the years since Vercetti's take-over of Vice City, the Cuban and Italian relationship had diminished, and now they were just as at war with them as the Haitians. While they weren't exactly the friends of Haitians, they were going to protect Starfish Island to the death.
Ignoring them, I jumped back up, and grabbed two of the suitcases, not bothering with the emptied one, and continued out of the mansion with two of our boys following me, both carrying all but one or two of the other cases of drugs. We quickly shoved them into one of the vans, and checked our weapons, rushing back into the mansion to help the Italians, Haitians, and our own brothers.
As we got inside, though, glass was raining on us. One shard cut across my cheek, and it immediately started pouring blood – but I ignored it, looking up and shielding my face from the glass with my leather-covered arm. It was the fucking SWAT team! Four men were rappelling down into the room from the ceiling glass panels, dressed in Kevlar and hoisting M4s. I took aim, and fired at one of them mid-rappel. He screamed out loudly as a bullet hit his midsection, and his grip on the rope vanished, leaving him to spiral the rest of the way down, right in front of me. As he hit the ground, he was essentially liquidated, and his blood splattered all over me sickeningly. It was almost enough to make me vomit then and there.
But I put my pistol back into my pants, and grabbed the M4 which he was carrying, quickly turning the safety off and firing at anyone I saw who I was against. I dropped another SWAT member before they hit the ground, and hit at least half a dozen Cubans before they could get anywhere. Within a few minutes, all of the gang members were now on one side, trying to stop the SWAT members that seemed to be pouring into the building.
I gave up finishing them off, and bolted back to where I had left Frank, where Mike was now crouched down, firing shots from his revolver at SWAT members and the occasional Cuban, if he felt he needed to. "COME ON GUYS, WE HAVE TO GO!" I shouted to them, and Mike nodded. We helped Frank to his feet both, and began to half walk, half sprint towards the door with him holding onto our shoulders. But suddenly, I was carrying all his weight, as a bullet cracked through Mike's skull, and he dropped to the floor, his eyes staring up at some place that the living could never see.
Jimmy rushed up and helped me carry Frank the rest of the way to the empty van, putting him in the back and turning around to fire more shots into the mansion, which was still raging with battle. "Where the fuck was you, Jimmy?" I asked him, remembering I hadn't really seen him the whole night. He didn't respond to my question, though, as about half a dozen Irishmen ran out of the house.
Suddenly, an explosion rocked the area, and threw us all down. I slammed my head into the van door, grunting as I slammed into the ground. I could only hear ringing in my ears, but it slowly faded back to sound, and I could hear crumbling. Opening my eyes, I saw the mansion slowly breaking apart, and bits of the roof collapsing and falling in. A VCPD helicopter took off with a few members inside it, and flew off into the dark night sky, leaving the whole area quiet except for the sound of flames coming from inside.
I stood back up. "I'll take the van with the shit in it back to the hide-out, you go with the boys and take Frank to the hospital, and meet back up with me at the Ocean Beach hotel." I nodded, and Mike jogged over to the van we'd loaded the drugs in, and started it up, pulling out and driving off some direction. I turned, and walked over to our van – all our boys had loaded up, and I started the van up, driving off and heading for the hospital.
I knew this would be trouble . . .