Chapter 4 - Copycat
- Roanapur
"This is really bad," the boy said grimly. "The big man's in front. Alak and Chaiyo saw Two-hands herself heading into the back alleyway a while ago and put out the alarm. I don't know what we can do. Two-hands is sober and means business We should leave."
Gaavrila peered around the parked auto-rickshaw. "No. We have to get Niken out before those men hurt her. Niken's an idiot, but she's one of ours. We won't abandon her. Don't worry Parang, I'll take care of Two-hands... somehow."
"Are you crazy?" said Parang, aka "Machete," staring in surprise at Gaavrila.
"God is on my side," said Gaavrila with more confidence than she felt.
"So am I," said Parang.
--
"Hey puta," said Revy lazily, shifting her weight from one leg to the other as she leaned up against the wall. "Y'know, what I like about you, you like me... but not too much."
The soi dog's tail thumped. A black and tan mix she lay on her side in the dirt, head up on a broken flagstone.
"Don't mind me puta," Revy reached into a side pocket of her cut-offs and fumbled with a small clear plastic packet. "I'm the poster girl for bad behavior. I've gotta chase the dragon."
Revy slid down the wall and squatted carefully, the tips of her scuffed boots pointed in either direction. She rested the bandaged forearm against the top of her bare thigh. She'd taken some abuse lately: the freaking Aisin Gioro with their penchant for tasers and nooses, and the final indignity; Anego's men shooting her and Shenhua.
Damn, she'd never give Balalaika respect again. There was a faint crackle of static in the ear-piece she wore. Revy sighed heavily. She hated waiting.
What she wanted more than anything was to go kinetic. Two hours of waiting in the shadows of a back alleyway. She didn't enjoy this kind of work. The only consolation was that Dutch was enduring the same, but he wasn't the one lurking in the alleyway with the trash.
The small pills were brightly colored. They crumbled in her mouth tasting of grape candy, the texture gritty. She swallowed.
"Don't be judging me," said Revy to the dog who watched her movements intently. "Let the asshole do that."
It wouldn't take long for the meth and caffeine mixture to kick in. Yaba was a powerful stimulant that would keep her jacked up for a good two days minimum before she'd crash.
Revy did an automatic scan. Nothing: an empty alleyway overflowing with refuse that smelled of garbage and piss. She crouched by a section of chain link fence that didn't serve any purpose. Somewhere close by, there was the clatter of dishes and the sound of a TV being turned on. It bothered Revy immensely that barely two streets away was the nondescript building where she had a room. She was working in her own backyard. She closed her eyes and after a while thought about death.
"These photos stink! I can't sell them!" the muscular, blonde haired man rifled through the pictures and flung them up in the air. He glared at the rows of polaroid pictures stuck on the wall. "Fuck, do I have to do this myself Mutha'?"
The fucking bitch bit me!" protested Mutha'. "I can kick and punch the little cunt all day, and she just don't work out. I tell you, she's a bad girl!"
Rebecca lay twitching in the corner of the filthy basement.
Stereo Slim whistled between his teeth. He started to straighten out the photos and then stopped "Ah fuck it. Have some fun with her. She don't get it, then we'll do our first snuff film. Never done that before..."
Revy smiled viciously at the images in her mind. Mutha' had died choking on his own blood. Stereo Slim had pulled an Olympic worthy high dive into a parking lot. She could still hear the sound. You got snuffed you sick bastards, she thought.
Her right leg was broken. She was face-down in a sludgy mixture of snow and dirt somewhere off a parking lot near the Henry Hudson Highway in upper Manhattan. Her pants had been pulled down around her knees. She was in so much pain it was beyond endurance. Blood was coming out of her ears, her eyes, her mouth, her ass.
"Please... god, I'll do anything, please don't kill me. Tell my stepfather I won't talk," the teenaged girl whimpered as the blows from the nightsticks began again. There was no way to protect herself, her hands were handcuffed behind her back. She heard the snap as an arm broke and then another and finally screamed into the slush.
"We're done. Kill her," she heard one of the policemen say in the darkness above her.
The bullets slammed into her...
"Shit," muttered Revy. No god, no pity.
The gun caught in the holster as she flung herself back away from the car. The Japanese man leaned out and and stitched her up the midsection as she tried to roll away in the dirt.
The sky above Basilan was blue... so blue. What had happened to Rock? There were two masked men standing above as her life oozed out of her. She heard the distinctive racking sound of an AK-47 and closed her eyes...
Her lips compressed tightly, they turned white. Now she was imagining things.
"Macaroni, borscht," chanted Hansel cheerfully. Revy was tied to a chair and screaming at the unreality of it all. Hansel or was it Gretel? pushed the knife slowly into her midsection and started sawing. Her entrails began to spill out in her lap. The eyes of the Romanians reflected like cats in the dim light.
"Let's have Chinese takeout!" chimed in the other as Gretel or Hansel thrust his or her other hand into the open wound and groped up and towards her frantically beating heart..
Or...
Liling was vomiting by the side of the bed as Lifeng finished sawing. Revy's throat was raw as she howled in agony, the noose tight against her neck. Her vision was red from broken blood vessels in her eyes.
"Do you want to keep your hands?" asked Lifeng coolly, dropping the bloodied hacksaw on the floor. "We'll just leave them over here on the dresser. Do you want the left on top or the right? Should we put them side by side? That would be tidy."
Her heart was pounding rapidly, either from the yaba or her overactive imagination. Involuntarily, a hand went to protect her throat. What a mistake, one should never think too deeply on the consequences gone bad. And now, unwanted and unwelcome, came the one she feared more than all the others...
"It's exactly midnight," said the masked creature that sat patiently beside her in the darkness. But she could barely follow the words. She felt drugged, inert. Something had gone terribly wrong.
"What did you expect?" it continued turning it's head towards her. The mask was cured leather, but the shadowed eyes were a recognizable blue. "You fucked up Two-hands."
"Take off the mask," Revy said and with an immense effort reached out to touch the mask. She had to know. It crumbled at her touch, like an eggshell.
Hands, so many rough hands, they were pulling her out of the darkness into the flat light. A wind blew with a gentle warmth. Wobbling, she looked around the metal pylons and struts of the bridge and knew.
"An... Anego, If it's midnight... why is the sun shining?" she slurred as the Russian swept the remnants of the mask away from her scarred face.
"The sun doesn't shine for you," said Balalaika.
"No, no, no," whined Revy. The taste of bile rose in her throat. Her hands shook violently. The yaba must have been spiked with acid or LSD or she was finally having the nervous breakdown that was long past overdue.
She was the walking dead. It was just a matter of timing. What was it anyway? A brief moment and then everything in sight, sound, smell and memory would curl up like burning paper in a fire and collapse in on itself as all the neurons in her brain blew out in one stroboscopic flash. No midnight riders would show up to ride off with her in some pathetic childhood fantasy.
Physically her body, if intact and not in pieces would twitch for a few seconds, the bowels and bladder emptying involuntarily. Maybe her corpse would spasm one last time as her lungs filled up with blood from the gunshot trauma and it would utter one final death rattle.
Rock would kneel down sometime afterwards. She'd lie twisted in the gutter, the body would be oddly shrunken, almost deflated, a loose sack of meat and bones that in the heat of Thailand would rapidly bloat and discolor in a matter of hours, the blood darkening the flesh where it made contact with the ground. Revy would no longer be pretty with the side of her head blown off. The tongue would poke out from between her lips, the pupils would be fully dilated – nothing behind the darkness.
What then? Rock would probably stand up, his eyes would be dry and cold, he wouldn't have to wipe away any stray tears. He would speak in his precise, matter of fact tone. "We both knew it was going to happen. It's time to go back to Japan and my desk job - find myself a nice, proper wife and start a family. She was a bad, bad girl. A monster to the end."
If she was lucky, Dutch might have the remains cremated – not that anyone would show up to mourn her passing. Most likely the U.G. Pork van would come clattering and belching down the avenue and that wretched goth-girl would appear on cue. Maybe there would even be a creepy little capuchin monkey in a costume as a side show for the bystanders. And Sawyer would simper in anticipation, the pointy teeth showing between her blood red lips as she pulled the cord of the chainsaw.
Revy shook her head. The soi dog whined and thumped her tail. "It's okay girl, I'm okay. I think." She was going to have to hunt down the street vendor who had sold her the yaba and kneecap the bastard. Goddamn stuff was laced, she was totally fucked up and she was on the clock. Dutch would can her ass if she wasn't good to go.
"Revy, you there," Dutch's voice came rumbling through the ear-piece. "Thaksin, three bodyguards... and a girl – they just went in. Wait for my word. Remember, intimidate first – kill only if necessary. Keep it quiet. We want to get paid – and clients can't pay if they're dead."
"Got it, over," she wiped away the tears coursing down her cheeks. Fuck Roberta – rot in hell you bitch. Eda would howl with laughter if she saw her in this state. Self pity was for weaklings and the living. "Hold, I got problems. Company's coming"
Revy and the soi dog scrambled to their feet together and looked together around the end of the chain link fence as something moved jerkily around the corner and into the back of the alleyway. It squeaked and shuddered and came around a pile of garbage into the slanted rays of afternoon sunlight.
It was Wheelie; at least that's what Revy called her, never bothering to learn the girl's name. Her father had been part of the Russian influx that had brought Hotel Moscow to Roanapur how long ago? He had been an evangelist of all things, preaching the word of God and had provided the city a good laugh when he up and died of an aneurysm in the middle of a sermon denouncing the place as a hellhole. Balalaika had offered to send the girl back to St. Whateversburg at the funeral and for her pains got spit on.
The whisper on the street said it was Balalaika who had then ordered the crippling of Wheelie. The girl had vanished for almost three months, and then had reappeared in a homemade wheelchair, a box with mismatched bicycle wheels – a creation of the inventive Dr. Chiet who provided charity services to the castoffs of the city. She had continued her father's avocation, preaching to the indifferent in a hoarse, raspy shout on the streets of the city.
Wheelie had been pretty once. The tattered large shirt she wore as a dress only made one aware of how emaciated the teenager had become, barely surviving on handouts. What was left of her legs were wrapped stumps stuck out awkwardly in front of the box.
Revy stepped from the wall, the soi dog trotting alongside and strolled towards Wheelie. The girl was breathing heavily from the effort of moving the makeshift wheel-chair . Seemingly unaware of Revy's approach she frantically pulled her dirty hair tight with an elastic, a move that accentuated the sharpness of the nose and chin.
"Dobryj dyen," said Revy. The girl's head jerked up, the pale green eyes widening. Revy gulped involuntarily and felt a thrill go up her spine; the girl's face, the eyes, more unwanted memories that were interfering with the here and now.
"How do you like Texas?"
Revy lifted the heel of a boot and pushed against the rim of one of the mismatched bicycle wheels. The rickety wheel chair wobbled. "Turn your crappy little box around and get out of here. Nothing good's going to happen in a few minutes. You'll get hurt."
"Hellspawn! Cain's bitch!" the girl shrieked, her lip trembling. Fortunately, she sounded nothing like that dead girl from long ago. "You're nothing but a sooka ebnataya! You should get on your knees and repent now for your sins..."
"Zavali yebalo!" shouted Revy rocking the wheelchair with some vigor, almost upsetting the frightened girl out of the seat. The soi dog ran around them barking excitedly. "You talk to God with that mouth huh? I work for you people so don't mouth off to me in rusky, I'll give it right back to you."
One night at the Yellow Flag she had gotten the usually taciturn Boris to loosen up and he had taught her a few choice phrases and obscenities. And she had picked up more phrases from Rock since he was fluent in who knew how many languages.
"Revy," again it was Dutch. "Go. And there's something you..."
"Not yet, I'm busy," snapped Revy. She flicked the switch off and turned her full attention on the hapless Wheelie. "Get lost kid. If you're looking to preach, why don't you head down to the Rip-off Church, they're always looking for converts."
The response was surprising. Wheelie's features twisted in rage and she thrust her hand into one of the large rips of the shirt she wore. The girl had the rusty revolver barely free of the folds when Revy snatched the gun away and upended the wheelchair on the girl in a blur of movement. Wheelie tumbled into a pile of plastic and glass, but before she could react in any way Revy was stooping over her, the barrel of the revolver dug into the girl's cheek.
"Hey," said Revy. Her heart was pounding way too hard, and her index finger was trembling against the guard. She still had enough control not to go for the trigger. "Hey, hey, hey! You pull a gun on me, that changes everything. I only do last dances, never requests da? Maybe I speak to Balalaika about your attitude?"
Wheelie's eyes were squeezed shut, the side of her face was being pressed into a crushed soda can in the dirt. Her mouth opened, but the whispered reply was inaudible.
"I can't hear you," said Revy softly, putting weight on the gun barrel.
"Da! Da!"whispered the girl. "I sorry, I make mistake, please do not send me to Ms. Balalaika..."
"That's more like..." Revy ducked. A bottle flew by within inches of her head and smashed into fragments. There were angry shouts. Revy had let her awareness slip.
The six children had her and Wheelie surrounded; a mixed crowd of boys and girls in an odd assortment of tattered clothing. They danced around screeching and waving broken bottles and sticks. The largest boy hefted a machete with too much familiarity. The soi dog's tail flashed briefly as it bounded through the ranks of the children and made a hasty exit.
These were some of the outcasts of even Roanapur; one of the numerous gangs of street kids who barely survived off the waste and refuse of the city.
"Shut up!" shouted Revy standing up, and there was a collective shudder through the group as they fought the impulse to flee. She could feel their fear, of her. "You with the machete, back off."
"Leave Gaavrila alone, jaao mae!" the boy shouted, the machete shaking in his hand. Still he held his ground.
"So it's Gaavri huh," said Revy. She prodded the now weeping Russian girl with the tip of her boot which set off another wave of high pitched protests from the ragged defenders. "Damn, you kids are noisy. If you fucked the job up, I'll take it out on your hides."
Revy stepped back from Gaavrila, releasing the cylinder of the revolver and slapping the palm of her hand against the ejector rod. The ammo splashed into a puddle of sewage followed by the now unloaded gun.
"Take the cripple and get out of here," she said coldly to the boy. She turned and walked away. She reached up and flicked the headset back on. "Dutch, I'm going in the rear of the building in ten one-thousand, nine-one thousand, eight one-thousand..."
"Don't hurt Niken!" shouted Gavriila as the children picked up the Russian girl and straightened out the wheelchair.
"... seven one-thousand, six one-thousand, and five," counted Revy, her brow wrinkling. She stepped over a puddle of sewage and approached the back of the building. There was a doorway at floor level and two windows on the second floor.
"I swear you'll burn if you hurt Niken," the girl raged behind Revy. "Oh God, you'll burn and burn if you touch her! It will be your fault!"
Revy stumbled involuntarily, "Four, SHUT UP! One thousand,three one thousand," she was at the door. "Two one-thousand, Dutch – can I go in guns blazing?"
"No," was Dutch's response. "Play this low, they're expecting you, but not the way they think. Give our friend Thaksin a smile and a wai. I'll explain later."
Revy pouted. "Okay, fine then. I'll just knock and wiggle my hips. WILL YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP BITCH!!!"
"What was that Revy?" Dutch again.
"Not you," snarled Revy. She pounded on the metal door. "Hey! Open up! Pizza delivery! Oh, never mind!"
The door had swung open at her touch, the entry way was unlocked. Revy stepped in and slid to the side so she wouldn't stand out against the light.
The hallway was deserted, a narrow flight of stairs led to the second level. Dutch loomed in the corridor at the front, shotgun in hand. When she pantomimed a shrug, he gestured silently to the stairs.
Gritting her teeth she led up the stairs. "I'll give them a smile alright."
Up to a landing with two closed doors. Loud music and yelling could be heard from one of the rooms. The door looked breakable. Revy preferred the direct approach; she tensed and readied a strong kick. Dutch moved up silently, out of sight on the bottom step.
The door opened. A large man, vaguely European with a shaved head stood there with a wide grin. He grasped a bottle in one hand. "We got another bitch! An older bitch, but that's alright! You look just like her! "
Revy bristled, but the man seized her by the arm and dragged her in. The apartment was small, two attached rooms. There was a couch with two men seated at a table in the center. The back room door was partially closed.
She yelped as he pawed at her butt. The man examined her with lustful admiration. "This one's even got toy guns! That Rowan knows how to suit up his girls."
One of the men on the couch looked up, eying the new arrival. His mouth sagged open. "Maurice! You moron! That's no whore! She's the real deal, kill her!"
Revy pushed away from the large man with a sliding step, immensely relieved as the usual dance began. Honestly, what had Dutch expected: negotiations? Bring Rock next time! The men on the couch went through various awkward contortions as they fumbled for weaponry that would do nothing to prolong their last few moments; the usual shouting and panic, the dismayed expressions of no consequence. She drew the Cutlass specials and killed the two on the couch with her usual speed and accuracy.
Revy pivoted towards the last bodyguard, the one called Maurice who had felt her up. The look on his face would have been priceless, except for the reason. He held a metal pin in one hand, a fumbled grenade was rolling on the floor.
"If you're scared -- you'll lose!"
"Dutch! Fire in the hole!"
As Revy shouted the warning, she took two quick steps and she leapt up and forward off the right foot. She brought the right knee forward, left leg coiling beneath and slammed into Maurice's chest with the Hanuman Thayarn, the flying knee strike. Both arms crossed with the chin tucked down.
The man weighed twice as much as Revy. Even with such a strike, the range was too close to knock the larger opponent down, and she didn't mean to. Instead she drove the sole of the trailing left boot into the Maurice's upper thigh, and recoiled off at an angle with enough height gained to clear the nearby couch. In air, she stabbed the right gun towards the hapless Maurice and blew out the side of his knee.
Revy tumbled behind the couch, covering her ears. On the other side Maurice cork-screwed and pitched forward, down onto the grenade.
Maurice managed a squeal before the grenade detonated. The explosion wasn't as loud as Revy had expected. The couch merely slid a bit. There were several wet thumps as body parts were flung into the walls and ceiling. The children in the back alleyway launched a chorus of wails and screams that were audible even inside..
Dutch stepped in, waving at the smoke. The shotgun was at the ready, but he lowered the barrel instantly. He shook his head at the carnage. "Damn, girl... I said keep it quiet. Now we have to call in the cleaner."
Revy peered over the edge of the couch. "They wouldn't negotiate," she protested, speaking rapidly. "But I'm betting Thaksin will pay up now."
She gestured with a gun barrel at the second room.
--
Their quarry was sprawled face-down on the floor, the shattered remnants of a lamp by his head.
She was at the large window, trying to open the bottom hung sash. The long black ponytail danced across the shoulders of the black tank top because of her exertions. She wore a tattered pair of cut-off blue jeans and a pair of untied military style boots. A duffel bag was slung across her back.
"Hey," said Revy at the doorway, blinking. Dutch looked over her shoulder.
She spun around, one hand to her mouth. The wide brown eyes widened in panic. She stepped back from the window.
"Oh, this is bullshit," said Revy, lowering the gun. "Now…"
The girl, a skinny teenager, spun the duffel bag around in front, lifting it up so the top protected her face. Legs churning, she ran at the window and leaped through feet-first with a crash.
Revy rushed over to the window and looked out. Figures flitted away into the shadows, the group of street children retreating to safety. The girl had incredibly made the jump uninjured and was among their number. Dutch knelt down by Thaksin who was starting to stir.
"Did you see that? Did you see that?" asked Revy breathlessly. "That was cool."
NOTE: The events described here are supposed to happen after el Baile de la Muerte. Whether it fits in continuity is a matter of SOME concern, but we're going to take the chance.
Revy's abuse of yaba. See page 4 of Chapter 72. Sure, it's just aspirin... I posted a link in the "How to Survive in Roanapur" forum.
The non RH flashbacks are based off of events in "Gun Punk", "Eastern Jewel", and Moonlith's very dark tale "Omerta" with his permission.