THE POLITICS OF PLEASURE (20 page)

Armstrong took cover behind racks of dyed wool drying on the street out front of a Turkoman carpet concern. Two old women looked up at him from a horizontal loom; intricate red and black patterns made up a carpet-in-the-making. But the wizened women decided the shots and the foreigner were not worth their time and returned to their time-honoured craft. Armstrong knew he had to act fast. The man and woman looked set to take the truck. This town wasn't the lawless North-West frontier. Shots had been fired and cops would turn up. Onlookers were already forming.

The mercenary peered cautiously from behind a cluster of dripping red wool. The two assailants looked Italian. Corsicans, or lone wolf fuck-ups, trying to muscle in on the profits of Armstrong's boss and Sicilian distributors. Armstrong moved with stealth between the rows of drying wool until he was level with the truck.

Wielding a .38 handgun, the swarthy highwayman wrenched the Pakistani truck driver down from the cab. A scuffle ensued and the truck driver was promptly shot in the chest.

The gun's report rang in Armstrong's ears. The loud noise enhanced by the Benzedrine pills he'd popped an hour before. The American mercenary had a long drive ahead of him, not to mention a booked seat on a Pan Am flight departing Karachi the following evening. He had to attend his sister's wedding in Connecticut – and these creeps were only making his tight schedule that much harder. Armstrong pulled out a snub-nosed Charter Undercover .38 Special. Racy and sharp from pills, he jumped out from behind a rack of wool and shot the gunman in the back of the head.

'Roberto!' the woman called out from the other side of the truck. No sooner had Armstrong shot the gunman than he threw himself under the six-wheeled vehicle. He rolled in the street's grey dust, his shoulder clearing the mud-covered drive shaft of the Tata truck.

'Roberto!'

He saw the woman's shifting feet, sensed her apprehension and uncertainty. He inched his way farther under the truck. Then, from his vantage, fired two rounds into the unsuspecting woman's groin. She scrunched her face and cried out like a virginal bride taken by a callous groom. She hollered from pain and dropped the assault rifle, blood spurting over her ankles and the dusty ground. She tottered and looked down with disbelief at her attacker under the truck. Her lips trembled and her eyes glazed over with the fear of imminent death. Armstrong blew the woman a short kiss and fired his .38. The bullet plowed into her lower head and she dropped with a lifeless thud to the ground. The ex-Navy SEAL climbed out from under the truck and grabbed the dead woman's Kalishnikov rifle. He told Flip to take the wheel. He could smell cops and Karachi was still a long way off ...

Now, Manuela's trembling lips and frightened eyes reminded Armstrong of that woman in Panjinad. And like that time in Pakistan, Armstrong was high on Benzedrine. He felt immeasurably strong. Akin to a god. One who on a whim grants life or death to sheepish souls. The great adjudicator. His grandiose perception was further bolstered from seeing a cassette-tape on the dining table. Its plastic cover glinted invitingly in the candelabrum's gold light. Had to be the tape the old man was so huffed about. This was too easy. There was room for play. Armstrong dropped his carry bag on the floor. And he felt like playing. He felt too damn good not to ...

'Don't you fucking move,' he said to the huddled sisters. He stopped at the table and grabbed the tape, saw the government label on it.

Jackpot!

Just what the high-paying general wanted. Armstrong smiled and pocketed his find. He turned to Goldman. 'You shouldn't steal from the old man cause he'll stop at nothing to protect his interests.' He chuckled with malice, before glowering at both chemists. 'You dumb fucks!' His murderous expression told the chemists they were as good as dead, told them they would die by his hand tonight, that his dominant voice would be the last they heard. Besides, of course, their own pained cries for mercy.

Goldman's hands balled into fists. His temples throbbed, his heartbeat thudded in his ears like distant sonic booms. Growing anger had replaced any initial fear of the home invasion.

What a day. He'd learned the truth about his father's murder; he'd most likely lost his job; he could probably kiss goodbye his romantic relationship with Belize; and if that weren't enough these two armed thugs (who undoubtedly worked for General Turner: the man responsible for Goldman's father's death), were acting like they planned to kill him. Goldman's world had been reduced to this agonizing moment. A prelude to an all out zero if he didn't fight back soon. And by the look of things he'd better do something before it was too late, for himself and his
invited
guests.

Armstrong stopped in front of Manuela. A malicious grin creased his unshaven face. 'You're scared, aren't you?'

Manuela was too shaken for words as the gunman grazed the back of his hand against her cheek.

'Aren't you?' he screamed, the veins in his bullish neck protruding like steel cables.

'Yes, yes,' Manuela said in a sobbing voice. 'Please, don't hurt us.'

'Leave her alone,' Belize cried out, her dark eyes pooling with hatred. With knightly valour, Haslow moved towards Manuela. Flip smashed his elbow into the older chemist's solar plexus, then knocked the chemist to the floor. Haslow gasped and curled in pain on the carpet. For good measure, Flip kicked him in the chest with his steel-capped boot.

Armstrong disregarded Haslow's pained writhing and lifted the hem of Manuela's yellow frock with the barrel of his gun. He grazed the MP5's sound-suppressor along her olive thigh, before jabbing it against the crotch of her panties. He squashed her mouth vertically and said through clenched teeth, 'You better do as I say if you don't want me to kill you. You stupid Mex bitch!' Manuela squirmed painfully in his vice-like grip. 'Do you like giving head?' he snarled. 'Well, do you?' he shouted. He pulled the gun from her crotch and slapped its snub barrel against her tearing cheek.

Goldman's heart pounded against his ribs as he fought back surging wrath. All the while Flip covered him with his gun. The mercenary's steely gaze invited Goldman to have a go, to see if he would do better than Haslow who still lay curled on the floor clutching his pained midsection.

Armstrong grabbed Manuela's hair. He pulled her head back and brought his gun's barrel to her lips. Makeup ran in dark trails down her cheeks. Her clenched mouth smeared with lipstick. Belize lashed out and kicked Armstrong in the shin. He cried out and backhanded her. She fell to the floor with a jarring thud, and was slow to get back on her feet.

Flip jabbed his loaded weapon close to Goldman's face. 'Just try me, asshole! Please!' Goldman didn't doubt the gunman's resolve but he wasn't broken by it, either. Haslow pushed himself back up. Flip snarled and kicked him again in the chest. Haslow growled with pain and assumed another undignified position on the carpet.

Armstrong pulled harder on Manuela's hair. She grimaced as her head was forced farther back. 'Open your goddamn mouth.' Armstrong's drug-maddened eyes bulged in their sockets. 'Make like Miss Lovelace or I'll kill your ugly little sister
just for the hell of it!'
He stood over Manuela and forced his gun into her protesting mouth. Its cold steel clacked against her teeth. 'Swallow it, you taco-chomping
puta!'

Armstrong chortled from a heady rush of tyrannical power. Manuela's legs gave way beneath her and her tormentor pulled her back up by the hair. She grunted from mushrooming pain and humiliation. Her cheeks grimed from a mishmash of makeup and tears.

Belize was back on her feet. 'Leave her alone, you sick
cochino!'
Spittle flew from her mouth and her hair lifted from her shoulders as she looked frantically about the room for any kind of weapon. Her face lit up when she saw the 5 kg dumbbell beside the shot-apart record player.

Flip still covered Goldman, but couldn't help sidelong glances at Armstrong's handiwork. His partner certainly had a way with the ladies. Flip was getting off on Manuela's growing debasement – and then he locked on to Belize's mad dash for the record player.

Goldman pounced.

Some movement happens so quickly the brain can barely register the event, let alone properly respond. Goldman lashed out with a close range, upper thrust kick that sent Flip's submachine gun circling through the air. Before the weapon hit the floor, Goldman (after bringing his leg back to the half-strike position from the first kick) executed a vicious thrust kick into the gunman's groin. Flip doubled over and bawled with pain.

Not missing a beat, Goldman spun round and shot a full-length thrust kick at Armstrong. The edge of his angled foot connected with Armstrong's MP5 submachine gun (the mercenary had wrenched the gun from Manuela and towards his surprise attacker). The gunman lost grip of his sound-suppressed weapon. It jolted upward and 9mm bullets to plow into the ceiling. Christ, he didn't even have the safety on, Goldman thought, with bits of ceiling plaster raining down on him. Goldman stepped back, then leapt forward with another full-length thrust kick.

Straight into Armstrong's midsection.

The powerful kick sent the gunman hurtling backwards onto a low, glass-top table that Goldman had set against the wall to complement another of Rachel's Chinese vases. A splintering sound filled the room as Armstrong's upper-body crashed through the glass tabletop. Blood pooled from his neck as he came to rest at an awkward angle inside the table's splintered wood frame.

Without pause, Goldman spun round and executed a piston-like thrust kick into Flip's chest (the sandy-haired gunman was back on his feet and readying to fire his automatic weapon). Armstrong's partner lost possession of his gun a second time and thudded haphazardly into the sound system he'd recently vandalized. Flip shook his head, cursed loudly, and launched himself at his attacker.

Goldman was too enraged to execute the disciplined moves of Wing Chun Do. He reverted to street-fighting techniques he'd learned in Australia from a student flatmate working part-time as a crowd controller. He jabbed his steel-like fingers into Flip's upper stomach, just below the sternum. Flip fell forward as air was violently expelled from his lungs. Goldman pulled him up by his salon-cropped hair and repeatedly punched him in the stomach. It suddenly looked as if handsome Flip should have chosen a more sedate profession – male modelling, perhaps – other than being a teammate for a hard man like Armstrong.

Goldman stabbed his kneecap into the gunman's testicles. With no air in his lungs and all but unconscious from blinding pain, Flip again fell forward. Goldman brought his knee up and spread Flip's bloodied nose at an unsightly angle. The gunman was out cold before he hit the floor, though his body spasmed in an effort to take in life-sustaining air. For good measure, Goldman tilted the stereo cabinet forward and the disfigured sound system landed on the squirming gunman's back.

Manuela had remained silent during this sudden disarming of the intruders, but cried in alarm as Armstrong loomed behind Goldman. The fuming gunman was cut and bleeding in several places and a lengthy sliver of glass jutted from his neck. He yanked the sliver out and looked desperately about the floor for his gun. Unable to find it, he held up the bloody piece of glass and charged. His flared nostrils and broad shoulders gave him the aspect of an enraged bull.

Unperturbed, Goldman slipped back into his ancient-Chinese fighting skills. He executed a roundhouse back-kick into the side of the gunman's head. The shocking blow lifted Armstrong off the floor and smashed him against a tall mahogany bookcase. He staggered and lurched forward. The well-stocked bookcase toppled after him and crashed across his back. Hardcover and paperback books skewed every which way; fanned, crumpled and crushed. A paperback copy of
Little Birds
by Anais Nin (one of Rachel's favorites) fluttered against the gunman's battered face, his salivated blood spilling across the book's cover.

Held as such, the cursing mercenary shifted underneath the weight pinning him down. His volcanic anger filled the room as he clawed his way out from under the bookcase. He drew himself up from the floor like an incensed WWE wrestler. Not down for the count at all. But then Goldman wasn't a spent force, either. Far from it. Armstrong's debasement of Manuela still burned avidly in Goldman's mind. Like a sizzling stick of dynamite, the chemist exploded.

He rushed forward and slammed the mercenary against the wall. He repeatedly punched him. His bony fists a blur of unmitigated fury. Manuela screamed again (which only irritated Goldman, for hadn't the tide miraculously turned?). Haslow was back on his feet, holding his pained midsection, and looking altogether dumbfounded.

Goldman's fists rained with brutal precision on Armstrong. The gunman's head jerked about from the damaging barrage of short punches. Goldman's left fist blistered with pain from the mini-bolt cutters in Armstrong's open trench coat. The chemist cursed aloud, grabbed the cutters, and tossed them aside. Before they hit the floor, he resumed his pummeling attack on his adversary's torso. His fists soon fractured the plastic walkie-talkie on the other side of Armstrong's coat. Fueled by inconsolable rage, the chemist kept punching.

Harder and harder ...

Until the battered gunman ceased all movement.

'You've killed him,' Manuela cried out tearfully.

Goldman stepped back and let gravity have its way with the brutish intruder. With fractured ribs, a dislocated jaw, a puffed and split face, and a nose in dire need of surgical reconstruction, Armstrong slid down the wall.

'If only,' Goldman said, massaging his chipped fists. Sweat clung to his brow as his chest rose and fell from exertion. Manuela stepped up to the crumpled gunman and spat on his face. Galloping sobs escaped her as she turned aside, her saliva fusing with the blood spilling from Armstrong's misshapen nose.

Goldman stared at the unconscious gunmen on the carpet, then at Belize as she comforted Manuela. She tidied her sister's hair, before cleaning away errant tears and patchy streaks of makeup. Sisterly concern had taken precedence over earlier differences. Still holding his midsection, Haslow looked at the Cuban sisters, who in turn looked back at him and Goldman. The chemist could see his guests were frightened and wanted desperately to leave. Who could blame them? Quite likely further danger was afoot. Other gunmen could be stationed nearby.