Dirty Work: Volume 1

A Leader Of Men - 7

        I entered in behind Markro, who had stopped still and silent a few steps into the room. The room was large; pillars reaching to the ceiling beam three stories above us. Fluorescent lights hung on large cables down to the first floor, straight through the centre of the room, in the centre of the balconies that ringed the central stage on the ground floor, they the perfect place to observe the goings on below like K-Crows, circling above, waiting for the kill.

            In the back of this large room, Flore waited on an old chair, bound and gagged, not making a sound or plea or protest. Beside her, a large, burly man in a black suit and white shirt, black neck-tie, Rose crest on his left sleeve. Before these two stood four other men, dressed the same, crests even more resplendent in their golden embroidered outlines. Guns were trained on us. I felt spots of red on my shirt as I wandered, electric, target locked in sight.

            Before them all, a smaller man. He had a bald head, shining like a mirror. He wore shades over his eyes, which blocked part of the stem of a red rose, tattooed onto the left side of his face. He stood with his hands behind his back, smiling. This, I gathered, was their boss.

            'Welcome,' he said, his voice small but commanding, like the sound of a gun being primed in a crowd, 'to our temporary headquarters.'

            I tensed my fingers, hand beginning to snake down to my gun. I was a quick draw as well. Markro held out a hand to stop me.

            'And what a homely palace it is too,' he said. His voice was hard, like steel. 'I gather it wasn't you who was chosen as interior decorator.'

            The small man laughed, and a small bead of sweat broke to the surface on the back of my neck. Hairs that might have been there were now in danger of getting a soaking. 'This is but a small stepping stone to our eventual, final goals and intentions.'

            'Well,' Markro said, daring to take a step forward, 'that's certainly a relief. The emptiness and, may I say, shoddiness, of this kind of facility, does not do your image much good.'

            'I quite agree with you,' the small man said, walking towards us. Markro finished his step and stopped. I could tell by the way his coat suddenly had all of its wrinkles evaporate that he had tensed, locked his feet into position. He wasn't going to move any further.

            'So what might I call you?' Markro asked. 'The Boss? Big Boy? The Leader? Dayve?'

            'The name is Vayn Baron,' the small man said, extending a hand. 'Pleased to meet you.'

            Markro did not show his pleasure by extending his hand in return. The small man laughed, ice cold.

            'Oh come now, this is a pleasant interaction with no fatalities, I'd hope,' said the man. 'I had thought that this would be a nice, comfortable, altogether easy exchange. You want your girl back, we want the package. It's all very simple, even for a hired hand like you.'

            I glanced up to the balconies that ringed the bottom floor. Shadows moved, rustlings of clothes, the telltale clatter of weapons being readied.

            Markro stared the man straight in his shades, trying to penetrate them, but not able to. Vayn Baron had never moved his hands from out behind his back. I tried to see if there was a weapon of any kind there, but was at the wrong angle to do so, and didn't want to move from out of Markro's side, for fear of ending up with a blast through my head.

            At that moment, a bad moment it must be admitted, I even felt a blast boring through my skull, dissolving the insides of my brain and the chips of bone. I wanted eagerly to rub my forehead, to check that I hadn't already been shot, but I had to ignore the itch. I didn't wish to change fancy into reality.