No Rest 4 Wicked Botniks Chapter 10

Bobby Malone #6: Hostile Negotiations

Sep 29, 2023

CHAPTER 10
Bobby Malone #6:
Hostile Negotiations

The only way Bobby was ever going to exit this silly, stupid Russian sailor bar in the middle of the Mojave damn Desert alive was… Was toooo…

Then it clicked.
The only way to survive and escape was to accept an old role, but to take it in a new and different direction. No cops here, no grifting NV detectives. Just a West-Fort Metro negotiator pretending to be a hostile hostage-taker. He realized more fully now that the poor vodka-sponge he had jugged earlier was now his only practical way out of here.

Dmitry was his one ace, the sole exit strategy. It was Dmitry or death. It was time for hostage negotiations, and nothing else.

“I have a HOSTAGE in here!” Bobby roared for all the world to hear. He grabbed Dmitry’s limp arm and swung it around and over the bar-top, waving it like a white flag of truce.

He had smoked his last cigarette more than five minutes ago. Wonder if this fuck has Bigbies on him, Bobby mused. Nah, it’s Simul Stogies or Dead Reds more likely than not.

SHUT UP. FOCUS. Or the Reds will make me Dead.

Bobby wished he had his Morinaga ‘85 on him. It was lightweight and almost completely noiseless. Every single shot from its magazine was fatally lethal when it broke skin. Yep, a 22-STS Whisper-Gun Mark One with a full magazine of 36 venom-tipped needles would be a choice piece right now. Real handy right here and now.

But he had left that particular silent but venomous weapon at home, inside his business desk. Lord, I’m fixing to eat it…

Priorities. Focus.

More shuffling feet, and what sounded like weapons getting locked and loaded. AKs, or the new Tommies maybe, and some kind of shotgun and maybe a small pistol or two.

Oh, God in Heaven! Nope, nope, nope. This night was to be his last. His ass was grass—yellow, brown, and not coming back. It was just a matter of time and nothing else.

Bobby wouldn’t even have time to phone his estranged wife back in Texas.

Monica Esperanza Malone, Little Miss “Dixie Daniels”… She was the best, worst street walker to ever stand on an Eastside corner of the Fort in thigh-high stilettoed faux-leather cowgirl boots. Bobby smiled grimly, thinking back on all the fun and the fury in his Lone Star Republic daze.

Nope, definitely no phone call to wifey, and no sweet last words. The Nevada Bratva probably wouldn’t mail his body to her, either.

Shut up. Prioritize.

He cleared his throat and continued. “I only ever came here looking for booze and info! Irish and information, fellas! Now, I said I got a HOSTAGE inside here, ok, ASSHOLES? Dmitry? Dmitry? DMITRY! DIMKA! Dimka bartender’s here with me. Is that OK? Is that Okinawa City for you, you fucking Envy Bratva Pack?!?”

Silence.

“Dmitry’s alive and well, right beside me! But, if you ever want to see his lily-white Mother Cracker Ruskiye ass again…”

He should have anticipated the hail of gunfire that destroyed the bar’s front door. He didn’t, but he should have. It was just one of those nights.

Dammit all to Hell. Christ, will it never end?

And then—smoke. Lots of smoke.

There was smoke issuing from the entrance’s new-fangled orifice, smoke from the raining fire of small and large munitions, along with small neon lights exploding.

Smoke was good. Cloud the eyes, and the other senses with ‘em. Smoke was real good.

Bobby’s Rothbauer growled back once, a booming gunshot intended for some region lower than groin. Hopefully, it would hit a thigh, shin, or foot, or even a kneecap.

The shot did. Hit, that is. And by the anguished scream of, “ZADNITSA!” and another man’s murmured, “Zadrotas…”, he assumed he had in fact hit a gen-u-ine kneecap.

Good. Let ‘em all die in agony.

Only two slugs of the shotgun-revolver were left to him though, aside from a suicide bullet, of course. So...

“Stay right there, fuckers!” he yelled, raspy. “Don’t move! Or there’s another one of those slugs in here for your ugly-ass slop server! Poor little Dimka will get it in the BRAIN!” Bobby was feeling alive again for the first time in ages. Why was it always when you were just about to die?

A new voice, more commanding and even more sloppily accented with the rusty old Baltic Belt, asked this particular question in plain ol’ Meric: “How we know he no dead already... Huh?”

“Well, that’s a damn good question, ya fuck!” Bobby retorted. “You could come in, I guess, and see for yourselves, but…”

“Da,” said the Russian over-thug, with an obvious smirk in his tone. “Oh, yeah, we could do it that, I think.”

“Don’t kill me first!” Bobby was getting frantic.

The oozing smarm deepened in the Brat-pack frontman. “Oh, no worries here-ways, tovarisch. No worry, dumb bulldog. You’re a badger, yes? A dead badger. We come in, boot. This is Moscowtown, zadrota. You are in Zadnitsa district. You’re dead already.”

“Shut up and listen!” Bobby hacked out. His voice had almost completely dried up on him. He let out a ragged cough and then glanced down at Dmitry. He wondered once more if either one of them would be in any condition to limp out of there tonight.

“I ain’t no NV bulldog, OK,” Bobby Malone responded softly. “I ain’t no badger anywhere anymore. I used to be, back in Texas where I lived for a good long while. I was a Lonestar boot and then a negotiator, and once a homicide detective too. But… I ain’t any of those things. Not anymore…”

Unimpressed, the Russians seemed ready to press on. “Oh, sob, sob, Misha. I no listen to your sad story, dead man,” said the Leader. “We come in and end this.”

The leader kept his word. Six footsteps from five men. They came in to end this.

END OF CHAPTER 10