No Rest 4 Wicked Botniks Chapter 12
Bobby Malone #7: An Oddly Convenient Truth
CHAPTER 12
Bobby Malone #7:
An Oddly Convenient Truth
In a flash, Bobby suddenly remembered the Chinese SMG that Dmitry had kicked away from the bar. The AP-56’s extended magazine had more than enough ammo to shred through this crowd. Maybe he could reach it before the Russians sighted him and took their shot. Maybe he could finally even the odds.
He crouch-ran to the very end of the bar. But the SMG was still five feet away, and to get to it he would have to leave all cover behind. Maybe if he dived forward and rolled, he could pick it up in time and then spray away.
But at that exact moment the Russians fired at Bobby’s position. Bullets flew over his head and in front of his face. Bottles exploded nearby, and shards of glass rained over him. The last foot of the bar had been torn apart with bullet holes. Bobby fell back and crawled away, back towards Dmitry’s unconscious body. The Russians’ attack had been scatter-shot and premature. If they had taken the time to close more of the distance or aim properly, Bobby would have been a dead man.
But one last crazy idea suddenly popped into Bobby’s head. He had just one more desperate tactic to try. “Wait a minute. WAIT!” Bobby shouted. “This ain’t my side of town. I’m not from Moscowtown. I’m from Hoyleside!”
Bobby carefully peaked over the bartop.
The Russians had paused a few feet over the threshold. The men were still barely visible, but he could make out pale, smoky faces, tracksuits and real suits, dirty, moosed-up hair, and large damn guns.
Bobby ducked lower behind the bar and continued, “I owe MR. HARRY HOYLE HIMSELF! From Hoyleside, Natives’ white town. I owe HIM the sum of 45,000 Bluebacks! 45,000 in soft blue Stars. Ok? Okinawa? Are we Okinawa yet, you fucking bunch of Brats?!”
Their leader, short, lean, but toned, clean-shaven and handsome, looked and sounded unimpressed yet again. “Our money is no blue here, boot,” he said. “Our money is red, like the old days. Merica an’ Russia bloody days. Red like old dead commies, da?”
But the Russians didn’t move any farther. Their leader was stalling, but most likely he just wanted a clear shot.
Bobby was getting annoyed. His Rothbauer shifted toward the leader fractionally. “Hey!” he said. “Can any of y’all count to twenty without removing your socks, you Stalin cocksuckers?”
BOOM. Another shotgun blast from their direction, and another spray from an assault rifle. More bottles exploded; more bullet holes tore through the bar. Bobby ducked down by poor Dmitry. Thankfully, the spread had missed most of the bar... like his point, apparently.
Bobby responded with a roaring CRUNCH from his massive revolver, but he was aiming at a lackey, not the leader. The gunshot hit center mass. A low thud, someone’s long sigh, and curses. Then an actual corpse at the door.
They might kill him, but Bobby would make them pay for it. Dearly.
“I mean,” Bobby explained, rising slightly, “45,000 Stars is like 70K in Pelosis or Bamma Dollars or whatever silly peso you wanna use here, and probably closer to 100K in your Putins. That makes it almost thirty grand in New New Yen, you stupid, brother-loving sons of bitches. 30,000 round, in brand new Yenbucks. I don’t even know the math for the HKD exchange. I ask you earnestly. Do you realize how big a DEBT that is? You… just can’t afford… to kill me. The Prince of Darkness himself probably couldn’t either. Satan can’t put a hit on me, unless the Professor clears it.”
Bobby lowered himself behind the bar, where the bullets had missed, and shifted Dmitry with him. “I don’t care which boss you work for,” he said. “Kruglov, Roman, or Vitsin the Butcher himself. None of them can afford to kill me unless Hoyle clears it on his end.”
He paused for dramatic effect. “Otherwise… it’ll be you that pays the Big Fish Fine for breaking the hot dang Sixty-Gang Truce.”
He pushed up to see their reactions. The warning actually went through to them. It shook them more than a little. But the Russians were clearly stalling until they received their orders from the higher-ups.
Even a bald-faced lie about another member of the Big Six would stall them, and Bobby’s enormous gambling debt to Mr. Harry Hoyle was no deception of any kind. It was, for the time being, an oddly convenient truth.
The Russians huddled together for a private argument in their own language.
The huddle lasted only about ten seconds, because then it happened that…
—An incoming call came. Through the leader’s cheap comm-watch.
A call came, and the leader answered it.
A call came, full of white static noise, over the Bratva gangster’s outdated device, and the first words were:
“Listen to me, Alyosha.”
END OF CHAPTER 12
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Index of slang, technologies, organizations, and other terms that appear in the novel "No Rest 4 Wicked Botniks" and other stories in the shared "Boilerplate" fictional universe