Still Life With Taylor

::FIFTEEN::

They'd been coming in, in one's and two's, for the back half of the night. It had been let slip that all of us would be here, alone. That I would be here. Seems that I was the clincher, it being the second time I had pulled a shotgun in the bar, against these guys.

They're armed. I know this, even though no one has pulled a weapon yet. I know it because it's fate, and because it could not happen any other way. I turn the music up a bit.

Look across at Taylor, standing against the back wall now, the farthest he's been from me all night. Like the first night I met him, his face cold and inscrutable. A thing formed from steel and stone. A dangerous oiled grace that promised pain and death.

Sal cuts across to me, locking the doors on the way. He's supposed to escort me out, back to the hotel, where I'm to wait. He's almost at the bar. I look across at Taylor. At Matty, coming through the back, the two killers following behind. Look across at the twelve bikers sitting around the big table at the back. Taylor wanted me gone by the time the Novo brothers got in. Didn't want me seeing anything I shouldn't, in case it all went wrong.

I don't want to see any of it either. Who would. But I stand here, in the dim half light of the bar, and know that I'm not going to let Sal take me anywhere. He's got my elbow now, gently. Taylor has told me what he's done, what he's had to do. Looking at Sal, I can see that he's much the same kind of man as Taylor. Older, wiser. But not a bad person, in spite of all of it.

"I'm not going, Sal. We can't leave." We can't leave them with two guns less, is the unfinished thought.

The Novo brothers stand against the wall now, beside the bikers, just to the left of them. They haven't said anything. Simply stand, easily, in their black suits and white shirts, oozing an easy evil intent, more terrifying for the bored nature with which it carries itself. As though murder was nothing more than a trip out for coffee with these men.

Sal pats my hand, a soft sigh. He knows he's not going to make me move. A flicker of concern crosses Taylor's face, when he realizes I'm not leaving.

Sal moves behind the bikers. I remain behind the bar, killing the spots overhead. The only light in the bar is the very soft lights out front. It's almost beautiful, softening the hard faces of these men into something else. Like a brutal depiction of a killing on some African plain, the predators about to strike. Terrifying and magnificent, all at the same time.

There are twelve. Eleven are just there, not serving any real purpose other than their presence.

"This place is ours. It belongs to us. We want it back." A voice like gravel, someone had cut his throat, a long time ago. It had healed badly, leaving this terrible voice, a sound from the bottom of a well. A beady eyed intelligence, more animal cunning than anything, radiated from the beast of a man. A creak of leather, his jacket too small now, he had aged, did it make him wiser? Or did it just make him slower. Only time would tell.

Matty moves right up to the edge of the table, resting his knuckles on the edge. Taylor stands just behind him, to his right. There is something resigned, and tired, in Matty's face. "It may have been yours once, but things have changed. Now it is ours, and I don't intend to lose it."

In all of this, I wouldn't have figured Matty for a battle of wills here. The steel creeps back into his voice. "I don't tell many people my last name. To be honest, I was hoping to forget it. To just get by without it. It's Demaret. Matty Demaret."

The big bikers face visibly pales at this, but he struggles to compose himself. "So what. We heard you were clean. Not connected. We've got connections too, pal, you're nobody."

"If you would have asked a week ago, I would have agreed with you." Matty sounds almost sorrowful now, reaching back to run a hand through his hair. "I don't want this. I would have liked to run clean, run a clean place. I still do."

He moves in, his knuckles resting on the edge of the table again, looking straight into the eyes of the monster in front of him. "But it would be a terrible mistake to think those connections are severed. I can't get rid of this name. Can't get rid of what it means. You have threatened my friends." His eyes flick to Taylor, to me. "For that." Sigh. "For that, I would be willing to change everything. I don't want this, but if you want a war, you'll get one. And you'll lose."

"Fuck you, kid." He doesn't sound sure. No, he doesn't sound sure of himself at all.

"Yea, fuck them, who gives a shit who he's connected to." Some skinny guy on the right, his eyes sparking with some crazy artificial light, brought on by something cooked up in a home lab somewhere. There's always got to be a mouth. If he was just mouth, it wouldn't be such a problem. He pulls a gun out of the front of his pants.

"Drop it." The croak from the bottom of the well. But it's too late, like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Guns are drawn all around. The bikers are surrounded. Taylor covers the big biker in front of Matty, who remains unarmed. Remains, knuckles resting on the table, as though nothing has happened.

Sal, at the back, his gun drawn, but not up, just watching. And me, of course, that lovely new shotgun in my hand. The crazy guy with the gun has his back turned to me again, he's facing Taylor now, his gun waving around at him. If there was a depiction ever of someone who should never be allowed to handle a weapon, he was it. I hate that he's pointing that damned thing at Taylor, but it does keep his interest for just long enough.

The muzzle of the shotgun creates a part in his hair. I've crept up, while all the talking and waving was going on, and creased the back of his hair with it. If he makes even the slightest move towards shooting Taylor, I'll kill him. I never thought I would be in this position. About to coldly kill a man, and not particularly caring that I did.

"Drop it." The big biker repeats himself. Swallowing audibly, as he does so. "Everybody just take it easy. So we made a mistake." He makes to get up and leave.

"Sit. Down." Matty, his voice growing angry. "I'm not finished, and you will hear the rest of this."

He sits back down. All the swagger gone out of him.

"I don't quite believe that you're going to just walk away from this. Something tells me that you're the sort of man that, even if he doesn't cause trouble himself, might not have a problem with other people he knows causing trouble." He looks directly at the mouthy guy, who has since dropped his gun on the table in front of him. I haven't moved.

"If anyone here is harmed, we'll come after YOU. You will get your war. Your police friends won't help you. You know they don't go that high. The old ways are dying. But not all of them. If anything happens here, specifically, if anything happens to the lovely Miss Cameron, I will see to it that YOU are killed. If she stumbles on the sidewalk and scrapes her knee, you had better be on the next bus out of town, because I'll see to it that no one ever finds what's left of you."

The big biker gets up, eying Matty. Sure, the guns make him nervous. Taylor's gun hasn't left his head during the entire encounter. It's the thought of the contract put on his head, a contract that would be filled by these two killers, that seals it.

Matty has pushed back hard. All that's left is finding out if it will be enough, and that's something only time will tell.

"Get the fuck out." This last, from Taylor. The bikers leave, the Novo's following the big biker all the way out.

Only time will tell.