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Katana Justice

Posted on September 13, 2007
Filed Under The Stories |

The sword sliced through the air with the confidence of a sushi chef laying out choice slivers of salmon for hungry and appreciative customers. It cut thin and it cut true, like circles of chorizo firing up the taste in a dressing-gloried sandwich. It sang through the air with the kind of whistle that would have made Chow Yun-Fat’s ponytail from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon sit up and beg like an obedient little dog. The sword did all that and it sent Michael Waltzinger’s right arm flying. It was the hand he held the big gun in. The one with the death-seeking slugs that turned to molten lead inside its target and dripped a poison into the system so that even a flesh wound would kill. For sure.

He looked at the short stump of his arm, where his bicep had been sheared in two and he screamed. He screamed way before the pain rang every warning bell in his nervous system. He screamed way before the spurting blood made him look like an unbalanced bicycle spraying oil out of one its handles. He screamed some more when the pain hit him with enough force to scrunch up his nut sac and force his bowels to let go.

The woman with the sword that was dripping Michael Waltzinger’s blood off its point onto the grimy pavement said, “I hope you wipe with your left hand Mike because that stink’s going to stain.” If he had his wits about him he might have screamed an expletive or two at her. Instead he grabbed for his arm, the one that wasn’t there and disgust and distress jostled each other for prime position on his face when his fingers (on the good hand) squelched through the bloody muscle to wrap around his own bone (on the soon-to-be-dead arm). He screamed again, and right in the middle of that scream, his voice went and all he could do was exhale with great force to convey his distress.

The woman in shadows with the curves like a very fast sports car said, “You better be able to dial with one hand baby. It’s only three digits but a thumb can get awfully heavy when all the blood refuses to stay inside you.” Michael Waltzinger was a man and as most men go, he was a particularly distasteful specimen, so naturally, he had reserves of vitriol that other men didn’t possess. With his face screwed up in a rictus of hate he reached inside his jacket and managed to breathe, “Fuck you,” in her direction while waiting for his phone to appear with his good hand.

She smiled, “I like my men on top baby. You don’t look like you’re going to be doing one armed push-ups anytime soon.”

With what amounted to superhuman effort he dialed the digits and when the operator’s impersonal voice drilled into his ear he whispered with as much clarity as he could manage, “I need an ambulance.”

“Sir? I can’t hear you. Could you please speak up?”

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and willed his vocal chords to heal enough to be able to say, “I need an ambulance. I’ve lost a lot of blood.”

“Where are you sir?”

“In an alley between Vitruvius and Malcolm.”

“Were you attacked sir?”

“Does it matter?”

“A squad car and ambulance are on their way. Please try to stay calm.”

He put the phone away and glared up at her even though he couldn’t be exactly sure of where her eyes were in all those shadows, “I’m going to find you. I’m going to take both your arms. Then I’m going to get my pit bulls to fuck you like the bitch you are.”

“Fighting words from the one-armed man.”

“Not yet bitch. Operating room miracles do happen.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

She got off her cocked hip and paced, dragging the tip of her sword on the concrete, causing small sparks to fly at irregular intervals. Every time a little burst of light issued off the business end of the sword, Waltzinger flinched. She stood over his fallen arm and looked at him, “But tell me this Mikey…”

“What the fuck are you doing to my arm?”

She squatted before the arm, her pleather pants making that crunching sound that is the unsexiest thing about clothing like that and brought a gun out from the back of her waistband. He wanted to run at her but he was afraid of her sword so he settled for hissing, “What the fuck are you going to do?”

She wiped the gun clean and pried his hand cannon out of his fallen arm. She replaced it with the gun from her waistband and when the new weapon had settled into the grip of his former hand she made his own weapon disappear into the back of her pants. When she was on her feet again their eyes met and she asked, “What are the cops going to do when they find that the one-armed man killed Boss Tanahara and Lindsay ‘Lost Boys’ Barboza?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Danny Lucci.”

His vision was starting to blur from the loss of blood but the name came at him as if from the past, “I know that name.”

She took a step forward and for the first time he saw her face. It was beautiful. Despite the scar that ran down the side of her face and the fact that her eyes were shiny from the big fat tears that threatened to overflow and make a mascara mess, she was hot enough that he would have fucked her. He had no clue who she was though and he said as much, “I don’t know you.”

She took another step forward, “That’s ‘cause Danny kept me in the background so I would never have to be exposed to scum like you.”

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“You had him killed.”

“He wanted to quit.”

“So? He wasn’t going to tell nobody nothing!”

“We don’t get to take that kind of chance.”

The howl of sirens hinted that the ambulance was closing in fast. She took another step towards him. The ambulance and a squad car took the sharp turn and right before their headlights illuminated the one-armed man she whispered into his face, “I’ll bet the prisoners bid real high for a one-armed bitch,” and she slammed her forehead into his face.

When those headlights finally pinned him in their twin beams, blood was running down Michael Waltzinger’s nose. The ambulance driver couldn’t believe what he was seeing so he stopped short and forced the driver of the squad car to jam on the brakes as well. The man in the suit fell to his knees and blacked out before the doors of the two vehicles were opened. A quick canvas of the area confirmed that his assailant was nowhere around. The cop who stood over him joked, “If this guy’s name turns out to be Bill I’m asking for a warrant on Uma Thurman!”

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