Outside, the mercury was falling fast. It was colder then the Devil�s heart, raining ice pitchforks as if the Heavens were ready to fall.
"Ladies an� Gentlemen, it�s the Payne in the butt."
"Payne to the Max!"
"You�re killing me. Did you make that up yourselves or did you get some wino downstairs to come up with it?"
I was so far past the point-of-no-return, I couldn�t even remember what it had looked like when I had passed it.
"Captain Baseball Bat-Boy had an unbeatable track record in superhero deathmatchs�"
Gulp
"But a six-pack of Root Beer gets me every time!"
(Excerpt from the Captain Baseball Bat-Boy" comic strip)
The headlines were screaming bloody murder.
The storm was a screaming duet with the approaching prowl car sirens.
It was all a scream, when you were down for the count and wanted for murder.
The cops arrived, sirens singing in the off-key harmony of a manic-depressive choir.
"Vinnie Gognitti, just the man I�ve been killing to see."
"Oh my God, Oh God, ya shot me, aaahhh�"
Vinnie Gognitti was running scared.
He could run, but with a bullet in his stomach like a broken bottle of Tabasco, he was quickly running out of time.
He knew where his boss was, and I wanted to square things up with Jack Lupino.
Gognitti would be moving fast. I don�t know about angels, but it�s fear that gives men wings.
Freezing wind tearing at my face like sandpaper and razors, ice hard and slick under my hands and feet�
New York sped by on fast forward, dark rooftop water towers and a dead forest of antennas and chimneys, all a blur.
"Aargh! Police brutality�"
"I rate pretty high on that."
"Ya�Ya can�t just hurt me in cold blood."
"Uh-huh. Just keep telling yourself that."
"Your rights will be read at your funeral."
Ragna Rock was as inviting as a headache, flickering and flashing to a machine gun beat.
The belly of the nightclub was a gothic theme park that began with bondage games, and led to the nasty stuff from there�
Books with pentagrams on their covers, all dealing with the occult and the infernal, lying between stacks of horror videos and a couple of ouija boards.
Lupino was pumped up and dying to go 15 rounds with a mutant alligator.
And then he started this spooky monkey talk, straight from a bad dream�mine.
"I have tasted the flesh of fallen angels�"
In stepped this knockout Femme Fatale, holding a gun to my face.
I returned the favor.
"Sure, and you can check out my credentials splattered all over this joint."
"Why not pool our bullets for this one?"
"I thought you�d never ask, my finger was starting to twitch."
"How do you like your whiskey?"
The nightmare was always the same.
Violent shapes moving in darkness, old and ugly. The killers mad laughter was a riddle filled with wicked innuendo.
Somewhere the baby was crying.
Happiness captured in a Polaroid moment.
Fear was rusting needles poking at my brain, cold and scaly, it slithered down my chest.
"Pleased to meet you. I�m Frankie "The Bat" Niagara."
"Niagara as in you cry a lot?"
He had a baseball bat, and I was tied to a chair.
Pissing him off was the smart thing to do.
"Cartoon violence�s a fascinatin� thing."
But when somebody decides to play baseball with you head, you tend to get sore.
"Thank you, thank you, you�ve been a lovely audience�Had enough?"
"I don�t play with girls anyway."
(Excerpt from the Captain Baseball Bat-Boy" comic strip)
"I�m going to make you an offer you can�t refuse�I�ve always wanted to say that."
"You�ll get enough guns to start the Apocalypse."
"Angie! Tell me, how much did Dime cost you. I bet it was more than his name."
That�s where I wanted Punchinello, mad enough to trip over his own feet, preferably into a grave.
Snow was falling like ashes from post-apocalyptic skies, but that was outside. Things would soon get hot in the Don�s restaurant.
Punchinello wanted Payne.
He�d see the pain.
Someone had graciously left the backdoor open for me and killed the guards�
The moment I stepped into the room, he folded like a deuce before a royal flush.
He was trying to buy more sand for his hourglass.
I wasn�t selling any.
You�d find that Lady Luck was really a hooker, and you were fresh out of cash.
"You are in a graphic novel."
The truth split my skull open, a glaring green light washing the lies away.
All of my past was just fragmented still shots, words hanging in the air like balloons.
I was in a graphic novel.
Funny as Hell, it was the most horrible thing I could think of.
"You are in a computer game."
The truth was a burning green crack through my brain.
Weapon statistics hanging in the air, glimpsed out of the corner of my eye. Endless repetition of the act of shooting, time slowing down to show off my moves. The paranoid feeling of someone controlling my every step.
I was in a computer game.
Funny as Hell, it was the most horrible thing I could think of.