“He’s subdued, sir,” one of them called out to Stan.
I glanced up beneath my brow and saw him turn to me with a cocky grin on his ugly mug.
“Not so tough now, are you kid?” Stanley said as he came to finish me off.
I looked down at his spiffy, black shiny shoes now covered with dust and dirt. He was tapping his toes, a sign I’d come to recognize as his anticipation of a gruesome murder.
“You should really look into who you’re dealing with before you decide to start fucking with other people’s business,” he said.
I was practically limp in the goons’ arms.
“Let him go,” Stanley said. “It’s my turn to play.”
The goons let go and backed away.
I looked up at Stanley from beneath my bloody brow. “Maybe you should have looked up who you’re dealing with.”
Before he could make a move, I kicked him in the nuts which sent him doubling over.
“Fuck, the little bastard,” Stanley shouted as he backed away. “Get him. Get him and hold him the fuck steady.”
The first goon that came at me was greeted with a quick kick in the face, sending his nose crushing into his brain. He fell off the edge of the narrow path and tumbled down over the boulders.
The second one lunged at me, giving me more than enough time to duck out of the way, grab a fistful of sand and throw it in his face as he turned to me.
While he blindly struggled to fight me, I kicked him and sent him falling over the edge of the cliff.
The third and only remaining goon hesitated.
“What the hell are you waiting for?” Stanley shouted at him as he continued to run down the path. “Get the fucker. Get him!”
The poor guy came at me, clearly unsure what to do with me.
“Get him!” Stanley shouted.
He charged me and dove for my legs, sending me falling back. I struggled to get out of his hold, then kicked him. I grabbed a baseball sized stone and smashed him on the side of the head with it before pushing him over the edge.
I got up and ran after Stanley who’d reached the paved road that came up just behind the Hollywood sign.
“Where you running to, you chicken?” I shouted at him.
With his back to the fence that prevented people from going to the Hollywood sign, he looked up at me, cocky, but with fear clearly in his eyes.
“Looks like it’s just you and me, kid,” Stanley said as he pulled out his gun.
“You always said a gun made a kill too easy, Stan,” I said.
Frowning he looked at me. “Who the fuck are you, anyway? How the fuck do you know who I am?”
But he didn’t give me time to answer. He raised his gun and aimed it at me.
I ran to duck behind a boulder, but the bastard shot at me and nicked me on the thigh.
Shit.
He shot again and the bullet chipped a chunk of rock off, then ricocheted off into the darkening night.
I heard his footsteps, his careful, chicken, pee-brained footsteps. Then I saw his shadow as it came over the rock.
The second I saw his face, I kicked up with my good leg, knocking the gun out of his hand.
“Still want to know who I am, Stan?” I said.
I jumped on him, pinned him to the ground and punched his face, again and again. From the corner of my eye, I saw him grab a handful of sand and turned to avoid what was coming, but I wasn’t fast enough.
He quickly took advantage of the situation and pushed me off him, gave me a flimsy kick and ran off. He clumsily climbed the fence and jumped over, setting off a series of alarms that protected the iconic Hollywood sign.
“You idiot!” I shouted at him. “You fucking idiot!”
But I had no choice. I had to go after him. There was no way I was going to let him escape this time.
I jumped the fence and chased after him. He ran around, ducking behind each letter and the metal structures that held them up.
“Stop dancing around and fight me like a man, you wimp!” I yelled at him. “I’ve never seen you act like such pansy, Stan. Come on.”
He turned to face me for a split second, then ran down to another letter. As I ran up to reach him, he climbed the steel column and kicked me in the shoulder. Taking another step higher, he tried to kick me in the face, but I leaned back.
“You old moron,” I shouted up at him. I climbed up behind him and tried to grab his leg while I hung on tight to the wrung with my other hand.
He kicked my hand away and kept climbing up to the top of the letter. I could have sworn I heard him sob. He had to know that he was going nowhere.
“What the fuck do you want from me?” he cried out. He looked down and spit on me. “What do you want?”
He reached the top and swung his arm over the edge to hold on.
“There’s nowhere to go, Stan,” I said calmly. “You’ve reached the end of the line.”
“Stop calling me that. It’s Stanley. My name is Stanley. Only my good friends call me Stan… and even then...”
“But I thought we were friends, Stan,” I said, egging him on. “We were good friends, remember, Stan?”
“Fuck!” he shouted. “Who the hell are you? “Who are you? What do you want?”
“I’ll remind you, Stan, that you’re the one who tricked me into coming out here to meet you. I suspect you might also have something to do with the package I received earlier today.”
He looked at me, his cold, hard eyes looking deep inside me. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” He kicked at me as I climbed up to him.
“You always took yourself for the smart one, hey, Stan?” I said, deliberately taunting him. “You thought you had a heads up over the others. You thought you were the leader… the one that all the other’s looked up to and respected. Hell, they don’t respect you. They loathe you. They ridicule you.”
He grimaced.
“What others?” he said after a moment. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Oh,” I said with mock surprise as I climbed over him, squeezing him into the rungs.
He tried to twist around to face me and even tried to raise his knee into my nuts, but I pressed tightly into him, pressing him into the metal column.
“Are you running the whole show now?” I said. “There’s only you? No… partners? No… associates?”
“Get the fuck off me,” he shouted as he pushed back in an attempt to get me off him.
But I only pulled on the rung harder, pressing my chest into his back as I literally breathed down his neck. “You’re sweating like a pig, Stan. Are you worried about something?”
“Get off!” he shouted, almost hysterical. “Get off. Get off. Get off!”
“Whatever you say.” I pulled back and let him climb another step higher.
In his haste, in his desperate desire to get away from me, he threw his leg over the top of the letter only to realize there was nowhere to go.
As he tried to bring his leg back, I blocked him. “Too late to turn back now, Stan. You made your bed… Now.”
I grabbed his other leg and forced it over the edge.
“Stop it,” he shouted as he gripped the edge of the letter.
I simply looked at the fat fingers that gripped desperately to the edge.