Chapter Thirty-Four

Stefan Granger parked the Buick a block down from Haight and Ashbury. It was a nice day. Low 70s. Granger still wore jeans and a hoodie. The weather in San Francisco was always perfect for identity concealment. The sky had gone dark but a steady stream of people still flowed down the streets once walked by some of the most iconic musicians and activists in history.

Granger had placed an antiviral mask over his face before leaving his apartment. He didn’t even want to be recognized while driving. From the visor, he grabbed his low-light glasses. They weren’t quite as effective as night vision, but they hid his eyes, and the large green goggles associated with night-vision technology could be a bit conspicuous. Still, in his profession, even the slightest edge over an opponent could make all the difference.

The white antiviral mask he had chosen was a cross between one designed to collect dust, like a painter would wear, and one designed to protect from infection, like those worn by surgeons. It was the perfect tool for concealing his face. When the average person saw a man in a hoodie and a ski mask walking down the street, they immediately became suspicious. Fake beards and prosthetic noses and the like could be employed as camouflage, but the easiest option by far was to pretend he was merely another germaphobic or germ-infected citizen. People generally steered clear, and he could even wear such a mask while indoors.

His gloves were the most popular brand, purchased from a chain store, and paid for in cash. While not as innocuous as the mask, the gloves were still not enough to make anyone suspicious.

But the one tool he had yet to choose for this job was his weapon. Granger had an arsenal in the trunk of the old Buick, but he didn’t want someone to see him staring into a trunk full of guns, and so he took a moment to consider the options.

There was his trustee Walther PPK, threaded for a top-of-the-line suppressor. It was chambered for the 380 auto, a small caliber which, combined with subsonic ammunition, could be virtually silent. Then there was his father’s old shotgun, which he had sawed off and retrofitted into a weapon of mass destruction. It had originally been an over-under hunting gun, and he enjoyed the frequent reloads that the two shot capacity required. It made the game fairer for his opponent. Like a handicap in golf.

But neither of those seemed to check the boxes for this evening’s contract. He wanted this to look gang related. So he decided on the Mac 10—a fully automatic machine pistol with a long magazine filled with hollow-point 9-mm rounds. It was brutal, effective, and easily concealable. And unlike those used in drive-by shootings, his Mac 10 had been customized and upgraded for reliability and accuracy.

His hooded sweatshirt was two sizes too large, which left ample room to conceal the machine pistol.

The last thing Stefan Granger did before exiting the vehicle was to stick in his wireless earbuds and direct his phone to play AC/DC’s “Back in Black.” He’d started the practice of listening to music while killing a few months back, in an effort to heighten his other senses and to give another handicap to his prey.

After retrieving the Mac 10 from the trunk of the Buick, he walked toward the target’s apartment building, which had been converted to an inner city bordello. As he moved, he kept his head down and made eye contact with no one. He cleared his mind and visualized what was to come.

When Stefan Granger was a boy, his favorite games had been the Mortal Kombat series. He still remembered the first time he had visited a friend’s house, one who could actually afford a Sega Genesis. It was there that he saw a digital cartoon character tear out the spinal column of another cartoon character. He was instantly hooked. Not because of the violence, although that didn’t hurt; but for him, it was the thrill and strategy of the gameplay. He found it to be much like real life. In the game, when a character performed a certain move against you, one needed to be able to counter and return the attack. This was done by pressing a certain combination of buttons. And Granger had become an expert at responding to his opponents’ attacks with the perfect combination.

He smiled beneath the antiviral mask, thinking of the day that his father brought him home his very own Sega Genesis. It was a little used and abused, but his dad had picked it up at a yard sale with extra controllers and over twenty games, including some bloody fighting games like Mortal Kombat and Eternal Champions.

Still musing over childhood memories, he reached the front stoop of Faraz Tarkani’s whorehouse. A large, bald white man in a black T-shirt stood beside the entrance, smoking a cigarette. The apelike sentry was laughing and joking with another man, a big black fellow wearing a sleeveless shirt and a stocking cap. Granger couldn’t hear what they were conversing about because of the earbuds, but he read their lips and ascertained that the discussion centered upon the anatomy of a new employee.

He tapped a button on his earbuds to pause the sounds of classic rock. Then he said to the two thugs, “I’ll make a deal with the two of you. The first one of you to tell me where I can find Samantha Campbell gets to live.”

The overly muscled ape man flicked away his cigarette and said, “Get lost, freak.”

Stefan Granger smiled, but then he realized they couldn’t see him beneath the mask. Rolling his shoulders and warming his muscles up to pump on all cylinders, he tapped the earbud and the tiny speakers began to pump with AC/DC’s “Shoot to Thrill.”

The bouncer seemed to register that something was wrong, some primordial alarm system dating back to the early days of man. Granger had the gun out and was squeezing the trigger before the sentry knew what had happened. He aimed low, the bullets shredding the ape man’s legs and dropping him to the concrete.

As the bald bouncer shrieked in pain, Granger turned his machine pistol on the man in the stocking cap. The large black gentleman was smarter than his comrade. He raised his hands and said, “Sammy’s upstairs with the boss. She’s showing him her appreciation.”

“Appreciation for what?”

“I don’t know, man. Something to do with her sister who went missing.”

The first man flailed about on his hands and knees, leaving a trail of blood on the pavement as he tried to crawl toward his fallen weapon. Granger raised the Mac 10 and squeezed off another line of projectiles. This time, he aimed for the man’s large, bald head. It reminded Granger of a giant egg, and it cracked just like one.

The other man kept his arms raised and trembled with fear. Granger took aim and said, “Thank you,” before ending the informant’s life. On his earbuds, Brian Johnson sang about pulling the trigger.

After performing a tactical reload, Granger headed for the top floor. He wasn’t here to kill the girls or their clients, but he also had a rule about witnesses: never leave any. The mask and glasses were camouflage against video surveillance, but he didn’t trust them or take chances. He mowed down three of the girls and two of the clients before he reached the pimp’s penthouse suite.

Granger approached the top of the stairs cautiously, knowing what would await him on the other side. While on the floor below, he had heard the footfalls of at least two other gunmen. They would be waiting somewhere in that hallway.

He reached the top of the stairs and placed his back against the wall, keeping himself concealed from the point of view of the hallway. Then he grabbed one of his empty magazines and tossed it back down the stairs. It thudded and clanked. He listened and waited.

Back in his video game days, Granger had faced numerous opponents who found success through button mashing, essentially just going crazy and getting lucky. But in every instance, he had found that button mashing was no match for proper technique and strategy. Even then, he knew that the most patient of two opponents always had the upper hand.

Just as he expected, he saw the barrel of the man’s Glock pistol before he saw the man himself.

Granger grabbed the guard by the wrist, jerked him forward, and unleashed his weapon into the man’s abdomen. His victim screamed in pain and discharged his own weapon. Granger slapped the Glock pistol away and spun the dying guard around to use as a human shield.

With his arm around the first guard’s neck, holding him up like a rag doll, Granger rushed into the hallway. The other sentry had his gun raised and ready, but Granger was concealed behind the man’s partner. His Mac 10 roared and spit hot shell casings toward the ceiling. The controlled burst caught the second guard in the chest, driving him back and painting the walls with red.

His human shield had yet to die like a good boy and was even trying to wriggle free of his grasp. In his ears, AC/DC still thumped along with his heartbeat. Granger wasted no time in turning the gun on his human body armor and squeezing the trigger against the man’s temple.

An empty forty-five round magazine fell to the floor, and Granger slammed a fresh mag in place. Then he jacked back the slide and headed toward Faraz’s penthouse.

Over the earbuds, “Shoot to Thrill” ended, and “What Do You Do for Money Honey” began.

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