Sid : the Devil's secretary

25. Face on

25. Face on

"all done Signore. You just need to deposit money into these accounts at the bank" Sid hollered to his hosts across the room, calling them out of an hour long poker game to see what he had done.

"good, very good. I've got another thing I need from you" Andrea smiled.

"what's that?" Sid asked.

"I need you to go with the boys on a little ride along. Surveying the territory needs more men than I have right now, which is why I need you" Andrea sat down in his seat and explained.

"wait, is this like a job?" Sid raised an eyebrow. He had only heard about things like this in the movies or from friends of friends of friends.

"look at mister questions here. If you stay low, you shouldn't be harmed. I trust you have some experience behind a trigger" Andrea and his guards laughed.

"indeed, I do" Sid agreed, boasting the silver pistol in his pocket.

"perfetto. My guys will show you the ropes" Andrea gestured to his goons to lead Sid out of the building to a waiting black van outside. After a short drive up main street, the van slowed along main street to a small brown decorative house as tall as the Di Marco estate, yet out of place amid the taller residential buildings at the intersection on the edge of the district of Furytown. Cars passed every which way while the streets were filled with swarms of pedestrians.

"is that the place?" Sid looked out to the house, where two men in vests carrying guns were waiting outside. This was not the assignment Sid had been expecting at all.

"yeah. Barrio infierno. Fucking nuts these guys are" one of Andrea's men spoke from the seat next to Sid.

"isn't it suspicious for us to be driving this slow this far away from them?" Sid noted how it seemed the van was raring to park in any of the nearby parking spaces at its current speed.

"don't panic. They've got bigger things to worry about than us." the goon rested a hand on Sid's shoulder.

"so why are we here?" Sid questioned.

"this is a rival gang of ours that the boss has had an eye on for a while. Any guns or drugs north of the convent, it goes through here. About a year back, there was a giant gang war that took out a lot of their men. Some say Nazis did it, but I don't know" the driver told Sid.

"maybe we should go" Sid grew hesitant for fear they would be seen by the armed guards outside the house.

"not yet. We need to see how many there are. This'll come in nicely for the boss" the passenger goon spoke.

"what?, Carlos?!" Sid looked closer to a familiar face that exited the small house. It appeared Carlos was talking to the armed guards and seemed to be in deep with this rival gang, despite what he had told Sid back at the nightclub.

"who?" the passenger goon overheard.

"nothing, nothing" Sid shrugged it off. The urge to get out of dodge came too late for the Di Marco convoy as the armed men caught sight of the large black van close by and proceeded to open fire on it.

"shit, we've been made, floor it!!!!" the passenger goon ducked for cover, like the rest of the black van's occupants. The vehicle raced around the corner to park before the goons and Sid got out and crouched around newspaper vendors and fire hydrants to get closer to the shooting rivals.

"do something, beanpole!!" one of the goons urged Sid to start shooting against the tide of raining bullets around them. More Barrio Infiernos rushed out of the house and crouched behind cars to start a full scale street battle at the intersection. One of Di Marco's goons returned to the bullet battered black van and took out several grenades and small arms for the fight ahead, adding to the growing clusterfuck. 

Sid crawled and rolled his way through the adjacent alleyways, flanking the main battlefield for a sideway to the brown house, where he had a side on perspective behind enemy lines. Crouching behind a low stone wall by the house, Sid could hear someone breathing heavily on the other side, with both men jumping up to point their guns at each other.

"Sid?" Carlos stood shocked at what was before him.

"oh, hey Carlos" Sid crouched down behind the wall again, as did Carlos on the other side.

"what the hell are you doing here?!!" Carlos called out over the gunfire and explosions.

"I was on a job, but I seriously didn't know you were here. What are the odds, right?" Sid explained his presence.

"I told you once you enter this shit, you were in it for life" Carlos continued.

"once again, I didn't know that, but I've got a plan" Sid said through the wall.

"which is..." Carlos remained sceptical.

"you go after my guys and I hit come of yours" Sid playfully joked.

"aren't you one of them?" Carlos shouted.

"I'm on loan. I don't give a shit as long as I'm paid" Sid replied.

"fair enough. Are we still doing something after you're done?" Carlos remembered.

"sure, sure, as long as these not so wise guys think I'm playing nice" Sid reloaded his pistol.

"game on" Carlos jumped over the stone wall while Sid jumped through a window into the house. The interior was adorned with colorful masks, ceiling fans and a large open plan kitchen over a brown tiled floor like a Mexican country house. Sid could see through the front door how the Barrio gangsters were gradually retreating back into the house. On a nearby table there was an unopened bottle of virgin tequila, ripe for the taking. Sid ripped off a piece of shag carpeting from the floor, lit it on the stove, then shoved it into the tequila bottle before casually chucking it onto one of the surrounding walls, catching flames on the large timber framing. Soon, the blaze could be seen coming out of the windows, briefly stopping the firefight outside.

"damn!!" Sid saw the fire was spreading too quickly and rushed back out of the same window from which he entered as the house was enveloped in the embers.

"Sid, we got to go" one of the goons spotted Sid making his way gradually back around to meet up with the rest of the Di Marco group. Sid saw Carlos shooting from the other end of the alley near the burning house.

"well, I better get out of here. Oh yeah, you're welcome for that" Sid waltzed past Carlos back down the alley, pecking him on the cheek gently and pointing back to the fire.

"no problem. Now get going" Carlos responded, unsure of Sid's message. Soon, he saw the bigger picture.

"ow, Jesus man, you shot me" Sid shuddered back from a gunshot to the shoulder courtesy of Carlos.

"it was for effect, we're even, now go!!" Carlos turned back to face the continuing gunfight on the street. Sid made it back to the black van which sped off across the intersection, then took a sharp reverse around to head back down to Di Marco's estate.

"you okay kid?" the passenger goon next to Sid saw his bleeding shoulder.

"yeah, just a scratch" Sid quipped.

"looks like more than a scratch" the goon saw Sid's wound soon heal and a small pellet to come out of his shirt and rest on his lap. The battered and bruised van soon arrived back at the estate, with Andrea in the front yard, waiting in anticipation for any news from the front.