36
(Season 3, Episode
10)
Wrath
Now
Kate Menlo climbed the stairs to her empty, west side apartment.
She had not looked forward to the
journey since Liz had died, nearly two years ago. She missed her so much.
After the shooting she had gone into a tail spin of
depression. All her friends and the
numerous therapists had told her it would get easier and that eventually, the
pain would go away.
They had been half right.
The pain had subsided but it had been replaced by an all-consuming
numbness; white noise that seemed to block out the other sounds of life. She had tried dating but no one had ever
seemed to add up to the one she had lost.
Liz.
She sighed and tried not to dwell on the absence of life
that she would find inside her apartment as she slid the key into the lock and
opened the door. Inside however, she
found much more than the usual dead air and darkness.
She didn’t notice him until she had pushed her door shut
behind her. She turned from closing it
and he took a deep drag on his cigarette and the embers lit up like a small
flare. She froze and then her face
turned ugly. “You.”
“Oy, Sis. How are
you?” Macklin said, his cockney accent cutting the silent air.
****
2 Hours before…
“He’s in there,” Mikey said. “And he has been in there since your stunt in
New York.”
Macklin took a drag on his smoke. “How many are in there?”
Joe fielded this question from the passenger side. “Not sure.
He owns the bar, after all.”
The man they were speaking of was Charlie Donavan. He had been Thomas Marren’s partner almost two
years before. After the shooting he had
opted for early retirement and bought a shithole bar in Cleveland Heights on
Cedar Road.
White people did not go in this bar. Most of the patrons of the place were active
or ex-bangers and would be packing. It
was suicide to go inside.
“Let’s go get a hotel room and some sleep.” Mikey began. “We have been driving through the night and
could use the rest, and we will look at it with fresh eyes in the morning.”
“Not happening, mate.” Macklin chimed in, matter-of-factly. “You boys stay here.”
“Okay, you proved you are a bad ass,” Joe began. “You go in there, they will kill the shit out
of you.”
Macklin grinned. “Wait
here. If I ain’t back in five minutes,
shove off.”
With that, Macklin pulled a foot long Billy Club and a
hunting knife out of his bag and stepped out of the car.
****
NOW
“They let you out?” Kate asked, standing up straight, her
own cockney accent less noticeable after the years in Britain.
“I done my time,” Macklin replied, standing. He actually stood a couple of inches shorter
than his fair haired, younger sister.
No one in the family was stupid enough to call him the runt,
though.
Kate took a couple of steps forward, almost welcoming what
was going to come next. “So, what do you
want?”
Macklin frowned at her. “You know what I came for, love.”
Kate nodded and rolled her head before lashing out and punching
Macklin square on the jaw. The cigarette
flew from his mouth and he stumbled backwards over the coffee table.
“You think I was going to make it easy for you, huh wanker?” Her cockney accent returned in a rush of hate and rage. She came down over him as he stumbled, grabbing the nearby lamp, bringing it down on Macklin’s head shattering it.
“You thought I was gonna just let you waltz in here an’ murder
me?” She screamed as she raised her hand to bring it down.
“Get offa me, bitch!” Macklin drove his foot into her stomach,
winding her and sent her crashing backward into the dining room table.
Macklin pulled himself up, the lamp having cut his forehead,
blood now leaked over his tattoo and right eye. “It’s your fault, Kate. You brought her here, took her away from me
and got her killed!”
Kate laughed loudly as she picked up the vase on the table
and hurled it at her older brother. “You’re
insane! Bloody Insane! You scared her so badly that she couldn’t even
be with men anymore! I picked up the
pieces. I made her-”
Kate was cut off as Macklin, having swatted the vase aside,
hit her with a brutal right hook. A tooth
sored across the apartment and she stumbled, rocking back against the table,
stunned. “You shut your god damned
mouth! You took Liz from me. You took her across the pond so that it would
be that much harder to find her when I got out, and then you and her got on
that sodding train and she died! This is
your fault!”
****
One Hour and fifty four minutes ago
Macklin walked directly in the front door and everything in
the bar stopped. Three bangers sat at a
corner table around Donavan who looked up, confused. The bartender scowled. “We ain’t open yet. Come back in four hours.”
“Or don’t come back, cracker.” One of the bangers said and
they laughed. Donavan did not laugh, he
just watched the small white man with the strange tattoo. Macklin ignored the jibes and centered his
attention. He started to walk toward the
table.
“Hey, mother fucker. The
man said get lost!” The man who had taken the shot said, his voice layered with
growing concern as he started to go for the gun in his belt.
Macklin slid the club out of his left sleeve into his hand
and flipped the knife to face front in his right. Before anyone could respond,
he hurled the knife, underhanded with perfect precision, into Donavan’s chest.
“Holy shit!” One of the bangers yelled with a dear in the
headlight look. The right banger grabbed
his pistol, but as he brought it up, Macklin tossed the club up and caught it
with his now empty right. He had closed
the distance to the table and brought the club down on the man’s wrist. The blow broke the bone and pinned the hand to
the table. The pain from the force of it
hitting the table forced the man to clench his fingers. The gun fired twice. Both bullets hit the banger across from him in
the chest before he could even start to go for his gun.
Macklin brought the Billy Club up and backward into the banger’s
face, crushing his nose and sending him sprawling backward over his chair. The last banger had gotten to his gun and
brought it up toward Macklin’s head. Macklin was faster, moving around the man’s
arm and trapping it between the club and Macklin’s own arm.
Macklin noticed the bartender rising with an old-school shotgun.
Macklin redirected the trapped banger’s
arm and applied pressure. The man fired
the gun three times, the second bullet took the bartender’s head off.
The bartender’s body fell behind the bar. Macklin pulled hard and felt the wet pop of
the bangers’ arm breaking at the elbow. The banger screamed in pain and fell to the
ground. Macklin turned and hit him three
times, hard powerful downward strikes, the last cracking the banger’s skull and
spraying Macklin with blood.
Macklin turned toward Donavan who was sputtering through the
blood that pooled in his lung slowly drowning him. He made sure to make eye contact. “Roughly two years ago, you and your partner,
Marren, failed to save the only woman that will ever matter to me. Today your debt is repaid.”
Macklin waited for the light in his eyes to dim and die then
he turned and walked out of the bar.
Two down, two to go.
****
Now
Macklin picked up Kate’s head by the hair and slammed it,
face first into the table. “You don’t
get to live! None of you do!”
Macklin pulled her bloodied and broken face back from the
table and threw her backward, sending her crashing through the table. “Those two pig cops who failed to save
her. The one who brought her here and
survived in her place, and not the man who killed her!”
Macklin picked up Kate by the collar and dragged the bloody
mass toward the window. He seemed to
calm for a second. “Sorry Kate, I know
you loved her, but I can’t let it go. You
have to know that.”
“I don’t give a fuck, Mack.” Kate coughed through the blood that was her
face. “You better find him though, and
you better hurt him. Hurt him like he
hurt me. Like you hurt me.”
Macklin nodded. “I
will Kate. I promise.”
“Then get it the fuck over with, you psycho prick.” Kate said this as she spit blood up at
Macklin.
With that, Macklin threw her through the fifth story window
of Kate’s apartment.
One to go, he thought as he watched his sister collide with
the street below, face first.
Macklin pulled a cigarette and lit up.
