Alessio Chiadini Beuri

MAX PAYNE
THE AMERICAN
DREAM

Andaluso Errante Books
Transl.: Simona Casaccia

Cover: ©Alessio Chiadini Beuri

©Alessio Chiadini Beuri 2021

 THE PROJECT

I met Max Payne in a cold winter of many years ago during the
writing of my thesis. A neurotic period spent with my nose stuck in
books and inside a refrigerator wide open on a bored and anxious
hunger.
I was immediately taken by Max Payne's caustic jokes, his total
disregard for danger and his puny appearance, totally unsuitable for
all the shit he would have faced in the first videogame of the series.
Due to the tight budget, in fact, it was Sam Lake, the creator of the
character, to lend him the features, and he was not a burly, tough to
the bone Mark Wahlberg any.
As a writer and movie buff, I am constantly on the lookout for
novelizations, the novels based on successful movies. For this
reason, after spending hundreds of hours between used book markets
and online stores and having managed to retrieve the most disparate
and unthinkable titles, I realized, incredulous, that no one had ever
thought of putting on paper (real and digital) the story of the most
famous undercover cop in the videogames.
"Max Payne - The American Dream" is the first part of the
adventure, the one that ends with the confrontation between Max and
Jack Lupino and the meeting with the beautiful Mona Sax. The final
objective of this project is to take Max to the top of the Aesir Tower
and see him carry out his revenge.
In this unauthorized literary transposition, I've kept all the
original speech, the true backbone of the game and the guideline of
my writing, centred on respecting the pungent and magnetic
atmosphere of that long night, where a tremendous blizzard drove
New York to the edge of Walhalla and a man to face his demons
with a pack of aspirins and a Desert Eagle.

Alessio Chiadini Beuri

 Summary

The American Dream

Black Shit

A heroic death

A train under the tree

Beyond the breach

Bullet time

A new geometry

Alex Balder

Entrance to Bogart

First row seat

Room Service

Burn in hell, Jesus!

Nine lives

The beating heart of New York

Raise your glasses

Whores and old laces

Rico Muerte

Word to the arms

Wonder Boy

Fear gives you wings

Dirty Clothes

Blood trail

Yard Time

Into the void

Brutal police

Did I do this?
RagnaRock

Satan the great

Milk and cookies

A ruthless lone avenger

Fire from the sky

Blood uterus

Jack Lupino

Double Whisky

Alessio Chiadini Beuri's other books:

 The American Dream

«Stand by: 10.10 Aesir Plaza.»

«10.4 Central. Confirm address.»

«Aesir Plaza.»

«Shots fired on roof of building.»

«Assault in progress at Aesir Plaza. Repeat: assault in

progress!»

«15.85 Central. Reinforcements needed. Need more units

now! Officer in jeopardy. Officer in danger!»

«10.05. Confirm. Officer in distress. All units...»

They were all dead.

The last shot was like the exclamation point at the end of
everything that had happened. I loosened my grip on the
trigger.
It was all over.
For it to make sense, I had to go back three years, to the
night my torment began.
I was still with the NYPD at the time. Manhattan,
Midtown North precinct, Hell's Kitchen.
 «When are you going to decide to work for me, Detective
Payne?» Alex Balder had moved to the DEA a few months ago
and was trying to convince me to join him.
«Who knows what circle of hell I would find myself in.
Sorry Alex: my family comes first. See, my last cigarette. It's
not good for the baby.»
«There's my old Max: boy scout heart.»
«See you, Alex.»
«You always play poker on Friday nights, don't you?»
«I like to steal candy from kids.» I greeted.
My shift, for that day, was over.
Life was smiling down on me. The setting sun on a
summer evening. The smell of freshly cut grass. The laughter
of children playing. A little house in New Jersey, Across the
river. A beautiful wife and a charming little girl.
The American dream comes true.
«Hi! I'm back!» I returned.
Dreams, however, can suddenly turn into nightmares
without the slightest warning. The sun had ended its journey as
darkness swept across the sky, as if in a bleak omen.
«Michelle?! Honey? Anyone home?»
I didn't like the show from the start, even though I had
been given a front row seat.
«What the hell?!»
Something sinister and horrible had been drawn on the
wall: a syringe. An object imbued with diabolical meanings.
I hung up the phone.
«Help! Someone broke into my house. Call the police!» I
was on the verge of panic.
«Am I talking to the Payne house?»
«Yes, someone has broken into my house! I'm still here,
you have to help me!»
 «Sorry, I can't help you.»
The voice hung up leaving me holding the tool.
«Who is this? Hello!»
I cursed in impatience and disbelief and nearly smashed
the handset, putting it back.
I pulled out my service pistol and found a path through the
tangle of overwhelming anxieties that took my breath away.
What should have been a warm and safe nest had turned into a
dark and threatening maze.
When I entered the room, the intruders were still inside.
Michelle's body was lying on the bed. The crib no longer
rocked placidly to collect my daughter's dreams. She was lying
on the floor. A bundle was wrapped in a light blue sheet.
«NOOO!»

This had all happened three years ago. My life turned

upside down forever in the span of a minute. The killers were
high on a new and very powerful synthetic drug named
Valkyrie. After the funeral, I told Alex that I would accept a
transfer to the DEA. It took three long years before we found a
solid lead in the Valkyrie case. Finally, an informant told us
that Jack Lupino, a gangster affiliated with the Puncinello clan,
oversaw the operation. And that's how I found myself
infiltrated into one of the worst mafia families in New York.
 Black Shit
Outside, the city looked like a cruel monster shrouded in
an icy darkness. I was trying to work my way up from the
smallest fish to the top, to who was running the drug ring. Alex
and B.B. were my only DEA contacts, the only ones privy to
my mission.
«This is B.B.: We found out something about Jack Lupino.
You need to meet up with Alex right away at the Roscoe Street
station.»
I hadn't seen Alex since I'd been working undercover.
A real snowstorm was raging. Ice bullets were raining
down as if the sky wanted revenge on the earth. Everyone was
looking for shelter, as if he'd never reappear tomorrow.
Not that the situation in the subway was any better. I felt a
strange sensation, like a sudden uppercut in the middle of my
face. Something was wrong. My beretta twitched under my
raincoat. But the train doors had already closed behind me: too
late to get off.
Next stop: Roscoe Street station.
And Alex.
The track was deserted, the air duct fans circulated like
fingernails on a blackboard. I looked around: there was an
overturned bin and the whole place smelled like a latrine. I
walked towards the railway staff quarters, where Alex and I
usually had our gallant encounters. The door opened with a
screech and when I entered the corridor an icy chill ran down
my spine: a huge blood stain stained the wall. Two tiles right in
the middle of that blood graffiti were shattered. Something
small and angry had broken them. That wasn't all, though: a
long trail continued toward the end of the hallway,
disappearing behind a closed door. If I had crossed that border,
I would have found a dead man, or a badly wounded one.
Perhaps in the company of a sweet little nurse, though that was
no life for such expectations.
I drew my gun and approached. I leaned an ear against the
cold doorframe. Not a sound, not a whimper. I went in ready to
cold anyone on the other side. At the end of the river of blood,
lying face down on a filthy floor, was the body of a subway
guard. Not a breath of life was left in that sack of flesh that
until an hour before had had a name and a social security card.
The corpse had its legs facing the wall. There was no
doubt that he had not brought himself there. That room was
used as a locker room for guards and railroaders; it was worn
and falling apart. The chiming of water drops in the showers
saturated the air with moisture.
I scoured the spaces to make sure I wouldn't have any
surprises once I got out of there, like a ball in my back, for
example. I walked back to the platform.
At that moment the voices of two men came from the
hallway:
«Wasn't Jack supposed to take care of this?»
«Him and Mickey.» the other replied but was interrupted
because the first man saw me appear in the doorway and, on
instinct, crouched down in a shooting stance.
They weren't wearing uniforms, such as I was, except that
I had just exited through a door that prevented access to non-
professionals and they hadn't. That behaviour struck me as odd,
as did the choice to yell «Damn it!» Instead of «Stop!»
 However, the expletive hung between his throat and
tongue as my beretta didn't give him a chance to finish it. I hit
him in the middle of the chest and folded in the hallway. I
didn't leave time to explain myself to the second man, who had
pulled out a revolver and sought shelter behind one of the
columns on the platform.
I searched them: they were carrying forged documents and
Russian passports. At least I hadn't killed any plainclothes
policemen.
I took the stairs and tried to climb back up to the surface
when a series of shots exploded in succession. Two .38
calibres.
The situation continued to deteriorate. At the top of the
stairs, I peeked around the corner: two men had just killed a
policeman in what appeared to be an execution. Maybe it was
the famous Jack and Mickey I'd heard about. I swung my gun
arm out and waved with a puff of lead.
I missed the targets completely and to make me think
about it they started advancing towards my position shooting
like at the Ok Corral. They feared me like a pack of wolves in
front of a bitch in heat. What counted at that moment was luck
and a wise choice of the right moment. My favourite mix.
I threw myself behind a garbage can, risking a bullet to
split my skull in two. As I hovered like a fucking bird, I blew
out an eye. The man's brains splattered on the wall. Landing
with little grace on my shoulder I slid to cover, forcing my
other friend to come after me. He did, but I gave him just
enough time to stick out his snout. The bullet ripped through
his throat and the blood gave the lapels of his jacket a
Christmas feel.
 After going through their pockets, I found out that it
wasn't Jackie or Mickey. I did, however, pick up something
that I had a feeling would come in handy: a 12mm Desert
Eagle. An assault rifle in the palm of my hand. Early
Christmas.
The sound of the shooting, and of my new toy, had
bounced everywhere in the deserted corridors of the station. I
continued toward the exit inside a maze of corridors until,
behind the mouth of one of them a voice called out:
«Hey, guys...?!»
And then exclaimed, «Guys!» as I stepped into the man's
view with my gun pointed in his face. The bastard was beyond
an entrance gate to another wing of the building. It was as easy
as a hunting trip inside a zoo. Since I couldn't search the body,
I headed in the opposite direction. It only took me a couple of
minutes to get used to the weight of the semiautomatic, but I
was still amazed by the firepower. It was a shit situation. Black
shit. Yet I kept smiling like a child.
 A heroic death
I arrived at platform number 4, the one that could take me
home.
I was greeted by a tune whistled by a guy armed with a
shotgun. Determined to join the band, I rang my lead at the side
of his head.
I had to adjust my aim.
The man, who was holding his rifle in a position
convenient for long waits, turned the barrel toward me with the
aid of one arm and fired. He too had not had a chance to aim at
the big target and scratched the air near my jacket.
It was a tip that would come in handy in his next life since
he had already used up his bonus down here.
I went down another level. From the looks of the signs,
there was some maintenance work going on and access was
limited to authorized personnel. Sure enough.
The man with the shotgun was guarding that entrance. The
stairs were engulfed in darkness, the track was cordoned off
and one of the trains was stopped midway between the
platform and the tunnel behind it. No one else but yours truly.
If the area was so clear, there was no reason to keep a fully
armed sentry there.
Determined to go deeper I went towards another back
door. I kicked it down and found myself facing the back of a
man who was holding a Christ of the Metropolitan Police at
gunpoint.
 I quickly stepped into the assailant's field of vision, just as
the little pink mist that the beretta made gushed from his head
and ended up sizzling on the neon on the ceiling.
«You saved me, man!» the policeman breathed sharply.
«What's going on?»
«A massacre. These killers have appeared out of nowhere.
We need help! There's a phone in the command centre
upstairs!»
«Good idea.»
«Then follow me.»
I had his back until we came in front of the electronic lock
on the Control Room access door. That's when I realized the
man with the shotgun.
«Open it and then step aside!» I ordered the officer. «Give
me a moment,« I said as I walked back down the hallway to the
sentry's body. I picked up the shotgun, removed the shell he
had fired at me and replaced it with one of the cartridges I
found in his pocket. At that instant a bell rang and the sound of
a hydraulic device going off. Like that of a security door.
I turned around in time to see the officer's head blow up.
He hadn't waited for me and had gone ahead with our plan on
his own.
Nice hero's death, man.
The automatic doors were programmed to close so when
the men with guns on the other side aimed at my head while I
shielded myself with the officer's body, they only killed the
city hall finances with the maintenance fee. Fortunately, the
code entered seemed to have finally unlocked the locks
because the light on the display next to the door had changed
from bright red to radioactive green.
I prepared to shoot my way in. With my elbow I pushed
the open button and the characteristic venting noise of the
pneumatic system worked to open the mouth of hell for me.
 Another body lay in front of me, halfway between the
hallway I was in and the control room proper. Another cop. I
didn't have time to check his condition because they started
shooting at me. One was lurking behind a large control panel in
the centre of the room, another was behind a makeshift trench
made from an overturned desk.
I fired toward the first one but hit an electrical panel. A
web of sparks shot out of the console and took a few steps
before vanishing into thin air. It was enough for me to frame
the face of the man surprised by the pyrotechnics behind the
viewfinder and make him jump. A roar pushed my shoulder
back. The man behind the desk was shooting wildly with two
pistols, shattering the world around me. He had probably seen
one too many cowboys and Indian movies. Too bad he didn't
hit the target even by accident and my shoulder had been the
most accurate shot he had made up to that point. When the ice-
eyed Texan's guns went off, I came out of the darkness where I
had taken refuge and enriched the big map of the subway lines
with a graffiti of blood and bullet holes.
Last stop.
Only when I detached myself from the wall did I
remember my shoulder. I fumbled with my eyes and fingers
over the ragged edges. A glancing blow. What the tough guys
in the movies call a scratch. What they never say, though, is
that it burns like crazy. But I'd think about it later.
I took over the control room to bring order to the chaos.
I checked the remaining entrances, in case anyone else
was dying for me to blow out the candles. One of them was
locked; behind the second one I found the button room. In
addition to several monitors on the wall, the track tension
panels stood out. Three lines crossed at Roscoe Street: 2, 4, and
5.
The latter two were operating normally. Line 2 was off.
Peeking into one of the service monitors I realized what it was
and what condition it was in: it was the train halfway between
the tunnel and the platform. I saw no other movements.
As I left the room, I noticed a first aid kit in a cabinet. I
wouldn't have been so lucky as to find some whisky to ease the
pain, but I would have been content with a couple of plasters.
No luck with those either, but I earned a box of painkillers. I
took two pills and stuffed the bottle in my pocket.
I still had to find Alex.
 A train under the tree
I went down to the number 2 line. There I had found the
policeman in hiding, the only one of his colleagues still alive
when I arrived in that fucking mess.
What did he need him for down there?
I'd already searched the small office and staff quarters but
doing it again wouldn't hurt. Like a fly trapped on the other
side of a window I was going to keep banging on it until
someone was kind enough to let me out or squash me.
Aside from the brainwashed corpse and the stench of fear
that hovered like a toxic fog in the room I found nothing else.
In the locker room, besides the showers and toilets, there was a
long corridor that ended in darkness.
By now the beretta could have remained attached to the
palm only thanks to the sweat that impregnated the stock. That
was the road I had found by dint of searching. All I had to do
was figure out if I was asking for it or if my luck was really in
that day.
The corridor was lit only for the first part, then the neon
lights began to fail or were missing. Some of them, who were
struggling to stay lit, were winking at me. They seemed to be
saying, «Come on Max, come closer. You can trust us.»
I advanced along the illuminated sections, crouching
against the wall, shielding myself with the columns that
marked my pace at a rate of five meters at a time.
Only when I had already covered half of it was I able to
distinguish the end: a large steel gate barred the way. Beyond,
the blackest darkness.
 A gust of cold air was blowing from that direction, mixed
with the stench of soggy earth and mold. I continued to the end
to check the gate: double lock and a large chain with padlock
emphasized the concept that my presence on the other side was
as welcome as a boil on the ass. I peered inside in the pitch
dark with the probability of finding my mouth violated by the
barrel of a gun for one last fellatio to the death. The faint light
of an emergency exit ten meters into that dark pit allowed me
to see that it was another maintenance track, where
locomotives were led in case of breakdown.
The line closed for maintenance, the agent kept alive right
down there, the power missing only to that sector. And then
that chain, brand new, closing off an entrance that could only
be accessed by those in charge.
I walked back down the corridor and returned to the
platform. I leaned over the black cavern of the tunnel to see if I
could make it from there. Someone had thought of that, too: the
tunnel ended in a bulkhead of beams. A nice ghost track. I
hoped whoever had wanted to hole up in there had been smart
enough to bring their own cable TV. It was a hasty construction
but fit for purpose: to keep out the onlookers and law
enforcement officers.
It was also more than plausible that no one knew Line 2 at
Roscoe St. was closed. What was certain was that there was no
one left to divert traffic onto the other tracks.
There was every reason to put on a barbecue.
That thought brought back the sweet memory of a
Christmas morning so many years before:
«Finally, the fat old man in red brought me a little train!»
The locomotive doors were unlocked. I forced them open
with a little pressure and they opened like the legs of a
beautiful woman. I started the behemoth and when I lowered
the running lever, the electric coils hummed over my head and
under my palms resting on the controls. I clung to the ignition
and propped myself up on my legs because the locomotive had
sprung forward and picked up speed sooner than I expected.
We were heading straight for the wooden curtain. Before
impact, I huddled over the control panel as much as I could.
We came to a screeching halt, and I fell. The barrier had caved
in like butter in a haze of dust and rubble. The emergency
brakes had kicked in and stopped the ride.
I pulled out the Desert Eagle and got out after taking a
long look inside the fog. The gate I had seen from the staff
quarters was about ten yards ahead, the dark eye of the padlock
watching me. On the other side of the platform a concrete
staircase led to a heavy armoured door defaced by rust. Ahead
of me, the dark cavern of Line 2.
I had to find a radio and divert traffic headed there.
 Beyond the breach
I took a left toward the stairs.
The door led to an abandoned area, closed since the
forties. Something big was happening on Roscoe St. Maybe
that's why Alex wanted to meet me there...or maybe not. One
way or another, I had to find out.
I made my way through the large, moth-eaten wooden
crates and walls battered by humidity. I almost shot two sewer
rats as big as dogs. I went through another door and was
thrown into a tangle of corridors and stairways. The darkness
was so dense that a little more crept into me with each breath.
When I heard a sound of water, and my foot sank into a black,
muddy liquid I knew I had gone so deep into that story that I
ended up in the city's sewer system. Maybe someone would say
that Max Payne had finally re-joined his world but for me it
was just another Friday night.
I wasn't bothered by the smell of human sewage or the
biting cold that hugged my bones, but more by the fact that I
still didn't know what I was doing there, or what it all had to do
with Jack Lupino and my investigation.
Alex Balder was going to have to be very convincing
when his turn came.
I followed the main shaft with the dim light from the
service bulbs twenty feet above my head. From time to time,
square grates overflowing with dense puffs of steam opened in
the ceiling. I continued until the echo of the tunnels came back
with a tangle of voices that I did not understand.
 I harmonized the sound of footsteps with the rhythm of the
slime stream beneath my feet. I spotted three men on what had
once been a platform of the old line, now disused. It was awash
in wooden crates. From what I could see, all three were armed.
One of them was preaching that «...you should never
complain.»
It seemed like good advice and the man almost certainly
had the moral fiber to do what he professed. I aimed at his knee
but what came out of his mouth was not praise to the Lord.
The guy bent over the injured joint that couldn't hold his
weight a second longer while the others who were with him
decided what to do. Mom always said that if you wait too long
life will end up deciding for you. Unfortunately, in their case,
in place of Life was Mr. Payne and an arrogantly mannered
semiautomatic.
While the preacher was trying to get back on his feet, the
others were committed to missing me. My advantage had been
keeping myself out of the light cone of the service lamps.
When the preacher raised his gun against the glare that had just
killed his two cronies, I nailed his hand to the butt of the gun.
At that point I stepped out of the shadows and covered the
height difference between the shit creek and the dock with a
leap.
«What's going on, man?» the man stared at me, but his
gaze was blank, as if he couldn't hold the life inside him. I
shook him hard trying to figure out what was wrong with him.
The joint was gone but it hadn't been a fatal blow. I also
noticed a dark spot under his armpit. It was expanding and the
man was expiring beneath me. I could make out the outline of a
bullet hole and realized that he had been hit by friendly fire
while they were firing blindly, and he was in the centre of the
shooting area. He left without answering me.
 So much the worse for me, I had to keep going and see
how deep the rabbit hole went.
The entrance in front of which the three of them were
getting busy was an uphill tunnel, a deep ravine paved with
steps and lined with tiles as small as mosaic tiles and as grey as
a dead man's teeth. Halfway up, the world began to shake and
sway, and a cavernous roar grew and enveloped me like a flood
wave, overcoming the red thread of thoughts and my shortness
of breath. The roar was followed by the rain of rubble that the
vault regurgitated on me. The ceiling was collapsing but the
landslide must have been so extensive that it involved the
entire station. It would have found me wherever I took refuge.
«What the hell was that?»
In an effort to put off the end of the rat as long as possible
I reached the top of the steps only to enjoy in stereo the echo of
what I was able to categorize at that moment as a huge
explosion. It couldn't have been the locomotive I had crashed
because the mess was above me, not below. Plus, the
locomotive was electric, so no fuel.
«I've got it, hand me the detonator.» I heard a man's voice
hoarse from too much smoke say once the universe settled back
down. Covering me from his view was a wall of mouldy
wooden crates through which I observed part of the scene
thanks to moth-eaten holes and missing laths. A man was
kneeling in front of an old, armoured door, fiddling with what
looked like a couple of kilograms of C4, while the «delivery
man« was a blond guy who had just emerged from a large gash
in the wall. In their hands were some kind of remote control.
«If you open that too we'll die of drafts!» I complained as
I emerged from my lucky hiding place, aiming at the head of
the one who seemed to be the most belligerent, even though at
that moment he was in a position of offering rather than
attacking. Mouthfuls.
 The man gave me a wondering look and gasped as if
searching for some fresh air.
«Do the taxpayers know about the renovations? Did
anyone consult them about the colour of the bathroom tiles?»
«I'm going to kill this bastard!» shouted the second,
hysterical.
«Hey! Let's get a few things straight: what's with you
today? Is it World «Let's open a second asshole for old Max,
you'll see how he'll thank us!» day? And, secondly, only my
mother can call me a bastard since she's the only one who can
say it for sure!» I joked and meanwhile I was catching my
breath. I didn't want to admit it but the explosion had left me
with an extra systole and a long wet streak in my underpants.
The man on his knees was trying to make eye contact with
his companion by pushing the twisting of his neck to the border
of demonic possession.
I had no idea what he was trying to say to him: whether to
keep quiet, since he had extracted the one-way ticket to the
morgue, or whether he wanted to incite him to put an end to my
headache by flipping the switch forever with a bullet. The man
on his knees could see as far as the end of his own shoulder and
listen to the blond man run his finger over the trigger and his
thumb over the hammer of the gun, in the sweaty grip of his
hand along his side. In the other, the grip on the detonator. The
guy on his knees was also sweating like a pig but it was likely
because of the uncertainty of whether I would shoot him first
or his partner when he finally decided to point the gun at me
and open fire. I realized I had been sweating in my boots when
I blasted the arm of the partner who had finally decided to raise
his gun.
«Sorry, conditioned reflex!» I apologized, picking up the
weapon from the ground. As for the remote control, there was
nothing I could do: it had split in two and stopped flashing. I
had to shout to drown out the moans. «How bad is it?» I
mimed, using my legendary expressiveness. I sent him to sleep
by hitting the base of his neck. I turned to the other.
«What are you doing and how many do I find on the other
side?» then I didn't tell him that by now he might as well turn
around.
«This old stretch of subway goes right into the side of the
Federal Trust Bank vault, man.»
«And how many piggies will I have to blow away?»
«There's five more downstairs. Don't kill me, I beg you!»
«'Night!» I hit him so hard his head hit the old rusty door
that rang unfinished like a broken bell. They were both going
to be sleeping for a while. Beyond the breach, then.
 Bullet time
I stepped over the two sleeping beauties and placed my
free hand on the edge of that giant gash in the wall. My fingers
became tangled with the pitch black of the combustion and my
nostrils filled with the pungent smell of the shining explosive.
The wall was about ten feet thick, which was why they hadn't
razed the place to the ground earlier. Beyond the dust, mostly
deposited on the ground, I found myself in what must have
been one of the bank's safe rooms. A steel grille would have
separated me from the corridor and the other cells, replete with
fucking solid gold bars stacked in sumptuous, truncated
pyramids, had it not been forcibly uprooted with the hastily
abandoned and hastily parked forklift. I moved forward as I
looked for evidence of the robbers' presence beyond the long
corridor. One of them stood out in the circular silhouette of a
huge, armoured door, open like the legs of a beautiful woman.
The man, who had noticed from the corner of his eye a
movement on my side, turned to check and forced me to retreat
a few steps.
He didn't shoot at me because he hadn't seen enough to be
sure that I wasn't one of his men, looking out to peek at his
colleagues' work. It was for that reason that I scanned a couple
of names advancing towards me. The accent sounded
Ukrainian, and one of the callers must have been from Eastern
Europe as well.
With my tight Russian phrasebook, I answered him with a
«yes!» [DA!] trying to impart the correct inflection to him.
Intent on considering that intuition, which then became doubt,
the man lowered his machine gun for a fraction of a second. I
wouldn't have needed more. I fired the service pistol.
The bullets gently penetrated his chest, swallowed by a
tongue of dark blood. He had time to let out a groan, then his
lifeless body slid to the floor, smearing the wall with blood.
I had started the dance. From the gaping jaws of the vault
two more heads sprang up in the space of about twenty
seconds, followed in succession by shoulders, torsos and
thundersticks. Seeing them all dressed up and all excited, I too
prepared myself for the after-dinner: Dad's car, Mom's
recommendations, and Uncle Sam's advice, fully armoured.
I swiped the Beretta in my left hand and welcomed the
Desert Eagle's ivory grip. More firepower, more work for the
cleaners. They began to take turns in pleasantries, firing at me
politely without overlapping, some with a roar of UZIs and
bullets, some with a few warm-up shots, just to keep me where
they wanted me; some aiming with precision to make my ears
ring, missing what was in between on purpose and enjoying
making sure I noticed. I lifted my arms and aimed at the big
targets, advancing between bursts of hot lead and expletives. A
couple of them came from me. Strong in their numbers they did
the same, convinced that I wouldn't even make it halfway down
the corridor.
The world began to move in slow motion. A slow, gentle
roll. It was certainly due to the adrenaline that my spasming
heart was pumping through my body. My leg felt as if it had
been raised for at least twenty minutes and the flash of
gunpowder a fatuous fire fifty inches from my face.
Thoughts chased each other like scarves from a magician's
pocket but the scene was suspended in time and space, with no
hurry to continue. I could calmly observe the two men, the
details of their faces, the sweat along their temples, the grime
on the collar of the flannel shirt of the one holding the gun, the
reflection of the gold bridge on the upper arch of the robber
with the gun who cared so much about my dickhead that he
wanted to have it as a souvenir for his living room shelf.
I had plenty of time to shoot and enjoy the sight of blood
spurting from their bodies as the large calibre bullets from the
Desert Eagle passed them through or those from the Glock that
hit like fists and stayed in to make them bleed properly. I saw
those men drop like skittles before I had even finished the jump
and was lying on the ground with my guns ready for another
round.
I tried to remember how long it had been since I last drank like
a dragon and if it was somehow a delayed-onset hangover. I
doubted it, since I'd started my undercover work, I'd cut back
on the bottle and the Super Bowl-size six-packs of beer. Sure,
after Michelle and Rose's deaths I'd had my hard times, but I
hadn't wronged anyone but myself. The metallic taste of the
barrel of my gun on the dreary morning of that gloomy Sunday
forced me to look at the bottom of the glass and the emptiness
that was my life. I realized that I had nothing left but revenge,
and it would not leave me easily. The next day, after a stout
dose of coffee I had applied for readmission to active duty and
two months later life as an alcoholic widower with a propensity
for suicide was over.
I wouldn't have been surprised if the sensory alterations I had
just experienced couldn't be traced to some brain damage from
alcohol abuse while grieving. I had been going so hard that I
almost laughed in the doctor's face when, after the thorough
check-up I underwent prior to reinstatement, he told me that
my liver would outlive me, but it was the rest of me that scared
him to death. Brain fried or not, if it helped to stay alive and
kill bad men it was foolish to complain.
I pulled myself up remembering that the one I knocked out had
told me about five friends and that there were only three in the
vault. Two more were waiting for me and by then they knew I
wasn't a leprechaun looking for the rainbow.
 A new geometry

I didn't realize that the police sound alarm wasn't working

until I pulled up to the security door and it started pounding in
my ears. From that moment on I could have huddled in a
corner and waited for the cavalry to arrive and push them
towards the only way out. Behind me, however, I had left the
two henchmen stunned, and now that the boys in blue had
arrived, realized what they were dealing with, and made a
negotiation, they might recover and put me in a sandwich that
was hard to swallow. Might as well go for the glory.
In the centre of the second room were two long desks with
all the buttons that were used to open the security doors,
activate silent alarms, and cut off airflow at will in the
storerooms and safe rooms. I wasn't aware of Trust Federal
Bank's anti-robbery measures, but I braced myself for the fact
that the robbers had found a couple of shotguns and tazers to
shoot me in the face. What I was certain of was that they were
waiting for me.
The doors to the other two vaults were locked.
I blew up the monitor of one of the computers and it
sizzled one last time before shutting down. A cascade of
fragments fell over the edge of the table. Nothing, no reaction.
Not a head peeping over the horizon of the desk watching the
sunset. Convinced that they had not noticed my attention I fired
directly at the body of the desks at the height of where kneeling
men would have their heads and vital organs, certain that the
Desert Eagle would go through the wood like butter. A measly
handful of shots in sequence were what it took to piss them off.
They came out of hiding together, raining as much fire as they
could on me. I took cover behind the steel hinge of the vault
door waiting for them to reload. That was about a minute and a
half later. One of them had an AK47 assault rifle while, from
the sound of it, the other one was spewing anger with a
Remington 12-gauge shotgun, as nasty as any. The rifle had
already reloaded three times, but I had to wait for the assault
rifle so as not to be sawed in half like a redwood. I had lost
sight of them for a minute and a half and could only tell where
they were by the direction of the shots and the din, which was
however tainted by the tremendous echo of the vault.
For that reason, I looked out and fired a few scout shots
before returning to cover. The one with the buckshot didn't
miss a chance and unleashed a couple of his pups behind me. I
answered but with the return shot I only managed to miss him
by fifty centimetres. The shotgun, however, was slow and
cumbersome so, a moment after taking cover, I returned the
favour. I took him in the shoulder, which became a shapeless
mass of minced meat. In the meantime, the AK47 had been
reloaded and was sounding again. That was the one that
distracted me and graced the robber with the Remington. I had
to throw myself to the right, losing the protection of the door
for good and remaining in a wasteland without shelter. While
the one with the mangled shoulder was screaming and
dropping his weapon, the other had no choice but to mow me
down like an ear of corn. And he would have succeeded if a
shell hadn't gotten stuck halfway through the ejection
mechanism. The man cursed as he tried to operate the
magazine, but I wasn't one for fair fights and didn't wait until
we were all ready.
 «That's right, say cheese!»
A shot to the forehead, head being violently pushed back
and a man going limp like a puppet whose strings were cut.
I approached the one still alive by kicking the rifle away.
Batsy Jones, the Pope.
And there the swallows had just become two. Batsy was
so close to Lupino that he was an emanation of him. He spit on
me and I, to return the courtesy, sunk my heel into his
shoulder. He was so happy about it that he lost consciousness.
He smiled, but it could have been a grimace of pain. In that
mess, with the alarm screaming at full blast and the sound of
gunfire still echoing from ear to ear, I was surprised to hear the
phone ring.
Who could it be? The pizza delivery guy?
I followed the source of the trills and walked around the
control console. I found the phone and answered it:
«Live. Straight from the scene.»
«Who is this?»
«May I know that, too?»
«Assistant DA Jim Bravura of the NYPD. You are to
cease all criminal activity and surrender immediately.»
«Of course, Jim. I talked it over with the guys and we are
all very sorry. We won't do this again.»
«Who the hell are you?»
Finding myself embroiled in a bank robbery certainly
wasn't going to help my reputation so I hung up looking for a
way out of there. In front of me, next to the doors to the gold
deposits, was a vault marked with the letter "C". The friends
lying on the floor had already saved me the trouble of opening
it. I couldn't leave without knowing the reason for that mess.
In the centre of the room stood a glass table on which were
two safety deposit boxes, empty, their contents strewn across
the floor. The robbers hadn't had time to take it because of my
intrusion. They were stock files. I studied them for a few
seconds. It was the AESIR Corporation. The success it was
enjoying in those days was being extolled every minute on
national television networks and in the country's leading
financial publications. Since I couldn't stand to dawdle too
much, or I'd soon find myself in the showers at Rikers Island,
teasing a burly, irascible cellmate, I left the stocks and walked
around the room.
Behind the outline of the table, they had abandoned a
canvas duffel bag. Through the opening poked out a large tin
box with a pair of beautiful buttons crowned with a red light.
Under the box I glimpsed a few bricks of C4, as in the
cornucopia of the experienced terrorist. That one looked like
the missing detonator from the steel door in the disused subway
wing. It was probably the spare one, in case something
happened to the first one. Something had happened: Max
Payne.
I picked up the magic box and left the explosives for the
police who were about to huff and puff and raid the vault.
There was no way I was going to get out of the bank unscathed,
nor was it wise to tempt fate by retracing the path of evil dead
crumbs I had left in the subway. It didn't seem like such a bad
idea to recycle the plan of my friends with the balaclava and
the passion for stock market climbing. I went back to the depot
I had come from and reached the door stepping over the two
survivors. The one with the short pastry hands who had
dropped the first detonator was coming to but my heel
reiterated the concept explaining it between his cheekbone and
temple. I placed the detonator and connected the wires to the
C4 connector, set the timer knob to ten seconds and started the
countdown. The LED lit up, as red as the end of a condemned
man's last cigarette, and he stared at me, perhaps wondering
what I was still doing there. I moved my ass, grabbed one
robber by his jacket and the other by the bottom of his pants
and dragged them with me to a safe distance.
In the meantime, a BIP BIP was coming out of the box
and if before it had started with moderation, in a few moments
it had begun a frantic race until it was impossible to distinguish
one BIP from the other. I lowered my head, by instinct, but the
air displacement of the explosion wrapped my jacket around
me. When the roar reached its peak, I was forced to kneel
down. It was like a stab in the brain. In closed spaces and with
a lot of echoes it was recommended to avoid excessive noise.
Unfortunately for me, I hadn't even glanced at the leaflet.
The temperature reached the right level to imagine what it
would be like to be cremated alive. Then the explosion
dispersed, sucked into the new geometry of the place.
When all was quiet again, I looked over my shoulder.
Thick black smoke cluttered my vision and my breath. I
shielded my eyes with my hand, knowing they would burn
anyway. My lungs filled with ash, dust and highly harmful
chemicals. I pushed them out of me with a couple of dry
coughs as I advanced through the soot. What a man!
I found an opening and the fog gradually cleared. I was
back in the subway. Big deal indeed.
 Alex Balder

The steel door had been thrown against the wall, violently
torn off its hinges. The shock wave had bent it like a can of dog
food. I tried to dampen the buzzing in my head by shaking it
energetically but only felt my brain dancing inside my skull
box.
Stunned, I had not taken the time to make sure my new
surroundings were safe.
It was the man standing on the other side of the closed
turnstile who reminded me.
My breath was held in my rib cage as my heart pounded
angrily to get him off my back.
Here lies Maximilian Payne. A big fucked up asshole like
the first day of school. You're dead because you forgot the only
law in force on this earth: always fuck hard.
Max, well, all in all, the trip wasn't too bad.
My arms were burning like crazy. Too bad about the
ending. Too bad I couldn't keep my promise.
Sorry, girls, I didn't live up to it.
«Max! Good grief! I almost shot you!» Balder. I breathed
a sigh of relief and lowered my gun.
«Alex! It's good to see you again!»
«What the hell is going on? There are more bodies here
than in the county morgue.»
«A robbery, taking advantage of an old disused tunnel that
runs under the Trust Federal Bank vault. It's Lupino's men.»
 «Lupino's behind this? Are you sure?»
«Pretty sure. Nice little place for a date, though. Can you
get through?»
«No, it's closed. We need to get out of here, even faster if
Lupino's involved. The mole might...»
Alex couldn't finish his sentence because someone on the
other side, hidden from my view, shot him in the back, like a
dog. Alex fell to the right. The shooter must have been lurking
on the staircase that was lost around the corner. A position that
would have provided a perfect escape route. All I was able to
do was watch Alex Balder slump to the ground trying to hold
on to the wall for as long as he could, fail miserably, and give
up when his strength left him without grace.
Poor Alex.
There was nothing left to do: he was dead, and his lifeless
eyes stared at me motionless.
As I tried to reach Alex and his killer the police sirens
came on like a chorus of infernal voices. They were still far
away but would not be for long. The man who had shot Alex in
cold blood was obviously of the same opinion as me: it was
with him that I associated the sound of footsteps that went up
the stairs and then disappeared, after a brief echo, into the
station hall and out of my life. For the moment.
I grabbed onto the gate and yanked hard in a desperate
attempt to open it. All to no avail. I left there the body of the
only person who knew what I had done in the last three years
and my mission. My name and face no longer appeared in the
police files or in the academy's annual reports. Everything had
been expertly erased when I joined the DEA. It had been done
because in case anyone dug around to find out who I really
was, they would only come out with artfully created records
and a criminal record that was filthy to the core.
 I was where I had done everything I could not to return.
My hellhole in the subway had ended up taking me back to
where I started, like an endless spiral.
Hurrying to Roscoe Street, I wondered why Alex had to
die. And why he had wanted to meet me. What was certain was
that he hadn't imagined that it would end like this, or that we
would find ourselves in the middle of a robbery. And not one
organized by the Mafia clan we were hunting. Strange that I
hadn't heard anything in the last while. Strange that Alex didn't
know about it. If there really was a mole within the family then
it was plausible that he'd known about me enough to keep me
away from vital information but not enough to make me eat
leaf. And perhaps they had already been on the trail of Balder
himself, who knows how long. The stray bullet had killed him
and not gone on to me, potentially more dangerous to the
family business. If they had killed me, they would have cut the
DEA off at the knees, forcing them to start all over again.
The dark sky was still scattering snowflakes and the icy
wind was creeping through my clothes, drying my skin, and
nicking my bones. The snow on the steps crunched under his
shoes. He stepped out into the blizzard; his warm hands
clasped around his smoking revolvers.
Rosce Street.
 Entrance to Bogart

Lupino ran his sex, drugs and extortion ring from a seedy
hotel in a rough neighbourhood. The NYPD was on its way. I
could hear the crescendo of his sirens. Lupino thought he had
me in the palm of his hand by taking out Alex and making
everyone think it was me. He certainly had my full attention. I
decided to enter the hotel, a decrepit and crusty building
frequented by street thugs and tired-looking prostitutes.
I adopted my famous Bogart-like entrance: without
looking anyone in the face.
At the front desk were a pair of murderous-looking jail
leftovers: the Finito brothers.
«Ladies and gentlemen, pain made flesh!» greeted me
Joey Finito.
«The ultimate in pain!» joined Virgil.
«You guys kill me! Do you make them up yourselves or
do you have your own personal bullshit prompter? Never mind,
it was a rhetorical question. I got something for the big boss. Is
Lupino home?»
«Depends on who's after him, a friend or a fucking double
agent! Don't answer that, it's one of those...useless rhetorical
questions!»
«Lupino isn't here, but he'd like to say goodbye.»
My cover was blown, and the hotel doors closed behind
me as I was greeted by a cascade of bullets.
That's how far the news of who I really was had already
spread. Lupino had certainly given it a wide airing and then
unleashed the dogs. I stepped back, bringing my hands to my
sides. I found the outline of the hilt of my swords and evaded
the crossfire. Joey Finito, a bad imitation of Billy Drago in The
Untouchables, kicked over the reception table and hid behind
it. Virgil, on the other hand, the taller of the two, wore a 1920s
pinstripe suit and a cocky smile. He didn't get tough right away
but stood by and watched me, standing unarmed, as I folded,
and his brother hurled lightning bolts at me like a fucking
rancorous god. Virgil invited me to try and kill him.
The two brothers had never been a concern to me and even
then, they were nothing but annoying pebbles inside my shoe.
I wanted to hit Virgil with all my heart, but a splinter of
wall carved by a stray bullet opened a cut under my cheekbone.
I didn't immediately feel the warm blood rushing down my
cheek and into the collar of my shirt. I would not realize it until
hours later when I took off my clothes. The Desert Eagle took a
sizable chunk out of the desk when the bullet missed Joey
Finito by a hair. To put it in the brothers' favour I held it with
my left hand. Every recoil was trying to rip my arm off.
Flattered that I had almost ripped his head off, Joey Finito
laughed excitedly like a little dog who realizes his owner is
about to take him out for his piss & shit combo. Laughing he
intensified the frequency of the shots. Even Virgil finally
decided to join the party.
His aim, however, was less excited and more precise.
The brothers swapped roles: Virgil was strenuously
barricaded behind the overturned desk and his head popped out
only when protected by his barrage; Joey, on the other hand,
was spewing lead crushing every solid form between us with
the table protecting only his lower back and ankles. That cover
wouldn't last much longer; the Desert Eagle was tearing it up
like ass paper.
 The bastards had an excellent killing strategy: when one
reloaded, the other would start shooting again, not letting me
catch my breath. I had both magazines ready to use but not a
chance to get my head out. They would keep it up until I fell
asleep, or they exhausted the arsenal. The only shots I had left
were banked plays and rebound shots. And it was with those
that I built a strategy as shaky as a Jenga tower at the final heat.
The Finito brothers probably thought I was shooting like a dick
or that a seizure was forcing me to pull all the triggers. For
what was in my head, the Beretta came to my aid because the
Desert Eagle ripped apart everything in its path. The Beretta's
bullets were more susceptible to playing around with cast iron
radiators making them bounce where I wanted them to. The
game cost me most of my spare magazines but if I was good
enough and had a considerable amount of ass, from that point
on I would only need the erectile power of the Desert gun.
I waited under cover until I heard Virgil Finito's gun go
silent again, then I ducked to the side and shot Joey, who in the
meantime was continuing his bored persuasion to get me to buy
a ticket to see the Creator. Considering that we had been stalled
like this for a few minutes, the repetitiveness of the sequence
had lowered testosterone, adrenaline, and concentration. Joey
took a moment too long to align my muzzle with the crosshairs
at the end of the gun.
«Hole ball!» I shouted and fired.
The Desert Eagle's bullet began its run with a roar and
ended with a howl. It was Joey Finito's, centred in what he held
most dear and what allowed him to identify himself as
belonging to the male gender.
Patiently the beretta had thinned the top of the desk behind
which Joey was sheltering. The gangster brought his hands up
to protect what he was no longer. For a whole second, I thought
about whether to give him the coup de grace or let him
agonize, but then Virgil reminded me that it was a business
meeting and not the time to be distracted. The brother, who had
reloaded in a hurry, had exploded twice towards me without
catching me. I distinctly read in the look, at first mocking, the
clear awareness of the shit that had just turned against him.
What his brain processed just a moment later was the
imperative to squash the boil before it burst, and all the girls
started laughing at him.
But I was in worse shit since I had left my only shelter two
feet behind. However, the difference between Virgil and me
was that my pants were already soiled, and my trigger finger
was missing the easy half.
My bullet severed Virgil's carotid artery, leaving him only
to gurgle his disappointment. He ended his life on all fours,
babbling curses as copious streams of blood gushed from his
clasped hands around his throat. His eyes, just before
contemptuous, turned milky and finally decided for the glassy.
Next to Virgil's body, his brother Joey held his balls
moaning like a whore. He wasn't hurt enough to die but not
healthy enough to get up and walk away.
«Good thing your sunglasses didn't fly off.» I said. «Don't
squint, Joey.»
I heard his breathing quicken and shorten as he waited for
the kill shot. I shot him in the back of the head.
 First row seat

«Everything okay?»
Off-key voices, beyond the door.
I'd only met Lupino once. That was because much of his
racket was run by his loyal right-hand man, Vinnie Gognitti.
Gognitti was a hypertensive nutcase perpetually on the verge of
a nervous breakdown. He had the brains to run such a business,
but he lacked the balls. So he ended up relieving his tension on
cheap call girls.
I found a letter among the papers scattered on the floor,
among the bodies and blood of Joey and Virgil. I picked it up.

«Plan V will take place at the hotel. Jack's exact words

were: -Vinnie, to you the honors of the house. - Rico Muerte
will also be in the game. If anything goes wrong, we're all
dead. Treat this guy with due care: whatever he wants, give it
to him. Let's not mess this up or we're finished.»

Plan V meant extra surveillance, barred doors, and lots of

trigger-happy rednecks. I hadn't seen anything interesting, but
that might not have meant anything. Rico Muerte was the
classic ruthless badass.
The Finitos had scribbled Rico's room number in the
margins of the paper.
 "313"

«Everything okay in there?» they asked again.

«They're not answering, call the others: tell them to run
here now!» ordered a second to a third man.
«Okay, but we can't waste any more time! We have to get
in now!» objected the first, with great acumen.
Getting out would not be easy. The stairwell was locked,
and the elevator had been stationary for decades. I folded the
letter and slipped it into my pocket, not caring about the perfect
fold.
The shaking of the door and the creaking of the door as it
responded to the guys in the hallway trying to break it down
told me that I had about fifteen seconds before the gala came
alive again. I looked around for a solution and then found her
in my way. Even though she weighed as much as a finch, Joey
wasn't going to help me: thanks to me she now had a hole
where her face used to be. I already knew my shoulder
wouldn't thank me. I hoped that my ass would thank me later. I
lifted Virgil's weight. That tall man was taller than he looked
and putting him on me like a coat was a real delirium. I helped
to support him by leaning against the wall far from the door
that the Finito boys were about to violate like a quarterback the
prom queen on the seats of his father's station wagon. I held the
back of Virgil's head straight by tugging at his thick, greasy
jelly hair.
«I'm glad to hear you're so relaxed having another man
behind you, Virgy, but try to stay up!» I tamped the thumb of
his corpse hand into his belt so he would assume a less dead
pose. In his other hand I placed the beretta while my fingers
controlled the pressure on the trigger.
 «Have you ever been hand-to-hand during a firefight,
Virgil? You'll see you'll like it!»
When the lock groaned in exhaustion before giving way, I
hid my face between the dead gangster's shoulders and held my
breath.
The henchmen were faced with an absurd scene: Joey
lying on the floor in a lake of blood, the desks of the reception
desk overturned, the room turned upside down, the penetrating
smell of gunpowder and Virgil standing there, waiting for
them. Of the intruder to be slaughtered, not even a shadow.
«Where is he?» asked one, busily hiding his breath. He
had entered with weapons drawn, followed by four others.
There was also Sal La Monica, that old fascist asshole who
enjoyed beating up the old ladies he swindled after posing as a
door-to-door Bible salesman. Faced with a different scenario
than expected and finding the boss in front of them instead,
they didn't have the quick wit to think quickly.
I squeezed Virgil's hand so that his index finger would
produce the correct pressure on the trigger. The first shot
missed everything, but I had never shot a dead body before, so
I didn't lose heart. The Finito men didn't realize what was
happening until the second bullet lodged in Sal La Monica's
chest.
They hesitated again before turning their guns on their
leader, so I took the opportunity to blow off a foot. At that
point, however, their survival instincts got them over the hump
resulting in the shooting of the man signing their checks. There
was a drum roll in the body leaning against me and Virgil
began to vibrate disconcerted by the bullets. Virgil's head fell
backwards, split open like a watermelon, then forward, his chin
touching his chest. I picked up the beretta again and from under
the dead man's armpit I fired a volley of bullets at eye level.
Virgilio was a good shield and with a few more kilos he would
have resisted but by now he was crumbling in my hands. I
didn't throw up on my shoes only because I was distracted by
the state of integrity of Finito's internal organs, wondering
behind which ones it would be better to hide mine. I waved the
beretta again in desperation and in the din heard the pleasant
sound of excruciating, violent suffering. I peeked over Virgil's
shoulder just to see the man on the far left, breathless and
inebriated, collapse to the floor and a large dark spot spread out
under his leather jacket, about lung level. I moved toward
them. The tips of Virgil Finito's feet crawled on the ground
behind my shoes. The shoulder holding the corpse burned from
the effort, the other I had to ask to shoot well because there was
no margin for error.
By drastically reducing the space between me and them I
increased my chances of scoring but allowed the possibility of
catching me on the sides. The two still skilled ones thought the
same thing so the first one to reach my flank was the one I
wasn't holding at gunpoint.
Exactly what I wanted.
I favoured the asshole in favour of the Beretta because
from the side of the wounded shoulder I would have been easy
prey. I pierced his liver before he had time to notice and
unceremoniously unloaded Virgil to get the last one too. Right
between the eyes.
«Don't look at me like that, next time switch!» I said to the
liver-wounded one who would slowly fade away.
 Room Service

God, I wasn't fresh as a daisy either: I was out of breath. I

stuck my hand in my pocket and took the bottle of aspirin. It
wouldn't hurt. I downed a couple and those slipped inside me
with a thirty-second long hurrah.
«Thanks Max.» I almost heard my body say. «Every once
in a while, do something for me too.»
«Knock it off, and try to cooperate: is there a chance you
could pop a rocket out of my ass and take off out of here?»
«You know where the exit is, Max: it looks a lot like the
entrance, seen from the other side.»
I mumbled to myself to get the hell out but then thought I
should go with me and since I was already in a pile of shit, it
was best to handle one dick in the ass at a time. I looked for
ways to get out of the room while avoiding going back the way
of Finito's men, believing that others would not be long in
coming. Going forward was not possible and I had noticed a
wall-window before going to interview Joey and. It led to the
large terrace on the second floor. I reached it and shot at the
glass. The bullet hit the ground after shattering the window.
The wind of that devilish night blew in my face. The squeak of
glass under my shoes was followed by the crunch of snow and
the clap of my jacket flaps around my hips.
 I was leaving footprints and blood. The latter dripped
down from my fingertips. My arm was going numb. I opened
and closed my palm to relieve the tingling. The storm
continued to growl forcefully in my eardrums even as I made
myself small against the wall to offer her as little surface area
as possible. I continued past the corner of the building hoping
to enter the corridor of another block or the window of a room.
How smart you are, Max! And women, they really can't
resist you!
My extraordinary sense of direction intruded to tell me
that after about one hundred meters of cold ass and frozen balls
he was almost sure that we had arrived, so much so that he
urged me to break the first window I came across with an
elbow. However, there was no need: the occupant of the room
was standing on the windowsill, naked born and determined to
jump.
«Room service!» I said. The man squinted his eyes. He
was high on Valkyrie. I repressed the disgust that had risen to
my throat and was punching my stomach. The thugs who had
destroyed my world had also done so under the influence of
that drug. But I wasn't going to let the anger get its way. I
wanted to keep it chilled for a special moment.
«You don't look like the waitress, man.»
«And you don't look like you're my friend, man. Let's
make do.
«Stay back or I'll jump!»
I looked down at my feet and calculated that from the
height he was standing, the worst thing that could happen to
him (if he let go) would be a slip in the fresh snow and a butt
joke.
«If you want to die, you have to come with me!» I said.
After signalling him with the barrel of the Beretta to back off I
jumped into his room.
 «Thanks! And remember to close the window when you're
done if not you know the administrator that pissed?»
I crossed the entire room and faced the hallway. I looked
in both directions before deciding where to go. I turned back
inside the room. Valkyrie's freaks were freaking out without
warning and infesting the place like a colony of rats. He
walked out of his life and the fate that awaited him, giving less
of a damn.
My long-term goal was to climb the mountain of shit that
had rained down on me that night.
My short-term one, on the other hand, was the tenant of
room 313.
At least the hotel floor was the right one.
As the smell of gunpowder and the iron taste of blood,
mine, and everyone else's, faded, the acrid reality of the place
hit me like a fist.
The stench of rancid humanity permeated the peeling
walls and the filthy carpeting that stuck to the soles of my
shoes. The air was saturated with the soggy stench of cheap
cologne, vomit, mold, and dirty underwear. I was standing
around 357, which meant Rico's quarters were exactly on the
opposite side of the floor.
 Burn in hell, Jesus!

I had just won a trip to a wonderland of filthy bedrooms

where life is consumed by the hour. As if in a marathon, every
tenth room had a soda machine and a closet full of brooms,
rags and various other junk, including a few large tanks. The
sadness of the place was such that some guests didn't even
bother to get a bite of privacy by closing the door behind them.
That hotel was a commune of junkies and whores. Every
other room was decked out with sizzling neon signs where the
bugs would go to rub their faces in them and get a tanning
lamp; posters of naked women hung on the walls and curled up
by what I hoped were water leaks from the old rusty plant;
stumps of scented candles that lit up the romantic atmosphere
between young European girls and lonely, grudge-ridden old
geezers. In the centre of the rooms towered heart-shaped beds
or vibrating beds that if you left them on for a while would take
you all the way to the bathroom for a liberating piss. The carpet
was moth-eaten and pockmarked with hundreds of cigarette
burns. The main cause of fires in motels of that ilk were
quickies and second timers with the odd call girl. To top it all
off, every television set, with its antediluvian cathode ray
tubes, was tuned to the weather forecasts that interspersed
extraordinary news reports, mattress sales and Argentine
telenovelas full of Carlos, Maria, Dolores, stolen pesos, mines
and peons bent to the will of the Don on duty.
 When I heard the jingle of the special news program that
interrupted the normal course of broadcasting, I stopped and
peeked through the open door of one of those luxury homes.
Too bad, I was about to find out who had stolen the Santa Fe
mine contract from the icy hands of the evil Antonio Morales.
The doubt would haunt me for days.
«Tonight, the war on the dreaded drug Valkyrie sadly
claimed another illustrious victim: DEA Special Agent Alex
Balder, who was found murdered in the Roscoe Street station.
A suspect was seen walking away shortly after the lethal shots
were fired. Police have reason to believe it was Max Payne, an
armed and extremely dangerous criminal. And now the weather
forecast, with the terrible snowstorm continuing to rage over
the city.»
Les jeaux sont faites.
Splendid, Bravura had put all his acumen to use and drawn
the wrong conclusion. I didn't aspire to win the undercover cop
of the year award, but that wasn't how I hoped to spend the
weekend. The news had pegged me as a criminal because that's
what the statement the department had issued to the crime
reporters said. If Lupino and Puncinello were after me because
they knew who I really was, Mama Police had disowned me
out of an excessive sense of shame. No hard feelings, though: I
had never been one of those girls who demand exclusivity. And
who gets offended when she sees herself downgraded from
«irrepressible sexual desire« to «cruel post-coital indifference.»
I was grateful to NYPD Mom even though she was
disowning me. She had given me the skills and tools that I
would employ to bring peace to the neighbourhood. A
neighbourhood named Michelle that had within it a beautiful
garden, Rose, where children could go to play happily and
without fear of being unloved.
 I walked away from the door, 321, knowing which
direction to go.
I crouched behind a vending machine across from 317. My
finish line was only a dozen yards away. With my ear resting
against the aluminium carcass, the annoying hum of my
growing migraine was lulled by the steady mumbling of the
cooler inside the vending machine.
I reached for the change flap.
Rule number one of the fearless hero: never leave home
without change. The day may be longer than you can imagine.
Anyway, nothing, the other hotel guests had already moved on
to the valuables forgotten by others before them. I considered
getting up and kicking the vending machine until I managed to
drop something edible, but I didn't think it was a smart move. I
didn't want to get to Rico Muerte empty-handed, but I didn't
want to get there too dead either.
Enough talk Mr. Payne.
I leaned over my shelter and scanned the landing in front
of 313. There were neither saints nor villains, neither girls of
many nor fathers of all. I emerged from hiding with only the
Glock ready for offense. No, 313 stood there unguarded, closed
off from the outside world and jealous of its secrets. I
approached and put my ear to the doorframe but there was
nothing I could do: either a sleeping beauty was resting there or
the tenant had gone off to have a sweat in the Turkish bath. I
didn't want to delude myself by dreaming of a firing squad all
to myself waiting for me to stick my nose in.
«Maid on the floors! Did someone wet the bed?» I
knocked with my Desert Eagle hand.
No response. Not even a welcoming wave.
Too bad because I had also moved to the side to make
myself missed. I released one hand and tightened my fingers
around the handle. I considered that, given the importance of
his guest, the door might have been mined to discourage any
unwelcome guests but almost immediately chased the thought
away. I wasn't trying to be a tough guy, but the clues had led to
that room, and if I didn't cross that border my journey would
end up out front, bomb or no bomb.
A trickle of sweat ran down my forehead while my ear
strained at the click of the lock trying to pick up other unusual
noises, an omen of bad surprises. The mechanism rotated
completely, the world did not shine brightly, and the door
returned to the room drawing a shadow on the slippery carpet. I
pushed it open with a rush. Just as no one had answered my
knock, that move didn't arouse interest either. The bitter cocks I
was selling didn't seem to interest anyone. I plunged in
producing a somersault worthy of the Cirque du Soleil. I
scanned the 313 with the help of two pistols, waiting for the
flash of a shot or the light reflecting on the steel of a semi-
automatic pointed at me.
I found the same scenario as many other rooms before: the
smell of humanity, strips of cocaine on the coffee table in front
of the TV, the evening news and an ashtray full of cigarette
butts. I walked straight to the toilet and found it empty, as was
the modest walk-in closet in the hallway to my right. Rico
Muerte was not there, and I was still in one piece.
I then did what I had always considered one of my talents:
rummaging through society's dumpsters for shit. I flushed the
toilet, as someone had forgotten to do at the right time and
returned to the living room. I sifted through the compartments
of the dresser next to the bed and the one nightstand with an
abat-jour on it yellowed by smoke and layers of dust. I found a
red leather bible on which someone had amused themselves by
carving with a nail clipper the words «BURN IN HELL,
JESUS, BURN!» and a surviving prophylactic from the
glorious year of 1982, the year in which the fashion for
diseases transmitted by the exchange of bodily fluids was all
the rage; a «do not disturb« sign to hang on the door and some
tobacco shavings that were now floating to one side because of
my breathing and the air conditioning. The latter, rather than a
barely audible murmur incapable of disturbing the travelers'
weary dreams, was a tired, hoarse wheeze. I turned the pillows
over and lifted the mattress. I didn't find a single skeleton of a
dead call girl, and there were no rotting waiters in the closet,
much less the corpses of jealous husbands.
Lucky me, maybe it was 315 that contained all those
surprises, or 319. Behind the TV and in the tray above the toilet
I searched for weapons. Nada. On the tiny desk towered a
crusty coffee cup busy holding down a single sheet of paper,
marked with thick, slanted handwriting.
Alex and I still hadn't managed to link Angelo Puncinello,
head of the eponymous family, to the Valkyrie drug. And not
that we hadn't tried. We knew he was the big puppet master,
but we couldn't prove it in front of a court of law. So, «Well
done Max Payne and Alex Balder but you'll have better luck
next time. Try again. Rich prizes and cotillons for all!»
All tracks had always led us to Jack Lupino.
Until that moment.
 Nine lives

«After the big mess in Chicago you only have the

Puncinellos to thank if you don't still rot in jail. The time has
come to give back. One of our most trusted guys has a little
problem with a gorilla that's been hounding him closely.
You've got to make sure he doesn't blow a big deal.»

The letter bore the signature of Angelo himself. It was the

first hint that the big boss was somehow involved. I had
stopped collecting evidence a few hundred bullets ago. I had
gone so far beyond the point of no return that I had crossed it
without even realizing it.
I crumpled up the letter and dropped it on the floor. I
glanced at the window: the blizzard in progress could make the
building across the street disappear. What it couldn't do,
however, was muffle the sound of the police sirens, so loud
that, for a moment, I thought they had stopped outside the
room. They had started as a hissing sound carried by the wind
and then, when the flashing lights had begun to reflect on the
snowy mantle, in a few seconds they had grown by dozens of
decibels. Maybe it wasn't Bravura's men. Probably the skirmish
with the Finito brothers had alarmed some good neighbours
who ignored the neighbourhood’s commandment of omerta
and had never suspected the constant coming and going of
prostitutes and good men with their hats pulled down to the tip
of their noses from the hotel. Even if they hadn't been there for
me, I was still the one walking around armed to the teeth and
shooting at any living thing that showed up. It wasn't wise to sit
around and fiddle.
What I had found in 313 wasn't getting me anywhere. The
rudder was still pointed towards Puncinello but the ocean was
full of sharks and I had the smell of fresh meat on me. In that
investigation I had to put my feet in front of each other or
sooner or later I would find myself dangling in the void.
Without Rico Muerte, I could still court Lupino, but pushing
further would require a longer run-up.
I got out.
I turned left because on the other side there was only a
blind corridor and a fair amount of flying into the void if I
continued determinedly toward the window. The soda machine
partially covered my view of the twin hallway on the other side
of the floor. With Rico missing, it was necessary for me to
search the hotel, in case they moved him to keep him away
from me.
I was basking in the idea of starting on the penthouse floor
or in the basement when fate wanted to encourage me with a
little help. Suddenly the hallway lit up but I couldn't locate the
light source because of the vending machine. The roar followed
more than an instant later, shattering the silence. A huge and
violent explosion projected shrapnel in all directions. Many
scratched the wall to my right, sticking into the plasterboard,
others turned off neon and emergency lights. The heat barely
reached me, thanks to my grumbling friend who was shielding
me. I was amazed when my body sagged to protect against the
blast because my brain hadn't had time to react. It was only
when the floor section collapsed under my feet that I realized I
was falling. And the vending machine was falling with me.
I spun in mid-air like a cat trying to roll away as soon as
the floor landed on the floor below. The impact was hard, and
the flesh came out tattered and bruised. My left shoulder
popped out of joint but returned as my momentum slammed
into the wall. I crumpled, cracking a few ribs. No thoughts,
these were all things that tomorrow's Max Payne would think
about, if he ever arrived. The echo of the explosion was added
to the one of scrap metal and bubbles, as if someone had
uncorked a large bottle of champagne. The refrigerator had
been crushed under its own weight, destroying the load that
was now pouring between rubble and concrete.
Trying to understand the dynamics I remembered the
cylinders I had seen in the closets. They couldn't have jumped
by themselves; someone must have given them a push. I got
back on my feet, dusting off my pants and counting the most
annoying bruises. I picked up the guns and pointed them at the
ripped vault above me. I waited for the bomber to look out to
see if the prank had worked out just as he had imagined it
would. I had to calm my accelerated breathing before it
prevented me from taking good aim. When the roar of the
explosion was reduced to a hum, I could determine that no one
was approaching my position.
Unless they were already posted elsewhere, it was indeed
an accident. However, since even my father never believed,
contrary to what my mother had always sworn to him, that my
conception was due to an accident, I was not inclined to go
along with chance, or fate. However, if Lupino's men weren't
standing silently behind some door at that moment, waiting for
me to pose for a souvenir photo, the police or the Mafia would
have arrived soon anyway.
I started moving again to see if my legs were still able to
hold me up. So, it seemed. I reached the beginning of the
corridor, overcoming the rubble, and explored the adjoining
corridor, first uncovering my guns and then myself: a deserted
wasteland. Before diving into it like a tuna fish, I replaced the
exhausted magazines with new ones. I oriented myself to the
elevator shaft and no wolf in disguise stopped me to give me
directions on how to get to my grandmother's house.
In front of the elevator control panel, I matured the
decision to resume my search from the bottom, guided by a
rather elementary observation: since odours tend to rise to the
top, then I would have to go down to find the source of that
stench of shit.
 The beating heart of New
York

The old service elevator resounded in the heart of Jack

Lupino's hotel.
I had descended to the guts of that place like a mouthful of
enchilada: ready to unleash fire and flame. Someone was going
to regret chewing me out. When the doors opened, I found
myself in the laundry room. The pungent smell of varichin
made my eyes water. The steam from the machines clung to me
making everything more slippery. I was sweating in places that
no one had touched in a long time. I found myself amidst large
carts of clean underwear and dirty sheets. Sacks of filthy
towels hanging on hooks were being carried ten meters up to
large tanks of boiling water. The large centrifuges in operation
were pulling so hard that the vibration was transmitted to the
entire building for at least three floors.
In the midst of the din, I picked up a voice and headed
there before I was seen. Three men sitting at a table in the
corner of the warehouse were playing poker. A couple of feet
away was a broken-down couch and a fourteen-inch TV with
bad reception, tuned to a looping news program. It was
consistent that within that persistent noise were lost the
celebrations that had been going on upstairs. I had decided on
the soft line, which was to walk among them like a pilgrim
who has lost his way. When there were about ten steps left to
separate me from them, a transceiver between the chips
croaked for a few seconds. There was no communication, but it
took me an infinite amount of time to put things together.
Something wasn't quite right, and no matter how hard I looked,
I still couldn't pinpoint it.
In what seemed to me an absurd descent into hell I kept
walking while examining and discarding possibilities. The
solution came to me like a flash a little less than three meters
from the gaming table. The man with his back to me turned
around. The two companions, who should have spotted me
first, continued to stare at their cards. They remained seated
while a complete stranger, and a potential danger, approached
without anyone having warned them. The instant my eyes met
those of the man in front of me my bitch head had connected
the wires and managed to get the engine started again. There
was no way the radios had not transmitted anything from the
whole mess with the Finitos and Lupino's other men. And even
if I had been so good as to prevent him from using them,
probably the lack of constant communication between the
teams distributed in the hotel had put the players on alert.
The man had a large black magnum. My legs threatened to
leave me on my knees. Stupidity can have such side effects,
other than dying a poor asshole. I could have let go and given
him a textbook coup de grace but as the strength in my lower
limbs failed, I found my heels firmly planted on the ground.
An adrenaline rush went through me, electrocuting every
bit of tiredness, discouragement or surrender that could numb
the convictions of my resilience in this life.
The parable of the fall found in that opposition a pivot to
change its course. So my beginner's mistake became a push
back. I would have slipped a couple of meters at most and
would not have had anything to recover from. This meant
having to render the three men helpless before they could
reduce me to a sieve.
It was too late to shoot the first man. For the second time,
the glow in the magnum chamber lingered in my eyes for an
infinite time. I watched it be born, grow but not die. It opened
with the elegance with which a flower opens. I knew that
inevitably that spark would be followed by a run in the rifled
barrel but for what seemed to me several minutes I saw nothing
but a black and empty eye. Even my fall was a gentle
abandonment on a bed of clouds. At that speed I wouldn't have
been hurt even if I had landed on a sharp samurai sword. On
the other hand, both my thoughts and actions seemed to be
unaffected by that spell.
I raised my pistols and aimed, with good accuracy, at two
different and distant targets: the two men still seated who were
only then slowly grabbing their weapons. When I had finished
setting the fatal trajectories, the bullet of my guest finally
peeped out of the end of the revolver. I could almost make out
its trace in the air, mixed with the smoke from the combustion.
It would have reached my chest and split my heart in two.
I probably wouldn't have felt any pain. At the rate events
were unfolding, I would have had my wife and daughter in my
arms by the time my brain relayed the agony I should have felt.
I would have been happy to walk out of the scene smiling but
the momentum I had imprinted on my legs and projecting back
would have made me miss that one-way ticket. The bullet
would only graze me, caressing the air above my nose.
You lucky bastard, Max Payne!
 It all came crashing down again, and me with it. My back
hit the ground hard, forcing me to hold my breath until better
times. My leather jacket was perfect for slipping on the
smooth, waxed floor of the laundry room. The shot passed
inches from my face with an angry roar.
I saw three sets of squinting eyes: those of the man in front
of me, who already tasted the sweet flavor of victory, and who
didn't understand how I had moved so fast; those of the other
two who felt like they were dying before they had drawn their
weapons and could defend themselves. Although in that case,
rather than talking about defence, it would have been better to
say "fuck the asshole stupid enough to climb over the lions'
fence".
He hit them in the chest. A nice little job. One smashed
into the table, tipping it over in a shower of chips, cards and
whiskey shots; the other went down hard, smearing his face on
the floor. His eyes popped out of their sockets, accentuating his
surprise.
The first one, recovering from his sense of wonder,
exploded a few angry and yet inaccurate blows in my direction.
«You piece of shit!» he muttered, spitting out gallons of
viscous drool from that sewer of a mouth. Of course, I wasn't
there to be a target, neither for his lead nor for his spatter, so I
made a snowman out of him, sewing a row of five golden
buttons from navel to sternum, alternating one Beretta and one
Desert Eagle. The bullets lodged with satisfaction in that
protruding belly. The man collapsed, turning one last
disapproving glance at me.
«Fuck me!» I drawled.
 Raise your glasses

In that orgiastic mess of playing cards, booze, shards of

glass, blood-stained bills, and dead mobsters, I picked up the
magazines that fit and filled my pockets, like a child does with
Halloween treats just before going home.
In the background, the breaking news from the weather
service continued, in a race to the last word with the end-of-
the-world blizzard.

«The blizzard emergency continues to hit our region.

Many of the main road junctions are interrupted and the
population is advised not to leave their homes. Even though it
has already been three days that the blizzard is raging, and it
does not seem that the situation will improve.»

It had been snowing since the beginning of the Valkyrie

case and, according to the forecast, the sun would be longing
for more. But the snowy city had some advantages: fewer
bystanders who could get caught in a gunfight.
I had to keep moving while there was still someone who
could hear the gunfire and had legs to come after me. I
glimpsed half a dozen steps on the opposite side of the laundry
room, a crude, shoddy metal railing and a thin laminate door. It
was the only other way out. I left behind newsreels and
yellowed sheets. I opened the door without a sound. The lights
were low, and a twilight hue penetrated the open doorway. I
threw myself in with the glock, but the only living thing in the
room could no longer hold that title. A man lay tied to a chair.
The murder weapon was a baseball bat that was lying in a
pool of blood next to an open newspaper on the page of the
Captain-Bat-Baseball comic strip.
There was nothing more I could do for him. Not even have
the family identify him. He no longer had a face. Whoever the
executioner had been had no doubt enjoyed it. Beyond the
boiler room were the once efficient and shiny hotel kitchens. I
tried to imagine how they should have been in the initial plans;
with what pomp and prestige they should have been conducted.
They were reduced to a pale shadow of their former selves,
desolate and encrusted. I went through them quickly, letting
myself be led by the logic of what should have been the
morphology of a professional kitchen. It was large, vast and
full of rooms where you could easily get lost among the steels
and cold rooms. I was persuaded to peek inside some freezers
to count the colleagues kept under ice. They and a few small
fish disappeared from circulation. But I had to postpone hiding
with the dead, I knew that. I walked out of the kitchens and
towards the dumbwaiters in the restaurant area.
A familiar sound, which my ears welcomed even if it was
bad news, came from just outside the kitchens. It was muffled
but I was able to trace its origin behind two large doors to my
left. A brass plaque on a brown wooden pedestal indicated to
me, with the help of an engraved arrow, that I was in the right
direction for the restaurant. Right there from where the hubbub
was propagating. It was impossible for me to determine the
number of guests at the banquet even though by then it made
no difference. It was always just one bullet that took you away.
No use worrying about all the others: they were just
background noise.
 However, since I was a bit under the weather, I decided to
approach that round with a bit of strategy. I unhooked the green
velvet rope suspended between the pedestal on which the
restaurant's menu rested, now dusty and greasy, and the wall
between the two entrances to the restaurant so as to secure it
around the door handle. I stood in front of it and fired the
Desert Eagle as fast as I could in five seconds flat, like a
sprinter. I held my aim at leg height with a downward tilt. I
was pretty sure there wasn't a colony of Calcutta orphans on
the other side, but I wasn't so sure there weren't innocents.
In any case they could have withstood a good scare
without being on my conscience. When I finished shooting, I
moved beyond the second entrance keeping my head down.
After a string of saints, a shrill chorus of chairs and a rumble of
stomping footsteps, magazines unloaded and reinserted, a
blizzard hit the doors I had slaughtered. Puffs of smoke and
wood chips saturated the air. The wallpaper on the opposite
wall crumbled, and cellulose snow was added to the hail of
bullets. From the power unleashed by that disturbance I
expected at least half a dozen armed men inside, now intent on
churning out a shadow for good measure. I opened the second
entrance wide, letting in only the upper torso with my head
attached. Someone had just begun to suspect it was a sleight of
hand to get them to look away, and a couple of them met my
gaze. They were not as clever to dodge my bullets. They fell
before the others could pay attention to the wide-open door to
their left and the man who appeared on the threshold. Like
Ulysses just before his rematch. Max Payne, in the presence of
that test of warrior skill, managed many times to pass through
several men with the same bullet. All lined up, like dancers at
the Paris opera. At the barre, un, deux, trois: BANG!
Before they knew it, half of them had gone to their maker
almost painlessly. I had tried to be merciful and had gone for
the head shot. When my time came to reload there were only
two left in full working order. Two and a half: the third was
alive but not too belligerent. I grabbed a magnum from the
hands of one of the first guys who tried to come after me and
started again with the same rhythm and intensity I had begun
with. The calibre of the new gun opened a chasm in the chests
of the two and violently pushed them back.
«What did you guys leave for me?» I said as I approached
the only table not set. There were reams of papers, late-model
cell phones and fountain pens. For a moment I feared I had
paired the board of directors of some multinational corporation.
They had also indulged in some brand-name liquor, to wear the
right outfit all the way. An overflowing trolley of fine whiskies
had survived the shooting, heedless of everything. It seemed to
be just waiting for someone to down it. That apparition had
increased my salivation and a nagging itch in the back of my
throat tried to make its way in. Something distracted me at just
the right moment. On opposite sides of the table faced two
briefcases. Identical up to the chrome of the clasps, it was the
contents that made them different: in the one closest to me
there were ten bundles of five-hundred-dollar bills. I did a
quick calculation and smiled, thinking of the face the
volunteers at the San Cristoforo hospice would make when
they opened the door of the convent and saw Santa Claus in the
form of three million dollars. I closed the suitcase and slid it
under one of the curtains at the back of the restaurant. I moved
to the second one and to the joy of doing good was added the
irrepressible euphoria. I didn't even wet my pants.
Calm down, Max, it seems like the first time you're faced
with a beautiful woman with all the right things in place who's
just asking to be possessed as she deserves.
Do you still remember how to do this, Agent Payne? Don't
be shy.
 Three large crystal cylinders lay in as many dark foam
molds, keeping them warm and safe. The green liquid inside
them glowed with a radioactive tinge. It was thick and placid.
Valkyrie. My Holy Grail, source of perdition and rebirth.
That's what I had interrupted: a drug deal. A batch so big it
would infect the bay for weeks. That Valkyrie was 99% pure; it
had yet to be cut. A few drops in that concentration would have
poured as many demons into anyone who took it as hell itself.
The junkies who had broken into my house and destroyed my
family and my life were facing the anteroom of delirium.
The devils that had led them to my door had nothing
supernatural about them.
The grotesque originates in human nature. And what is
human can bleed.
I closed my briefcase and left the restaurant. I hid it in a
fireproof box, behind the coils of the fire extinguisher lance.
I would calmly return for it, along with the money.
A few aisles later I reached an elevator. The fact that it
was stationary on that very floor seemed a good sign to get on
it and take a ride. I pressed the call button and the doors opened
with a listless whine. I avoided attacking the man who
appeared in front of me: he was already in too bad a state and I
didn't feel like hurting him. He probably wouldn't have seen the
end of that night. And maybe I would have kept him company.
So I turned my back on the mirror and concentrated on the
control panel. One floor was as good as another, as far as I
knew, but then the indication of the facilities attached to the
floors helped me decide. After a sumptuous banquet, etiquette
dictates the immoderate consumption of exotic cocktails and
strictly French sparkling waters.
 Whores and old laces

I climbed up to the twenty-first floor, to the lounge bar.

As I lost myself in the whirling noise of the steel cables
rubbing against the pulleys, I imagined the void growing
beneath my feet. The music in the background, a John Coltrane
piece from years ago, did not have the calming effect on my
nerves that the builder had intended. The uncertain croaking
and the fading of the melody due to a worn-out system
somehow invited me to replace the Beretta with the Magnum.
So, the Desert Eagle went to my left hand. After the elevator
settled on the floor, the doors creaked open. The corridor that
greeted me forked after about thirty meters. On one side were
the panoramic terraces, on the other the red neon sign pointing
to the bar. I followed the advice and found myself at the foot of
a small staircase of wood and velvet. At the top I peered
through the half-open door. Several men were intent on
consuming alcohol and intimate relations with women, who
were there solely for professional reasons. Behind a greasy
wooden bar, I recognized Rico Muerte, the man from room
313. As portly and pompous as I had seen him in police mug
shots. He was with a woman, who was listening adoringly to
him tell an anecdote that was neither funny nor epic:
«Two ruthless killers, ready to kill each other. They walk
into a room and, I think, prepare for a confrontation. But no!
They sit down in front of the TV and settle their disagreement
with a Kung Fu video game! You want to know, Candy...I was
so disappointed I strangled them both with the joypad cable.»
«Oh Rico! You are one tough guy!»
«I know, I know.»
And then Rico grabs her head and pulls it close to his
attributes.
«Rico Muerte, the usual bitch!» I said, walking in.
«And what do you want?»
«It's the cop!» shouted Dirty Candy.
Muerte reached for his gun.
All the men present, including me, began firing as the
whores decided whether to run for cover or in the middle of the
crossfire because they were stunned by the sudden turn of
events. Makeup smudged from tears of fear lined their cheeks,
pale with fright. Liquor bottles and mugs were falling apart.
The Magnum and Desert Eagle combined allowed me to
aim less carefully: they destroyed whatever they encountered,
leaving craters a palm's diameter. However, the heaviness and
power limited frequency and speed. While in the open field and
outnumbered, in a cramped environment like that, there was no
smiling. I shot at the back of an overstuffed sofa and killed the
man who was sheltering there. The bullet from the magnum
had met the leather, springs, foam, and wood upholstery but
had still taken a lung from him. I had to be thrifty because
reloading was going to take me a ton of time. On the left side
of the bar the Desert Eagle was opening gashes in the furniture
and walls. A bullet passed within an inch of my femoral artery,
and another nearly tore my hand off. In the blink of an eye,
Charlie Mahoney, known as «Iguana«, abandoned his body on
a stool and began to chase his soul in the endless green pastures
of the Lord. While I was killing Mathias Van Der Mark, the
Dutchman, by branding his heart with a bullet, something
bigger and heavier than a bullet struck me on my right temple.
I turned around as much as I could and saw Candy, carrier of
various infectious diseases, grabbing the neck of another
champagne bottle to hurl it at me. While I was distracted by
Candy, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. It
was just beyond the line of my shoulder. I twisted my torso
halfway and as fast as I could I aimed the revolver. A man,
whom I thought I had seen in the audience watching the fellatio
show of the talented Rico Muerte, had come between me and
the door. Somehow, he had managed to get around me.
Unfortunately for him, however, not to take me by surprise: I
sent him back where he came from. The man ended up beyond
the doorway, dying on the steps with an expression of wonder
painted on his face.
That's the effect I have, friends or not.
I turned back to the counter hearing the whistle of the air
intruding on the neck of the bottle swirling towards me. Candy
was a good shot, there was no denying it. But maybe hers was
just a grip trained to the tapered and rigid things. I dodged the
throw, momentarily holstered the Desert Eagle between my
buckle and my pants and grabbed the champagne on the fly,
spun around and sent it back to sender. Candy tried to intercept
the bottle by spreading her arms in front of her generous chest
but was hit in the sternum, which complained woodily. The
woman disappeared behind the counter, close to fainting. An
abrupt silence fell with Candy. I questioned him by searching
the bar with my eyes. The whores had got away with twisted
ankles and laddered stockings. The men had lined up to see St.
Peter's and its golden gates.
I scoured the bar for Rico. A man like him couldn't have
sent his call girl ahead. And he was so fat, he couldn't hide so
easily.
«Rico boy, where are you?» I shouted. «Mama gave me a
basket full of buns for you. She says you're very sick. Show
yourself, come on! I went through a horrible wood to come and
see you. And there was a terrible wolf who wouldn't stop with
the questions!»
A door behind the counter led to a second room, the liquor
store, it might have been, or the warehouse for unloading
goods. Either way it was ajar. The son of a bitch had really
bailed. I went after him, making sure no one else wanted to
follow.
«Want me to bring you some chocolates when I get back?
Anyone? Final offer. A box of Band-Aids?»
I climbed onto the counter and squared off Candy, who lay
dazed on the floor amidst cocktail umbrellas and pickled
olives. As my shadow dimmed the dazzling light that would
bring her nausea and gag reflexes the next day, I asked:
«How are you feeling, sugar?»
«Go fuck yourself, shit!» she slurred.
«If I say you sent me, will your co-workers give me a
discount?»
The harlot growled but that articulate opinion of hers was
interrupted by some sort of regurgitation that forced her to
bring her hand to her mouth. I didn't want to delve into what
was coming back to her, so I pushed open the back door and
left her alone.
 Rico Muerte

I was greeted by a few warming strokes, like when you

prepare a woman to open her flower for you. I quickly leaned
over to see who it was and, more importantly, figure out how to
render him harmless. It was Rico and he was alone. About
twenty meters from me. Distance that was increasing, but
without the thoughtfulness I would have expected.
«Hey Rico! Candy's got it! She says you do this every
time. When she finishes polishing your shaft, you never want
to kiss her on the mouth. Rico, has no one ever taught you how
to act around a lady?»
I'll never be able to explain how Rico demanded to beat
her with his pants still pulled down to his ankles, waiting for a
solace that wasn't coming anytime soon.
«I'm flattered, Señor Muerte, that you welcome me like
this, but I've been battling some pesky canker sores for a few
days now and...»
Angrily, he shot me off. He was wearing a giant white
shirt that covered hideous light blue boxers, a black armpit
holster and, wonder of wonders, two male sock garters. Like
my grandfather during Prohibition.
The bullets lodged in two cases of whiskey in front of me.
The amber liquid began to gush out along with bottle shards.
He shot at me again, intensifying the attack. If he couldn't
escape, then he would have squashed the cockroach first. I slid
sideways between a row of pallets. Rico arrived at the loading
and unloading area and found himself in an open field. He was
not stupid and had embraced the only possible strategy: attack.
Of course, I didn't remind him that he could always pull up his
pants and fight: I was playing on the underdog team, the one
that had no chance of winning the championship. Flattened
against a rack of glasses, I filled the scope of the Desert Eagle
to Rico Muerte's size and fired. The bullets ripped through his
body doing a ridiculous dance of death. He staggered but did
not fall. I had caught him in the side and under his left
collarbone. He responded with a series so well placed that it
forced me to take cover again.
«I'm going to kill you, Payne! And then I'll do to your
skull what Candy left in the middle!» he reiterated the concept
laughing and shooting.
With that penguin walk he was forced into he made the
buckle clink on the floor. I peeped the Desert Eagle and went
in blind. I fired once but the clinking stopped for only a
moment. It wasn't over. I rolled out into the open. I had let the
Magnum sleep because I only had two rounds left, but there
was no better time than now to use it. I also used the move to
check where Rico had arrived and in what condition he was in.
He intercepted my silhouette the moment I stepped out into the
open. A bullet hit the floor between my knees as the Magnum
spit lead. In a moment, Rico Muerte's left knee was gone; in its
place was a shapeless mass of dangling shreds of flesh. His
body mass took care of the rest. Rico tried hard to stay on his
feet but there were no more foundations. He still tried to kill
me as I fell, but the arm and barrel of the gun were not aligned
with my head and the bullet shot away. A clay-footed giant
collapsed to the ground with a chilling cry. His wounded leg
was folded back in an unnatural position. He raised his arm and
fired again.
 Misfire.
«No Rico, no more games. Tell me where to find Gognitti
and Lupino and I'll get Candy back.»
«Go ahead, cop.»
«Oh, is that so? You a little depressed? I shot you in the
knee, your dick should still work.»
«If you let me live, I'm a dead man at this point anyway. I
had a deal with Lupino. I was his ace in the hole.»
«Ace?! Maybe you misunderstood: Jack was probably
talking about the ACE...of his crapper.»
«How funny you are, Payne! Laugh while you can!»
«It's been three years since I quit.»
«You'll get nothing from me. Kill me or get out. And
hope, if you leave me here still alive, you never cross my path
again.»
«Did I get it right this time, or did you not want to tread on
it? Anyway, Rico, I think I'll take both your advice. That nasty
wound in your side doesn't look good. See that dark liquid like
that coming out of your belly? It's not the oil pan that's broken,
it's the liver that's going to shit. At least him, for the last time.
Enjoy life, Rico, the one you have left.»
 Word to the arms

Turn around, slip away, change cities. That would have

been the right thing to do. But I wasn't that smart. Lupino's
working-class neighborhood was the epitome of squalor.
A liquor store, a pawn shop, a lousy laundromat and so on.
The how and why remained a mystery, but they knew I was a
cop. They knew I was coming, and they couldn't wait to pump
me full of lead.
Lupino's lair shone like a star. The bomb blast turned the
snow into molten gold as a column of smoke lifted the remains
of a car skyward. The flames reflected off the body of a
Mercedes that was moving slowly. As if the driver had nothing
to fear in this world. I was able to recognize the gunman inside
the car. It was Vladimir, the ringleader of the Russian
underworld. The fly in Don Puncinello's soup.
The echo in my ears was that of a gang war that had just
broken out.
As if the spectators had seen enough, the car changed
pace, making the tires slip on the snow. The sudden
acceleration took the rudder off course and the Mercedes
swerved sideways. By counter-steering the driver managed to
keep his direction and gave the gas.
It was not an escape to get away from trouble, but a show
of strength, overbearing and arrogant. As if to say «I can afford
to come into your house and make it rain if I feel like it«.
Continuing to drift, the car turned the corner and occupied the
opposite lane, where a large tanker truck was coming. Seeing
his space being invaded, the driver of the articulated truck
slammed on the brake, but the speed and road conditions were
so extreme that he probably could have tried not to stop and
save his own ass. Realizing that the locked wheels were skating
on the ice he added to an unfortunate decision a bullshit
maneuver, like avoiding the Mercedes by veering violently in
the opposite direction. The fat ass of the tanker, tossed first this
way and then that, crashed to the ground while the car with the
license plate "VODKA" passed through that disaster amiably
crashing. A thick, viscous liquid poured onto the pavement
from a crack in the tanker's silo. It must have been a highly
flammable substance because one spark was enough for the
vehicle to be enveloped in a tall, white ball of fire. The
shockwave knocked me to the ground and the heat decimated
my nose hair count. The carcass of the tank had also become
the barrier wall of Lupino's neighborhood. And I was the usual
rat in a trap.
Another bomb exploded in the hovel next door. The
detonation, given the scum that inhabited it, left me indifferent.
But there could have been more bombs and the cops would
have been quick to show up.
Jack Lupino's suite was on the top floor. Or at least that's
where he was before that explosion.
First, I had to look for the spot on the map that indicated
where I was, with a nice red dot to mark the location.
I looked at the labyrinth of buildings and lowered shutters
trying to understand how they coexisted. Could Lupino have
found in the architecture of that complex a way to escape that
wouldn't throw him into the arms of the police, the feds or the
hit men sent by his countless friends?
Willing to believe it, I started to move again. The windows
of the stores were down and not a soul put his nose out to make
sure that after the roar that had taken place the world still
existed. It was such a quiet neighbourhood that I was surprised
that it had rents that bordered on the poverty line.
As I turned the corner a newspaper column caught my eye.
My face was on the front page of three of the four
newspapers. In the fourth, however, was my name in big
letters.
Jack wanted to keep abreast of everything that was going
on in town, and the newspaper messenger probably received a
hefty tip for express service. Not surprisingly, his tip was more
generous than my salary. But I didn't want ink-blackened
hands, because I'd rather get them dirty by beating the crap out
of paedophiles and drug dealers at school exits.
The headlines were not encouraging. All the newspapers
were talking about the heinous murder. Echoes of the storm
blurred with police sirens.

DEAD OR ALIVE

MAX PAYNE KILLER!

MURDER!

An unenviable situation: hunted by those who wanted you

dead and wanted for a friend you didn't kill.
Flattered, I broke away from the reading, regretting that I
didn't have a nickel to pick up a copy. I would have been
curious to see what the day's horoscope said.
Planets in conjunction ensure great mood, watch out for
stray bullets. Likely surprise parties from friends. Start the day
with a good dose of lead.
I looked for a route between the buildings in the alley and
found it in a basement, the entrance to which was dimly lit by
an old light bulb. I wasn't happy about squeezing into another
cavernous and potentially haunted crawlspace of angry men,
undisclosed serial killers, and crazed drug addicts, but I hadn't
found an alternate route and couldn't take refuge in Starbucks
while waiting for a brightening.
I pushed open the laminated door to the basement and a
greenish light welcomed me in. Inside, no one. I had no idea
where I was: a series of what I identified as large cages
occupied the long walls of the room. It was the same in the
next rooms as well. Large structures made of stout wooden
posts and steel mesh might have been cages for large chickens,
but what the hell were they doing in a Bronx basement?
Had Lupino gone into the ostrich-fighting racket?
Anything is possible when you need to keep your
customers' attention, but I didn't see any feathers or large frying
pans. The place didn't look like a Valkyrie refinery and the air
was free of the pungent smell of chemicals.
A roar whistled straight into my ear. The next room had
blown up. A concrete wall had saved my ass but now it had a
bulge in the middle and the plaster was falling to the floor in
pieces the size of my head.
The Russians must have mined all the buildings in
Lupino's neighborhood, not just the motel, just to be sure. The
place could have blown up at any moment.
Another explosion vented a few floors above. The walls
and ceiling vibrated for a long series of seconds. I didn't wait
for the vault to stop shaking like a pudding: I took a circuitous
route that I hoped wouldn't lead me straight to the next devices.
The smoke was so thick it felt like inhaling fabric. If I hadn't
quickly found fresh air and water, I would have been left there
as a living room rug.
I found a viable route up the stairs and climbed to the
ground floor. I cleared my lungs with an oily cough and my
eyes, reddened, glazed with cleansing tears. At that moment the
ringing of the telephone was a totally unexpected phenomenon.
I found the device and looked at it as one would look at an
honest man in government.
It could have been a stoner looking for a fix, but it turned
out to be someone far more mysterious.
I picked up the handset, which was rattling with the
eagerness to finally be picked up.
«Am I speaking to Mr. Payne?»
The voice was a man's. I didn't recognize the owner.
«Who wants to know?»
«My name is Alfred Woden. You need to move: the police
are on their way.»
«Tell me something I don't know.»
«They know you're there.»
«Do they? How do you know that?»
«I'll contact her again.» he hung up.
The cops arrived with their deafening chorus of sirens
blaring. I only had a few minutes before the SWAT team
raided the building. A few minutes to disappear from sight.
«Max Payne! This is Assistant DA Jim Bravura of the
NYPD. Lay down your weapons and come out with your hands
up.»
Providence Man. The ADA's voice came through the
amplification of the megaphone. Almost at the same time the
helicopters arrived, at least two of them. They knew I was
nearby but not which building. Other than that, Woden.
Who was he and what side was he on?
And most importantly, how had he found me?
I certainly wasn't going to get my answers by staying in a
building pregnant with explosives with a SWAT team about to
tighten up around me.
 Wonder Boy

There was a new explosion. Light, not fire. It was a stun

grenade, one of those used by the special corps and it was also
the last warning to start moving again.
Hearing the rattle of a second one, I moved in the opposite
direction. The corridor curved and then branched off into a
series of rooms set one inside the other, like a series of Chinese
boxes. Outside, Bravura's voice kept urging me to get out, stop
playing, and go home to mom who was so worried. While she
reassured me that there would be no consequences other than
going to bed without dinner, she had released the dogs.
I kept running when I noticed the roll of amphibians and
the crackle of two-way radios. They were attached to my ass. I
didn't turn around for confirmation.
I found my path blocked: a door closed by a big padlock.
End of the line.
If it had been one of the dozens of doors around there,
moth-eaten and withered, I would have gone through without
batting an eyelid. But what interrupted my momentum was the
fact that it was not in tune with its surroundings: as lush as a
twenty-year-old's erection, cocky on its new hinges, hooked on
its lock forged in the fire of the Gods. Motionless to stare at an
armoured door instead of looking for an escape route, I found
inspiration to check where SWAT was. Still no one. I had
thrown myself into the heart of the building without bothering
to look for monsters hiding under beds and witches lurking in
corners. They had reasons to be more cautious and slower. But
soon they would be here. They were always coming.
Covering my face, I shot the lock and it let go of its grip. I
went inside and closed the door behind me even though the
shot would have drawn them to my position.
I had ended up in a small study made out of what must
have been a broom closet. The entire space was occupied by a
desk and an uncomfortable wooden chair. More like a prison
cell than an office.
What use it was with a whole building at my disposal, I
couldn't explain right away and out of the blue, I soon forgot.
On top of a pile of papers, shots of vodka leaving liquor circles
on the wood, traces of snow-white powder on the edges of the
table next to rusty razor blades and a set of armoured bullets
perfect for a magnum, stood the nervous handwriting of Vinnie
Gognitti.
As he read, it all began to make sense: the bombs and the
appearance of the Russian ringleader himself.
Gognitti didn't back down: lots of words, no action.

"After our attack, the Russians have only a couple of men

left, who can also be bought. They won't have the guts to try
any tricks."

And yet the Russians, of guts, had plenty to spare. One

thing was certain: if you pull it, sooner or later the rope will
break.
On the shelf in front of me, my eye fell on a set of keys
with a tag that read «stairs« and nothing else. It wasn't very
specific information but there was a case to be made that I
would find a way to put them to use. I slipped them into my
pocket as Bravura's megaphone resumed its litany:
«Surrender or we'll be forced to come get you!»
Meanwhile, I could hear the special teams breathing
outside the door. It was like a lover's whisper in the ear of the
desired woman. I had to give myself over, content to do so.
Almost honoured that they had chosen me.
«You guys are going to have to sweat this pussy.»
I climbed up onto the desk and reached for the skylight
handle. I forced it open. The crack of the window blew a cold
wind in my face. The skylight was about eight inches wide and
just as long, and I had forgotten the Vaseline in my other pants.
It would have been a spectacle if the SWAT team had walked
in while half my body was trying to cling to the grate that ran
parallel to one of the outside fire escapes, and the other was
pawing ass to air to keep from hanging like an asshole halfway
down. Getting the shoulders through, especially the one with a
bullet hole the size of a child's head, was the hardest thing. I
bruised my knees and saw stars when my shins fought with the
edge of the window. I was pissed when for a split second a
hand lost its grip on the railing. Some deity had probably
decided that I was going to shit all over the outrages of
mankind. But I wasn't about to leave things half done before I
went and kicked some legendary Walhalla god's ass.

The moment the officers kicked down the door I let myself
fall to the other side. Five feet below, my fingers tightened
around the railing of the fire escape, like an experienced comic
book wonder boy, tights and rumours of alleged homosexuality
aside. My legs struggled in the void until I found the strength
to pull myself up. I resisted the temptation to nod at the officer
who stuck his nose out of the skylight to verify where I was. I
took a deep breath and made my way upstairs. Even there, the
bombs had levelled everything. It was like being inside a
bombed-out building in the former Yugoslavia. The walls were
stripped, the doors were torn off and the china in the toilets had
crumbled. Due to water seeping out of the burst pipes, the floor
under the carpeting had begun to cover itself with humps.
Frequent short circuits had gotten the better of the fuses and a
cloak of darkness lay placidly over the entire fourth floor. The
interior stairs were still there but the floor had collapsed,
plummeting to the ground. The chasm was more than four
meters wide. Before I jumped, I told myself it was less.
«Shit!» a wall of debris crashed down in front of me when
I could already see myself climbing to the fifth with the grace
of a dancers.
 Fear gives you wings

The bombs had blown up the stairs leading to Lupino's

office. The only alternative route was through the roof. As luck
would have it, I had forgotten the keys to the batwing that very
night. Cancellation.
In order to go upstairs, I would have had to come down.
Again.
I heard the sound of the SWAT team filling the hallway
on the floor below me.
The hunt continued and I had just toyed with the idea of
retracing my steps to find another way up. Maybe I still had
time to recoil to the fire escape. The police would have done
the same, though. I had no idea if we had already moved to the
«shoot to kill« phase in our relationship and I didn't want to
find out on the first date. I already had a schedule full of guys
who were working their butts off to get my scalp and I didn't
want to lead anyone on. I had about thirty seconds left before I
found out what orders Bravura had given, and I used them to
find a new way. I took the corridor that led to the rooms that
faced the central staircase. The lack of doors and other physical
obstacles sped up the choice of opportunities as they arose. On
the rubble, the pace was rough. In addition to chunks of
collapsed ceiling, torn bathroom fixtures, and projected
hallways, I passed master bedrooms, a shared bathroom, and
two broom closets.
My mind was racing faster than my legs and arrogant
survival instincts had occupied the captain's dashboard. It was
because of that that I welcomed the next insight as a simple
fact. Throw yourself out of a window on the fourth floor of a
building to land on a snowbank fifty feet below?
These are things I do between breakfast and Sunday
brunch, kids.
I launched myself toward the tight opening at the end of
the last corridor. The glass gave way without resistance. The
fragile support of the crystal was followed by the punch of air
in the pit of my stomach. The vertigo was a pleasant tickle. I
fell, watching the dark sky quickly recede.
I waited for the impact, curious.
Was there enough snow not to die?
What was buried down there?
Would the fall kill me or would the heart?
I violently entered the embrace an icy uterine pocket. As
the snow welcomed my body violating it with arrogance, I
waited for something sharp to pierce me from side to side as I
deserved for that idiotic idea I had had. My body would only
re-emerge in the spring, slowly, as lovers are discovered in old
movies. The sky had shrunk to a vaguely human-shaped crack,
and the gray it had clothed itself in that night stood out from
the dark walls of my crib.
«Batter safe! Max Payne conquers another base, an
impressive average! If he keeps this up, the road to the title will
be tough for everyone!»
I turned around and began to dig in. I stopped feeling my
fingers after a dozen or so lunges into the snow, and the pins
piercing the flesh under my fingernails disappeared. At least I
could pick up the pace without worrying about the pain. The
warmth of my breath was the only source of heat that helped
keep my thoughts warm and despair far away. When I pierced
that sphere of ice, the warm air of the bubble changed places
with the icy air of the night once again. It was only after that
event that I realized I was feverish.
The tunnel began to collapse on me as soon as I picked up
my legs to check how far away the pavement was. I leaned
over the hole and looked up. None of the guys on the special
team had been as bold as me. Young people today prefer stairs,
and they had slid down them like a picture of someone's naked
mom. More snow slid down my back.
I was now soaked, pissed off and tired and dawn was still
too far away.
I jumped down followed by a small white landslide. Badly
counted, I might have had a four-minute lead on the SWAT
team inside the building. Incalculable, however, that on the rest
of the agents around there. I set off, trying to figure out where I
was. About twenty yards to the north, the bright sign of a
laundromat attracted me like a moth. A mirage and a haven for
all the fugitive drug addicts with an unresolved guilt complex
wandering around the city. The years of dirt, rain, smog, and
dead insects had settled like a veil over the sign: CLOWN
LAUNDRY
Well, what could have killed my laughter at that point?
 Dirty Clothes

I arm-wrestled the wind pushing on the door, annoyed that

I wasn't going to stay there and play with him. The wall of
stench upon which I crashed set off a series of flippant alarms
and peals. The place was a depressing cauldron of human
dross, undigested mush, old sweat, vomit, and disillusionment.
I knew the stuff.
Bearers of that blessed stench, a shapeless mass of
derelicts, mostly welcomed by the benevolent floor and
charitable walls. Most of them looked at me as one looks at
Lucifer come to reap souls. Horrified and amazed at the same
absurd moment. Some even stopped complaining.
«Good, my children! Bread and fish are waiting for you at
the McDonald's on the corner, Wednesdays for a dollar. For
wine I'm working on it, but I'm not working miracles. On
Thursdays there's the deal on McFlurry, if you can go in the
meantime.»
Drugged, plagued and addicted to that poison called
Valkyrie. And I found myself at the center of that circle of hell,
looking for a path to climb back up with lead and vitriolic
jokes.
«It's as if space is encompassing me!» between the
amazement at my appearance and the miasma of those who
couldn't hold anything in their stomachs, a delirious and
rambling cry fomented that unreal state of suspension of logic
in which those beings lived, causing cries of vivid terror and
acts of voluntary self-harm.
«It's the end of the world as we know it!» he recoiled for a
second. This was not a retort to a dialogue but the punch line of
a solitary monologue.
«You wouldn't say it in that tone if you knew where I was
from, man,« I replied.
Behind the laundry counter was a steel door with a square
slit at eye level, like any other gambling den. I walked through
that tangle of bodies holding the butt of the gun ready to drop
on the first nape that hinted at sinking its teeth into my ankles.
From time to time, Valkyrie's junkies tended to get a taste of
human flesh. I guess it's a kind of regression to the oral phase
more than true cannibalism. I smiled thinking that everything
would look less gruesome if the phase in question was anal.
I saw the outline of a second door on my right flicker with
light. If it had been live flames, I would have found someone
who had at least begun an evolutionary stage involving the
lighting of fire, and therefore a higher degree of civilization
than the primordial slime that surrounded me. That or a fire
start. I unhinged the door with a kick and found myself
slamming the erection of my pistol against the grunt of a man
devoid of almost all teeth and hair who, out of surprise, left his
sphincters giving birth to the sound of a rush of water into a
gutter.
«Don't shoot, I...»
Another round, another junkie. Behind him, a second guy
was warming his hands in front of a barrel where supermarket
cartons and fabric soaked in agricultural naphtha were burning.
«The laundry room, what's beyond the office?» I asked
without dabbling in pleasantries.
«The clothes, man?»
 «Try to make yourself useful in the next five minutes.» I
bluffed, pulling back the gun's hammer.
«What? No, no. Of course, I know what's up!»
«Well, I'd like you to be my date to the dance this
evening.»
«Anything you want, I'll even take it in your mouth if you
don't shoot me!»
«I will if you don't shut your mouth!»
«Okay, okay!»
I grabbed the human garbage by the lapels of what had
once been a nice jacket and, memorizing which fingers I'd have
to wash later, yanked him to the louvered door. On a couple of
occasions, I stumbled over the feet and backs of fellow
snackers who were slumped on the floor.
«Now work your magic, bunny.» I said.
He knocked. «It's me, open up!» the first syllable of the
first word he stammered out with his jaw snapping from side to
side under his sweaty lip and his sparse, crooked teeth. «Let me
in, quick!» the ending came out more convincingly, but not
with the authority he thought. A soggy dog bellowing over a
bone stump would have had more appeal.
«Take it easy!» retorted the voice behind the door.
«Password?»
«Come on!»
«John who?»
«John Who.»
To my amazement, that idiotic exchange served to allow
access to the treasures of the cavern of wonders. The latches
unlocked and the lock turned free. A third-grade nursery rhyme
was perhaps necessary for the average target customer. What I
hadn't anticipated, however, was my man jumping in and
throwing the door wide open.
«It's a trap!»
 I had been misled by the continuous series of tics and
muscle spasms of which the guy constituted a veritable medical
sampler. I didn't know if neurological damage was part of his
baggage prior to the drug encounter or a direct consequence but
it wasn't the time for a thorough history. I had to shoot him in
the back to get him out of the line of fire.
I did not interrupt the firing sequence: from the back of the
Keymaster I passed to the Gatekeeper, whose head I missed by
re-profiling the slit. The corpse of the junkie blocked the door
giving me time to rush against it, insert my arm and free it from
the obstruction that prevented me from passing.
«Could you change ten dollars for me? I used all the
change to call your mothers!»
I retracted my arm to rest my guns. The roll of mob lead
against the steel of the door made me regret having such good
hearing.
Shifting my ear to avoid coming out too dumb, my eye
managed to get a map of half the room on the other side. The
room was about twenty feet deep, and a row of industrial
washing machines were gathering dust along the wall.
«I get it! My mistake: no talking about other people's
moms, all right! Clarify one point for me then: how are you
sisters?»
As I said this, I fired in two shots in bulk. One bullet was
lost in the front box of a washing machine in the middle of the
row, the second instead blew out one of the portholes. That set
off a second, more violent discharge. There were only two
shooters. Maybe the others were on their way, but my new
friends had come out of the house wearing heavy socks: two
UZI machine guns accompanied by a sawed-off shotgun. Slow
but devastating, a meat grinder.
I waited for them to finish their belligerent intercourse to
cautiously move the armoured door and mow down whoever
would enter my field of vision. At the end of the laundry room,
a corridor swallowed by darkness opened up. As I hunted down
Cannemozze and Uzi, I would have to watch out for what
would pop up from in there.
If the two friends hadn't already gone and poked their
heads into that opening, then they would have continued to
shoot and recoil happily. While I was getting excited at the
sight of a second, flaming, expanse of rotten washing
machines, I caught a glimmer out of the corner of my eye. The
dog stepped back and twice hit the firing pin. While an
expletive reached me in the distance, a shadow filled my
horizon. The first shot of the rifle opened in a lethal circle. It
wasn't a long-range weapon but two grapes from that cluster of
lead still reached my position. One lodged in the floor six
inches from my femoral artery, the other deflected off the edge
of the door, otherwise it would have hit my eye and blown out
my brain. The man had not waited to see the target hit and had
continued to advance before letting the second barrel sing. I
could no longer jump left and right like a bunny escaping the
purge. I concentrated on that face disfigured by rage, on the
features deformed as in a bad painting, on the eyes barred and
protruding from the sockets, on the nostrils flared by the spasm
of an excited breathing, on the dribbles of saliva that joined the
teeth of the two arches, on the veins of the neck greased with
blood that tested the resistance of the first button of the shirt. A
face like that would have frightened my little Rose and haunted
her in her dreams. Perhaps it was the knowledge that she still
lived through me that kept me from accepting that, looking at
him through my eyes, she might have been frightened. The
indifference of dying was accompanied by an instinct of
protection, and I almost didn't notice that I was shooting him in
the face. I wanted to turn it off like a light bulb. To erase her
from history. Three bullets and my angel would have slept
without bad dreams. The ogre collapsed, vibrating the floor,
half his head smeared on the walls and washing machines
being rinsed.
 Blood trail

Without abandoning my defensive stance, I finished

opening the door. As my breathing calmed down and returned
to normal, sweat and adrenalin abruptly dropped. The former
made my eyes burn, the latter, waning, left painful pins stuck
deep in my flesh. I swallowed an aspirin and my brain beguiled
me with the story that it was already taking effect on the way
down. Tease or not, the important thing was that it would allow
me to get up without supporting the dead body beneath me.
And that promise he kept, yes sir.
I took a second one through the laundry room. By now I
was chewing painkillers like kibble. One sugar for every
Christian killed.
The soles of my leather shoes began to slip five yards into
the dark hallway, so much so that I preferred to avoid lifting
my feet too high. The floor was viscous and dismal. I turned
around almost at the end of the dark stretch and, against the
light, I reconstructed the dynamics of the events. I had left
three meters of footprints, ending up in a puddle that the glow
of the laundry now made shine. Fat and dense, it had a long tail
of specks, some large and regular, others small and jagged.
They continued beyond where I had stopped. I didn't need to
dip my fingers in it to know what it was.
 Judging by the amount of blood there on the ground, I
must have hit an area rich in capillaries, which had caused the
victim to drip like a pig at slaughter. However, it hadn't been
enough to make him collapse. He'd probably dabbed the wound
just right and made a run for it. Too bad we were both going
the same way.
The corridor, long and narrow, ended at the foot of a
staircase that, after a dizzying turn to the right, continued
steeply up to a dark landing. I reached it avoiding the blood.
The path of droplets ended abruptly behind the closed door of
an apartment. The location: stripped walls, missing or broken
ceiling panels, and a cheap concrete floor. My prey must have
been leaning against the door: a long strip ran from the handle
to half a knee below. He hadn't had the foresight to close it
behind him and I went in.
Water was running in a sink. The blood continued to a
second, half-open door. In three strides I covered the space
between me and the bathroom. The man in front of me was
semi-conscious, leaning with all his might against the edge of
the tub. The hot water gushing from the faucet had fogged up
the mirrors and the window. A copious red stain spread from
the man's stomach down to my feet. Efforts to tamponade the
wound had been to no avail: towels soaked in water and blood
lay crumpled between the man's limbs like the lascivious
peplum of a vestal. He had lacked the strength to tie them
tightly around his waist and slow the bleeding. His eyelids
drooped on a vision blurred by the weakness of a body slowly
slipping into oblivion. Strength he partly scrounged up when he
saw me to raise the gun. I fired without a witticism.
 «The city of New York is experiencing a new night of
terror, with a war between rival gangs shaking the Bronx. It
seems that Max Payne, wanted by the police for the murder of
a DEA agent, has launched a lonely counter-offensive against
those who used to be his workmates. Among the other victims
are brothers Joey and Virgilio Finito, affiliated with the
Puncinello family, and Rico Muerte, a fugitive suspected of
foul play in the Chicago area. The NYPD is on high alert. An
arrest warrant has been issued for Max Payne, considered by
Deputy DA Jim Bravura to be a real public danger. Will he be
able to bring him to justice? We'll find out in upcoming
editions. New York, CNN News. Kyra Silver.»

There was nothing left to see, or hear, in there. Even the

echo of the death blow to the poor bastard had slipped away.
By now death and I were holding each other arm in arm, like
old lovers. I turned off the TV in the background and the rustle
of the cathode ray tube remained only a few more seconds.
After that I was alone again. In the silence.
 Yard Time

«Red, blue, or green?» The voice was muffled but the

words came to me distinctly. I looked: outside, on the roof of
the building across the street, two men were fumbling around a
back door, busier than ever.
«In detective movies it's always red or blue» replied the
second.
The wind and snow were trying to carry their voices away.
I approached the window. I didn't open it so as not to
cover that night-time dialogue with the noise it would make. In
the reflection of the glass, I saw my frowning expression.
What were those two up to?
Wasn't it a bit early to draw lots to see who would have to
sacrifice themselves for the fate of the world?
«Then let's go with green? Splendid!»
«No, no!» he couldn’t finish the sentence because the
explosion ripped his face off. The shockwave reached my
window, but the glass held out, preventing me from becoming
a cop tartare. I stepped back as the wall involved in the
explosion collapsed.
«What the hell are you doing? Impaled like donkeys!
They're bombing us!»
Someone began screaming out his lungs. I could see him
flailing from the gash in the penthouse wall. I made up my
mind to open the window and the night kissed me on the mouth
with his icy tongue, after taking a generous mouthful of TNT.
The smoke from the explosion made a round in my lungs
deciding where to put his things.
Those sleeves, of a white cotton jacket, waved in the
direction of someone I couldn't see. I leaned out, abandoning
myself to the support of the ledge. The next few moments
fuelled my suspicion that I knew who it was. I wasn't sure until
I stepped over the railing and my feet landed on the fresh snow.
Vinnie Gognitti. That son of a bitch. Only twenty yards
from me but unreachable. Unless I wanted to test my hidden
tightrope, walking skills and walk on those brass pipes that
projected like a bridge between the two buildings. All this at a
mere forty feet in the air, the first fifty customers to call would
also get a free toaster.
At the time I was trying to avoid carbs and bullets, but I
lowered myself down anyway. The plumbing was ductwork of
some sort. Air conditioning or water. They had a patina of
moss on them that made them slippery. Plus the wind, which
was using my strained jacket as a sail, wasn't helping.
I holstered my guns to keep from shooting myself in the
face from an unconscious movement. It was twenty meters
long, the length of a half marathon. I didn't look down because
I was afraid Gognitti would get away from me. His head
remained centred in my field of vision up to five meters from
the opposite ledge. I covered that distance by risking two
jumps that could have ruined the excellent work done up to that
moment. It didn't happen only because I was quick enough to
grab onto the parapet. The leg that had totally missed the step
swung over the gap. I scratched my chin on the wall, scraping
it off.
Otherwise, it wasn't hard to pull myself up, except that my
injured shoulder raised its grievances in moments of genuine
pain.
 «Vinnie Gognitti, a tasty dish for my hunger for revenge!»
I said as I sat up and framed the mobster in my sights.
Appearance was pitchy and attitude was cool. The truth was, I
was just trying to catch my breath.
«Payne! You damned fed! You haven't convinced me
since the first time I saw you! Who do you think you are? You
fucking cop, you think you scare us?»
He was cocky and furious. He was also probably high as a
horse and having an acute bout of emotional diarrhea. A
gangster with the ups and downs of a pregnant woman. The
synthetic drug had triggered his delinquency estrogen.
«You think you're going to come into our house and tell us
what to do?» he continued angrily.
«And now you're going to tell me that if I'm late I must
warn you, that this place isn't a hotel and you're nobody's slave,
are you? Whose whore are you instead, Vinnie?»
He who rests too much, in this world, ends up dead as a
doornail.
We shot at each other, choosing the same moment. Only
he misfired and I didn't.
He screamed as if I'd killed him alive. Poor guy, he didn't
know I hadn't even started.
«Oh my god, oh my god! You shot me!»
«That's how it works, Vinnie, didn't you know that? Did
you expect to get pregnant? I don't see any ring on this finger,
do you?»
«You're dead Payne! What the hell are you monkeys
waiting for! Kill him!»
He appealed to the team of energetic men he'd hired to
protect him from the Russians and who he'd dispatched toward
the stairs a minute earlier to go ambush the people responsible
for all those explosions. He set them on me, trying to get away
in the meantime. Optimistic, with that big hole in his thigh that
I had opened. I granted him bail, but he wouldn't enjoy it for
long.
More men came out of the hallway of Vinnie's office than
could have passed at the same time. It was like watching an
ejaculation from inside a vulva. I crouched behind the stockiest
chimney on the roof before they saw me. On that magnificent
scenic tour, we were about to take I made sure they didn't lose
their way: I shot the one that kept turning its head restlessly
looking for me. I stopped him, so I avoided the same symptoms
for the other four.
Gognitti, meanwhile, was making his way down the fire
escape.
The roar of gunfire framed the red dust from the bricks
exploding around me. The bullets were eating away at the
outlines of my shelter. If they kept this up, in five minutes the
bullets would find my flesh. I had to try not to get caught in the
flanks. The chimney I had chosen stood like a big middle
finger to all the damn criminals who treated the city like their
whore. They were metastases circulating freely in the suffering
body of a patient in agony.
If I didn't start responding to the leaden taunts, they would
have picked me up thinking I had demeaned myself. Left,
where the fire was most aggressive. Usually those who take
things too hard tend to end early, much to the chagrin of their
partner, who had been promised Chinese New Year fireworks
and instead only got the equivalent of a green tea incense stick.
I leaned over to respond in kind when the succession of
gunshots slowed. One of the guys was twenty-five meters
ahead but a large pipe covered him. A second one, to the right,
was just inside my field of vision but the calibre of my gun still
managed to take out a considerable portion of his skull. He was
trying to hide behind an exhaust hood. I couldn't even see his
face. It was like shooting a deer in the middle of a forest. I
turned to bank the left side and as I landed yet another shot to
the right, I popped out the other side to rain down some serious
shit.
A first bullet tore off a fist-sized chunk of cornice, another
was lost, too high in the night. It was the third that pushed back
the burly fat man, too slow not to die like an asshole on a
snowy Bronx rooftop. It was already a miracle the stairs hadn't
killed him. I was afraid that the bullet from the magnum
wouldn't reach any vital organs, muffled by the fat, but then I
remembered that the magnum didn't mount armoured bullets.
When it went in, it would fragment and goodbye. I went back
to my warm shelter having lost sight of the fourth man. Either
he had run away, or he was standing exactly in line with me
somewhere. Either way I updated my batting statistics. With
two kills to seven bullets there was room for improvement. But
I didn't crow too much since they were just season games.
When the season started the form would come, too. But as I
tinkered with the lesser teams the mid-season trophy limped
out of reach. I needed to fix the game with a knockout scheme
and venture onto the buffet of triumph.
If I had been in the shoes of the two phenomena, who I
assumed were close enough to each other to agree on a joint
action, I would have moved to surround the chicken and wring
its neck. I stepped back, keeping the chimney in front of me. I
had to guarantee myself a reduced firing horizon so as to
nullify their numerical advantage. I had memorized the path I
was going to take backwards so I wouldn't end up on my
backside. I just had to watch out for the slippery snow floor.
The two of them, alarmed by the shuffling, drew their guns. In
the darkness I could barely make them out: the swirling snow
was taking away the outlines of things. I glimpsed them
through the whites of their eyes, wide open like mine. The
bullets hissed around me, furious and poisoned, without biting
me. I aimed a few inches above the flashes of the detonations
and the rhythm of the shots stopped. I didn't hear the sound of
bodies falling to the ground. I had to keep them close to each
other and anticipate where they would be. I snapped to the side,
revolutionizing the playing field. I reached the long side of the
roof and, keeping the ledge to one side, I went to meet
Gognitti's two thugs. We resumed shooting at each other like
old friends. The magnum was almost dry while the Desert was
my glass half full. I slid forward, thanks to the snow and to an
ungentlemanly feline step that cost me a stabbing pain in my
knee but saved me from a hole in my belly.
Two of the bricks on the ledge turned to splinters and red
dust. But the magnum had already fired and with my chin on
the ground I saw the pink mist coming out of the skull of the
guy who had just missed me.
I tried to get up, but in addition to the pain in my knee, my
chest had absorbed most of the impact, exhausting my air
supply. I fell back on my side, looking for the support of the
ledge, when the blows of the last remaining gangster came
again with renewed insistence. The bastard ran towards me, his
lips reduced to a thin strip, the frame of a crooked yellow teeth,
a gumless monster with nostrils flared to take oxygen and a
single eyebrow pointing at me as sharp as a sword and as thick
as a pubis.
As the bullets dug in closer and closer, I corrected the
position of my shoulder resting on the ground and let the
Desert loose with three shots in tight sequence.
And we have a new world record, dead in thirty meters
and ten seconds flat! The crowd went wild!
 
 Into the void

I rubbed the back of my head in the snow to discourage

the fever I felt advancing. After what felt like a long minute's
rest, I sat up, my back against the low wall, the smoking guns
beside me, the bottle of aspirin in my hand, emptying as I
watched. One, two, three little happy pills disappeared down
my throat.
I tried to spot Vinnie. No luck. I had been too slow to
survive. Again, I had to follow the blood inside that dark, icy,
leafy path.
Just a moment longer, though, Max.
Vinnie wouldn't run out of blood for at least another half
hour, and he wouldn't find a doctor for at least twice that. I
could allow myself a few more moments of vacation.
A moment that ended abruptly when, blown hither and
thither by the wind, I didn't see a ball of paper soaked with
water and blood.
It was only a few meters away from where Gognitti had
lowered himself down. I stretched out before losing it to a
stronger gust. Ignoring the aches and pains I unrolled it. It was
a letter that Gognitti had written in his own hand but hadn't had
the courage to finish.

«Jack has gone out of his mind. He shot Dino yesterday

just for the sake of finding out how his brains would splatter on
the wall. He's as much a danger to our people as he is to our
business.»

Gognitti lived in the mortal nightmare of his immediate

superior. Jack Lupino was a psychopath. I imagined Vinnie
running in terror. He knew where to find his boss and I had a
score to settle with Jack Lupino. Gognitti wasn't going to waste
any time. I don't know about angels, but for men it's fear that
gives them wings.
I stopped lounging and set off again at a good pace. I went
down two flights of the fire escape, after which Vinnie had
decided to go parkour because the tracks continued on the
adjacent roof, a few feet below. If an exaggerated, neurotic like
him, held together by massive doses of narcotics and anxiety, I
could have gotten there by flying on a broom. I landed rolling
on a healthy shoulder. The snow cushioned the fall and
collected in a wedge that made me a pillow.
BLAM!
A sawed-off shotgun crackled too close.
Far away, the reassuring rhythm of the railway mixed with
the hiss of the wind.
I looked up and there he was: Gognitti had come even
further than I had imagined. I hadn't considered that he had a
rifle like that as ballast. He had waited until I was in range,
knowing he couldn't get away fast enough. But he had been too
hasty and had missed me by half a continent.
«Where are you going without saying goodbye? That's not
nice!»
Vinnie replied, sending me packing. He ran around
unhinged like an autistic man in the throes of a serious seizure.
«Did you shove a hamster up your sphincter again,
Vinnie? You couldn't wait until you got home?»
 BLAM!
Again, the lead disappeared into the void. To shoot me
Vinnie had made a partial torso twist but with that uncertain
grip, the recoil had ripped the weapon from his hands and
dislocated his shoulder. He screamed in pain, cursed and
continued.
About thirty meters separating us. I could have stopped,
calmly framed him in the viewfinder and weeded him out of
this damned world once and for all. Too bad I needed him to
get to Lupino.
«Don't you think it would be more practical if you
stopped? You're dangerously close to the ledge.»
«What I think would be better, you piece of shit, is for you
to plant that pretty gun of yours inside that spirit-filled mouth
of yours and blow it out. It's already done too much damage for
our liking!»
«Certainly, less than your mother would have done if that
night with your father had been limited to using only that!»
«Your insults don't touch me, copper. My mother was a
whore!» he said still raising the rifle, kept until then hanging
limply on his arm along his side. Obviously, I was faster. When
I pierced his stomach, he doubled over.
Vinnie's bullet wasted a meter from my feet. He had
condemned himself to that end, but that wasn't why I lost my
optimism: there was time between now and his painful death
for him to confess his sins and tell me where to find Jack. I
approached him without lowering my guns.
 I was a couple of meters away when his vacant eyes had a
flash of lucidity and his head snapped back. At the same time
his legs gave out and his body flexed towards the edge. I saw
him fall but didn't move fast enough to catch him. Vinnie had
not lost his balance; he had deliberately thrown himself into the
void. I climbed up onto the ledge in time to feel like a total
asshole: Gognitti had jumped onto the roof of the moving
subway train and was now crawling on all fours, leaving
behind a wide red slime. He'd hitched a ride, and I had to hurry
to follow suit.
 Brutal police

It was my second train ride, and from the way the day had
progressed, it didn't bode well. The icy wind was scratching my
face like ice razors as I began to lose feeling in my limbs. In
the distance they too: the sirens of an entire city that was
hunting me down.
New York whizzed past me like a blur, with its expanses
of blackened chimneys and endless rows of TV antennas.
When the train finally slowed down, Gognitti made his move.
At that point the elevated train touched most of the roofs of the
buildings of modest height and it was natural for Vinnie to
reach the outer edge of the car he had been clinging to and dive
over the side. The leap sent him nimbly over the metal fence
that divided the railroad with the city and caused him to roll
several times over the waterproof covering of the roof of a
rundown apartment building. Before the locomotive began the
sharp turn that would take it to Harlington Road I jumped, too.
«Ticket control, sir. A little birdie told me you were
without one.»
I had gotten up before Vinnie and now had him at
gunpoint. The flight from the train must have helped bring the
horizon of his demise a little closer. He was breathing heavily
and all of himself was busy closing in on his stomach, from
where the trickle of blood had now soiled in full the satin suit
that Vinnie used to have the nerve to show off in.
Gognitti, short of breath for a veracious dig, was preparing
to answer me with yet another flail, determined to commit
suicide, when from the din of the blizzard came the reassuring
cadence of a helicopter propeller.
«Max Payne! It's the NYPD. Drop your weapons
immediately and lie on the ground! You have five seconds to
surrender!»
I wasn't allowed to hope for galloping cavalry, all right,
but I didn't deserve that either.
Vinnie shot at me, but I dodged in time. Unfortunately, the
police department wanted to celebrate with me by showing
their joy by removing the safety catch and making the machine
gun in the aircraft sing.
I ran after Gognitti, who had taken the opportunity to
disappear, and I didn't stop until I was inside the building
through the fire door, which was banging badly in the storm. I
closed it firmly behind me. My back pressed against the iron
bars of a balustrade. The stunt realigned my spine. A swarm of
large-calibre bullets crashed through the fire door, making it
look like the pimply face of a thirteen-year-old boy.
Road closed. A new way to open.
I took a quick look around. The landing on which I was
wasting my time was a steel handkerchief suspended over a
cliff made of a whirlpool of stairs whose end I could not see.
Panting and dripping, however, one floor below me, was
my playmate Vinnie, who had kept the ball and claimed to
dictate the rules.
I left him two post-its wrapped in lead to remind him not
to leave me behind as was his custom. Shots rang out in the
stairwell. Gognitti looked up and saw me. And he increased his
pace.
I got up and followed him. Although he was a sieve, the
drugs in his system and the madness in his head kept him at a
distance from me, so much so that he reached the inner
courtyard of the building before I could lay my hands on him.
 Caution slowed me down. By the time I safely placed my
first foot on the concrete floor of the courtyard, Vinnie had
hitched a ride on a construction hoist from the building under
construction next door. He shot me from behind his cocky grin,
scarcely interested in getting his aim right.
As usual, I was the one who had to suck up the trouble.
For the moment, there was nothing more of the future
skyscraper than the skeleton of steel rods and concrete castings.
Everything else I would have to imagine.
Gognitti had stopped around the tenth floor, beyond which
he could not have gone.
Sheet metal connected the floors, replacing the stairs, and
long wooden planks replaced the missing floor. Protruding
nails and screws would pierce the soles of my faux leather
shoes like butter. The place was a tetanus fair.
I chased Gognitti into a world suspended in the void of a
tremendous fall. I had to be careful not to trip over the dangling
electric wires, not to inadvertently trigger some forgotten nail
gun by an absent-minded worker resting on a perch at eye
level, not to get caught in the chains of the pulleys and not to
stick the hook in my lung and be carried back and forth like a
sock hanging in the sun. Beneath my shoes the pustulous floor
of gravel from the first casting. In the narrow passages the
splinters of the beams I was making my way through stuck in
my jacket and scratched my flesh. My lungs filled with dust
and lime. The wind screamed cavernous and sinister promises
of death in the PVC pipes. I scrambled to the tenth floor to find
the freight elevator desolately empty. Now I had ground to
make up.
Now where had he gone to hide?
Again, the blood and snow helped me get my bearings.
Considering the long commas he left in the white mantle,
Gognitti was now crawling more conspicuously. By now, even
his healthy leg must have been exhausted. Like a good cop, I
followed the tracks at a brisk pace, not yet running. I made my
way across the roof, avoiding skylights and exhaust fans, to the
north side. Here, a wooden scaffold connected the building
with the roof of the adjacent one. It was a service walkway for
the large billboard that towered over the city and the
commoners who populated it.
Apart from Time Square, in the working-class districts
there were many such structures installed on the roofs of
private buildings rented for the purpose. I followed Vinnie up
there and, as the wooden plank groaned under my weight, a
bullet pierced the billboard and dishevelled my forelock.
Instinct told me to get as thin as possible at the first wall I
could reach, but the billboard wouldn't help. I cowered and
quickly walked down the walkway to face the other side.
The billboard above me had a picture of an assault rifle on
a white, red, and blue background with the words, "THE
AMERICAN JUSTICE, FOR SALE."
Ironic and terrible but so fitting for the here and now.
The wooden structure supporting the advertisement split in
half during the second round of gunfire. I found Gognitti, two
rooftops ahead, lurking like me behind a third billboard. I
returned fire. I misfired but interrupted the illusion of impunity
that might have flashed through his mind since I hadn't
responded to his provocations for several minutes. I saw him
disappear into the darkness, far from the cones of light of the
spotlights positioned above the billboards. I jumped down from
the gangway and with a second leap I mounted the second one,
not far away.
On this billboard was Captain BaseballBat, the comic
book I had found next to the body that had been slaughtered in
the basement of Lupino's hotel.
 Captain Baseballbat is back, kids! HE'S MEAN AND
HE'S GOT A BAT!

My race across the rooftops was lost beneath the lights of

the Big Apple, too busy and distracted to wallow in the river of
its own private shames and public vices. New York was as
indifferent to my revenge as I was to life without Michelle and
Rose. I was cleaning up my guilt by covering it with sin. I
hoped they would bring me closer to the time when I could feel
nothing more.
It wasn't a dream life but at least it was acceptable.
One last billboard and nothing else could hide Vinnie from
my fury.
The third had been commissioned by the Aesir
Corporation. How small the world is. It recited that with the
company you would be closer to heaven.
If it were true.
I sprinted past him ready to get my hands on Vinnie when
it was too late to realize that the pass would end up right on a
skylight. I was flying like the wind and the window could only
give way. I fell like an angel cast out of Eden wrapped in a
glass cocoon that would not save me.
 Did I do this?

The landing squeezed my rib cage and the moaning that

followed had almost nothing human about it. There was also a
creaking sound and I hoped it wasn't coming from me.
I blinked repeatedly to focus my vision; I saw the jagged
hole in the skylight ten feet above me. I had made a spectacular
flight, and the floor had miraculously cushioned some of the
impact. The surface I was lying on perfectly accommodated the
curve of my back. I wasn't afraid to move and irreparably
injure my spinal cord. I could kick the Puncinello's ass even on
four wheels pushing and shoving my ass into an aluminium
frying pan. Hunting and shooting, I would have had that
engraved on my badge.
As something had begun to flay my side, I saw that I had
ended up not on the floor but on a table, now furrowed by a
deep longitudinal split. The place was an ex-warehouse full of
crates piled high and with high ceilings, which I had personally
verified. Under my left leg was a black briefcase with gaping
jaws. The top half stood straight and rigid between my legs.
The crook of my knee and heel would begin to throb in a
matter of minutes having violently tapped against the edges of
the open suitcase. I pulled myself to my seat for a thorough
check. I had no deep cuts. A glass stalactite, which the wind
gently swung, hung above my head.
 It would have been cathartic to stay down there and
admire the spectacle but lingering any longer could have been
uncomfortable.
I reached into my briefcase and found a bunch of big
bucks. I hoped they were for someone's bachelor party, but I
didn't know anyone so generous as to stuff bills of two hundred
dollars or more into their thongs.
But maybe I was the one who had always dated the wrong
people.
I got off the table and almost got knocked down again. A
green substance of my acquaintance was slowly expanding
under my feet. Rolled up to a row of crates, a glass cylinder
with a cracked belly.
Oops, my bad.
I scoured the warehouse, shaking my head of fever and
clothing from glass, blood, shrapnel, and my personal crap.
The place was empty but given the treasure it held it
wouldn't be for much longer.
That asshole Gognitti hadn't picked a random spot to jump
off the train. It had to be another of the organization's hideouts.
The access door was locked from the outside. I thought
that if there was anyone in the building, my modest circus act
could not have gone unheard. But that was just a guess, and I
could have stayed in there all night.
I almost immediately discarded the idea of knocking down
the door by throwing myself against it: the whore was opening
inward. I decided to blow the hinges off and carefully chose the
Magnum. A bigger hole would allow me to get a good portion
of the wall and one of the doors. What was in the way, the
hinge, would be nothing more than history after what I did to it.
The dog was already halfway through his run, his top hat
exposing his bullet butt when a loud knock distracted me.
«St. Peter, is that you?» I asked.
 «Who's there? Who's there?»
«You left me here while you went to bang your hens!»
«Are you locked in there? For how long?»
«Long enough to fill one of those cylinders to the brim,
man!»
I didn't know if my interlocutor was stupid, or I was too
convincing but the lock began to play a melody of freedom.
«Come on, I can't take it anymore!» I urged him,
preparing to fire.
«Jesus, wait a minute! That I don't really understand
how...»
The man opened the door while continuing to talk and
found my gun tickling the tip of his nose.
«I'll explain it to you.»
«Hey, wait a minute! Wait a minute!» the man projected
his hands and arms above his head as if an invisible puppeteer
had moved the spool upward. «I had nothing to do with it, sir!»
He had not yet looked me in the face as he continued to
stare into the black eye of the revolver.
«And what is this nothing that you wouldn't have anything
to do with?»
«What the guys who bought this warehouse do. I'm just
the janitor!»
«Nice excuse but you wouldn't even charm my
grandmother. I'm the good fairy of warehouse keepers in mob
hands and I don't remember ever pleasuring you with a game of
mouth. You have three seconds left to tell me who the fuck you
are. One...»
At those words, the same invisible puppeteer decided to
drop his arms and baggage, including the spool, and run away
in a panic attack. The janitor fell to his knees and burst into
tears. Copious tears and a sobbing cry.
 «I mention mouth work and immediately your itch comes
back?»
The guy was in his mid-sixties and didn't look like a
corrupter of innocent souls.
«I'm not pulling in this cold, sorry Grandpa. It's plaid,
cocoa in a mug and lots of cuddling weather. Get up.» I told
him as I walked a few steps away and dropped my gun.
«Oh, thanks, man.» he said getting up again after a
moment of hesitation.
«Wipe your snot off, come on. You've passed the test.
You've just joined the order of Drug Keepers. My
compliments.»
«Fuck off, man, okay!»
«As you wish but as I go could you tell me how to get to
the roof? I'm almost convinced I can't do the same stunt on the
way up.» I pointed him to the skylight. Snow had begun to
accumulate in the hollow of the table. «Say it was a pigeon.» I
winked at him, having intercepted in his gaze a thick cloud of
answers to questions involving the drugs on the floor and the
new vent in the ceiling.
Around the corner then, at the far end, the panic door,
were the janitor's directions. He expressed no desire to show
me the way. The sooner he got rid of me, the better. Better still
if he was as far away from the warehouse as possible. I didn't
tell him what it would be like if Lupino's men found the door
locked when they returned. I hoped he would remember. As we
walked down the long hallway, the Breakin' News jingle
peeped out from a half-open doorway.

«Max Payne's hours are numbered. We are very, very

close to his capture. You'll get a detailed report, but now
excuse me: I'm busy.»
 «That's all we were able to get out of Jim Bravura, deputy
prosecutor for the NYPD.»

Bravura was one of the good guys. It was fate that had
made us rivals. But when he talked about my capture, he was
way off base: I'd lost his officers a couple of roofs earlier. At
least for the moment.
I found the door and reached the roof. There I was careful
not to put my foot wrong again and found Vinnie's trail. With
all the blood he had lost, there must have been nothing left in
his body but fumes.
I jumped onto the roof of the adjacent building, five feet
away, like a little girl playing weeknights. I thought I heard an
insistent knock but saw no one until the horizon revealed
Gognitti storming a back door with his fists, cursing because
no one had run to open it yet. He was pulling and pushing the
handle in desperate hysteria.
It was cold as hell that night, yet Vinnie Gognitti was
sweating profusely. It was his body reacting to the shock of an
increasingly decompensated physique (and futilely running for
cover by putting a band-aid on an overflowing dam).
As he leaned against the door to surrender defeat and let
out a few gasps that would manage to get him going again,
seeing me he faced me:
«Payne, I'll kill you, you damned cop!»
When he tried to raise his rifle, I was no longer
magnanimous enough to let him do so. That time Vinnie's
index and middle fingers jumped, scattering on the ground like
Shanghai sticks. The barrel of the gun hit the floor dry. Vinnie
bent over the side of that new wound and slumped without
taking a final step.
Not that he didn't try, but he couldn't.
 The fumes from the flues gave the impression that there
was hell burning below us.
It was time for confessions.
 RagnaRock

RagnaRock was Lupino's private club. A drug bazaar

inside an old theatre. I knew what would await me inside:
deranged stoners capable of exploding into senseless acts of
violence.
As well as Lupino's personal guard. The most ruthless
killers around.
Ragna Rock was as inviting as a piercing migraine, with
its onslaught of lights and music with no beginning and no end.
The heart of the place was a gothic recreation area with
S&M games and a lot of other similar degenerations.
Penetrating with its devious message as dark as a bullet in the
heart.
In the name of the father, in the name of the son, in the
name of Jack Lupino.
I found the road paved from the first step in the
neighbourhood to the one in his club.
Since it was my first time that night, I found it peculiar.
They could have hassled the cop at the door, blown his brains
out of his head, pulled the proverbial dick out of his ass
without a second thought. But it didn't happen. Had I not been
dulled to the painkillers I'd guzzled greedily; I probably would
have felt the piercing pain of searing disappointment.
The side of the checkroom, immediately to the right of the
entrance, was clear and free of danger. Lupino was a step
away, I could feel it. There was something intangible in the air,
a patina that made it heavy and unbreathable. I felt it on me
like a blanket.
Even the large atrium was deserted. Deserted and wrapped
in a darkness kept away only by the flickering flames of some
candles. I couldn't believe that Lupino had snorted even the
money from the bills and had to fall back on a pre-industrial
revolution style. It looked like one of those haunted houses you
find at county fairs. I was waiting any minute for the merry-go-
round to begin cardboard ghosts popping out of the corners,
registered screams, dry ice by the ton, and raspberry syrup
dripping from the chandeliers. Distinct but distant, a dull dirge.
It could have been the wind.
I continued on the Lupine hunt and slipped into a room on
the left. To flush out a colony of sewer rats I usually preferred
to start on the outskirts and not leave one behind. That one
would most likely end up shooting me in the middle of the
back.
I arrived at a liquor warehouse that looked more like the
cellar of an old wine shop.
There were no candles, but the light was soft and
ineffective in fighting the prevailing darkness with authority.
Wall scantlings and dusty wine racks surrounded a large
wooden table. Above it a book, its leather cover bitten by time
and moisture.
Judging by the location it was surprising that anyone had
even considered reading anything. The book was titled «The
Age of Death and the Storm.»
I leafed through it.
It spoke of Norse myths and Ragnarok, the day when,
according to Viking beliefs, the end of the world would come.
The earth would be covered in ice and men would lose their
last glimmer of humanity.
 I understood how someone could think that the end of the
world was really coming. And, at the same time, I was
beginning to understand what the real meaning of such a place
was.
But something told me that a dusting of winter wasn't
enough to transform men into devils. The truth, the raw and
merciless truth, was that men have always been monsters, since
their beginning. Whatever weather the Lord had decided to
send down.
Bedtime stories are fine until reality comes to visit you,
unannounced.
The world is the real monster hiding under the bed, and
when it grabs you by the little foot you carelessly left dangling
and drags you down with it, it's no longer enough to pull the
covers up to your chin and hope it passes. You can only delude
yourself that that moment will come as late as possible.
But it will come, sooner or later, that's for sure.
It might have the alcohol-deformed face of a father
coming home drunk and pissed off with the strap rolled up in
his fist; it might wear the nametag and underarm folder of a
social worker; it might have a gun and sit in the desk next to
yours, wait for everyone to sit down and the teacher to start the
lesson; it could have the persuasive smile of a friend handing
you half an ounce of stuff on the playground, or it could be
three deranged crackheads breaking into that nest you had
painstakingly built, where you promised they would be safe
forever, and tearing your life to shreds like a sheet of paper.
I abandoned that cheerful reading and left.
The liquor store looked out onto the back of a bar in one
of Ragna Rock's concert halls, which could hold at least two
hundred sweaty and greasy individuals rubbing up against each
other. At that moment it was empty.
 The room developed like an old gothic cathedral: a wide
central nave and two smaller ones at the sides, bordered by as
many rows of columns. Imposing, they cleaved the high ceiling
ten meters above my head. Henhouse nets had been fixed
between each arch. A giant blue eye painted above the main
architrave dominated everything. The lighting system, king of
the strobe effects of techno music and venereal disease nights,
was suspended over the floor while a wooden mezzanine ran
along the three aisles with its train of electrical wires, ropes
coiled like snakes and dangling jacks. Murals and flashing
lights completed the picture.
At the end of the main aisle, at the edge of the stage, stage
flames ignited the darkness. Candles and candelabra made of
iron, wrought in sinister arcs, gave the ensemble a flavour of a
satanic mass.
And there is no satanic mass without a sacrificial victim.
The man who emerged from the darkness of the
mezzanine pouring a lead rosary at me had probably mistaken
me for his scapegoat.
I took cover behind the bar while glasses and bottles
shattered, and alcohol splashed painting rainbows. I fired to
keep him company, but the bullet sawed through one of the
columns taking away a piece of the edge and I lost the
trajectory. An unhappy groan came from the guy. As I raised
my head to look, the man leaned over the balustrade holding
his shoulder with one hand. He flew down with a masterful
pike before I could tell him to watch his step. The cracked thud
that his body produced on the floor was that of a sack of torn
meat and branches broken by the wind.
The sound of the man smashing like a sack of fruit jelly
did not cause any of his companions to look out to see if there
was anything left to put in a box and, if so, shoot me. I was the
one who went looking for trouble.
 Satan the great

Adjacent to the room with the enormous blue eye of God/

Krishna/Odino/Providence, there was a second one, of the
same dimensions but without the cathedral aisles and that Dark
tone so hilarious. There, the architect had instead decided to
hire contemporary artists armed with spray cans and contempt
for constituted authority. Graffiti filled every inch of the wall
and a feeling of abandonment and discomfort crept under my
skin. Not that I was particularly prejudiced about it. It wasn't
the good guys who wanted to express themselves who chose
the walls of Ragna Rock as a canvas on which to paint their
souls and dreams. The good guys who wanted the world to hear
their voice ended up at most electrocuted on the subway tracks
or run over in some tunnel by the last train of the night. Those
who sneaked into places like Lupino's headquarters had already
been on the crime track for a while. The ones who end up
gunned down in a shootout with the police and then become
martyrs for the community, to wit. The same community that
had cried and had taken to the streets in torchlight processions
against drug dealing in front of schools and in public parks.
Life is one big binge of shameless irony.
 To seal his work, the architect had decided to cover the
floor with a large pentacle. The edges were imprecise and the
brush strokes, hastily, loaded with paint.
I was no more an expert on occultism than I was on
knitting, but there was a good chance that that floor would not
end up on the cover of Vogue as artwork of the month. Like
most human symbols, the Pentacle had always been governed
by ambiguity. Symbols are nothing more than containers of
meaning, after all. And everyone pours into them what they
prefer to drink.
The five points of the Pentacle represent the natural
elements (water, earth, fire, air) and the spirit (be it the Soul,
God or the Universe), in almost all religious beliefs and
philosophies that have adopted it.
And always the men, at some point, decided that
depending on the orientation of the pentacle this would be
cloaked with positive or negative connotations.
The Pentacle with the fifth point, the one of the spirit,
turned downwards represented the dominion of nature over
spirituality and soul and, for an exquisitely biased forcing,
constituting therefore a disrespect to the spirit par excellence:
God and his singing cherubs. A hymn made of a single verse
shouted at the top of its voice: SATAN IS GREAT!
As far as I was concerned, I was no longer a big fan of
Jesus and family and was not comfortable around fanaticism in
general. To dot the «i's« nicely, the greatest causes of pain in
human history have always come from those who had
professed brotherly love and the greater good. Certainly not
four devil-worshipping misfits capable of slaughtering kids and
violating a couple of virgins. But beyond my scepticism, I
knew that playing with the dark forces was not good business:
sometimes Lucifer picks up the phone.
 Milk and cookies

While I was busy debating theology in front of an invisible

audience annihilated by such sagacity, a presence manifested
behind the counter.
«Hey, milk and cookies are for the grandpa with a belly
and a lot of laughs. Nothing for the leprechauns!» I shouted in
the direction of the shadow crouched behind the thorn
compartment, making sure he didn't miss my gun pointed at
him.
«You're that guy, right? The traitor.» I didn't recognize the
voice. I'd never been able to get that close to Lupino and his
people.
«Do you want to write my biography?»
«No, but I also don't want to kill some poor Christ who
snuck in here by accident instead of some piece of shit who
really deserves it!»
«I see, you're the good Samaritan of the group.»
«Wrong: I'm the one who guts you and makes a nice tie
out of your guts.»
«Painfully, but I decline the offer: it wouldn't go with the
shoes. I want to make you one instead: politely hand me your
irons and tell me where Jack is. You can live another day and
look for honest work. Shall we combine?»
«I say Jack will find you, and when he does, he'll devour
you!» the man tried to jump over the counter, but I persuaded
him to desist by shooting him through the heart. That shot was
enough to kill him but given the esoteric aura of the place, with
three more bullets I made sure not to see him reappear with a
vacant stare and a contagious bite.
Around, no one else.
I couldn't hide the fact that I was a little disappointed by
the lack of vigilance at Lupino's headquarters, one of the most
important fiefdoms in Puncinello's criminal web. Honestly, I
would have felt calmer if there had been sixty of them waiting
for me, unleashed and eager to be the first to rip the scalp off
my head. That calm was unexpected, and I had to look inside to
adapt. Hoping to find everyone crowded around a corner, I
walked past the body and through a door in the back.
I ended up in a room adorned with signs like:
NECRONOMICON, BLACK MAGIC, and LOST
PARADISE. Even the titles of the books on the desk spoke for
themselves: MALLEUS MALEFICARUM rather than DE
DIVINA MALEVOLENTIA IN MORTIBUS VIOLENTIS.
Books with staves on the cover, all about the occult and
the infernal, amidst stacks of horror videos. The only reason to
give them importance was that Lupino seemed to take them
seriously. He must have spent a lot of time making friends with
the guy downstairs.
On the wall behind the desk, with smudged red dye
Lupino himself had painted two broken hearts and stars
topping an open-mouthed skull, immortalized in an
excruciating cry of pain.
 A ruthless lone avenger

Whether Lupino was paving the way for semi-infirmity by

the time they finally put the handcuffs on his wrists or had
crossed the border of insanity I would only find out when I
faced him. Until then I had to act with the worst-case scenario
in mind. Jack Lupino was convinced that he was a son of the
Beast, therefore immortal and omnipotent. Those who think of
a plan B for when they are arrested, on the other hand, are also
afraid to die, like a real human being.
Lupino's office continued down a cramped corridor,
eventually climbing a tapered spiral staircase, perfect for
getting shot in the back of the head and dying on your knees.
As I climbed, the dust falling through the perforated metal
steps irritated my eyes and filled them with tears. I rubbed
them with even dirtier hands, but my soul cried out louder with
a pain that would not be appeased by a few sugars. On the
other hand, a body can't survive without a soul, and I didn't
want to be just a sack of meat, even if fascinating, as my
mother kept reminding all her friends at the Tuesday night
bridge.
I popped up right behind the lighting panel. I got my
bearings from the big blue eye that towered in the first room. A
series of rickety catwalks suspended from ropes were lost in
the dense darkness of the vault. The backstage area was
supposed to lead toward Lupino's shrine. The unbreathable air
seemed to raise invisible walls, fortified by the smell of a
sweetish incense sticky as resin.
That was the rotting heart of the Big Apple. Lupin must
have been close by, like a spider at the centre of its web,
waiting. Incense fumes made my head spin. On a couch were
remnants of a torn letter. Puncinello had warned Lupino. The
missive had been crumpled up and was covered in blood.

«I don't even want to think about one of my men not

playing along. Remember, Jack, that we are making a deal. I
wouldn't want to be forced to send the Trio to visit you.»

The Trio were the trusted men of the head of the family. It
was clear that Lupino had not been intimidated by the threat.
Lupino's notes littered the table. Jack was missing a few cogs.
The papers were written in blood and spoke of demons, black
magic, arcane ceremonies, and evocations of ancient deities. In
the centre of the room another pentacle circumscribed by five
candelabra.

«Beelzebub, Asmodeus, Baphomet, Lucifer, Loki,

Cthulhu, Lilith Hela...blood flow for you all.»
He wanted to follow in Faust's footsteps: his soul in
exchange for power and wealth. Just sign with blood on the
dotted line.
Jack Lupino was a raving lunatic.

«Werewolves arise to devour the Sun and the Moon! I am

the wolf, I am the Beast, I am Mr. End-of-the-World! I am he
who wears the flesh of the fallen Angels!»
 After the year two thousand, the end of the world was a
common cliché. But who was I to speak? A ruthless lone
avenger overwhelmed by the tombstone of Justice.
I turned my attention away from that engaging reading and
for a moment continued to hear the invocations that had just
passed before my eyes.

ASMODEUS.
BAPHOMET.
LUCIFERO.

No, it was not the echo in my head, but a precise dirge.

LILITH HELA.

They had planned a Sabbath and forgot to invite me.

Monotonous and repetitive, it tired and lulled my ears.
My hair stood on end.
The voice, the voices, I didn't know how many of them
were chanting the name of Norse divinities, praising the ritual
sacrifice, declaring the name of the fallen Angel and...
growling.
They growled.
Jesus Christ.
What would I find at the end of that path of esoteric
symbols, upside-down crosses and number sequences written
in blood?
I recognized some Hebrew writing; the ink had run down
the trail streaking the walls with vermillion tears. I didn't dare
for a moment to lean against the walls. I headed straight for
that disturbing and irresistible choir. I shook the weariness
from my head by nervously shaking it. The suffocating smell
of incense snuggled against my eyelids like an inviting torpor.
Trying to keep my eyes open, I opened them wide. If I had
heard a yawn coming, I would have sunk my nails into my
palms.
This is how sects gathered followers, how they persuaded
them to believe in a deviant reality and to reject anything else
that was reasonable. Hypnosis techniques hadn't been taught in
the police academy in a while, but a veteran had shown me the
main tricks during stakeouts. Looking inside a suspect's head
was very useful for getting answers and confirmation. But the
police and judicial leadership, as well as the various
associations for the rights of the individual, were not of the
same opinion when it came time to decide whether to abolish
them or put them at the service of the community. The fact
remained that the temporary loss of self-awareness and the
regular flow of time were still powerful means for those who
wanted to push a conviction into someone's head and convince
him that it was all his own doing.
I was in such a hurry to get a breath of fresh air that I
hurled myself towards the end of the corridor without checking
that I had a clear field. At least I swooped in, levelling the
Desert Eagle and Magnum.
 Fire from the sky

«Son of a bitch!» I exclaimed. Still confused by the

incense fumes, the endless monotonous dirge, and the
exhaustion, I thought I had come full circle and was back
where I started. Even though I knew it wasn't possible, I
couldn't immediately stop believing it could be true.
Still, the details.
It was the details that convinced me that I was no longer in
the cathedral-like room. The aisles, those were still there, were
adorned with floor-length black drapes, a fabric so light it
moved without breaths of wind. All it took was for someone to
breathe from across the room. I could see through them. In the
centre of the main aisle, a fountain filled a basin with a thick,
dark liquid with reddish hues. Two long rows of tall
candelabras flickered shadows of the world from the crooked
stems of exhausted candles. Where one would have most easily
expected to find a white marble altar and a priest with a long
tunic, a heavy pitch-coloured curtain descended instead. In that
chromatic choice by the immortal son of Vlad The Impaler,
only the carpet that covered the central nave was a variation on
the theme. It certainly gave more colour to the whole, but in the
wrong way. It was bright red, like the blood in B-movie cop
shows.
I was still standing there admiring the scenery when a
flash of light crossed my field of vision and a flame advanced
towards me. The smell of alcohol hit me like a fist when a
second comet announced the coming of three old assholes with
a handful of gifts. The second Molotov cocktail shattered
closer, and a jagged smear of fire hit my legs. I ducked as
another one of those homemade bombs grazed my back like the
unexpected thrill of bad news. In a matter of moments, the hell
that Lupino was hoping for had become reality.
The fire blazed, devouring everything in its path. The
incendiary rain came down from some scaffolding from the
high sloping ceiling. The darkness, the distance at which they
were located, and the blinding light of the fire prevented me
from seeing how many were throwing although it was clear
that they were stationed in three different places. The Molotov
cocktails continued to fall down at a rapid pace, in wide and
majestic parabolas.
Lupino had prepared a Viking funeral for me.
Thanks, but I wasn't worthy. Someone would have
deserved it before me.
The fire roared. Walls of flame erupted as they reached the
drapes subtended between the aisles. The heat slapped me
forehand and backhand. There was only one way not to turn me
into a human flashlight: take a dip in the fountain, where the
blood still pouring from my scratches would join that of
Lupino's victims. Here was Max Payne, plunged into the
hottest circle of hell.
Too late, boys. My life was already a waking hell. At best
I could seize the opportunity for a nice barbecue.
I aimed the magnum at one of the balconies and fired. I
only hit one of the falling bottles and a blaze of glass, alcohol
and sparks flew around me. My second bullet lodged in a
wooden balustrade, but at least I managed to distract the man
up there enough to momentarily interrupt his hurling of
lightning and thunderbolts. With my vision freed from the glare
of the flames, I was able to get a better look at my opponent.
The third one hit the guy on the catwalk and urged him to show
me how well he could do an imitation of a falling man.
And he was really good, very convincing.
After a minute, the body was completely engulfed in
flames. I moved into the shadows of the now cleared gallery so
that I could dominate the confrontation area. The other two
guys would now be forced to extend the range of their launches
and many bottles, in fact, shattered against the walkway,
creating a drizzle of liquid flames. A curtain of flickering beads
that helped elude their aim.
Before they could fix it I killed the thrower in front of me.
He didn't take off but abandoned himself, exhausted, in an
exhausted pose. The last Molotov cocktail, already set on fire,
ended up feeding the still inert ones next to him. A blaze rose
up like a glorious erection, engulfing the gangway and all its
occupants.
Too bad it was a performance I didn't get to see.
While I was chilling the guy on the second balustrade,
giving him a front row seat for that early New Year's Eve, a
bottle hit me right in the chest, chiming on my sternum. As
luck would have it, it didn't break right away.
The device whirled around for what I thought was half a
century. The centrifugal force kept the liquid away from the
burning fabric. The bluish flame was like the glow of the
witch's spells in my little Rose's favourite fairy tale. It had the
appearance of a mortal nature, but it was only a stage fiction. I
could have run my fingers through it, and I wouldn't have been
burned, I was sure of it. The bottle had time to spin five times
in the air, I counted them, before smashing on the floor. In the
meantime, I had decided to project myself to the side and while
the pain in my chest finally reached its destination, taking my
breath away with a stab, the trigger of the Molotov released a
fire spider that stretched out on the floor with its thousand
hairy legs, ready to attack.
 Blood uterus

When time resumed its normal speed, the back of my head

slammed into the pedestal of the fountain, which I had reached
launched like a falling angel. Hot, viscous blood gushed from
the cut to my neck and down my back as the violent heat of the
universe around made its way into my flesh. Slowly roasting,
they wouldn't even give me the cold shoulder. Lupin and his
people would watch me cook like a pig on a spit. I couldn't tell
if I was dizzy from exhaustion, smoking, pills, or the massive
blood loss of the last few hours but I couldn't doze off.
I dropped the magnum I was holding in my right hand and
groped for the edge of the tank. The shoulder was the right one
and I hoisted myself up, arriving with difficulty halfway to the
finish line. I gathered my legs, without strength, and with one
last push I sank into the blood. The noises, the deep rumble of
the fire, the crackling of the wood of the ceiling beams that
were beginning to give way, suddenly became distant. Inside
that womb of blood, the almost total absence of gravity helped
me to wash away the nagging weight of pain and fatigue and
the cold water made me lucid again.
I could feel my heart pulsing in the wound on my head. I
took it as a chance to free it from the worry of too much that
might have slowed it down.
I resurfaced in the heart of a glowing furnace.
Blood spurted out of me in generous rivulets and big tears.
From the whites of the eyes of Lupino's underworld follower I
understood that he had seen that in mine and had not fallen in
love with it.
The Desert Eagle fired for two, with the magnum I had left
burning on the floor of that crematorium. I fired shot after shot
without calculation. I hit that poor devil with a blizzard of lead
he hadn't yet earned. I just wanted to finish the pattern and
pause before reaching the monster at the end of the level. The
man fell over the catwalk and hell engulfed him, pacifying his
scream.
I shrugged off the cocktail of blood and water like a dog
that had just emerged from a puddle. I picked up the magnum
and reloaded.
 Jack Lupino

The fire dried my clothes and the clotting blood starched

them. Full service.
I walked toward the black curtain, which the flames would
reach in five minutes and devour in less than ten. I uncovered a
flap of it and slipped in without much thought. If they had
wanted to kill me right away, they could have joined the dance,
or at least brought a watermelon.
Behind a glorious altar of white marble awaited me Jack
Lupino, priest of depravity. Lupino was a big son of a bitch
with a shaved head and a tattooed face: a tribal tattoo arched
from his left eye down to his cheek, as if an unintentional
splash of mud had reached him during a picnic out of town.
Jack, however, was not wielding a ceremonial dagger: he had
opted for a more pragmatic UZI rifle and a shirt that reminded
me of my grandmother's old couch that had always smelled of
rhubarb and old farts. Besides adoring me, Grandma had never
had a taste for anything else.
As absurd as it was, the situation seemed to have a
consistency, though I couldn't figure out what. Lupino was
stoned and looked like he was ready to take on a mutant
alligator. So, he resumed his delirious speech, as if in a
nightmare. Mine.
«I have tasted the flesh of fallen angels.»
«I know, it's kind of stodgy, isn't it?»
 «I've tasted the green blood of the devil. It flows through
my veins. I've seen beyond the world of flesh, the whole
architecture of blood and bone.»
«I prefer documentaries of mating season.» but he didn't
even hear me. Lupino's record wouldn't stop until the end.
«Death is coming! He will soon be among us with hell in
his wake! Here is the dawn of the eternal winter. I am ready to
become his son! His time has come and anyone who stands in
his way will have to die!» he concluded in a laugh that had
nothing reassuring about it. «YOU WILL DIE NOW!»
At the end of the mass Lupino snapped, pointing his UZI
at me. I did the same with the one I had.
Screaming in turn.
I couldn't explain what I was yelling about.
I just shouted.
We both fired but we were already so close that we didn't
even hit each other. Lupino shot high, at the saints in heaven.
The machine gun, too close to my head, would have knocked
me back if I hadn't been so busy missing Jack in turn by putting
two bullets into the nothingness behind him. It was because he
clamped my right wrist in a lion's grip deflecting the trajectory
of the barrel and because, I admit, I didn't believe him capable
of moving so fast. He squeezed my hand and forced me to drop
the gun, but I was lucid enough to repay him with the same
coin by twisting his UZI hand and pointing it at him. He let me
go and shifted our fight to the muscles. He grabbed me by the
jugular and slammed me against the altar. The kidneys sent out
a sharp cry of protest. They were going to make me pay by
forcing me to piss blood for two days. I tensed the muscles in
my neck as my hands on Lupino's wet, sinewy forearms tried to
pull him away from me. The flow of oxygen that he was able to
pass through his increasingly small carotid artery was
dwindling. It would shrink to the size of a pin in half a watch. I
listened to the faint hiss of breath in my head. I couldn’t shake
him off. Lupin's eyes were bloodshot, so prey to his
hallucinations that he never blinked.
My vision began to blur. A dark halo now surrounded the
outlines of things. My eyelids closed their shutters. My fingers
continued to slide over Jack's sweaty arms. Another thirty
seconds and I was going to pass out. I closed my eyes,
repeating myself not to be persuaded by the relief I got from it
and the desire to let go of my moorings and relax in front of the
sunset. My arms were now only resting on those of Lupino,
who was concentrating his weight and his delirium on my
throat.
It was impossible for me to even spit in his face. I was
leaving. It was like the current of a river: slowly it invited you
to follow it, join it, then it welcomed you placidly and finally
you went away together, without thinking. Even my legs began
to lose strength. The altar supported me as my feet reached out
to already touch the wood of the coffin. I had to hold on, as my
body shut down, my mind was still terribly present, wide open
to the horror. My legs, straight and taut as logs, however, could
not tell my feet to grip. If I could have lifted myself a few
inches and asserted my height on Lupino, something might
have changed. But those fucking cop feet kept sliding forward.
I cried out but all that came out were intelligible guttural
sounds that, I know, stimulated Lupino's pleasure centre even
more.
The icing on the cake.
As I thought about the erection Lupino might have at that
moment, his left foot stopped sliding forward and I stopped
sinking. I had stopped but didn't know who to thank.
I found the strength to kick and the grin of the man I was
facing faded for a moment, but not the fatal grip around my
throat. I was past the point of pain and despair, so he could
squeeze all he wanted but it would only hasten my demise, not
make me give up trying to survive.
I moved my leg one more time. I think I hit it below the
knee.
The redwood remained solid. The fingers sank into the
throat. I kicked higher but the bent knee resisted and pushed
me back.
Shit.
Jesus Christ.
The hammertoe struck Jack in the inner thigh, the femur
twisted slightly on his hip and destabilized his balance.
Angry, Lupino took to tugging at me, shaking my head
like a maracas. He wanted to rip it off my neck. That was what
allowed me to breathe again.
I kicked again and this time it was his testicles that played
like maracas. His mouth described a potbellied O while the
ringing told us that an angel had just earned its wings. I stepped
into his guard and planted my elbows in the crook of his arms,
shrugging him off and slipping a few steps away.
I reached for my gun, but a ceremonial candle would have
been fine with me to smash his head in. While my eyes were
playing pinball from one side of the floor to the other, a freight
train hit me. Lupino's fist knocked out one of my teeth. Backed
up on the altar, I found myself in the «convinced by
exhaustion« sex position.
Jack lunged at me. I lifted my legs in time to print his shoe
size on his face. I dismantled his nasal septum, even though,
sketchy as it was, it couldn't have been the first time for him.
Lupino shook his face vigorously to the right and left, as if to
chase away a fly, and returned to charge, with the blood
flowing out in streams drawing a pair of mustaches. I
welcomed him by improving his smile with a headbutt. The
teeth opened my forehead but Lupino stepped back.
 I pounced on him with all my weight. We rolled halfway
up the steps where the fire was raging. Lupino straddled me
and tried to knock me out with his fist and smash my head
against the steps. I knew he wouldn't stop even when brain
matter had slipped from his fingers from my smashed skull and
my skull would fit as a ceremonial chalice. I reached out and
shoved my fingers into his eye sockets. I sank my nails into the
flesh as he scanned. I took that moment to reverse our
positions. Surmounting him, I broke two ribs on each side. Jack
didn't give me the satisfaction of feeling pain, but I wasn't
offended. His knees blocked his arms and allowed me to use
his face as a punchball.
Right. Left. Right. Left. Repeat.
The bones didn't give way right away, I had to flay my
knuckles before sinking into the flesh.
Left. Right.
A crack went off in my head like a light bulb.
The jaw had given way, joining the smashed cheekbone
and recessed eye sockets. Long strands of drool dripped down
my chin and the splatter of blood collected from my fists made
me look like a living Pollock painting.
I didn't know if Jack was still breathing. I found out when
he knocked me off my feet.
He was doped up like a horse.
Lying on the steps like in a De Palma movie, I watched
the tongues of fire chasing each other on the ceiling. The
fingers of my hand touched something. I didn't immediately
understand what it was only because fatigue had finally found
me. I reached out with an effort and managed to grab the
magnum. Lupino was getting up at that moment.
I fired and the figure bent over. I wanted to make sure he
stayed down. The Valkyrie was an ugly beast: it seemed to turn
men into demonic zombies.
 I unloaded whatever was left in the magazine on him. I
squeezed the trigger about ten times after the eight shots had
long since finished.
 Double Whisky

«I think he's dead now.»

A female voice behind me took me by surprise, and
when I turned around, I'm sure my refined dialectic made the
same impression on her.
«Uhu?!»
I had run into a femme fatale pointing a gun in my face.
And returned the favour.
«Dead or alive, you hit the wrong person,« she said,
without adding anything else. The sight of that brunette
electrocuted me. I wasn't expecting or ready for that beauty.
She was wearing a leather trench coat and her long black hair
was gathered into a tail.
«Lisa Puncinello?» I asked dumbfounded. Lisa
Puncinello was the wife of Angelo Puncinello, the biggest bad
apple in the orchard. What the hell was the boss's wife doing at
RagnaRock?
And why was she threatening me with an automatic
instead of enjoying the fruits of her husband's sins at some
exclusive country club?
«Mona Sax, Lisa's twin sister,« she corrected me.
That explained that tough guy look I'd never noticed in
Lisa.
«Go easy on the guns, sis. You know you might even
hurt someone?»
 «Lisa was the fragile one. I'm the strong one. I could
blow your brains out without batting an eye.»
«Sure, and you can check out my credentials plastered
all over the walls.»
«It was Angelo Puncinello who killed your friend and
put the blame on you.»
«Are you sure about that?»
«I have my sources.»
«These days I'm not sure of anything anymore and
when in doubt I shoot. Whose turn will it be to fix it?»
«It has to be mine. I can't stand anyone who takes
pleasure in beating his wife. Why not save our bullets for
him?»
«I thought you'd never ask: my finger was beginning to
ache.»
«How do you want your whiskey?»
«The scent is enough for me, and that the taste caresses
the palate.»
«You're a real connoisseur, Max.»
Mona served me the drink. It was good stuff. It went
down my throat like it was honey.
«Nothing personal but I can't take the chance that in the
frenzy Lisa will be killed.»
I barely heard the end of the sentence and all the noises
in the world seemed to come from a faraway place, a muffled
and confused otherworld. A murderous torpor enveloped me as
if in a coffin of oblivion. Consciousness dissolved into a fierce
headache. I collapsed to the ground.
 Alessio Chiadini Beuri's
other books:

The Stray
A vitriolic thriller full of action and
caustic jokes set in a New York
corrupted by sin, hunger and
organised crime in the 1930s.

The death of Elizabeth Perkins

seems to be a case already solved:
the body found in the house, no sign
of robbery, a husband who lost track of him. But there is
something that does not convince Mason Stone, private
investigator and former police officer. A box of matches, a past
that is struggling to emerge and a mysterious suitor are just the
ends of a tangle that becomes more and more tangled every
time the truth seems to come closer. Stone will be forced to
fight against an entire city, against a New York corrupted by
sin, hunger and organised crime, in a vortex of violence that
grows tighter and tighter around him, like the coils of a snake.
 Special thanks go to Sara, who indulged my penchant
for handwriting (at the limit with a typewriter) by giving me
the opportunity to make the transition from paper to digital
without nagging. Without her, this book probably wouldn't
have seen the light of day until a year from now.
I Love You.