Republican Party Reptile(25)
Ten days later, they had the country.
Just One of Those
Days
The alarm went off about half an hour late, and I pulled out the old Smith & Wesson 9mm automatic I keep under my pillow and squeezed off a couple of rounds at the fucker. I didn’t even have my eyes open yet but I still managed to nick the snooze button. Kee-rist, I hate to get up in the morning, but I swear they’re going to kill me if I’m late to work again. They killed a couple of other executives just last week—hauled them into the freight elevator and shot them in the head. But I would have gone back to sleep anyway—really—if it hadn’t been for this old bitch in the apartment next door. She was putting her cat out for keeps. She must have taken six shots at the thing and the sucker just wouldn’t die. It was howling bloody murder. I threw a couple of slugs through the wall in her general direction and then hit the deck and bellycrawled to the kitchen while she returned fire. Using the dishwasher for cover, I made myself a cup of coffee and then I slipped out onto the fire escape and popped a white phosphorus grenade through the old bat’s window so I could shower and shave standing up.
Then I couldn’t find any clean shirts. And when I did find one it took me twenty minutes to disarm the plastique charge the fucking Chinaman had pressed behind the shirt cardboard. I finally had to set it off in the sink. It was a brand-new shirt too. And the explosion about wrecked the kitchen. The apartment was a mess anyway. Good thing the cleaning lady was coming and a double good thing I had the cleaning lady’s kid tied up and booby-trapped in the hall closet or she’d never do windows.
So I was all dressed and ready to go to work, but my date was still asleep, lying on her back with her mouth open, snoring. Even with all the sirens and the fire trucks and the commotion next door, she hadn’t stirred. I don’t know, somehow this really pissed me off, so I picked her up and threw her through the window. My place is only on the third floor so she probably lived. I’ll call her next week and apologize.
The mail hadn’t come yet either. The doorman said there was a company of Marines trying to get through with it, but they were pinned down in Murray Hill somewhere. The doorman was as surly as usual and would have slit my throat if I hadn’t judo-flipped him and kicked him in the solar plexus first.
I was going to drive to work but then I remembered the parking garage up by the office was still under siege. A dozen spook parking attendants were in there holding about thirty school kids from the suburbs. The kids had come in town for the circus. I don’t know why they bothered. Some Puerto Rican meat hunters had got all the elephants already. Anyway, I couldn’t get in to park even though I’ve got a monthly slot. Besides, day before yesterday, the spooks put some of the school kids in this one Cadillac, set it on fire, and drove it off the garage roof. I guess about ten pedestrians were killed when it landed.
Now, I had my favorite little personal-defense unit out of my briefcase and ready as soon as I hit the street. This is a Walther MPK 9mm submachine gun I had special-ordered with selective fire. It doesn’t pack quite the punch that an Uzi does, but it’s the most compact automatic-fire weapon made in the world, at least in 9mm. I’m a real bug on 9mm ammo. It’s kind of my hobby.
By this time, the morning rush hour was in full swing and I couldn’t even get a cab in my peep sights, so I had to take the subway. I hate taking the subway—all those kids that spray graffiti all over the place. The cops ought to tie them up and cut their noses off, which is exactly what the cops are doing except they don’t catch enough of them for my money. Plus it was a regular shitty morning outside, raining and cold, and bombs were dropping in the next block. And I bet twenty snipers took a shot at me between my building and the subway station. I don’t know why those people are allowed out on the streets—they can’t hit a goddam thing. Although one did get a bag lady right by the newsstand and got brains all over my raincoat, which I had just got back from the cleaner’s. And that wasn’t easy either. In fact, it took a midnight raid on the manager’s house in Rego Park, where I picked off all four of his guard dogs with the help of a starlight scope. So there I was with brains all over me and then I had to beat the shit out of the blind guy at the newsstand before he’d give me a paper.
I shot my way past a couple of transit cops at the token booth, jumped the turnstile, and got a train to stop by pushing some lady out on the tracks. It’s surprising, even a hundred-pound woman can derail those babies when they’re going at full throttle, so they generally try to stop if they can. On the train a pack of asshole teenagers was terrorizing everybody, ripping gold chains off women and taking wallets at knifepoint, so I joined them for a while and picked up a little, you know, cab fare. Then I forced everybody, including the conductor, to get in the last car, and I pulled the pin and left them back in the tunnel. Sometimes that’s the only way you can get a seat. Almost got my butt kicked for that, though-who would have thought one of those kids would be carrying a wire-guided antitank missile? Good thing it bounced off a signal light and ricocheted right back at the kid with the launcher or I would have been hurting. I mean it.