Byrd Man

Maximum Comics – Insurrection \ CLOSED

Part I
Billyland

“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”
-- Ernest Hemingway

Unincorporated Gotham.

They called it Billyland. Rednecks and peckerwoods from all over Appalachia flocked to the city during and after WW2 to work the industry jobs all the upstanding crackers left behind when they went to war. The Hillbillies, Billies to those in the know, made unincorporated Gotham a hicktown haven and had been there ever since. Billyland was a running joke through the city. You going through Billyland and hear banjo music? Roll up those windows and drive faster, boy. How do you castrate a Billy? Kick his sister in the mouth. What do you call a Billy girl who can run faster than her brothers? A virgin. Billyland: 10,000 people and only six teeth.

Slam drove down streets in his heap. He nursed a flask of gin and kept his eyes peeled for Peter Dubose.

THE JOB: Peter Dubose has a huge crush on Glenda Glitter, feature dancer at the Gold Rush Strip Club. Dig Gorgeous Glenda grind on the floor. Guys go gaga over Gyrating Glenda. See Pete pop his peepers at that sight. Pervert Pete likes to watch Glenda glide around the Gold Rush. Paramour Pete's heart pumped passion for Glenda. Purser Pete won't take a pass. Persistent Pete paws at Glenda and takes no prisoners. Pugnacious Pete gets violent. Glamourous Glenda gets a shiner. Enter Slammin' Sammy. Slam gets six bills and lapdances gratis for putting the fear of god into Pesky Peter. A straight up muscle job, just the way Scary Slam liked it.

Slam cruised through Billyland for two hours and took in the sights. Dig those trucks and big ass tires. Dig that Billy music. Fat girls in tight jean shorts and tighter tops. Muffin tops abound. Tweaker sores abound as well. Teenage mothers pushing babies, rebel yells, motorcycles, more jacked up trucks. Confederate Flags and "Heritage, Not Hate" signs as far as the eye can see. Slam hit the gin and sang country songs under his breath.

"Sun's coming up... something-something griddle, blah blah blah fiddle, thank God I'm a country boy!"

FEATURE: Peter Dubose coming out of a bar. Pudgy Pete looks like he's three hundred easy. Pimply Pete picks acne and pops zits. Slam cruised sloooow and watched Pete climb into a shitbox of a truck and speed off, blowing exhaust behind him. Slam counted seconds, got to twenty, and went. The exhaust smoke gave him a beacon to follow. He gave Pete a long leash and cruised, polishing the gin off and kept singing.

"Let's go to Luckenbach, Texas, with Waylon and Willie and the boys. This... something-something feuding like the Hatfields and McCoys."

Slam caught up with Pete when he was leaving his shitbox parked outside a grocery store.

"Peter Dubose?" Slam asked.

"Yeah. And you are?"

"I'm a friend of Glenda Glitter."

Pete's eyes went wide just before Slam laid into him. He had big hands. Once upon a time the hands pulverized light heavyweights and cruiserweights without prejudice. Not so long ago they worked over murderers and robbers in the GPCD interrogation pen with beaucoup prejudice. Now they turned Peter Dubose's sides into shredded beef and sent his teeth flying across the parking lot. A three combo sent Pervy Pete flying against the side of his truck. He slid down the side and spat teeth. Slam rubbed his knuckles and watched Pathetic Pete sob.

"You touch Glenda again, you're dead. You get within ten miles of her, you're dead. You even step one foot back in that strip club and you're dead."

Slam took the driver's side mirror and ripped it off. He cradled the mirror in the palm of one hand before smashing it into the ground.

"Get what I'm saying, boy?"

--

Door pounding woke Slam up. The hangover pounding his temples was even worse. He reached across the bed to find a bottle that wasn't empty. No dice. He stumbled through bottles and cans towards the front door. He still wore last night's clothes: an unknotted tie and rumpled shirt with pants that had just a hint of puke on them.

"Samuel Bradley?"

Two men at the door. Meatheads in black Armani suits and Ray-Bans. Très goon chic. Slam cut odds he could take them. Not even a chump like him would take that bet. Instead, he nodded and lit up a smoke.

"We need you to come with us, Mr. Bradley."

"Why is it these things always start with two dickheads in suits wanting me to come with them?"

One of them meatheads cracked his knuckles. The other popped his neck. Flexing and posturing was a punk move. Slam knew the way to scare a man wasn't by cracking your knuckles, it was by cracking his bones.

"If you two gorillas can get me a stiff drink then I'll go wherever you want me to go."

--

Slam sipped Thunderbird out of a paper bag covered bottle. The T-Bird was cut-rate, but there was enough booze to stop the headache. He sat in a study filled with books. Slam thought of a book he read in school once, it had a rich guy and a big study filled with books that were never read.

"Mr. Bradley."

An old man shuffled in. Stooped shoulders and Wrinkled skin and blue veins and white hair. Thick glasses made his eyes look huge. He wheezed and collapsed onto a chair beside Slam.

"James Doheny, at your service."

The name clicked. Doheny Oil. One of the titans of industry in Gotham. Nix, former titan of industry. Somebody bought the old company out years ago.

"What's so urgent that you need to get me up at the crack of dawn--"

"--It's three in the afternoon, sir--"

"--And force me here to talk?"

"You're a hard man to get in touch with, Mr. Bradley. I've been calling your number for the past three days."

Slam swigged the T-Bird and shrugged. "I've got problems with bill collectors. I don't want them to know I'm home."

"You're speaking of the ruthless looking Russians my men saw stop by your house repeatedly over the past two days?"

"The people I owe money to have... aggressive debt collection tactics."

"Indeed," the old man wheezed. "Which is why you should be eager for employment opportunities."

Slam chugged the rest of the T-Bird and wiped booze from his mouth. The cut-rate warmed his chest and worked its way upward until he got that familiar fuzziness back into his brain. The buzzed state of existence he called life for the past twelve years.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Doheny, that the two pet apes that brought me here can't?"

"You have a reputation for finding the dark places in this city not many others can. I'm afraid my two bodyguards are only adept at making people hurt. I need someone of your affections."

"Affectations." Meaning a stumblebum drunk fits in better than meatheads in designer threads.

"What's the job?"

The old man pushed his glasses up his nose with Shaky hands and wheezed.

"My granddaughter. She's... she's my daughter, you might say. I raised her from a pup and now she... betrayed me. She's out there, messing with a boy she shouldn't be. They ran away from the house three days ago. She's over the age where I can issue an amber alert, and the cops they tell me they can't intervene because she wasn't kidnaped."

The old man shook in something that seemed half sob and wheeze.

"I have all this money, but nothing I can do with it. Back in the day, I could snap my fingers and the mayor himself would be here to wipe my ass. And now..."

Slam inferred: "All I can rate these days is a single smokehound former cop who makes for a shit PI."

Slam felt kinship with the geezer. Doheny was a used up, wrinkled husk that was soon to board the night train to the big adios. He looked on the outside like Slam felt on the inside. Slam cut odds he would live as long as Doheny. He gave up and set odds he could make it to fifty. Both were sucker bets. Instead, he tucked the empty bottle of T-Bird into his jacket and pulled out the pen and pad he kept on him.

"Tell me everything about your granddaughter that may help me find her."

Operation Tropic Thunder

Bobby felt his heart pounding in his throat and his pulse roaring in his ears. The jump had his adrenaline flowing and his hands and arms were shaking. He barely heard the Sarge issuing the orders through the pounding pulse in his ears. He moved when the rest of the stick started moving, humping it across an open field towards the farm with the Pig clutched tightly in his arms. Training dictated that moving across open space like this made them prime artillery targets. But the Bear didn't have the same type of artillery capability as the Reds. They couldn't lollygag, but the chances of a shell coming down on their heads was slim.

A few minutes later they were at the collection of farm houses. Bobby got down on one knee, setting the Pig up near the perimeter of the shacks. He and Dixon would provide cover while the rest of the squad did a shanty by shanty search of the dwellings. Dixon passed him an ammo belt that he fed into the Pig and loaded it into place.

"Ready to rock and roll," he said to the squad. "Bobby D. has got your backs."

Maximum Comics – Insurrection \ CLOSED

| Identity |

Samuel "Slam" Bradley

| Origin & Backstory |

Samuel "Slam" Bradley grew up in Gotham's East End. A tough neighborhood, Slam was a scrapper and boxed Golden Gloves as a teen. After a knee injury ended his boxing career, Slam went into the only profession that would take a lug like himself: a cop.

Starting out as a beat cop, Slam eventually made detective and worked his way through assignments until he became a sergeant with the GCPD's Homicide Bureau. Partnered with Detective James Gordon, Slam and Jim were among the few non-corrupt officers in the GCPD. Fighting against the corrupt department and the everyday bleakness of the job had Slam on the verge of burnout until the case that killed his career came along.

It started out simple enough, a dead hooker found in a back alley. The case began to spin out of control, implicating a state senator, a high-end call girl service, and half of the city's politicians. The brass tried to bump Slam off of the case, but he refused to leave. In the end, he was dismissed from the GCPD on trumped up charges, accused of fraud because of a mislabeled time sheet. Out of a job, Slam took his connections and investigation skills and branched out on his own as a private investigator. When he's not tipping back a bottle, he works as a PI for hire in and around the city.

| Attributes |

No powers. Slam is an adept fighter with boxing and police firearm training. He is also a skilled detective with over twenty years experience in Homicide.

| Character Notes

Instead of being the old square-jawed who is a crusader for truth and justice, I made Slam a more gray character. He's an alcoholic who got burnt out on the job. All his friends and family hate his guts. The thing that stops him from swallowing his gun are the cases and the few people he manages to help. Slam will mostly stay on the fringes of whatever shit is going down in Gotham just to keep from stepping on toes. Since the only real DC character associated with Slam is Catwoman I was going to invent just one or two NPCs as Slam's friends and contacts.

| Character Goals |

I guess my main thing with Slam is I want to just write PI stories. I love the genre and I had fun with the character the last time I played him. I want to keep that going, and I want to continue to showcase the dark underbelly of Gotham that even Batman doesn't go to, or maybe he's not tough enough to go there...

| Sample Post |

Sample Post

Parts Unknown

Slam saw darkness. His still head rang from the tune-up he'd been given, his legs cramped from the rope, the zip-ties gouged his wrists. The car bounced and rocked down a road. Slam recounted the journey and figured they were well out of town by now. Sweat rolled down his face, the black bag made him smell his own breath. It reeked of vomit, hooch, and Altoids.

Feature: Slam left his apartment still hungover from the night before. Three men jump him, beat the shit out of him and black bag him. They tie him up and toss him into the trunk of a car. Slam struggles. Slam gets sapped. Slam becomes docile through threat of further sapping.

He tried to count turns and figure out where he was. He lost count and started counting up the number of people who wanted him dead. He lost count and started counting the minutes. At twenty-two the car stopped. Rough hands pulled him from the trunk and pushed him down a road. Slam felt dirt scraping his shoes. He heard nature. Call it: the countryside at least an hour out of Gotham. Hands guided him down the road, pushed him in the right direction. Smell that. Pig shit coming on stroooong. Hands on his head, the bag came off.

Dig that countryside. Dig that farmhouse and pig pen. There's a farmer in overalls, très Green Acres chic. Dig the man beside him. Black suit with no tie, goatee and looking as Slavic as the pierogi at Abramowicz's Deli in Bennett Beach. The Chechen they called him. Dig the rumors around town: The Chechen was former Russian Intelligence turned Russian Mafiya. No, he fought in Afghanistan in the 80's and gave Bin Laden a reach-around in the name of Mother Russia. No, he fought the Russians in Chechnya. No, Ruskies raped his mother and he slaughtered an entire battalion in the name of revenge. Putin had a six-figure bounty on his head. He had Gorbachev tattooed on his chest, fucked up birthmark and all.

"You owe me money."

He talked to Slam while looking in the pig pen. One of the Chechen's goons pushed Slam forward. His knees got weak, he nearly fell.

"You're right. I owe you a lot of money."

"You do not know when to say no when my bookies offer you another shot? You do not know when to walk away?"

"No... walking away and doing the sane thing. That ain't me."

The Chechen looked back at him. He sized him up. Slam sized him up. The Chechen was older, but Slam was hurt. Odds on beating the man to death if he had to: 50/50. Odds he would get that far: Too goddamn long to even figure out.

"I know about you. Boxer turned cop turned--" he said something in his gobbledygook language. "-- what is word? Fuck up. Yes, you are big time fuck up."

"That's me. Born fuck up."

The Chechen snapped his fingers. Slam was pushed up against the pig pen. Hogs swarmed, hogs squealed, hogs snapped. The Chechen laughed. He told jokes in Russian. His men whooped and laughed too hard. Slam got the gist. He was the punchline. How many hogs does it take to eat a deadbeat asshole? We're about to find out. Hands pulled him away from the pen. They forced him on his knees.

"This farm is where I get rid of problems. You are problem, but not for long. I wipe away your debt, but there is catch."

The Chechen pulled something from his coat. He tossed it at Slam's feet. Slam scoped a photo. Dig the big man with the two hookers on his arm. Faux fur and fake tits abound.

"This son of a bitch steal from me. He run away with my money. You find him and tell me where he is. I feed him to pigs."

"That's it?"

The Chechen smiled. Slam saw yellow teeth stained by a life of smoking Polish cigarettes.

"You not find him, my pigs still eat. Either they eat this son of a bitch, or you. Choice is yours."

"Well, how can I refuse?"

"You have two days, fuck-up. Tick-tock."

Bennett Beach
Gotham

Slam cruised Bennett Beach in a loop. The Beach was all Chechen territory. Russian expats and gangsters mingled with the old Jews of the neighborhood. Yiddish and Cyrillic script cohabitated on walls and storefronts. Slam swilled gin from a flask and cruised slow. Past mixed with present. His conclusion: it was all the same thing.

THEN: He killed four men in the line of duty. All during a two-year stint in Robbery. Captain Branden gave him a necktie with 4's and the GCPD shield on it. Branden's idea of esprit de corps. Branden had a tie with 10's on it. Charlie Fields had a bowtie with little 7's covering it. One man held up a grocery store with a shotgun. He took hostages. Branden and the others distracted him in the front. Slam slipped in the back. He walked up behind him and blew the man's brains out with his service piece. Fifteen years later, Slam could still smell brains. He couldn't remember the man's name or what he looked like, just the smell of his last thoughts before dying.

NOW: He's killing again, this time in an indirect way. The Chechen gave him two days to find a man marked for death. Slam owes the Chechen ten grand. The ten grand: a five hundred dollar football bet spun out of control when he thought he could bet his way out of debt. He finds the man and his debt is absolved in the name of the father, son, and holy ghost of gambling. Slam doesn't find him and he's pig food. The Chechen isn't like Sid the Yid or the mob bookies. They know dead men don't pay back debts. The Chechen doesn't care. He kills because he likes it.

THE MAN: Boris Andropov. The Chechen's goons filled Slam in on details. Boris runs The Comrade Club, a stripper joint in Bennett Beach. Implications: Big Boris pushes dope for the Russians and pimps the girls out on the side. Slam inferred: Busy Boris launders money for the Chechen through the club.

Boss Boris leaves the club one night and doesn't come back. Bandit Boris high-tailed it with the club's books and nearly sixty grand worth of cash. Slam cut odds on the cash being all drug money and gave up. Even he knew a sucker's bet when he saw one. Call the books insurance that the Chechen wouldn't neuter Big Boris and let him bleed to death. As long as Bright Boris stayed alive the books wouldn't fall into police hands. Slam had to get the books as well as what was left of the cash.

He polished off the last of his gin and got buzzed. His buzzed brain made clicks. A plan formulated. The booze simmered the plan and fermented it. The Chechen's men gave him Boris' address. An ex-wife and four kids by three different women, but nobody lived with Bachelor Boris. Slam cruised to the outskirts of Bennett Beach with 459 on his mind. Boris' apartment building reeked of deli meat and cat litter. Slam made the third floor, his tools tucked in his jacket. Boris' door had scratch marks on it already. Someone had scooped Slam, he'd be getting sloppy seconds. He went in anyway. The pick slid in the lock, he jiggled it, and the lock popped. He went inside.

Slam walked the apartment in grids. He took his time tossing the place. He was trained to be thorough and he was. Slam found coke, speed, weed, condoms with holes deliberately poked in them, dildos, smut of every imaginable kind. He tossed the place gently. He tossed it so it left no trace of his tossing. It was all for naught. The place looked wiped down. Anything worth a damn had been taken before he got here. They tossed and covered their tracks like Slam. A pro had been in and out of here before him. He went into the kitchen and pulled a half drunk bottle of vodka from the fridge. It went down rough, not as smooth as gin. The booze fired him back up. He worked out his next steps. Canvass The Comrade Club, find out who Boris was fucking and try to get one step on whoever the hell he was racing.

Slam tossed the empty vodka bottle in the trash. He headed to the front door. The knob wiggled. Someone put a key in the lock. He stepped back and pulled his .38. He took off the safety and held it steady. The door swung open.

Maximum Comics – Insurrection \ CLOSED

Part II: Double Team

"Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves."
-- Robert F. Kennedy

The Juicy Fruit Gentleman's Club
The Bronx
6:05 AM

"Missy wore them go-go boots; it did something for him. Made him think his wife back home was homely and boring."

While the southern-twanged singer crooned through the small radio on the desk, the man in the suit sat back and went through the profits of the night. His face was wrinkly, almost to a grotesque level. Back in Kentucky, they picked at him and called him names. He knocked their teeth in back then when he was young and impulsive. Now he owned the malformity and took pride in it. By calling himself Pruneface he gave them one less thing for them to call him.

"Mr. Pruneface?"

He looked up from the sheet on his desk and raised his eyebrows. Renee stood in the doorway. A three hundred pound bull dyke, she had short hair dyed the color of blood red and could kick almost any man's ass. Pruneface used her as a bouncer and bodyguard just to fuck with the macho dickheads who worked in their business. Nothing like getting patted down and manhandled by Renee to make one of these gangsters feel like less of a man.

"What's up, babydoll?" He drawled in her direction.

"Got a visitor."

Pruneface flinched when he saw Flattop's bulky frame and even bulkier head step through the door past Renee. The boss loved the boy, but in Prunceface's estimation Flattop was nothing but trouble. The only time he showed up was when someone was dead or about to die. There'd be a day when he would come for Pruneface, that was why he kept the sawed-off shotgun in a hidden space just below his desk. He cradled it now, pointed right through desk at Flattop while the kid sauntered towards him with that unbearable grin on his face.

"Need a place to lay low," he said as he sprawled out in one of the chairs opposite the desk. "Watch the news this morning and you'll see why."

Pruneface relaxed his grip on the shotgun but kept it close. Duplicity wasn't one of Flattop's strong suits. If he was coming for Prunceface, he'd have a bullet in the wrinkly folds of his forehead by now. With one hand, he opened the desk drawers and rifled through them, watching Flattop out the corner of his eye. He pulled a folder out of the desk and slid it across to Flattop. The kid opened the folder and saw a single sheet of white paper with an address written on it and a key taped to the paper.

"The address is in Queens. Buy a burner phone on the way there and call here when you get to the house okay. I'll pass the message along to the boss."

Flattop grunted and tucked the paper and key into his jacket. He gave Pruneface a wink and a toothy grin before he stood and left without a word. Pruneface put the shotgun back in the covert rack under the desk and sighed in relief as he wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. He undid the knot in his tie and hit the intercom button on his desk.

"Mumbles?"

Mumbles replied in his usual mushmouth speak that Pruneface barely understood.

"Flattop's heading out through the backdoor. Follow him as best as you can. If you lose him, give me a call and I'll take it from there."

Mumbles said something that sounded like a yes and the line went dead. Pruneface brooded for a moment before he went back to work reviewing the club's nightly profit.

---

Major Case Squad Offices
1 Police Plaza
6:30 AM

"Morning, morning, morning."

Lieutenant Pat Patton was chipper as he walked between the crowded MCS cubicles. In one hand he carried a large mug of coffee and a brown bag stained with grease in the other. Always a morning person, Pat sipped coffee and whistled under his breath.

"My god, could you not?!"

Sitting at her desk with her head in her hands, Sergeant Jean DeWolff nursed a hangover. Pat knew that because he and a few others were out with her last night.

"Here you go, Jeannie," Pat said, laying the bag on her desk. "Bagels and donuts from the deli around the corner. That'll soak the booze up."

"How are you not hungover?" she croaked.

"I been a cop for over twenty years, Jean. Through trial and error, and a lot of vomiting I've learned just the right amount of alcohol my body can handle."

DeWolff opened up the bag and went to work on a donut while Pat walked to the big cork board hanging up in a corner. On it they had what little information there was about the Caprice Crime Family. A mugshot of Big Boy was at the top with strands of red twine strung between him and all his known associates. They had a surveillance photo of Pruneface with the words "DISTRIBUTION/TRAFFICKING" underneath it. Parallel to him was a mugshot of a chubby man with gray hair labeled GCPD. Written in marker below the mugshot was the name Lew Moxon and "NARCOTICS" There were question marks above the sections on the board labeled "MUSCLE" and "EXTORTION". The only other known subject on the board was Pasha Popov and his mugshot at the bottom of the board with "GAMBLING/DEALING" beneath his photo. Pat took the time to draw a red X on Popov's face and write the date of his murder.

"Did you call Vin and Daz?" Pat asked DeWolff.

"Yeah," she did between bites of her donut. "Daz lives over in Jersey, so he should be here soon. Vin? Who knows."

Pat grunted and took a long sip of his coffee.

"A member of Big Boy's organization was gunned down last night. The captain and Tork or on that, so we got to keep going. Regardless of who's behind it, we need to be out on the street and following the folks we know works for Big Boy, Moxon especially. If Popov had people acting as drug mules for Moxon, then his people may be the next targets. I'm going to text Daz on where to go, and we're heading out to find Moxon."

DeWolff sighed and rubbed her head. Pat couldn't help but smirk when he saw it.

"We'll swing by Cavanaugh's on the way out. We'll get a little Irish coffee going for you. Sound good?"

"Pat, I could kiss you."

"How about we wait until I get you nice and liquored up before we do that?"

He winked at her and grabbed his coat before they headed back out.

Twilight Struggle: A Cold Affair

Can't remember if you answered this or not, but is the IC going to be more like updates, bulletins, and announcement ala a WiR game, or can we do more with actual characters and prose with our IC?

Maximum Comics – Insurrection \ CLOSED

Figure I'd try my hand at another character. And boy, he's gonna be one of the big players in this game. Like, earth-shattering.

Big, Important Character

You thought I was serious?

| Identity |

Samuel "Slam" Bradley

| Origin & Backstory |

Samuel "Slam" Bradley grew up in Gotham's East End. A tough neighborhood, Slam was a scrapper and boxed Golden Gloves as a teen. After a knee injury ended his boxing career, Slam went into the only profession that would take a lug like himself: a cop.

Starting out as a beat cop, Slam eventually made detective and worked his way through assignments until he became a sergeant with the GCPD's Homicide Bureau. Partnered with Detective James Gordon, Slam and Jim were among the few non-corrupt officers in the GCPD. Fighting against the corrupt department and the everyday bleakness of the job had Slam on the verge of burnout until the case that killed his career came along.

It started out simple enough, a dead hooker found in a back alley. The case began to spin out of control, implicating a state senator, a high-end call girl service, and half of the city's politicians. The brass tried to bump Slam off of the case, but he refused to leave. In the end, he was dismissed from the GCPD on trumped up charges, accused of fraud because of a mislabeled time sheet. Out of a job, Slam took his connections and investigation skills and branched out on his own as a private investigator. When he's not tipping back a bottle, he works as a PI for hire in and around the city.

| Attributes |

No powers. Slam is an adept fighter with boxing and police firearm training. He is also a skilled detective with over twenty years experience in Homicide.

| Character Notes

Instead of being the old square-jawed who crusades for truth and justice, I made Slam a more gray character. He's an alcoholic who got burnt out on the job. All his friends and family hate his guts. The only thing that stops him from swallowing his gun are the cases and the few people he manages to help. Slam will mostly stay on the fringes of whatever shit is going down in Gotham just to keep from stepping on toes. Since the only real DC character associated with Slam is Catwoman I was going to invent just one or two NPCs as Slam's friends and contacts.

| Character Goals |

I guess my main thing with Slam is I want to just write PI stories. I love the genre and I had fun with the character the last time I played him. I want to keep that going, and I want to continue to showcase the dark underbelly of Gotham that even Batman doesn't go to, or maybe he's not tough to go to...

| Sample Post |

Parts Unknown

Slam saw darkness. His still head rang from the tune-up he'd been given, his legs cramped from the rope, the zip-ties gouged his wrists. The car bounced and rocked down a road. Slam recounted the journey and figured they were well out of town by now. Sweat rolled down his face, the black bag made him smell his own breath. It reeked of vomit, hooch, and Altoids.

Feature: Slam left his apartment still hungover from the night before. Three men jump him, beat the shit out of him and black bag him. They tie him up and toss him into the trunk of a car. Slam struggles. Slam gets sapped. Slam becomes docile through threat of further sapping.

He tried to count turns and figure out where he was. He lost count and started counting up the number of people who wanted him dead. He lost count and started counting the minutes. At twenty-two the car stopped. Rough hands pulled him from the trunk and pushed him down a road. Slam felt dirt scrapping his shoes. He heard nature. Call it: the countryside at least an hour out of Gotham. Hands guided him down the road, pushed him in the right direction. Smell that. Pig shit coming on stroooong. Hands on his head, the bag came off.

Dig that countryside. Dig that farmhouse and pig pen. There's a farmer in overalls, très Green Acres chic. Dig the man beside him. Black suit with no tie, goatee and looking as Slavic as the pierogi at Abramowicz's Deli in Bennett Beach. The Chechen they called him. Dig the rumors around town: The Chechen was former Russian Intelligence turned Russian Mafiya. No, he fought in Afghanistan in the 80's and gave Bin Laden a reach-around in the name of Mother Russia. No, he fought the Russians in Chechnya. No, Ruskies raped his mother and he slaughtered an entire battalion in the name of revenge. Putin had a six figure bounty on his head. He had Gorbachev tattooed on his chest, fucked up birthmark and all.

"You owe me money."

He talked to Slam while looking in the pig pen. One of the Chechen's goons pushed Slam forward. His knees got weak, he nearly fell.

"You're right. I owe you a lot of money."

"You do not know when to say no when my bookies offer you another shot? You do not know when to walk away?"

"No... walking away and doing the sane thing. That ain't me."

The Chechen looked back at him. He sized him up. Slam sized him up. The Chechen was older, but Slam was hurt. Odds on beating the man to death if he had to: 50/50. Odds he would get that far: Too goddamn long to even figure out.

"I know about you. Boxer turned cop turned--" he said something in his gobbledygook language. "-- what is word? Fuck up. Yes, you are big time fuck up."

"That's me. Born fuck up."

The Chechen snapped his fingers. Slam was pushed up against the pig pen. Hogs swarmed, hogs squealed, hogs snapped. The Chechen laughed. He told jokes in Russian. His men whooped and laughed too hard. Slam got the gist. He was the punchline. How many hogs does it take to eat a deadbeat asshole? We're about to find out. Hands pulled him away from the pen. They forced him on his knees.

"This farm is where I get rid of problems. You are problem, but not for long. I wipe away your debt, but there is catch."

The Chechen pulled something from his coat. He tossed it at Slam's feet. Slam scoped a photo. Dig the big man with the two hookers on his arm. Faux fur and fake tits abound.

"This son of a bitch steal from me. He run away with my money. You find him and tell me where he is. I feed him to pigs."

"That's it?"

The Chechen smiled. Slam saw yellow teeth stained by a life of smoking Polish cigarettes.

"You not find him, my pigs still eat. Either they eat this son of a bitch, or you. Choice is yours."

"Well how can I refuse?"

"You have two days, fuck-up. Tick-tock."

Bennett Beach
Gotham

Slam cruised Bennett Beach in a loop. The Beach was all Chechen territory. Russian expats and gangsters mingled with the old Jews of the neighborhood. Yiddish and Cyrillic script cohabitated on walls and storefronts. Slam swilled gin from a flask and cruised slow. Past mixed with present. His conclusion: it was all the same thing.

THEN: He killed four men in the line of duty. All during a two year stint in Robbery. Captain Branden gave him a necktie with 4's and the GCPD shield on it. Branden's idea of esprit de corps. Branden had a tie with 10's on it. Charlie Fields had a bowtie with little 7's covering it. One man held up a grocery store with a shotgun. He took hostages. Branden and the others distracted him in the front. Slam slipped in the back. He walked up behind him and blew the man's brains out with his service piece. Fifteen years later, Slam could still smell brains. He couldn't remember the man's name or what he looked like, just the smell of his last thoughts before dying.

NOW: He's killing again, this time in an indirect way. The Chechen gave him two days to find a man marked for death. Slam owes the Chechen ten grand. The ten grand: a five hundred dollar football bet spun out of control when he thought he could bet his way out of debt. He finds the man and his debt is absolved in the name of the father, son, and holy ghost of gambling. Slam doesn't find him and he's pig food. The Chechen isn't like Sid the Yid or the mob bookies. They know dead men don't pay back debts. The Chechen doesn't care. He kills because he likes it.

THE MAN: Boris Andropov. The Chechen's goons filled Slam in on details. Boris runs The Comrade Club, a stripper joint in Bennett Beach. Implications: Big Boris pushes dope for the Russians and pimps the girls out on the side. Slam inferred: Busy Boris launders money for the Chechen through the club.

Boss Boris leaves the club one night and doesn't come back. Bandit Boris high-tailed it with the club's books and nearly sixty grand worth of cash. Slam cut odds on the cash being all drug money and gave up. Even he knew a sucker's bet when he saw one. Call the books insurance that the Chechen wouldn't neuter Big Boris and let him bleed to death. As long as Bright Boris stayed alive the books wouldn't fall into police hands. Slam had to get the books as well as what was left of the cash.

He polished off the last of his gin and got buzzed. His buzzed brain made clicks. A plan formulated. The booze simmered the plan and fermented it. The Chechen's men gave him Boris' address. An ex-wife and four kids by three different women, but nobody lived with Bachelor Boris. Slam cruised to the outskirts of Bennett Beach with 459 on his mind. Boris' apartment building reeked of deli meat and cat litter. Slam made the third floor, his tools tucked in his jacket. Boris' door had scratch marks on it already. Someone had scooped Slam, he'd be getting sloppy seconds. He went in anyway. The pick slid in the lock, he jiggled it, and the lock popped. He went inside.

Slam walked the apartment in grids. He took his time tossing the place. He was trained to be thorough and he was. Slam found coke, speed, weed, condoms with holes deliberately poked in them, dildos, smut of every imaginable kind. He tossed the place gently. He tossed it so it left no trace of his tossing. It was all for naught. The place looked wiped down. Anything worth a damn had been taken before he got here. They tossed and covered their tracks like Slam. A pro had been in and out of here before him. He went into the kitchen and pulled a half drunk bottle of vodka from the fridge. It went down rough, not as smooth as gin. The booze fired him back up. He worked out his next steps. Canvass The Comrade Club, find out who Boris was fucking and try to get one step on whoever the hell he was racing.

Slam tossed the empty vodka bottle in the trash. He headed to the front door. The knob wiggled. Someone put a key in the lock. He stepped back and pulled his .38. He took off the safety and held it steady. The door swung open.

Twilight Struggle: A Cold Affair

Sure.

Operation Tropic Thunder

Hey, Dutch, I've been lagging behind due to work. But I'll have a post up for you tomorrow.

Operation Tropic Thunder

Bobby sat in the plane as it headed south towards Cuba. Cuba. Fucking Cuba. Land of the motherfucking Beard himself. A pocket of turbulence sent the men in the plane bouncing in their seats. Bobby clung tightly to the Pig as the plane smoothed out and the flight went back to being steady. Besides the Pig, he had a full array of gear and a parachute. Sixty extra pounds of shit without even counting in the weight of the pig. He was ready for it. Shit, wasn't that why they always ran twenty miles in full gear all the time?

Dixon, his assistant that watched his back and fed him ammo, had it even worse. He carried the ammo belts and cannisters that Bobby would need to support the fire team. Dixon sat beside Bobby with knocking knees, his pale face turning a particular shade of green. Give the Sarge credit, his speech let them all embrace the fear without hiding behind braggadocio behavior. Bobby smoked a cigarette and looked through the dark cargo area to where the Sarge himself was sitting, right beside the door that would lead them out. He looked calm as a cucumber, but as he said he'd done this way too many times.

"Fuck Castro," Dixon said softly but rhythmically. "Fuck Castro. Fuck Castro."

"Fuck Castro," Bobby added, chanting louder and louder.

Within a minute, every paratrooper save the Sarge was chanting and shouting "Fuck Castro" at the top of their lungs. And then the Sarge got up and they prepared to jump, still yelling "Fuck Castro" over and over again.

Operation Tropic Thunder

Bobby kept mostly quiet on the flight to Florida. He saw in between Briggs and Dixon on the bumpy flight over the south. He kept his mouth shut because Sergeant Jackson was just four seats away from him. He sure as hell didn't want to hear his mouth. Bobby wasn't afraid of Jackson. It was more like respect that edged close towards fear. Jackson fought in the War, not just the "Korean Conflict" like a few of the men here, but in the big one. While he was fighting Krauts and Japs and whoever the hell else, Bobby was literally sucking on his momma's titty. Jackson managed to make it through the war without dying, something Bobby's old man had never accomplished.

From Texas, Jackson was dickhead with a peckerwood accent. He treated Bobby like shit, but he also treated Dixon like shit and Dixon was whiter than snow. That counted for something. Still, a colorblind asshole is still an asshole. Bobby rummaged through his pack to find his smokes. Not finding them, he nudged Dixon awake. The tall, gangly looking guy blinked slowly as he woke up.

"What, man?"

"Let me bum a cigarette."

Dixon groggily pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and passed them to Bobby. He struck a match and lit up a cigarette, inhaling the smoke into his lungs before exhaling a long cloud above his head.