Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer

The music was deafening. New wave fusion jazz. Whatever the fuck that is. I had an “appointment” with Vinnie “The Fag” Scarpacci. Most men would have been pissed to have a moniker like that. Some would kill you for even whispering it. Not Vinnie. He loved it. He embraced it. He flaunted it by hanging out in shitholes like this. Places that would make the most prissy nancy boy cringe. Weird thing is, the Fag wasn’t even gay. I didn’t care, I was here to collect and one way or another, Vinnie was going to pay.

I found him in a corner booth playing his part to the hilt surrounded by fawning tinkerboys heavily rouged with three inch lashes. “You, you and you, MOVE,” I ordered, jabbing a calloused finger in their simpering faces. They vamoosed like rainbow leaves in a hurricane.

“No need to be rude, Max. Please have a seat. Can I get you something?” He raised a deco style martini glass to his lipsticked mouth. It was filled with a light green fluid. An appletini most likely. The guy sure played it to the hilt.

“Cut the act Vinnie, you know why I am here,” I pulled the lapel of my duster aside to show him the Desert Eagle I carried in a shoulder rig. Even for a guy my size it was hard to conceal that cannon.

All emotion dropped from his eyes. I saw the look that made lesser men shit themselves in fear. I had forgotten about Vinnie’s other nickname, the “Belt Butcher”. He earned that title when he was jumping claims in the asteroids. “Listen you little shit. I can have you chopped into little pieces and fed to your fucking family right before I have molten lead poured into their eyes and ears. Capisci?

He couldn’t scare me. I told him so. He talked pretty tough for a faggot. I told him that too. He didn’t know I had another piece under the table aimed at his fat gut. This I also told him.

“There is something you don’t know, you filthy Russian pig fucker.” He pulled up his sleeve to reveal the phone tattooed on his forearm.

“What are you going to do, call for a shining night to come to your rescue, Princess? Call in your goons to kill me,” I sneered

“I wouldn’t kill you, Max. I like you to much.” He jabbed a button on his hairy arm with a perfectly manicured finger.

The last thing I saw before I blacked out from excruciating pain was a smile that would have made a shark piss itself.

“Max? Wakey Wakey.” Vinie’s words sounded like they were coming from within my skull.

“Feeling Okay?”

No, I wasn’t. I couldn’t get my eyes to focus. From one eye I saw Vinnie’s bloated face, from the other I saw the door of a strange room. I couldn’t get them to focus on the same spot. I felt like I was cross eyed and under water.

“How do you like your new home?”

New home? What was he talking about? I tried to speak but couldn’t. “I’m paralyzed,” I thought.

“Want to see?”

Vinnie held up a mirror. All I could see were two eyes connected to a naked brain suspended in… “Oh shit.”

“See Max, I told you I wouldn’t kill you. You’ll live a long, long time,” he laughed as he walked away. “Oh, there is one other thing,” he said turning back. “Your mother, your father and your sister? They quite enjoyed their meal before… Well, you know.”