Mindy instinctively raised her hands to screen her head.
Which was the reaction Ozzi wanted. He smirked as he rammed the stock into her stomach instead.
Gasping, Mindy doubled over.
Ozzi laughed. “Want some more, scuzz?”
Mindy looked up through tears of anguish. She saw Ozzi cackling, and near the doorway Sacks was staring in disapproval at the younger button man. Sacks started to open his mouth, to say something, but the words never came out.
There was a swishing noise from behind Sacks, and a scintillating, streaking, metallic object swept into the rear of his head.
Sacks arched his back and uttered a choking, inarticulate, panting sound. His eyes bulged, his arms dropping loosely to his sides, the shotgun falling to the floor.
“Sacks?” Ozzi said in surprise.
Sacks took a single step, then keeled over, his head bending downward as he fell, revealing the rear of his cranium; his head was split open from neck to crown.
Mindy straightened in amazement as her gaze alighted on the person responsible for Sacks’s demise. “Mom!” she cried.
Helen stood in a martial-arts stance, jodan-no-kamae, her bloody machete held in the same manner as the traditional katana. Her amber hair was disheveled, her black leather vest and pants spattered with gore.
Blood caked her right cheek and chin, and her right shoulder was awash in crimson.
“She’s your mom?” Ozzi blurted out, and tried to swing the Bushmaster around.
Helen was faster. She closed on the hit man and swung the machete, her blade deflecting the Bushmaster barrel to the right. With the deadly proficiency born of years of practice, she employed a reverse strike, slashing the machete across Ozzi’s chest, the keen edge cleaving several inches into his flesh.
Ozzi screamed and frantically tried to back away.
Helen wouldn’t let him. She took a measured stride and swung the machete with all her strength, catching the hit man in the throat and nearly decapitating him.
Ozzi was dead on his feet. His head flopped to the left as blood gushed from his ravaged neck, and he sank to the I floor in lifeless silence.
Helen glared at the mobster for a second, then moved to Mindy.
“You’re hurt!” Mindy exclaimed in alarm.
“It’s nothing,” Helen said. “A scratch.”
For a moment mother and daughter gazed into each other’s eyes in mutual love and devotion, and then they embraced in a hug.
“Oh, Mom,” Mindy said, sniffling.
“It’s over,” Helen stated. “You’re safe. No one will hurt you now.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” commented a sarcastic, gruff voice.
Helen spun in the direction of the voice, putting herself between Mindy and the man in black six feet away. She raised the katana.
“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” the man remarked, pointing his Nighthawk at Helen.
“Don Giorgio!” Mindy declared in stark terror.
“How nice of you to remember me,” Giorgio mentioned bitterly. He held the Nighthawk in both hands. On the floor to his right was a brown leather briefcase.
“You’re the one who kidnapped Mindy!” Helen stated.
“Give the woman a prize,” Don Giorgio taunted her. He looked at Sacks and Ozzi. “You Warriors are more trouble than you’re worth.”
Helen took a step toward him. “You deserve to die!”
Giorgio’s grip on the Nighthawk tightened. “Don’t be stupid, woman! You’ll be cut to ribbons before you can get within two feet of me.”
“You’re going to kill us anyway,” Helen noted.
Don Giorgio grinned. “True. So which one of you wants it first? Mother or daughter?”
Helen was girding herself for a desperate lunge.
“No answer?” Giorgio scoffed. “Well, then, I’ll kill both of you together.
What can be more appropriate?”
“How about if you go first, cow chip?” interjected someone in a distinctly familiar Western accent.
Mindy glanced to her right.
Hickok was lying on his stomach on the floor, the Henry snug against his shoulder, sighting down the barrel. He was smiling, his left temple coated with blood.
Don Giorgio froze, the Nighthawk still trained on Helen. He knew Hickok would drill him if he so much as blinked.
“Go ahead,” Hickok said. “Make my year!”
Giorgio released the Nighthawk and the gun fell to the carpet. “I’m not an idiot.”
“You could have fooled me!” Hickok retorted.
Smiling smugly, Giorgio held his arms up, palms outward. “I know all about you Warriors. You’re real spiritual types. You live by some asinine code of honor.” He chuckled. “You would never shoot an unarmed man.”
“Do you know something?” Hickok asked, raising his chin from the Henry.
“What’s that?” Giorgio responded arrogantly.
Hickok’s features became an iron mask. “You’re wrong.”
In a startling flash of insight, Don Johnny Giorgio recognized he was staring death in the face. He took a step backward, fear flooding through him. “No!”
“Yes,” Hickok said, and fired.
The heavy slug from the 44-40 lifted Giorgio from his feet and hurled him over a yard to crash onto his back. He pushed himself into a sitting posture and gawked at a gaping hole in the center of his chest. Whining in despair, he stared at the gunfighter.
“Say hello to oblivion for me,” Hickok said softly, and squeezed the trigger.
Mindy heard the deafening retort of the Henry even as the top of Don Giorgio’s head exploded over the carpet and he was knocked flat. This time Giorgio didn’t move.
Hickok slowly stood and walked over to the Don.
“Is he dead?” Mindy queried hopefully.
“They don’t come any deader.”
EPILOGUE
“Are you positive I can’t convince you to stay longer?” Don Pucci asked.
“Thank you for your kindness,” Blade responded, “but we’ve stayed too long as it is. We must return to the Home.”
They were standing on the front steps of the Golden Crown Casino.
Pedestrians passed on the sidewalk, and the boulevard was filled with traffic.
“Peace has been restored to the city, thanks to you,” Don Pucci remarked.
Blade gazed across the boulevard at the Palace. The front entrance was boarded over. “Will you reopen Giorgio’s casino?”
“Eventually,” Don Pucci said. “I think I’ll have Mario run it.”
“He’s a competent man,” Blade remarked.
Loud laughter sounded behind them.
Blade glanced over his right shoulder, smiling at the sight of Hickok, Geronimo, Helen, and Mindy emerging from the Golden Crown. Hickok sported a white bandage on his head, courtesy of the staff at a nearby hospital. Geronimo’s right side was bandaged under his shirt, and his left thigh was wrapped tight with a white dressing. He had refused a crutch, and was walking with a pronounced limp. Helen’s right cheek had required seven stitches, and her right shoulder was covered by a white binding. Blade reached down and gingerly touched his vest above the area on his right side wounded during the battle. The dressing was itching terribly.
“I tell you, pard!” Hickok declared. “These casinos are great ideas! How about if we try and convince the Elders to build one at the Home?”
“I doubt they’d consent,” Blade replied.
“They don’t know what they’re missing!” Hickok said.
“I know someone who is probably missing you,” Blade mentioned.
“Your wife. We’ve been here a week. It’s time to hit the road.”
Helen walked up to Don Pucci. “Thank you for your hospitality. If you ever get up our way…”
“I’ll keep the thought in mind,” Pucci commented.