18. The Raiders in Chryme Alley II
The first man, if the term could be applied to him [1], was joined by others who appeared out of the dark like moths drawn to a flame. They were carrying a motley assortment of weapons which were all now pointed directly at the Raiders. A faint aura of menace hung around them as if it just couldn't bear to leave them. The aura was as much a part of them as the dirt-rings around their necks, or the rather strong smell of unwashed bodies - or perhaps, the aura was due to these things. Sal looked behind him for the support of his comrades but only Rod and Tre had followed him into the alley. There wasn't a sign of the rest of the Raiders. Rod, who'd been sidling up to him, chose that moment to whisper,
"You know Sal, fear gets a bad rap. I don't want anybody in our outfit that doesn't get scared."
Sal tried to keep his voice steady, "Then I'm definitely your guy."
"Just don't get negative on me, now!" replied Rod who'd just realized that while a healthy dose of fear was good for you, there was also such a thing as an overdose.
"Affirmative," Sal responded in his clipped voice, you could barely notice the tiny tremor in it.
"OK, compadres, what seems to be the problemmo?" asked Rod turning to face the menacing group.
"Yeah, don'tchu know who you're messin' with?" piped in Tre.
"Chu knows who you are boy ... err ... boys! But have you plumb gone and forgot who Chu is?" asked one of the thugs.
"Enlighten ... I mean, tell us, who is this Chu? We have no idea who he is or what he's got to do with us!" Sal replied.
"They're trying to play it dumb, eh Abdul?" said the thug who'd been doing most of the talking so far, turning to another ruffian in his group.
"Oh you should know all about that Mario," jibed the only female in the group. Do you call her a thuggess or a mobstress, wondered Sal.
"Can it, Lisa!" commanded the one named Abdul, clueing Sal in on who was in charge. "It sure looks like them but I didn't know there was more than one of 'em though ..."
"Must be twins," broke in Mario.
"Triplets, you idiot!" snapped Lisa.
"Whatever!" snapped the leader, glaring at his team members. Then he turned back towards the Raiders. "One of you, or maybe all of you ... who knows if all of you were working together? ... stole somethin' valuable from Boss Chu! I've seen you when you were at the Boss' place. And guess what? Boss Chu wants his stuff back. He sent us to get it back, see?"
"But my good man, we have just arrived in this fair city! Upon our honour, we have no idea who this Boss Chu is!" exclaimed Sal, treating Abdul to a scouts-honour-cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die look.
"Yeah, whatchu talkin' 'bout, Abdul?" added Tre, utterly destroying the effect of Sal's look.
"That's Boss Chu to you, you double-crossing rat! He sure knows what he's talking 'bout, 'cos he's sayin' give his stuff back and maybe he'll let you live. Or maybe he'll just give you a quick death," responded Abdul, evidently enjoying the discomfort of the Raiders.
"Yeah, instead of torturin' you for days like he did with the last guy who pissed 'im off," chuckled Mario, sounding like a gurgling toad.
"But we told you, we don't know what you're talking about!" replied Rod, in a valiant effort to take sense where sense had never been before.
"That's too bad for you then. Guess we'll have to do this the hard way!" said Abdul and motioned to his band of merry cutthroats. The Raiders watched mesmerised as the gangsters started moving towards them in a purposeful manner.
"Do somethin', Sal!" pleaded Tre.
"This is a situation for diplomacy Tre, and diplomacy requires patience."
"Well, we've got patience in spades! We are being attacked by mental patients and if we don't do something soon, we are going to end up being patients who are patiently waiting for every bone in their body to knit properly!" whispered Rod urgently.
"OK boys, that's far enough! We have no idea who you are or who this boss Chu is. We'd be happy to come over and clear this matter up with him but we can't do that just now as we are already late for an important business meeting. I'm afraid that if you don't step aside, we're going to have to go through you!" said Sal, stepping forward to meet the approaching thugs.
"And how do you think you're gonna do that?" asked Abdul, bringing his gun up to bear on Sal.
"We will beat a bloody trail through you, we are highly trained mercenaries!" said Sal, taking a combat stance. The goons facing them did not appear in the least bit fazed by this display of martial skills. In fact, they looked rather amused, if anything. Sal's brothers, realizing that fists against guns would only result in spilt blood - theirs - simply took up their guns and aimed them every which way. There certainly were a lot of places to aim at, but just not enough guns on their side.
"Err .. Sal, maybe we should think about going back to diplomacy?" asked Rod looking from one thug to another and seeing nothing but glee at the prospect of an ass-whupping.
"Umm ... I'm beginning to think you're right, Rod," said Sal, turning around to speak to his brother. But then, a gleam appeared in his eyes as he caught sight of something behind Rod and his whole posture changed. Sal turned around, straightened his back and faced their opponents with new confidence. "You might as well give up now or we'll have to hurt you," he said, looking Abdul in the eye[2].
"Oh yeah, you an' what army?" sneered Mario.
"That would be us, hombre!" said a voice from above. Heads turned and faces glanced up so fast amongst Abdul's group that it was a minor miracle that none of them got whiplash. The rest of the Raiders lined the buildings on both sides of the alley, their weapons trained unwaveringly on the group of thugs below them. The thugs stared, and then they stared, and then, stared some more. If their jaws hadn't been so tightly clamped, they certainly would have dropped with a resounding clang to the street. In unison, like a bunch of clockwork dolls, they looked at one face and then another of their enemy - always encountering the same face. They kept on going back and forth, back and forth, like hypnotized mice, almost as if hoping that they'd made a mistake.
"Did you know the others would do that?" whispered Rod.
"Heck no, I was expecting them to rush in here and help us!" replied Sal.
"I guess somebody in there had more sense than you then. We'd better watch out or we might have a new leader in the group."
Sal was about to make a sharp retort but Abdul chose that moment to break the silence which had been gripping the thugs in a tight embrace.
"What in Shima is going on? Three of them, fine. But a dozen of them?"
"We are as much in the dark as you are and you'll notice it's very dark here, ha ha. But seriously, we don't know even as much as you do! And while we'd love to stay and chat, we really must get going. So I guess we'll just have to catch up on stuff some other time. Good morrow to ye!" said Sal with a cheery wave and walked straight towards the still gaping thugs.
For a long, tense moment, it looked as if the grime of Chryme Alley might be washed off in a bloodbath unlike any other that Kabul City had seen before[3]. The three Raiders kept walking and Abdul's merry band of thugs stood their ground and even brought their weapons up to bear on the advancing Raiders. Then Abdul looked upward once again at the guns trained on them and sighed. He motioned to his companions to move out of the way and his cohorts obediently parted, like a little boy's hair when his mother applies a comb, to let the three Raiders pass.
The three, deciding that questions about the puzzling encounter they'd had could wait for later, moved at a fast trot to get out of the alley and rejoin their comrades at the other end of it. Their mercenary training finally coming to the fore[4], they immediately hunkered down, got their own weapons out, and provided cover for their brothers to come off the upper buildings. Then, in that peculiar military formation which looks a lot like constipated ducks waddling towards water, they proceeded to move out from the vicinity of Chryme Alley in an orderly fashion, each team providing cover for the other, while the thugs that they'd just confronted watched silently. The Raiders were sure that the expression on the faces of their opponents was one of impotent fury, but an impartial observer might have said that it was more like perplexity. However, whether what perplexed them was the Raiders' funny walk or the confusing encounter that had just taken place, was a mystery.
[1] He looked more like what a man would be if he had been all used up and then thrown out on to the garbage heap.
[2] Which was no mean task - they say that if you look into the abyss, the abyss looks back at you. In the case of Abdul, his eyes were an abyss of iniquity, sin and corruption and looking directly into that abyss required a special kind of person. But then again, when it came to such things, the Raiders were nothing but special.
[3] It is said that in ancient times, a Queen of Kabul had bathed in the blood of asses to remain forever beautiful - even she would not have seen asses like the Debian Raiders.
[4] Their military training had done rather well at camouflage - up to this point, it had only been apparent due to the Raiders' lack of any military training whatsoever.
