Page 27 of Saxon

Saxon scratches his haw. "Holy shit. There were like, a fucking billion of them."

I flex my hand open and closed. "Yeah, don't remind me. My hand still hurts." I smile at Emily. "Worth it, for her, though."

Saxon goes to the penthouse door and none-too-gently kicks the bleeding men out of the way. "Watch your step."

I dance around the pools of blood, trying not to see the faces of the men. Now, without memorable faces, I can pretend they’re, like, robots or something. Like The Foot from Ninja Turtles.

Saxon herds us onto the elevator, pushing us into the corner and standing in the doorway. "Whatever happens, let me handle it. If I tell you to run, you fuckin' run. Make for outside. If we get separated, go north two blocks and west two blocks, and stand on the northwest corner of the intersection. Wait for fifteen minutes. If I don't show, you're on your own because I’m dead." He stabs the button for the third floor.

I start to point out that I don’t know cardinal directions, but Em shakes her head at me. Good point: don’t interrupt him when he's about to do hero shit.

The elevator glides down, bumps to a stop on the third floor, dings, and the doors open.

Two men in black suits with white button-downs and no ties are on the other side. Each wields a small black machine gun type of thing, with the stock things that fold up, and thick black round silencers instead of barrels.

Saxon reacts faster than any human being has a right to—his gun flashes up, palm cupping the butt. It barks twice, making Emily scream and then clap her mouth over her hand.

The men stagger backward—Saxon has placed bullets in identical spots on their stomachs, low on the left side. Why there, I don't know. Nothing but the intestine, maybe? I can't imagine there's a good place to be shot, especially in the abdominal area. But what do I know?

He rushes at them, disarming them both, and kicks them to the floor. He takes magazines, or clips, or whatever, from their pockets, and cell phones. Cash. A big folding knife from one of them.

"Get help soon, you won't die." Saxon crouches in front of them. "Best I can do, under the circumstances. Hope you fucks got paid in full ahead of time." He heads for the stairs, slinging both machine guns over his torso in opposite directions. "Come on, down the stairs. Double time."

We fairly run down the stairs. Saxon goes ahead, one of the machine guns held like it's part of him as he sweeps down the stairs. He keeps to the outside, occasionally checking down the middle, keeping the barrel trained on the flight below him.

We exit on the first floor, in a hallway. It looks like any other hallway, extending in both directions seemingly endlessly. He takes a split second to orient himself and then drops into that crouch-walk soldier dudes all use when they're planning on shooting people.

A room door opens, and a pale, overweight, middle-aged man with a towel around his waist appears, a room service cart rolling ahead of him. He halts, eying Saxon and his two machine guns and his pockets bulging with machine gun clips.

"In," Saxon barks. "Stay in."

The man leaves the cart and vanishes back inside, the door hitting the cart with a loud rattle.

We move ahead down the hall. I hear sirens, finally. A door opens again, this one a service door, emitting a hotel worker pushing a cart. Saxon grabs the door and holds it.

The maid opens her mouth, but Saxon digs in his pocket and pulls out a hundred-dollar bill. "You didn't see us."

"Okay. I no see." She vanishes the money and glances down the hallway toward the lobby—the direction we were going. "I no see the men in lobby, either. But they no pay. The pindejos hit my culata."

"How many?"

"Ses? Ocho? Many. All guns." She points at the machine guns. "Like this." She frowns. "They beat up manager. Put gun in mouth. They are bad men."

Saxon nods. "Yes. Bad men. Mucho malo. Stay away."

She nods. "They look for you?"

He nods and gestures to Emily, Tom, and me. "And them. They're innocent."

"Bad men. I know bad men. You are no bad man." She glances both ways and then produces a keycard from some pocket of the cart. "You go back door. Left. Always left. Big trucks for towels. You hide."

Saxon gives her another hundred. "Thanks. Gracias, muchas gracias."

She takes it. "I no see. Adios."

We jog down the service corridor, and Saxon leads us. We make a few wrong turns and have to backtrack several times, but eventually we push through a door with a red exit sign above it and emerge outside, in a covered delivery area. As the woman told us, several large trucks are unloading and loading supplies, men with dollies coming and going, others huddled around cigarettes.

When we appear, all conversation and activity halts.