Omerta

Omerta [Short Action | Thriller]
Synopsis: A hired gun's moment of compassion sets into motion a war against his former boss.

Blackness. The sound of gravel crunching beneath tires, then the sputtering and dying of an engine can be heard - faint, muffled.

A beat before footsteps pound against gravel and pavement, getting closer. Unintelligible voices, deep and incessant - arguing? A heated discussion, at least.

Suddenly, the boot of a rusted old car is popped open and out falls a body from the rear compartment. It hits the blacktop of with a thud before two pairs of scuffed up work boots.

Panning upwards, a pair of greasy, pock-marked Mixers peer down at the body. Not much older than their twenties, male. Twitching, restless - candy-lovers.

The shorter, stockier of the pair nudges the figure at their feet with his boot. "Yo Jacks, you's dead or what?" he asks, Neo-Yorker accent slurred lightly with a lisp. The body stirs.

The taller one, one-eyed and covered in tattoos, snorts with a guttural laugh. "Nah, he's just sleepin' like a baby," he jokes in self-humor.

Jacks opens his bloodshot eyes with a groan. His face is a mess of swollen bruises and cuts, beaten to hell and disheveled as he forcibly turns over onto his back. Blood trickles out of his mouth as he chuckles hoarsely at the men standing over him.

The stocky mano arches a wild brow. "What's so funny?"

Jacks cracks a bloodied grin, spitting a wad out on the trash-strewn asphalt under him. "I was just thinking you two are the ugliest flight attendants I've ever seen."

The tall one's boot catches into Jacks' chest, sending him flat on his back with a wheezing, coughing groan.

"All the marcy's got you strung too tight, Kevin. You can never take a damned joke," Jacks chastises raspily.

They pull him to his feet roughly. Cory, the stocky one, shoves a pistol into his kidney, pointing him toward the nearest hangar off in the distance of the old, abandoned airfield.

"Move," Cory orders, punching the beaten man in the back to force him forward.

INSIDE THE HANGAR, an older gentleman dressed impeccably in a suit crisply tailored to his broad frame sits at a single fold-up table. An empty seat sits across from him, pulled slightly ajar as though awaiting an occupant. Little else is discerned from the old hangar's interior.

Jacks stumbles into the shot through an open bay door. The brothers bring up the rear with Cory stretching out a meaty mitt to grab hold of their captive by the scruff, hauling him forward and jerking him down into the empty seat.

He goes down with a smothered grunt of pain, head rolling with a grimace before bloodshot eyes focus on the affluent, older man across from him.

"Hello, Charlie," he greets a little too cheerfully.

Charlie's beer-can sized fist comes hurtling through the air, flattening Jack's nose and sending him flying over the back of his chair.

The older man is on top of Jacks in an instant, raining down blows across his face and upper body with a vicious fervor.

Charlie stops, like a flip switched, and steps off Jacks. He straightens his jacket, then frowns as he picks at a small drop of blood on his red tie.

"Pick him up," he orders, slightly out of breath. He walks 'round to pick up his overturned chair and sits back down.

The brothers obediently hauls Jacks back into his chair, his face hardly recognizeable under the fresh layer of trauma.

"I'm sorry about that, Jackson. I lost myself for a moment," Charlie says, unapologetic, expression inscrutable.

Jacks works his jaw, chest heaving with the exertion of his panting breath. "Can't... say I blame you," he gurgles, an arm coming up to wipe at the blood running from his broken nose. "Guess I had it coming. For what it's worth-"

Charlie slams his fist down on the table, veins throbbing visibly at his temple as his fair skin is turned splotchy red in a sudden turn of rage.

"YOU DON'T TELL ME WHAT IT'S WORTH!" A finger stabs across the table at Jacks as he continues, flecks of spittle spattered out. "I tell YOU!"

Charlie stops abruptly, some measure of composure wrestled back as Corey and Kevin watch on solemnly from behind Jacks.

"Was it worth the life of my own son?" he asks quietly.

"You know how he was in the end," Jacks tries to reason, voice kept low, slowly shifting in his seat. "Too much chrome, too much blow. It fucked Tommy up."

"You don't get to say his fucking name!" Charlie says, leaning forward with a white knuckled-grip at the table's end, as though he were ready to lunge again.

He shakes his head in disgust, grief warring with incredulity in his handsome, but aged features. "Do you hear me? He loved you like a brother. He brought you in, VOUCHED for you."

Jacks stares at his former employer through half-shut eyes with a frown. "I guess it won't change your mind if I told you that girl I pulled him off of was fourteen years old?" he asks, appalled.

Charlie snorts in derision, reaching into his suit jacket to pull out a Havana cigar and lighter. "Did you grow a conscience, Jacks? You've been killing for me for eight years."

He tucks it between his lips and lights up, puffing at the cancerous stick as he crams the lighter away to gesture at the beaten man across from him. "I've seen you end guys layin' in the gutter, crying for their mothers."

A cloud of smoke is exhaled into Jacks' face. His nostrils flare in a distasteful grimace, but he doesn't bother waving it away. "There's gotta be a line somewhere. There's gotta be honor, somewhere, in this," he says with conviction and a vague gesture between them.

"Every ticket I've punched had it coming, someway. But what Tommy was gonna do to that girl..." The shot highlights over the mercenary's beaten face, those bloodshot eyes glazing over in his reminiscing. "I couldn't live with it."

Charlie doesn't give an immediate answer, relishing the sweet, pungent aroma of his Havana as a wave of smoke rushes from his nose. He eyes it in discerning study, ending with an appreciative hum before ashing it out on the edge of the table and sliding to his feet.

The conversation over, he nods to the brothers hovering behind Jacks with in approval. Cory and Kevin straighten their backs instinctively, grins breaking out over their faces respectively.

 "You boys did good on this one," he commends. "Finish up. There's more work for you when you get back to the city."

Cory says, "Thanks, Mister Ludlow. Whatever you need." as Kevin steps forward, cracking his knuckles before laying a firm grip against Jacks' shoulder.

Charlie jerks his chin toward the open bay door behind him. "There's a clean car out back. Do him then drive out to the desert," he instructs.

With flecks of blood staining his knuckles, the man grimaces. "I've gotta wash this prick's blood off my hands then get back," he says. "The interceptor will be back for you in a few hours."

He walks off shot, leaving Jacks to be forcibly ejected from his seat and hauled off with the thuggish brothers. The man goes willingly, offering little resistance.

BACK OUTSIDE, the sun hangs low in the blood-orange skies as the three men step from the rear door of the hangar. An unassuming sedan is parked next to a rusted chain link fence. Cory and Kevin lead Jacks toward it, the former slightly pacing ahead to pop the trunk.

Kevin nudges their captive in the back, gesturing at the open compartment. "Lay down and make it easy."

Jacks just stands there, passing a look from one brother to another before he throws his head back and laughs.

Kevin's face scrunches up into a confused scowl, trading glances with Cory before blurting. "Goddamn it, what's so fuckin' funny now?!"

Jacks' cackling dies down to a few breathless chuckles. He brings an arm up to wipe at his eye with a couple of knuckles.

"I shit you not, that's exactly what I said to your mona last night," he wisecracks, earning a snorting chuckle from Cory who barely hides it behind a meaty fist despite his brother's glare.

"Oh you're a real fuckin' funny guy," Kevin sneers, turning his glare from Cory to Jacks. "Shut up."

Their giggling fades, leaving the beaten-to-hell mercenary shaking his head. "Come on, Kev. Don't act surprised, the way to your input's pants is twenty chyen and a marcy-bump."

The aggrieved brother lashes out, whacking Jacks on the side of the head with the butt of his pistol. "I SAID SHUT UP," he wails.

All the while, Cory watches the scene unfold with amusement and folds his arms. "He's got you there," he points out.

Jacks says, "I'm just saying that chica has been on her knees more than a fuckin' Eternalist priest. We should call her Houdini 'cause of all the tricks he's done."

Cory's laughter rises, nearly doubling over in tears. "Aaah, he said that bitch was Houdiiiinii....!!"

"DAMN IT! Both of you, SHUT UP!" Kevin roars at this pair, veins bulging in his beat-red face. He fists a hand through his disheveled, greasy hair, nearly tugging it out in frustration.

Seeing his chance, Jacks spins and shoots out an arm like a piston, fingers flattened like a blade as he hits Kevin square in the throat while the man's guard is down.

Kevin tries to to protest, but it comes out as a wet gurgle. His eyes bulge out, fingers clawing out his throat. Jacks strips the gun from his hand and turns it on Cory before the other brother can draw.

Cory panics. "Now just wait a minute --" A loud bang interrupts him, a bullet planted between his eyes silencing him forever. His body crumbles to the broken asphalt with a thud as Kevin collapses at Jacks' feet, his face turning from beet red to a purple, choking to death.

Jacks methodically brings his arm down, planting the barrel against Kevin's forehead. The shot lingers briefly on his finger beginning to squeeze at the trigger before flickering to...

The muffled sound of a gunshot filters in through the concrete walls that makes up an interior washroom fitted with an old, yellowed toilet, sink and mirror. Charlie stands at the sink, scrubbing blood from his hands.

He wipes the sink clean and flushes the paper towel down the toilet, pausing at the sound. Smiling to himself, he mutters: "So long Jackson."

Charlie turns around to give his reflection one last once-over and straightens his tie, then turns to open the bathroom door.

A scarred hand shoots out, grabbing his collar and wrenching him out the bathroom. He gives a startled shout.

The shot transitions to the open expanse of the hangar bay as Charlie's body skids to a halt across the floor. Before he can get his bearings, a shadow looms over him, and his eyes widen.

"Shit," he exhales, elbows bent as he forces himself upward. "I forgot how good you are."

The shot pans around to reveal Jacks' smug, bruised-and-battered mug staring down at his former mentor. "I learned from the best," he says.

Charlie lumbers to a stand and discards his jacket, letting it drop to the floor. He rolls his shoulders and cracks his neck, sniffing roughly. "Damn right you did," he says, prideful.

In an instant, the older man is launching at his protege with a sharp jab, but Jacks parries and follows up with a devastating head-butt, shattering Charlie's nose.

Blood gushes as his head snaps back from the blow, staining the front of his now wrinkled white button-down. Enraged, Charlie grazes at Jacks with a haymaker, sending him crashing backwards into the ground.

Charlie steps toward Jacks, his Italian cultured leather shoes swinging toward the younger man. The laid-out mentee catches it in his hands and trips Charlie, sending him sprawling out beside him.

He swings up, swiftly bringing his boot down against Ludlow's throat. The two stare at each other with intensity for a moment.

And then, Charlie rasps out, "You killed my son, asshole. What did you expect me to do?"

Jacks gives a humorless laugh. "Nothing less. We're killers, Charlie," he says. "It's all we know." He stomps down.

The scene cuts abruptly to black in a cliff-hanger. In white, bold-fonted words read: TO BE CONTINUED?

Credits roll, crediting various talents with Juju's name prominently displayed as a writer.