Chapter 19: Hammerhead? Keep It Up and I'll Plant You in the Ground Like a Root Vegetable
In the downpour, Matthew and the bald man held each other's gaze. The air between them had the particular quality of a situation that was about to go one specific direction. The bald man's finger was beginning to apply pressure to the trigger.
Then, from behind the bald man, a very clear and very deliberate sound.
The mechanical click of a gun being cocked. Precise and close.
"What the—! I told you, when you go out for a fight, you chamber the round before you get there! Are you all deaf?!" The bald man wheeled on his crew.
Then the cold ring of a muzzle against the back of his skull brought him to a full stop. He had spent enough time around firearms to identify the sensation immediately.
"Not deaf," said a voice behind him. "Sorry."
From the shadows at the edge of the street, Walrus materialized. His uniform was completely soaked through. The service pistol in his hand was trembling slightly from nerves, but he was pressing it firmly to the back of the bald man's head with both hands and showing no immediate signs of backing down.
As a patrol officer, he had made the sensible call earlier. He was not getting involved in a gang dispute. He had watched Matthew walk into Hell's Kitchen alone and decided, on solid practical grounds, that following him in was not what his salary covered. He had turned around and started walking away.
Then he had thought about the small girl. She was roughly the same age as his daughter. He had turned back around, continued into Hell's Kitchen, and somehow ended up with his gun pressed to a gangster's skull in a rainstorm, which was a sequence of events he was already regretting.
There was no clean exit from this now.
"Officer." The bald man's tone was contemptuous but calm. "On your salary, you really want to risk your life over this? Look around. One of you, a lot of us. Even if you put one in my head, do you genuinely think you walk out of Hell's Kitchen after that?"
Everything Walrus wanted to say in response began with something along the lines of "Is it too late for me to leave now?" What actually came out was: "Shut it! Weapons down! Release the hostage!"
The bald man looked confused. "What hostage? Who are you talking about?"
We don't have any hostages on our side. If anything, you've got me.
"Don't play dumb! The little girl!"
"...Me?" Nikki, who had not yet fully processed the last twenty minutes, looked up from her grief and pointed at herself.
When did I become a hostage? I came here on my own. I chose to follow Mr. Lawrence.
She was about to say something when Matthew made a quick silencing sound in her direction.
"Officer Walrus!" he called out loudly. "I've had a change of heart! I'm releasing the hostage! You can take her now!"
Then, under his breath: "Go with him. When you get out, go to the Umbrella Corporation's front desk and tell them Matthew Lawrence sent you. They'll handle everything."
"But sir, you're only here because of me, I can't just—"
"Less talking." He put his foot to her backside and shoved, not gently.
She was eight years old. She would be useless in a fight and in serious danger once one started. That was all there was to it.
Nikki stumbled forward and scrambled to Walrus's side.
Walrus exhaled quietly. He kept the gun pressed to the bald man's skull and began backing up slowly, raising his voice as he moved: "Backup is on its way! I strongly suggest you all stand down! The Magia Gang's time is running out!"
His backward steps stopped.
He turned his head.
Under the amber street lamp, blocking his retreat, was a figure he had not heard approach. Large, wearing a blue suit, with a head shape that was genuinely difficult to describe in neutral terms. He was holding a Thompson submachine gun. Behind him were several dozen more men, also armed, expressions like men who worked for someone they did not question.
Walrus had not finished forming a response to this development before the figure grabbed him by the collar and headbutted him directly.
The world went out like a light.
Nikki pressed herself against the wall as the man stepped over Walrus without looking at him, glancing down at the unconscious officer and the huddled girl with mild disdain, and spat on the sidewalk.
"The Magia Gang's time is running out." He produced a white handkerchief and dabbed the small amount of blood the impact had transferred to his own forehead. "I thought it might be Kingpin. Turns out it's just some beat cop from midtown."
He tucked the handkerchief away and stepped fully out of the shadow, his voice carrying easily over the rain.
"A patrol officer, throwing his weight around in Magia territory. Seems like people have forgotten the name Hammerhead."
Hammerhead. Real name Joseph.
He had taken a severe head wound in a gang dispute some years back. A black-market surgeon whose credentials were not the first thing anyone asked about had fitted him with an expensive implant: a vibranium plate, shaped and seated across the front and top of his skull.
The particular properties of vibranium, specifically its capacity to absorb kinetic energy and its extraordinary hardness, gave Hammerhead a head that knives, axes, and bullets had all failed to meaningfully affect.
The rumors had proliferated from there, the kind that travel fast in criminal circles because the criminal economy runs on reputation. The Magia Gang, operating under Hammerhead's leadership, had risen from obscurity to one of Hell's Kitchen's dominant organizations.
Matthew observed all of this and had one private comment:
What was wrong with these gangsters? Were they all trained to aim specifically at the head? If even one of them had mediocre aim and put a round into the femoral artery or the center mass, a vibranium skull plate would be entirely irrelevant. The entire legend was built on the assumption that everyone in every firefight decided to aim for the head specifically.
It did not seem like a robust basis for criminal empire building.
Hammerhead accepted a cigar from one of his men, already cut and lit, and drew from it slowly. The smoke moved in the rain.
"I know who you are," he said, looking at Matthew standing alone in the middle of the street. "Matthew Lawrence. The new security director over at Umbrella. Just took over." He held the cigar at an angle. "Out of respect for that position, I'll give you one chance."
"Share a portion of your father's assets with the Magia Gang, and you walk out of here alive. Reasonable?"
In his read of the situation, Matthew had nowhere to go. He would take the offer or he would not leave Hell's Kitchen.
"Boss," the bald man added from the side. "My brother. Don't forget my brother."
A pause.
"Right," Hammerhead said. "And his brother."
Matthew stood there for a moment. He put his little finger in his ear briefly, as though he had not quite caught the words, and then made a short sound somewhere between a laugh and a dismissal.
"Let me make sure I understand this." His voice came through the rain without particular effort. "I am the security director of an international corporation. Pharmaceuticals, military contracting, advanced technology. You are asking me, in order to continue living, to hand over my family's assets to a street-level gang boss who has to fight other people for his own territory."
"On top of that, you want Pete back."
He looked at Hammerhead directly.
"Are you drunk on cheap liquor? Does having a steel plate in your skull make you think you're an actual threat to someone? Because from where I'm standing, you're a third-rate crime boss in a neighborhood the city forgot about. I want to know who gave you the confidence to stand in front of me and make demands."
He shook his head.
"Maybe things would have been different before. Actually, no." He reconsidered mid-sentence and landed somewhere else entirely. "Even right now. Keep this up and I will plant you headfirst in the ground and you can spend the rest of your time cosplaying as a root vegetable."