“I’m ready for my word of wisdom,” Jason told the Capuchin seated beside him in the rectory bedroom.

The monkey removed the fiver from his cup and briefly inspected it. “Sunday, at 9:20 a.m., coming south on Millard Avenue, the mayor is sending in the riot squad in three paddy wagons to execute a lightning raid and arrest everyone who attends mass here at St. Michael’s. Father Milligan got murdered for defying the mayor—you could very well be next.”

“Holy shit.” Jason sat stunned. The cops were going to hit the church in force, and the fact that they were the riot squad meant that they would be heavily armed and armored. Jason was about to ask the monkey a clarifying question, when he saw that the monkey had disappeared.

There was the moral issue of killing cops, which made him uneasy, but if you were raiding a church to arrest worshippers, you had crossed the line into tyranny. That was the problem with law enforcement once it became corrupt and decadent; it became much easier to crack down on churchgoers, non-mask wearers, people driving without wearing their seatbelts, or cigarette smokers, rather than try to tackle real crime, like Lucky Luciano and the mob, who were heavily armed, and cast victims’ feet in cement before dumping them into the harbor, or the young, fearless toughs in the gangs controlling the tenements.

So it was going to be war Sunday morning.

Tomorrow was Saturday, and Jason had some preparation to do. As Jason sat on his bed he thought that whoever killed Father Milligan came in through the window right across from him and had a straight path to the bed where Jason slept. That had to be fixed. Jason had to be ready for a killer trying to repeat the late father’s murder.

* * *

“Watch your step, Dad.” Jason and Gramps helped Randy up the steps to Jason’s mother’s house, where the family was gathering for Christmas. It was potentially explosive to have Jason’s father and mother in the same room, plus her new husband Gary, but Randy had promised that he would behave. He had pretty well anesthetized himself to prepare for the potentially awkward gathering.

Jason’s niece and nephew watched the Christmas movie Elf playing on DVD on the living room TV. The two young children sat at a small folding table in the living room, while the adults were gathered at the larger dining room table.

Jason’s sister Elaine and her husband Daryl greeted the three men as they entered the house, as did the kids.

“Hello, Randy,” Jason’s mother said pleasantly. “Merry Christmas.” Her husband Gary mumbled something indistinct.

“Oh, so it’s ‘Randy’ now.” Jason’s father’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Merry Christmas to you, too, Carla.”

The two were divorced, so Jason didn’t know exactly what his father expected his ex-wife to call him, “Pipsie Pooh” maybe?

“Don’ worry ‘bout me Mr. Tooty Feets, I’ll jus’ sit here with my gran’kids, people I can trussst.” Jason’s father dropped down heavily onto the couch. “Sonofabitch!” he growled in pain. “Sorry, there, Limsley. Gotta watch m’ words. Right, there, Mr. Freety Toots?”

“It’s Lindsey!” she said proudly, correcting her grandfather.

“Er was that Fruity Teats?” He slapped the couch and laughed, and Jason thought that the breath his dad exhaled was flammable. “That’s uh good ‘un, Fruity Teats. Don’ worry kids, yer mom’ll ‘splain it all t’you.”

Jason reached into his bag and handed his nephew Bryce a deck of cards he’d bought at the dollar store. “It’s a special magic deck, and I got a couple of other magic tricks for you, too.”

“Cool!” Bryce shouted as he tore off the wrapper.

“For you, Lindsey, I got some hair berets and clips.” Jason handed her a small bag from Claire’s, which specialized in cheap jewelry.

“Wow, look, Mom!” Lindsey exclaimed, holding up a cardboard full of colorful hairclips.

“That was nice of your uncle,” his sister Elaine said, and her husband Daryl nodded in agreement.

“Elaine, Daryl, I’ve got some home-made salsa for you two—I tried not to make it too hot.” Jason removed a couple of Mason jars from his bag and handed them to his sister and her husband.

“Mom,” Jason went to the other side of the table and set a hand over both his mother’s and Gary’s shoulders. “I’m going to cook you and Gary a spaghetti dinner on the night of your choosing. Gramps showed me his special recipe.”

“How r’mantic,” Randy sneered sarcastically. “I bet the sghetti’s as limp as…”

“Son,” Gramps called from the kitchen table. “You said it was Christmas, and you’d be nice.”

“Sure, don’ mind me. I’m jus’ sittin’ here ‘n the couch.” Jason’s father waved his hand vaguely.

Jason’s mom pulled up a decorative shopping bag from beside her, and set it onto the table. “Whoa, that’s heavier than I thought. Son, from me and Gary, including Elaine, Daryl, and the kids, this is for you.”

Jason leaned over and pulled the bag toward him over the table. “Wow, underwear, smoked salmon, and .45 ammunition. Thanks to all of you.”

Jason looked at his mom, then at his grandfather for the okay to tell them. Gramps nodded yes. “I guess Gramps must have already told you guys that he bought me two very, very nice guns. It’s not about money, and it’s the thought that counts, but Gramps spent a fortune, and I was speechless. He really outdid himself.”

“Well,” Gramps said modestly, “Jason needs them for the game.”

“Yeah, so he can shoot it,” Randy blurted out.

Gramps decided to ignore the outburst, and merely shook his head. “Sorry, I think my son is just a little nervous about his upcoming back surgery.”

“Oh, that’s good, Dad,” Elaine said happily. “I’m glad you decided to get that taken care of.”

“Yeah, you’re glad,” Randy muttered, “‘cause it’s not your kibbles ‘n’ bits on the choppin’ block.”

“How’s the game going?” Jason’s mother asked, changing the subject.

Jason was excited and popped open the beer that Gary offered him. “Thanks. I’ve almost got all my college debt paid off, and then I start on the car debt.”

“No, I mean the game,” his mom said, as though her son had misunderstood her.

“Mom, it’s like you haven’t been listening. The game and real life are linked.” Here Jason gestured, interlocking his fingers to illustrate. “As I pay off my debt, like my college loan, in real life, I get richer in the game.”

“I don’t see why you’re in such a hurry to pay off your car loan.” His mom seemed puzzled. “There’s nothing wrong with a car loan.”

Gramps stepped in to explain. “Take my grandfather, who liked having a new car. Every year, he’d go to the car dealership and trade in his car. He told them to roll it over and he’d just keep making payments. He did that for most of his life.”

“And?” Gary asked, not understanding where Gramps was going with the story.

“My grandfather wound up broke in a trailer home,” Gramps explained.

“Hey!” Randy shouted in protest.

“And an alcoholic,” Gramps added.

“Hey!” Randy shouted again. “What happened to nice?”

“Once I get my debt paid off,” Jason told the group, “I can invest in the Dow Jones.”

Jason’s brother-in-law Daryl looked up from the video game he was playing on his phone. “Who’s Dow Jones?”

* * *

It was 9:16 on Sunday morning. Jason wore his fedora down and for once had the face mask on, as though he cared about the Mitral virus “minimum health protocols.” His duffel bag sat beside him at the base of the oleanders, with the zipper undone. No one could see inside his bag, but in an instant Jason could reach in and access serious firepower. He’d saved his old clothes, so he still had the ragged clothes he had when he first got to the city, including the ragged gloves with holes in the fingertips. To anybody passing by, he was a bum who had wandered down from the shelter, but in reality, Jason was armed to the teeth, with two .45s in their shoulder holsters under his jacket, a .38 snubby on his inside right ankle, another snubby in his left jacket pocket, and the sap in the right jacket pocket.

He was more nervous than before a boxing match. When he was boxing, he was facing a beating and a humiliation, but today’s battle could result in death, and no one had explained to Jason what would happen to him if he died in the game. This morning Jason sent off Sister Mildred and Maureen, persuading them to go fishing in upstate New York, and told the sister to take the car. Today’s battle meant war, and the shelter might be shut down, if only because people were too scared to go there after the bodies stacked up. Hell, there were already four dead on the grounds and another in the street just this week, and Jason suspected the body count would be even higher today. But Jason couldn’t let tyrants shut down churches—he didn’t care whose church it was—which was on top of an already vast overreach of government power, mandating masks, quarantines, social distancing, a liquor ban, mandatory viral testing, limiting the capacity and operating hours of certain businesses while leaving others untouched, shutting down schools and restricting travel, while wrecking the economy overall.

Jason leaned forward and spotted a vehicle approaching, as the first boxy blue and white paddy wagon streaked down Millard toward St. Michael’s Church. The riot squad had decided to stay off of the main street, Filmore, where they were more likely to be seen and noticed and stuck to the lesser-traveled Millard to arrive undetected. Jason pulled the black AA-12 from his duffel and checked that the gun had a round chambered. He cradled the automatic shotgun in his lap, and bent forward to gauge the vehicle’s approach, feeling reassured by the 32 rounds of 12-gauge shotgun ammunition in the drum magazine.

Jason leaped up from the curb and brought up the AA-12, firing a round through the driver side window. Upon seeing Jason and the big gun, the driver instinctively ducked down, and the first round of buckshot ripped through the windshield where his head was just a second earlier. The driver’s sudden duck down behind the dash yanked the wheel of the paddy wagon so that it veered to the right.

Jason’s follow up shots on full auto fired with a steady boom-boom-boom-boom, slicing through the driver side door and catching the driver in the hip, then puncturing the sides of the paddy wagon, which was designed to be sturdy, but was not armored. Alternating rounds of buckshot and slugs tore through the vehicle’s side, cutting a swath through the men inside who were sitting on the near bench. The paddy wagon continued to veer right, until its left front tire struck the curb, denting the wheel’s rim, and the vehicle bounded up onto the grass of a residential lawn, where it tipped over before sliding to a halt on its right side.

The next paddy wagon followed right behind it. When Jason brought up the gun, the driver slammed on the brakes in his panic, when the correct move would have been to gun the accelerator. The raid was intended to take down unarmed churchgoers, including old ladies, altar boys, and widows with black veils on the brims of their hats, so no one in the raiding party was expecting to encounter someone wielding a fully automatic shotgun in the middle of the street. The sudden braking caused the third vehicle to slam into the back of the second, and both vehicles skid to a stop, creating a stench of burnt tires.

Jason opened up again, firing boom-boom-boom-boom in a steady cadence, lacing the driver of the second vehicle and zipping into the rear compartment, where slugs tore through tightly-packed men in helmets, carrying hickory sticks and shields. Jason stepped to the side, stitching up the side panel of the paddy wagon as it passed.

The AA-12 fired on full automatic like a machine gun, but its relatively slow rate of fire and hefty weight meant that it was surprisingly easy to control, enabling Jason to put aimed shots on target, rather than just spraying wildly.

Jason ran to the third vehicle, firing into the cab, then raking the side. Jason returned so that he had a field of fire at men in riot gear clambering out of the first paddy wagon, which had toppled over onto someone’s front lawn. Jason fired on the men, mowing them down, and forcing those who were not killed or maimed to crawl back into the overturned wagon. He whirled around and fired selected shots on the second and third vehicles until the bolt locked back on an empty chamber.

Transferring the shotgun to his left hand., Jason drew his .45 automatic with his right hand from his shoulder holster and covered the vehicles as he threw the AA-12 back into the duffel bag. Picking up the bag, he was jogging in the direction of the next street over, Littleton, which ran parallel to Millard, when he saw motion down the street.

Damn monkey. Jason’s five dollars had bought him valuable information, but it was incomplete. A line of unmarked vehicles was pulling up to the church, and he was a half block away.