The Rampage of Ryan O'Hara
Read The Rampage of Ryan O'Hara Online
Authors: James R. Pera
This book is a work of fiction. Names of people, organizations, characters and instances are a product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2012 James R. Pera
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1466341459
ISBN 13: 9781466341456
eBook ISBN: 978-1-62112-140-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011916856
CreateSpace, North Charleston, SC
PART 1
The Delgadillos
CHAPTER
1
R
yan O’Hara sat on the steps watching as an inferno engulfed a three-story Chicago brownstone across the street that had, until a few minutes ago, been the home of a couple of well-known radical college professors.
Leaning against the railing, he lit a cigarette and smiled as he drew in the smoke and watched the firefighters arrive too late to save the inhabitants from a painful death—a death that, as far as Ryan was concerned, was long overdue.
His only regret was that the bloodcurdling screams for help emanating from the third floor, where he’d tied up the two professors, would not last long enough.
The agonizing cries of Professor Bill Delgadillo and his wife, Brenda, brought him pleasure and he found himself thinking out loud, “Burn in hell, you murdering slimeballs!”
He listened with delight as the former revolutionary terrorists from the Vietnam War era issued their panicked pleas for help to a street full of onlookers who could do nothing to save them. Their pain was his pleasure and he reveled in the thought of them melting away as if they were nothing more than wild pigs roasting over a barbecue at a rural hunting lodge.
Common sense dictated that Ryan leave the scene immediately after handcuffing the couple and their nephew and torching the building, but that course of action would not have brought him satisfaction. The vengeance he was seeking required him to secure and taunt his prey, watching as the gasoline he had spread throughout the ground-floor living room of the home and up the stairs to the second and third floors turned the dwelling into a furnace, with his victims as fuel.
The presence in the home of the nephew, Hugo Delgadillo, was a welcome bonus to his lust for revenge. Bill and Brenda had brought Hugo into their home when he was an infant, shortly after Bill’s brother Evo and his wife, Dilma, were sentenced to life imprisonment for the murders of two Berkeley, California, police officers and a bank security guard. The murders occurred during the course of a robbery in 1982.
Evo and Dilma, like Bill and Brenda, were members of a radical Marxist organization known as Lenin’s Legion. They’d committed the robbery and murders along with members of the Black Socialist Army, a black separatist group whose goal was to carve out a section
of the southeast United States for a black communist nation.
The two radical groups were allied with one another and intended to share the money stolen in the robbery to finance their joint enterprises of killing cops, blowing up government buildings, and overthrowing the government.
Ryan had enjoyed telling Hugo why he must die. “You must die for the sins of your parents, your aunt, and your uncle,” he’d explained.
Hugo had pleaded with him, insisting that he was not responsible for the acts of his elders.
Ryan explained that he was of “bad seed” and would have to be eliminated with Bill and Brenda, lest he carry on their subversive and destructive agenda—something he knew Hugo was already doing. Hugo’s frequent trips to South America, where he served as an on-again, off-again advisor to several of that region’s Marxist dictators, made it apparent that he was following in the footsteps of his communist aunt and uncle.
Briefly interrupting his discussion with Hugo, Ryan ascended the stairs to check on Bill and Brenda, giving the emotionally destroyed man time to contemplate his demise.
He entered the third- floor bedroom overlooking the street where his other two targets were detained and smiled. He was there, he explained, “to bring closure to a little matter that has been left unsettled for thirty-six years.”
Ryan stepped into the hallway and returned with a can of gasoline that he’d partially emptied as he’d climbed the stairs a few minutes earlier. He had saturated the
carpet on the staircase, beginning in the living room, where Hugo was handcuffed to the banister, and ending on the third floor, where Bill and Brenda were being detained. He poured some of the gasoline on the curtains that covered the bedroom’s two side windows and then sloshed some along the edges of the carpet, being careful not to splash any near his prey. He did not want them to be immolated too quickly, preferring that they have time to see the room go up in flames while they contemplated their imminent vaporization.
Bill began to cry. Ryan cuffed him across the face with the back of his hand, softly asking, “What’s the matter, little bomber boy, afraid to die for the revolution?”
Brenda pleaded but was quietly rebuffed. “Shut up, bitch! You should have thought about the possible consequences when you went down the path you chose forty years ago.”
After making sure that the two were still securely cuffed to the radiator in the bedroom, Ryan went back downstairs and explained to a panicked Hugo why he was going to be roasted alive. The young man fainted, but Ryan slapped him and doused him with cold water and Hugo soon regained consciousness.
Thus began the narrative that preceded the justice that was about to be administered to these lowlifes by a man whose family had suffered for the past three and a half decades. He was only asking that those who had caused the suffering pay by suffering, if for only a few minutes, as he facilitated their exit from the planet.
2
R
yan spotted a liquor cabinet, retrieved a bottle of brandy, and, after a few seconds, located a snifter. He poured a generous slug for himself as Hugo watched anxiously. Ryan drank and enjoyed the warm, soothing effect of the alcohol.
“You know, Hugo my boy, I’d give you a pull off this bottle, but you’re going to be dead soon and that would be a terrible waste of good booze. So I think I’ll just drink your share while we talk.”
Hugo gagged, his throat tightening as he tried, unsuccessfully, to emit something that resembled speech.
Ryan continued, “So, Hugo, do you have any family other than those two cretins who are upstairs waiting to die?”
Hugo whimpered but did not answer. Ryan became impatient, clenched his fist, and smashed him in the nose. Blood splattered across Hugo’s shirt and he screamed in pain as it gushed down his chin and onto the floor. He sobbed uncontrollably.
Ryan said, “Oh, you do have a voice. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like you to answer my question, scumbag. Do you have a family?”
Hugo managed to point upstairs as he choked out the words, “My aunt and uncle.”
“Oh, yes, them I know. But do you have any other family?”
“Yes!” cried the doomed man. “My cousins.”
Ryan looked amused as he continued, “Too bad they’re not here. I’d have liked to meet them. Maybe I’ll have that pleasure another day. Do you think they’ll miss the three of you, Hugo?”
“Well, I uh…”
Ryan cut him off. “Shut up, shithead, and listen to my story. I’m going to tell you about families who miss their loved ones, and when I’m finished, you’ll know why you’re going to fry.”
“Once upon a time,” he began, “there was a little eight-year-old boy with red hair and a freckled face. He was full of joy and happiness and was part of a big, happy Irish family in San Francisco. The little boy lived with his parents, his younger sister, and his little brother in a nice house in the Outer Sunset district of the City by the Bay, just down the street from his grandma and
grandpa.” He paused. “Are you listening to me, Hugo? Or am I going to have to give you another face-lift?”
‘Yes. Yeah, I’m listening. But what’s this got to do with me?” he whimpered.
“Oh, it’s got everything to do with you, Hugo. Just listen and you’ll soon see what I’m talking about.”
He went on, “My grandpa was my idol and I was the apple of his life. We were inseparable. We went everywhere and did everything together. When he got off work at eight o’clock in the morning, he’d come straight home and drive me to school. When school ended at two-thirty, he was right there to pick me up and take me home, usually after a stop at the ice-cream store for a treat or at Golden Gate Park to throw the ball around. Sometimes he’d take me over to Stow Lake for a boat ride. On Saturdays, he’d take me fishing at Lake Merced and then finish the day by treating me to a hamburger and milkshake at my favorite Drive-In on Geary Boulevard.
“He sang old Irish ballads. He told me about growing up in the Mission District during the Depression, whiling away his time in the neighborhood parks playing football and baseball, or boxing at the local Boys’ Club, where he trained for the Golden Gloves.
“After he graduated from high school, he served in World War II as an Army Air Force tail gunner on a B-17, flying missions over Europe.”
“But what does…?”
“Shut up!” Ryan barked. “Shut up, you filthy scrote, and listen to my story. The only thing I want to hear out of you is a prayer before I light your ass up!
“Now, getting back to my story, I was really proud of my grandpa and I’ll tell you why. My grandpa was a
policeman. He wore a big gun and a blue uniform with a seven-pointed star. When he took me to school each morning, all the kids looked at me with envy because they wished they had a grandpa who wore a big gun and a blue uniform.”