Chapter 6
806 Words
6
Sometimes, you have to go with instinct.
I get a knee up, and sprint forward.
Sprinting while holding a cello case isn’t easy, but I manage.
I’ve got my fingers wrapped around the edges of the case—if I’m wrong, the gunbunny will shoot out my legs, not my fingers. The bouncing bobbling lid makes the cello case unwieldy, but I can peer through the gap between the lid and the case and still get some protection.
The inside of the van looks almost pitch black against the blazing desert hard-pack and the sunlight reflecting from the white concrete road, but I can make out struggling figures inside.
A shot. Close.
But not at me.
The stink of gunpowder grows stronger with each step.
I need speed more than anything now.
Good-bye, cello case. It hits the pavement with a heavy thud, and I’m suddenly light as a balloon.
My feet dance across the dusty pavement.
Another scream from inside the van.
A scrawny woman in knock-off desert camo topples out from the open front passenger door. The hilt of a knife protrudes from her throat.
Her hands scrabble at the bloody haft.
Bright red blood sizzles on hot white concrete.
I’d bought time for Deke—
—but Stabbity Joe had claimed it as well.
I can make out the gunbunny. He’s still in the van’s back seat with his big assault rifle, right where he’d planted himself to shoot at me. With the passenger out of the way he’s got the rifle wrenched most of the way around towards Stabbity Joe.
Failed Villain must have been driving. I’m guessing Stabbity Joe took him out, then the woman in the front passenger seat.
In some ways, letting the gunbunny fill Stabbity Joe with bullets would simplify my future.
But it wouldn’t be professional.
I pull my .38 and start shooting.
My first shot goes wide, but the gunbunny jerks his attention back towards me.
His rifle starts swinging back towards me.
Idiot. Always shoot the enemy you’re aiming at, then switch targets.
I pull off another shot.
Miss again.
It’s hard to hit a target while running, but my shots keep the gunbunny’s attention long enough for a knife handle to sprout from his ear.
I don’t like throwing knives. Each knife has its own unique weight and balance. Each is suitable only for certain targets. I don’t even like fighting hand-to-hand with a knife. It’s too easy to make the sort of mistake that increases funeral expenses.
Knives are a real pain to master.
Somehow, Stabbity Joe had thrown a knife from outside the driver’s side door, between the seats, and hit a tiny, tiny target. No, not the gunbunny’s brain—his ear, then into the brain.
The gunbunny spasms. His hand clenches. A quick burst sprays off into nowhere, then his seizing arm wrenches the hand further back and the rifle slips from his death grip.
Today seems like a good day for other people to die.
The gunbunny’s body slumps. His rifle clatters against the edge of the van’s door and out onto the ground.
I get to the van’s gaping door, .38 in two hands in front of my face, and glance inside. This close, I get a good view of the driver’s body draped over the blood-drenched steering wheel. More blood spatters the dashboard, the seats, the doors. The van only had three people inside, and they’ve all died with their hearts pumping their life blood out around stab wounds. The stink turns to copper glue in my sinuses, and my throat threatens to close in self-defense.
For a vital second, the only sound is my hammering heartbeat and the distant roar of a million oblivious drivers on the distant freeway.
Looking at the c*****e, I wish I was with them.
Don’t get me wrong—if it’s them or me, it’s gonna be them. But I really would have rather gotten away clean. My favorite gigs are those where nobody knows I’ve been there until they open the safe.
At least I don’t know any of them. Killing strangers leaves me less sad.
This gig had gone bloody the moment Lou and I laid our hands on the Grand Duke. We were lucky to get this far unscathed.
Through the open window of the driver’s door Stabbity Joe says, “Looks all clear.”
“All clear here,” I say.
“Got it,” Deke says in my earpiece.
On the hot pavement next to me, the dying woman’s delicate, gold-ringed fingers stop dancing around the knife blade protruding from her neck and collapse into the spreading pool of blood. The red looks absurdly bright in the quick-rising sun.
Search the minivan? No, no time. We need to finish this.
“Beaks,” Stabbity Joe says. “Check out my problem.”
What? I look over at Stabbity Joe. He’s got his head tilted so that the bright red baseball cap shields his eyes from the sun, and he can barely peer at me under the brim.
But there’s enough visibility to see his eyes fixed on me.
“Your man,” Stabbity Joe says. “My Problem?”
Lou.
I whirl.
Another impossibly bright red pool is spreading from the far side of my sedan.
- Writer
