Take Me, Outlaw(46)

Apparently, so could Vole's bodyguards because they both reached for their shoulder holsters in unison. Their faces were matching masks of confusion. They were clearly operating on instinct and had been conditioned to do anything Vole told them and to draw their guns the moment a threat presented itself. But they both also seemed mildly puzzled by their own actions, drawing their guns in a bar full of bikers who clearly outnumbered them ten to one.



Before my brain could even register what was happening, my own .38 snub-nose revolver was in my hand, and I was crouched behind an overturned table, firing hollow point rounds at the gangsters across the room.



In real life, firefights don't resemble their movie-screen counterparts at all. With so many bullets flying and ricocheting, with thunderous gunshots so loud that each one seems to shatter my eardrums and make my jaw ache, with the shards and splinters of debris clouding the air, and the reek of blood and cordite in my nostrils—well, I’m probably going to miss most of the shots I take since I don't have the proper time or focus to aim without getting my own damn head blown off.



But as it happened, I got lucky that night. If you can call it lucky when you make one of the biggest mistakes of your life. I saw one of Vole's guys slide the clip out of his Glock. Before he could grab another and click it into place, I rolled from my table to the safety of the one next to me, firing three bullets in his direction.



The first round went high and wide, zinging off the shelf above the bar.



The second round buried itself in his left shoulder with a meaty thwap.



The third round hit him directly below his windpipe. Both the Glock and clip tumbled to the floor as he clutched his throat, emitted a gurgling whine, and fell face-first on the floor with blood pouring from his mouth.



Vole's other bodyguard was distracted by this for a moment. He let out a sharp cry of grief, and I wondered for a moment whether they'd been related. His brief flicker of hesitation was all the opportunity Growler needed to raise his sawed-off shotgun, rack it, and blast a hole through the second bodyguard's midsection. The impact threw the man against the wall, and he slid down, his gun hanging limply from his bloody fingers, his mouth opening and closing silently like a fish out of water before he slumped over dead.



For the second time that night, a deathly stillness invaded the bar. It was broken only by the soft tinkle of shell casings rolling across the floor and the steady drips of blood from the dead men. My skull felt like it was vibrating.



Kong was dead. A bullet had gone through his eye, and the entire back of his head had turned into a soft, sickeningly-spongy exit wound. He'd served three years, survived a riot, a vicious beating from the guards, and four different attempts on his life just to die on a filthy floor on his first night of freedom.



Vole was gone. No doubt the rat had fled during the gunfight, leaving his own men behind without hesitation. We followed a trail of blood out the back door, and it vanished at the curb where his car had been parked. He was long gone, no doubt already blubbering and tattling to his fat cousin.



We were left with three bodies to get rid of—without Giovanni's help, this time—and a crushing sense of how catastrophically fucked we were now that the Bonaccorso family had become our enemies.



# # #



Now, as I walked back into my living room and started to pull my jeans up over my chilly legs, my eyes fell on the empty handle of cheap vodka on the floor. It was no wonder a hangover gripped my head like a vise. I'd been drinking a lot more than I should have over the past couple of days, partly to escape the shitstorm that I knew was ahead of us all, but mostly to purge the gruesome memories of the rest of that night—sawing through muscle and bone while trying not to throw up, breaking into a hardware store after hours to steal chemicals and plastic tubs, and holding a bandana against my nose and mouth to keep the acid stench of dissolving limbs out of my nostrils.



Suddenly, I heard a soft creak in the hallway outside my door. The pain darted out of my head immediately, replaced with the keen awareness of an animal that knows it's being hunted.



No Reaper would ever come to this building without calling me first.



And no one else would have any reason to come here at all.



Well, at least my hangover's gone. You know what they say—careful what you wish for.



I grabbed my .38 and gently slid the window open, climbing out into the cold December air. Careful not to make a sound, I walked around to the building's entrance and crept into the main hallway, avoiding the floorboards that were loose or noisy.



Sure enough, Vole was standing outside the door of my apartment with a .45 in his hand, clearly working up the nerve to bust in and take me by surprise. The side of his face was swollen and covered in small stick-on bandages where the shards of glass had cut him. His skin was mottled and his bruise was already fading to sickly shades of yellow and brown.



I'd have laughed out loud, if I hadn't felt so insulted.



I planted the barrel of my gun directly in the middle of his back. His entire body jerked with a spasm of surprise. His finger tightened on the trigger, and for a moment, I thought he'd accidentally shoot it off and plant a bullet in the cheap drywall.



Instead, he forced a titter of laughter, high-pitched and girlish. “Lemme’ guess. That ain't no gun. It’s Dikembe Mutombo!”



I cocked the gun, relishing the thick, oiled sound of the hammer snapping back. “Wrong on both counts, rodent. Now drop it, or the next thing you'll feel is the sun shining on your fucking lungs.”

His gun dropped from his fingers and I kicked it, sending it spinning into the corner of the hall. “Good,” I growled. “Now, let's take a little walk.”



“I, uh, already got my exercise this mornin', thanks!” he replied with another inane, infuriating giggle. “You know me...active guy, treadmill, all that...”



I cooed dangerously into his ear. “Remember, the more exercise you get, the better you'll look. Or let me put it another way—if you don't get your ass in gear right now, you're gonna start lookin' real ugly real fast. Now walk, asshole.”



I frog-marched him out to the alley behind the building, trying to ignore the nauseating smell of his dime-store cologne and foul body odor. I wasn't sure what I'd do. Hell, I wasn't sure where I'd go. If Giovanni knew where I lived and his play was to keep sending guys after me, I'd be stupid to stay put.

Which meant I'd have to make sure he didn't keep sending guys.



Which meant not killing Vole, even though the idea of exterminating the wretched bastard once and for all was damn near intoxicating. If he never came back from this errand, it was a sure bet that Giovanni would turn a disastrous misunderstanding into an all-out war. A war the Reapers probably couldn't win, if it came down to it.



I dragged him to a large patch of black ice in the gutter. “Get on your knees.”



Another titter from Vole. The pitch climbed higher still, quavering—betraying his terror. He thought I was going to execute him. Good. “Hey, now, how 'bout buyin' a lady a drink first...?”



I spun him around and bashed the injured side of his face with the butt of my gun, forcing a yowl of pain from him. “Get it straight, Vole. Just because you look funny and you smell funny doesn't mean you are funny. Now get down on your goddamn knees, because the next time you try your stupid jokes on me, I'm gonna pull this trigger and send you to meet your fuckin’ maker. Do not doubt me.”



Vole lowered himself to his knees, and I grabbed a handful of his hair, bringing his face within inches of the ice. I could see his reflection—his eyes wide and bulging, his teeth chattering from the fear and the cold, a bizarre smile still tugging at the corners of his lips.



“Now,” I grunted, “I've got questions. You give me the answers I need, and you can go back to stroking yourself outside of playgrounds, or whatever the hell you do on your days off.”



“Hey, you want answers? Go try Google!” he spat back.



I snapped his head back briskly and slammed his face down against the frozen surface of the puddle. The ice cracked open, revealing the filthy water beneath. Several drops of Vole's blood hit the water, followed by a broken tooth.



“Fime! Fime! Jeebuzz cribe!” he whined. It took my ears a moment to adjust, as I realized he was trying to talk through a busted mouth.



“That's better,” I said. “So, coming here and taking me on yourself...was that your brilliant plan, or did Giovanni send you?”



He gulped, mumbling through the blood on his swelling lips. “Gee-bani. He sen' me to fin' you, see where you were, whab you were doin. Dab's all, I wabn' gon' kill you or nothib. Jus' scare you! Lebbe go!”



“Yeah, you're a real scary guy, Vole. 'Specially the way you pissed your pants and ran while we were ventilating your guys. And let me guess. When you went running back to Big G a couple nights ago minus your little fan club, you made out like it was all our fault, right? One minute everything's cool and rosy, and the next, the big bad bikers huffed and puffed and fucked you all up for no reason?”



Vole snarfed and snuffled, more blood bubbling out of his nose. “I seb you were prob'ly on beth!”



Meth, I thought. Of course he'd say that. What an asshole.