Jack realized he’d been acquainted with the gun before — this was the brute that’d butchered Baron von Gatz and General Ching.
“Oh, crap,” he squeezed out.
Just as the Kapitän clicked a switch and opened fire, the Brick stepped between Jack and the gun. Pieces of cinderblock joined bullets ricocheting across the room.
“Whenever…yer …ready,” he heard the Equalizer yell above the ruckus.
Jack’d been stunned, too surprised to think, but his teammate’s comment — and the selfless act of placing himself in the way of the barrage — reminded him that he wasn’t unarmed.
Quickly steeling himself, Jack appraised distance and trajectory, and then jumped clear of the cover offered by the Brick, to fire one bolt. Something tore through his thigh, but the other person’s shooting ceased.
Having blown the Kapitän — or Dolan, or whoever he damned well was — clear through the wall, Jack doubted this terror would be stepping back any time soon.
The Brick was on his knees, Colt cut to ribbons. So much for the cavalry.
After quickly wrapping his leg with a handy towel, Jack placed a hand on the Brick’s broken shoulder. “Bloody well saved me, B. You all right?”
“Yeah, sure, sure,” the Equalizer said, head down. “Yerself…?”
“Leg’s fucked. Looks like the bullet went right on through. Hope so. Hurts like buggery, but I’ll live — I’m way more worried about you.”
“Our…whacko prisoner?”
“El Bastardo won’t be telling us anything else.”
“Bollocks.” The Brick collapsed heavily onto his backside. Jack could now see the extent of damage that’d been done to the Equalizer’s torso — entire bricks were missing or shattered. “Silenced…you think?”
“Maybe. Killed by his own mate.”
“Then it’s up to you, kid.”
“What d’you mean? — I can’t do this alone.”
“You’re gonna have’ta.” The man grabbed Jack’s fingers in his big mitt. “You owe PA an’ me nothin’,” he said, and then coughed. “I’d like yer t’do it fer us…But if not us, do it fer yerself. An’ Louise.”
Jack finally nodded, a slight smile on his face. “For love, eh?” “Zip it. Fer you, her…fer everybody.”
“All right, all right. Where does Wright live?”
“Gimme a moment…the world’s spinnin’. Prick has a pretentious mansion, named Hatfield House, somewhere on South San Rafael Drive. Rich prats round there…Not up on where, precisely, since I’m not one of ’em. Wanker cruises about in a ’48 Talbot Lago T-26 GS Saoutchik coupe — one o’ those crates that won Le Mans, in 1950 I think it were, blue…two-tone…” Even in his bullet-riddled state, the Brick realized he was losing his audience so he pulled up stumps. “Ahh, crap it. Get Stellar t’help ya find ‘im.”
“But she works for this particular prick.”
“No matter — y’can trust her. Pay no heed to PA’s jealous tirades.” Jack could see his partner was vagueing out, becoming distant. “We had fun times, right-o…?”
He wasn’t sure if the Equalizer meant during the short period he was here — something he very much doubted — or the other man’s over all stay in Heropa.
“You need me to get you to hospital? I can take you there now. I’ll call PA.”
“Can still walk, kid…an’ methinks I need a stone mason instead o’ some silly quack. Don’t you worry yerself, I’m not ready to start praticin’ Banquo’s ghost just yet — but I need’ja to get the hell outta here…do our job. Now. Pronto, like…”
#164
After contacting Pretty Amazonia to urgently come collect the Brick, and then popping into a chemist’s to grab bandages and a quart of Cream of Dixie Straight Rye, Jack piled into a taxi, numberplate 7077.
On the back seat headed uptown, while the cabbie nervously checked a rearview mirror, the Equalizer got changed from his partially shredded costume, mopped the blood, wrapped the wound, poured whiskey over it, drank the rest — and spat most of the rotgut out the open window. He’d steeled himself anyway by the time the Cadillac pulled up to the Port Phillip Patriot building.
Upstairs, Gypsie-Ann didn’t need too much arm-wringing.
Once Jack’d bounced through her office door and weathered a degree of abuse about smelling like a brewery, he plopped her down to brief her on the interview-cum-interrogation-cum-massacre of the man in the red hat. She sat up straight, eyes sparkling.