Jack Daniels Six Pack

by J. A. Konrath

  It’s cool, dark, quiet. Jack lives in a woodsy area, practically a forest preserve. Phin walks alongside the winding road, not thinking about why Jack called him. There’s no point in speculation. Especially since he’ll know the reason soon enough.

  A pop! pierces the calm of the night.

  Gunfire. Far away.

  Phin reaches behind him, retrieving the revolver he has shoved into the back of his belt. The gun is a .38, a scratch-and-dent that has probably been involved in crimes dating back to the 1960s. It was all Phin could get on such short notice. He picked it up an hour ago, off a gangbanger selling Thai stick to Wrigleyville yuppies in an alley off of Addison. Phin relieved the dealer of his gun, his stash, and eight to ten teeth.

  He squints at the revolver in the moonlight, swings out the cylinder, counts six rounds. The gun is old but looks clean, cared for. Phin hopes it can fire. He breaks into a jog, holding the weapon at his side, finger off the trigger.

  Another gunshot. Closer than before, but still a good distance away. Then another. Phin stops, scans the trees around him. Sees nothing. He moves to the tree line, alert, cautious.

  Jack has privacy out here, that’s for sure. He walks another hundred yards before he sees her house in the distance. A few interior lights are on. Four cars are parked in the driveway. As he gets closer, he sees that two of the cars have been shot up; windows broken, wheels popped.

  Now Phin does lapse into speculation. Jack’s a cop. Phin is not. If she has people shooting at her, why didn’t she call other cops?

  Phin can think of two reasons.

  One, because the people shooting at her are cops.

  Two, because someone Jack is with wants Phin specifically.

  Phin hasn’t been a criminal for very long, but he’s managed to pack a lot of crime into just a few years. He’s made enemies. It isn’t inconceivable that one of them is using Jack to get to him. Though they don’t see much of each other, Phin considers Jack a friend. It’s a strange friendship, centering around occasional games of pool, but there’s mutual respect. And strangely, considering their opposing vocations, there’s also a sense of trust. Someone may have picked up on that. Someone bad.

  Another shot. Phin sees a muzzle flash, maybe two hundred yards away, in the woods across the street from Jack’s house. He heads for it.

  A vehicle, coming up the road behind him. Phin hears it before the headlights come around the bend. He ducks into the trees, watches it pass. A truck, a Bronco or a Blazer. Single driver, tearing ass toward Jack’s house. It stops in the street. Phin can’t see what’s happening—he’s still too far away.

  He cocks the .38 and creeps closer, moving slow and silent.

  11:03 P.M.

  KORK

  I’M RIGHT ABOUT JACK being lucky. She might very well be the luckiest bitch on the planet.

  I yawn. It’s not from boredom. I can’t remember many days in my life that have been more exciting than this one. But fatigue is setting in. I’m tired. Sore. Part of me is tempted to get the hell out of here, find a nice bed-and-breakfast someplace quiet, murder the owners and spend a few days just relaxing.

  But I’m not going to leave without killing Jack and Company. Plus there’s still the matter of the gun nuts surrounding the house who can’t aim for shit but still have managed to complicate things. I counted three. They’re using bolt action rifles with suppressors, and a variety of ammunition and scopes. Not pros. Anyone with military experience could have wiped out everyone in the house a long time ago. Hunters, maybe. Or wannabe soldiers.

  Whoever they are, they seem angry at Jack, and I don’t expect they’ll give up any time soon. I’ll have to deal with them eventually, but first things first.

  I pick up the gun Harry dropped and I’m not surprised to find it empty. I toss it onto the workbench.

  Then I check the door to the house. Locked. It’s one of those security doors, a solid wood center sandwiched between metal plates, steel or aluminum. The jamb and frame are heavy-duty as well. I can’t kick it in, because the hinges are on this side.

  I spy the automatic garage door opener next to the door. I could open it, run outside, and find another way into the house. But then I’d be opening myself up for target practice.

  I glance at the door to the house again. Maybe there’s a key for the dead bolt in the garage somewhere. I check the workbench and see something even better than a key.

  I walk over to it, feeling a warmth well up inside me, the same warmth I always feel when I have a chance to kill someone in an exciting new way.

  It’s not gas powered, unfortunately. It’s electric. But Jack has thoughtfully provided me with a fifty-foot extension cord, easily long enough to reach the hallway bathroom where everyone is hiding.

  I pick it up. It feels natural in my hands, like something I was born to hold. I smile.

  Then I search around for an outlet, so I can plug in my new chain saw.

  11:07 P.M.

  JACK

  A BEE IS IN THE CAR with me. A giant bee, the size of an egg. It buzzes around my head, and I try to get out of the car but the doors are broken. I’m terrified of bees, because I’m allergic to them. So when it lands on my shoulder I can’t swat it because I don’t want to get stung, and it stares at me with malevolent eyes, knowing I’m helpless, knowing it can kill me whenever it wants to.

  The car crashes into a tree and begins to roll down the side of a hill. I open my eyes, panicked and dizzy and hurting all over.

  I’m not in a car. I’m on the floor, and Harry is shaking me.

  But I can still hear the bee buzzing.

  “Wake up, Jackie! We’re in some shit.”

  I look over my shoulder, see a chain saw sticking through the door to the garage. The buzzing blade is gradually cutting away the door-knob and dead bolt.

  I try to stand up, and Harry drags me back down. There’s a ping and the refrigerator door in front of us vibrates from a bullet impact.

  “We’re pinned down,” Harry says. “Can you move?”

  I nod, and that simple movement causes everything to go black again. More shaking from Harry.

  “Dammit, Jackie! Stay awake!”

  “Breaker,” I mumble.

  “What?”

  “Circuit…breaker.”

  “Mom!” Harry screams. “Cut off the electricity!”

  I glance back at the door. The chain saw is really throwing off some sparks. It’s almost pretty, like fireworks.

  I close my eyes and think about the Fourth of July.

  11:09 P.M.

  MARY

  MARY STRENG HEARS the chain saw in the garage. She sticks her head out of the bathroom, around the refrigerator, and sees it cutting through the door.

  She knows the chain saw is electric. Knows they need to trip the circuit breaker.

  Mary also knows that the circuit breaker is behind a small childproof door. When you have rheumatoid arthritis, childproof is synonymous with adultproof.

  She looks at Herb, sprawled out on the bathroom floor, clutching his leg in a codeine/pain fever dream.

  Then she looks at Latham, who doesn’t appear much better. His eyelids are halfway closed, and he’s white as milk.

  Neither one of them can make it to the fuse box.

  A woman screams, “Mom! Cut off the electricity!”

  But the woman isn’t Jacqueline. Mary looks in the hall again.

  “Mom!”

  It’s Harry. Apparently his voice goes up a few octaves when he’s terrified.

  Mary tries to think of an answer, comes up blank, and hurries down the hallway, into the laundry room. She hooks a finger into the cruel metal ring on the circuit breaker door. That simple act alone brings agony. Even with the codeine, and the vodka, Mary’s hands have never hurt so badly.

  And it’s about to get worse.

  Mary sets her jaw and tugs, fast and hard.

  It’s like sticking her hand in a furnace.

  The door doesn’t budge.
<
br />   She eases up, tries to change fingers. Her hand is shaking so much she can’t get ahold of the handle. Mary switches to lefty.

  “Mom! I’m too pretty to die!”

  Harry again. That guy certainly is a complainer. Must be Ralph the sailor’s genes.

  She hooks her left index finger in the ring, closes her eyes, and jerks her whole arm back.

  The pain takes away her breath. But the door swings open.

  Mary releases the handle, reaching for the breaker, but the spring engages and slaps the door closed.

  “SHE’S ALMOST THROUGH!”

  Now both of Mary’s hands are trembling. She tries her right hand, then her left hand, and can’t grip the damnable metal ring. Despair mingles with anguish, and Mary curses herself for being a worthless old woman, of no use to anyone, not even able to—

  On the dryer, atop a stack of sweaters, is a coat hanger.

  She snatches it up, puts the hook through the metal ring, and pulls like hell.

  The door swings open.

  Mary reaches inside the panel and jabs at the main breaker switch, plunging the house into darkness and silence.

  11:11 P.M.

  MUNCHEL

  AGAIN WITH THE GODDAMN LIGHTS. Munchel sighs, wondering why the military doesn’t make a scope that works in the daylight and the nighttime. Then soldiers wouldn’t have to switch scopes every three goddamn minutes.

  He sits up, rubs his eyes, and sees Pessolano in the truck up the street.

  It’s about damn time.

  Munchel stands, stretches, and begins to walk across the grass toward him. The wind is still strong, and has dropped a dozen degrees, hinting at the harsh winter doubtlessly drawing near. Once he spreads the word to the soldier-for-hire underground that he was part of the Chicago pervert murders, he expects his ser vices to be in great demand, fetching premium dollars. Munchel decides that his next merc gig will be someplace warm, like Bosnia. Or Atlanta.

  Munchel pauses, briefly, at the corpse of Swanson, and grins at him.

  “You gonna eat that, Greg? No?”

  He reaches down and plucks the granola bar from Swanson’s cold, dead fingers, and tears the wrapper open with his teeth.

  Cinnamon raisin. Munchel’s favorite.

  “You want some, buddy?”

  He breaks off a corner, bounces it off Swanson’s face.

  Predictably, Swanson doesn’t protest. Though Munchel wouldn’t be surprised if the former TUHC leader did suddenly sit up and start bitching, complaining that his piece isn’t big enough, or that they should just leave the cop alone and run to Mexico, or some other bullshit.

  Munchel continues onward, and finds Pessolano poking around in the back of his Bronco.

  “You got any fleece in there, man? It’s colder than a penguin’s nuts out here.”

  Pessolano pulls a small stack of clothing from the cargo bay.

  “That don’t look too warm.”

  “It’s Dragon Skin. Tactical body armor. Stronger than Kevlar.”

  Pessolano takes Munchel’s TPG-1, trading it for a vest. Munchel rubs the fabric between his fingers.

  “It’s thin.”

  “But it can still stop an AK-47. Maybe…if Swanson had one on…”

  Pessolano stows the rifle. He looks like he’s going to start bawling again, and Munchel doesn’t think he can stomach another display.

  “He’s in a better place,” Munchel says, popping the rest of the granola bar into his mouth. “Where are the Desert Eagles?”

  Pessolano reaches into the truck again, comes out with an aluminum suitcase with combination locks on the buckles. Munchel waits, becoming progressively annoyed as Pessolano keeps screwing up the numbers. The dummy finally gets the case open, revealing two huge nickel-plated handguns, nestling in individual foam compartments.

  Munchel whistles, reaching for a gun. The damn thing has to weigh more than five pounds. You could kill a person just by hitting him over the head with it.

  “This is the Desert Eagle Mark XIX,” Pessolano says. “It uses fifty-caliber Action Express rounds—the biggest handgun bullets on the market. Same length as a .44 Magnum, but wider. It has almost eight times the stopping power of a nine millimeter. What it hits, it kills.”

  “Can it go through the Dragon Skin?”

  “I wouldn’t want to try it to find out.”

  “How many rounds does it hold?”

  “Seven. And they’re really expensive, so don’t waste them.”

  Munchel spins, aims at the house, and squeezes the trigger. The BOOM is so loud it feels like someone slapped him in the ears, and the recoil jerks his arm back.

  Awesome.

  “I said they’re expensive!” Pessolano screams.

  Munchel grins at him. “Shit, man. I’ll write you a check.”

  He helps himself to the box of bullets, popping the clip and adding two more. Seven plus one in the throat. Pessolano says something, but Munchel can’t hear him through the ringing in his head.

  “Huh?”

  “How do you want to do this?” Pessolano yells.

  Munchel considers it. Everyone is holed up in the hallway, behind the refrigerator, except for that crazy bitch with the chain saw in the garage.

  “We bust in the front door,” he says. “I’ll take the house. You take the garage.”

  Pessolano nods, then he spends a minute untangling his bulletproof vest, trying to get it on. He’s like a child, unable to find the armhole. This convinces Munchel that Pessolano is lying about his military experience. Munchel doesn’t have a problem with lying. He lies to his mama, about when he’s going to visit her next. He lies to his foreman at the English muffin factory, about being sick when he’s actually just hungover. He even lies to hookers, telling them he works for the CIA. But Pessolano’s lies are dangerous. Munchel is supposed to trust this guy with his life, have full confidence that Pessolano has his back.

  How good can he watch Munchel’s back when he can’t even put on a simple vest?

  Munchel decides he isn’t going to work with Pessolano again. True, the man has some cool weapons and equipment, but someone of Munchel’s professional stature shouldn’t associate with amateurs.

  Munchel straps on the Dragon Skin, finishing before Pessolano does. He spreads his hands, to show Pessolano how easy it really is, and then hears a gunshot come from the trees behind him. At practically the same time, he feels a slap in the back.

  He drops to the ground, crawling to the other side of the truck, adrenaline raging. Pessolano scurries beside him.

  “You hit?”

  Munchel nods. He allows Pessolano to turn him around, examine his back.

  “Vest stopped it. You hurt?”

  Munchel shakes his head. It feels like he’s been snapped by a rubber band.

  Holy shit, he thinks. I actually got shot.

  I got shot and I survived.

  He can picture himself in a seedy bar in South Africa, playing poker and drinking rotgut with a bunch of other mercs, casually mentioning how he got shot on his first job. A crazed smile appears on his face.

  “He’s in the woods,” Pessolano says. “If we rush at him from two sides, we can flush him out. You ready?”

  Munchel nods, feeling invincible.

  “Let’s do it,” Pessolano says. “On my count.”

  Munchel doesn’t wait. He stands up and charges straight into the trees.

  11:18 P.M.

  PHIN

  PHIN RETREATS INTO THE FOREST, moving fast. He’s lost one-sixth of his ammunition, along with the element of surprise. All he’s gained is the secure knowledge that his recently acquired revolver sucks. He’d been less than fifty feet away, aiming directly at the man’s head. The bullet hit the lower back instead.

  At least the gun didn’t explode in my hand.

  From the short amount of time he’d observed the two men, Phin didn’t get the impression they were cops. They aren’t soldiers either, despite their camouflage outfits. And Phin d
oesn’t recognize them, though he didn’t get a good look at their faces.

  But it really doesn’t matter who they are. The only thing that currently matters is that they’re coming after him. And they have much better guns.

  Phin ducks under some low-hanging branches, jumps over a fallen tree, and finds himself in a small clearing. He jogs around the edge of it, kicking up dead leaves. Then he cuts back into the woods and heads back toward Jack’s house, approaching it on an angle.

  He steps onto Jack’s property, on the southwest corner of her house. It’s completely dark. He can hear the men fumbling through the forest behind him. Phin jogs across the open stretch of lawn, energy fading. When he reaches the window by the garage, Phin considers his options. He can go for help, but by the time help arrives the yahoos with the Desert Eagles might kill Jack.

  Of course, she might already be dead.

  He can continue to play hide-and-seek, try to pursue his pursuers. But Phin has no training, no military experience. He can fight, and he can shoot, but that’s the extent of his commando skills.

  Or he can break into the house, grab Jack and whoever else is inside, and try to herd them all to safety.

  That seems best. Phin fishes out a pocket flashlight, attached to his key chain, and peers in the garage window. He sees stacked cardboard boxes. Phin strips off his T-shirt, wads it up against the glass, and smacks the cloth with his gun. There’s noise as the glass shatters, but not too much. He clears away the big pieces of glass, spreads his shirt over the pane, and climbs inside, wiggling between the wall and the boxes.

  Phin holds his breath, listens. Hears nothing.

  The boxes are all various sizes and weights. He tucks the revolver into the back of his jeans and wastes a few minutes finding his way through the cardboard maze, picking up, climbing over, and shifting all of Jack’s crap. When he finally makes it to the middle of the garage, a space opens up, and he sighs in relief.

  That’s when someone hits him in the head with a shovel.