by Nick Petrie
“Hands up,” Peter shouted. “Hands up, hands up, or you’re all gonna die.”
“Jarhead’s a goddamn natural,” Lewis murmured softly, as if to himself.
The white static kept Peter crisp and tight. He saw grocery shelves to the right and a long counter to the left with a bald man standing behind it. He had black-framed glasses slipping down his nose and hands sliding out of sight.
The white static sizzled and Peter fired a three-round burst past the bald man’s ear. His hands flew empty into the air as the soft-serve machine bled chocolate ice cream slowly down its polished chrome front.
Behind a big gleaming table in the back, King Robbie jumped to his feet. The abrupt movement rocked the table, knocking over beer bottles and dumping a big pistol sideways to the floor as his chair toppled behind him. King’s eyes bulged and he reached for the gun that was no longer there.
On the near side of the table, Charlene Scott had already stood and turned toward Peter with her right hand inside her seersucker jacket, hand closing on the butt of her pistol, face empty as a headstone waiting for the carver.
Beside her, Brody reached his arm out across her chest, blocking her draw. His other hand hung at his side. He’d evidently found his gun in the grass, and wore it in the same shoulder holster over a black T-shirt. The size of him was startling in the open room.
“That’s a ten-gauge,” he said to Lewis. “Am I right?”
Two professionals, recognizing each other at the point of a gun.
“Barrel’s cut down.” Lewis stepped forward and glanced around, making sure nobody else was in the room. “Loaded with double-aught pellets like .38 slugs. This range, me to you, pattern’s about the size of a beach ball.” The tilted smile got even wider. “Way you’re standing all clumped up, I can hit all three of you with one pull of the trigger.”
Brody and Charlene flicked their eyes briefly at each other, but otherwise didn’t move. The bald counterman stood like a statue. On the back wall, a giant flat-screen television flashed on mute.
King Robbie tilted his chin up, indicating the surveillance cameras in the high corners of the room. “All the footage is stored remotely, outside and in. Anything happens, your faces are caught on a server outside of Salt Lake City. My people will hunt you down.” He began to work his way around the table.
“Stored for how long,” Lewis asked. “A day? A week? A month?” He smiled wide. “We can drop your ass so deep underground, won’t nobody find you, not ever. ’Cause the four of you the only ones with keys to this place, right? We mop the floor, wash the walls, lock the doors, and nobody’ll think twice. The whole damn neighborhood’ll be happy as hell to see you gone.”
King paused and gave a long sniff, either a reflex or a runny nose. Peter watched the man’s fingers twitch like spider legs and knew King was wired like a motor.
Peter glanced at Brody, thought he saw something in Brody’s flat gaze.
“Think about it this way,” Peter told King. “I could have killed you several times over. All three of you in the car, when I took Charlene’s gun. Brody, I spared you again behind that nightclub. Charlene, I let you live outside of Wanda’s house. And again just walking in here, when we could have painted the walls red. So you know we didn’t come here to kill you, not if we don’t have to. We came to talk. To come to an agreement.”
“Fucking kill them,” said King Robbie, wiping his nose on his shirtsleeve, spider-leg fingers still walking in air. “Kill them now.”
“We try, we’re all dead.” Brody slowly raised his free hand. He kept the other held out across Charlene’s chest without touching her. “Ain’t nobody pulling triggers, King. Man wants to talk, we let him talk.”
“I am not negotiating,” said King, stepping again around the big table toward Brody’s side. “You come into my place of business—”
“Who’s got the account numbers and passwords?” Lewis adjusted his aim toward the moving target. “Just King? How about you, big fella? Or the man behind the counter? ’Cause if King ain’t gonna deal, we taking everything, and I only need one of you to get the money.” The bald guy by the bleeding soft-serve machine was frozen in place. There was a faint scent of chocolate ice cream under the smell of spent powder.
“No, brother, hold up,” Brody said. “We can talk.”
“Here’s the deal,” Peter said. “I’ll give you what was taken in that robbery. I don’t know why you want it, and I don’t care. Maybe you’re just greedy.”
“My guess, it was a laundry,” Lewis said. “Washing your money. You can run a lot of cash through a jewelry store. Where else you do your laundry, I wonder?”
“I don’t care,” said Peter. “I’ll give you what Eli took. We’ll go on our way. But it stops here. Everybody lives, including Wanda Wyatt. Eli Bell gets a free pass. Forever.”
“I am not giving you Eli Bell,” said King Robbie, now fully out from behind the table, two long steps from Brody. King’s gun lay where it had fallen, on the plank floor beside the big man.
Brody was solid and strong. Charlene’s hands were drifting, one fast move away from pulling her pistol. But King had a wild energy that filled the room as his voice rose.
“He fucked with me and he fucked with my business. Nobody does that and gets away. Matter of respect. The kid dies.” King’s whole body taut as a rubber band about to break.
“Eli walks.” Peter kept his voice calm. “You get what he took. We’ll deliver it tomorrow. That’s the deal.”
Lewis said, “You think these people gonna keep their word once we’re gone? Let’s just kill ’em now and be done.”
Before King could start shouting, Brody spoke up. “Maybe you sweeten the pot a little.”
Big Brody, the voice of reason.
King brightened. “You got one of those big machine guns?”
“No.” Peter fished in his pocket and brought out a slender golden disk. “I have this.” He flipped it into the air toward King. It flashed in the light, then fell to the floor where it bounced and rolled under the table.
It didn’t make that pure clear ringing sound. The sash weights were junk metal, whatever was left molten in the foundry hopper at the end of the day, a hundred years ago. But when Dupree had sliced them up and painted them gold, he’d cut them just the right thickness to chime a little bit.
“Nineteen more just like it,” said Peter. “Worth at least forty thousand.”
He could feel Lewis looking at him. Wondering what the fuck Peter was planning.
King said, “Where in hell’d that come from? And how many more you got?”
Brody looked at Peter and shook his head, just slightly. Peter saw Charlene catch the movement. Her drifting hands stilled.
Peter thought it might work.
Until the front door slammed open behind them and everything went to hell.
Eli Bell flew through the opening, a pistol in one hand, June’s armored vest hanging oversized on his skinny frame. His face shining with fury and desperation.
52
Peter glanced sideways at the kid with the gun and the vest, then opened his mouth to speak.
Before he could say or do anything, Lewis backpedaled fast with some kind of low spin kick that knocked Eli’s legs out from under him, skidded the kid’s pistol away, and brought himself back to vertical. The shotgun was locked into his shoulder like he’d never moved, only now he stood over the boy like a mama lion over a cub.
Peter saw enough to know it was under control, then turned back to the group at the table.
The bald counterman was dropping down behind the bar.
King had a hand on the butt of the big automatic in Brody’s shoulder holster.
Brody moved his arm away from Charlene, and reached out toward King with both hands.
Charlene’s fingers wrapped tight around the butt of her own pistol and b
egan to pull.
Brody put one huge mitt on each side of King Robbie’s head, pulled it toward his massive chest, and gave it a quick hard counterclockwise twist.
He held King there for a moment, gone limp but still twitching.
Then let King fall, neck broken, brain-dead before he hit the floorboards.
The stink of the man’s voiding bowels overpowered the smell of leaking chocolate soft-serve.
“Wait, now,” Brody said. “Everybody just wait.”
* * *
• • •
Peter stood ready, finger tight on the trigger, eyes on Charlene. Lewis behind him, shotgun up. Eli silent and still, crouched on the floor.
Charlene had her own pistol almost up, but her eyes stuck down on King Robbie’s body.
Brody put his hand out across her arm without touching her. “Charlene, I need you to let this go.”
She jerked her eyes up to Brody’s face. Blinked twice, then again, then gave him a single nod. Her pistol vanished back into its holster.
Brody turned to the bald counterman, now peering over the top of the bar, the barrel of a gun just visible. “Chris. We cool?”
The counterman straightened up. He looked at Peter and Lewis and Eli, then looked back to Brody, thick-rimmed glasses sliding down his nose, pistol ready in his fist. “How’s it gonna work?”
“We’ll figure it out,” Brody said. “You and me. First thing, better splits. King was taking way more than his share.”
Chris nodded. “Okay.”
The world’s most efficient transfer of power, thought Peter. The king is dead, long live the king.
“I hate to break up your board meeting,” he said, “but who am I dealing with here?”
Brody’s enormous head swiveled to bear on Peter. “Me.”
“Good,” said Peter. “Let’s recap. You get whatever came from the jewelry store. Wanda’s out of trouble. Eli gets a free pass. But I should tell you, that gold coin? It’s not real gold.”
“I knew by the sound,” said Brody. “It’s all right. Deal’s good. Cutting out King is worth a lot more.” He looked steadily at Peter. “I ain’t no soft touch, though. Don’t mistake me for nice.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Peter, dropping the HK to low ready. He glanced back at Lewis, who nodded. Peter looked next at Eli, climbing to his feet, flexing his elbow. “You okay with this?”
Eli looked at King Robbie, cooling on the planks. “Okay enough.” He raised his head to Brody. “Long as we’re good, you and me. For real.”
Brody nodded. “I always liked your brother. You stay right, we’ll do fine, you and me.”
Peter turned back to Brody. “You know I’m going to hold you to that.”
The big man raised his eyebrows. “I ain’t King Robbie.”
“I know,” said Peter. “It’s why you’re still standing. But I need one more thing.”
“Now what.”
“I want the armored Mercedes.”
Brody’s face remained expressionless. “Don’t push your damn luck.”
“It’s not likely to come back in one piece, either. I just want to be clear on that.”
Brody frowned. “You know how much that car cost?”
“With King gone, you’ll make it back in a month.”
Chris looked down at something behind the bar. “Hey.” He put down the pistol, brought up a laptop, and tapped a few keys. The big television on the back wall changed from the muted news to a grid of sixteen boxes. Video feed from the outside security cameras.
“These guys with you?”
53
Chris clicked a few more times and the grid of sixteen changed to a split screen, larger images from two cameras. He did something else and one of the cameras zoomed in.
It showed a red pickup truck, or a vehicle that had once been a red pickup.
Now it was something else. It resembled a pickup truck the way an ankylosaurus resembled a chameleon.
Rusted steel plate was spot-welded together into a kind of pillbox inside the cargo bed, extending up to the top of the cab. Scorch marks from an acetylene torch highlighted narrow firing slots cut roughly into each side.
Strips of steel plate protected the rear tires on the sides and the back bumper, and steel boxes had been built out around the front wheels so the rusty beast could still turn. More steel plate was welded over the doors and windows and windshield with only small viewing ports to allow the driver to navigate.
Brody peered at the screen. “What the hell is that?”
“They’re not with us.” Peter sighed. “But we know who they are. This won’t be pretty. They’re heavily armed and deeply disturbed.”
“I can tell just looking at that thing.” Brody sighed. “Wanda Wyatt was right about you, white boy. You are a shit magnet.” He pulled a set of keys from his pocket and tossed them to Peter. “Go on, get the fuck out of here. Take the back door.”
“What about you? These are the assholes with the machine gun.”
Brody shook his head. “This place is a fortress. King was paranoid as hell. That front glass is inch-thick and bulletproof, the doors are reinforced steel. The bar is poured concrete on three sides. We tip that table over, the underside is laminated with three layers of Kevlar.”
Eli blinked, no doubt realizing now that he’d never had a chance against somebody like King Robbie.
Chris picked up his phone. “I’ll call Mad Chester and get some people here.”
Brody shook his head. “Not our fight. Those folks not after us. They after these two troublemakers.”
“Plus your people will just get killed,” Peter said. “You’re not set up for these guys. Better if we draw them out of here. Get on the highway and out of town where fewer people will get hurt.”
Lewis watched Eli, standing still and silent. “The kid walks out with us. Goes his own way.”
“King’s people still out looking for him,” Brody said. “Better he stays until Chris gets the word out.”
Lewis gave Brody that hard stare. “I’m giving you notice. Anything happens to him, it’s on you.”
The look would have made anyone else flinch. Brody’s face remained still. “No offense, brother, but who the fuck are you?”
Lewis showed Brody his teeth. “Remember that bit of business in Atlanta, couple years back? Some major entrepreneurs wound up dead? Police found garbage cans full of product, bleach dumped all over it, but no money?”
Peter glanced sideways at his friend. Would Lewis ever stop surprising him?
Brody just blinked thoughtfully. “I remember a couple of those,” he said. “Miami, Houston.”
“More than you know.” Lewis angled his head at Peter without taking his eyes off Brody. “This motherfucker’s the only reason Memphis ain’t seeing the same thing right now. So I’ll say it again. Anything happens to young Eli Bell, it’s your head on a stick. Theirs, too.”
Brody nodded. “Like I said before, I got no beef with Eli. He’s under my protection now. We’ll even break out the Hot Pockets and ice cream. ’Course, somebody shot out the chocolate side, so we’re stuck with damn vanilla.” He looked at Eli. “You okay with vanilla?”
Peter turned to Chris. “Are they still in their truck?”
“Far as I can tell. They probably can’t see for shit inside that goofy thing. Might not even know they’re on camera.”
“Show me the rest of the screens again?”
Chris clicked back to the grid of sixteen. “Nothing else I can see out there.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
Peter glanced back at the screen. No movement outside, not yet. Something was going to happen soon. They needed to get out while they still could.
He turned to Charlene. “Are we evened up, you and me?”
“You still owe me a pistol.” S
he twirled the spikes of her hair into sharper tips. “I ain’t the type to forgive and forget.”
He nodded. “I know. Me neither. But aside from that.”
She gave him a fluid shrug. “I’ll let you know.”
“Fair enough.” Peter stepped carefully around her and opened the back door.
The deep rumble of the red pickup, with its rough, rusty armor, came all the way around the corner and into the room with them. He felt Lewis at his back, heard his voice cutting through the noise.
“Time to go to work, Jarhead.”
Peter stepped outside, Lewis right behind him, sawed-off 10-gauge up and ready.
The steel door closed behind them.
The garbage cans stank in the hot alley.
54
In front of the Wet Spot, Peter’s truck was parked at the hydrant behind the Yukon, then the Mercedes, with plenty of space between them. The red behemoth was across the street and up a few car lengths. If the Burkitts brothers planned to use the big machine gun, they’d certainly given themselves a clear line of fire at the storefront windows. Not to mention the entire line of cars.
Peter assumed they were waiting until he and Lewis came out the front door.
He crouched with Lewis at the corner of the building, still mostly hidden behind Peter’s Chevy. They could see the front end of the red pickup through the gap between the vehicles.
“Can we get inside the Yukon’s weapons compartment?” Peter whispered. “Something tells me we’re going to need all the help we can get. Ammo especially.”
Lewis nodded. “I made some electrical modifications. I can unlock remotely without flashing the lights. I’ll go in through the back door on their blind side. Maybe they won’t see me, maybe they will. Those thin body panels won’t be much use against that 240.”
Peter noticed again that the street in Lewis’s voice, which was almost exaggerated inside the Wet Spot, had fallen away outside as they looked at the red truck. As usual, when his focus tightened, Lewis became very crisp and precise. He must have gone through those Atlanta drug lords like a .50 cal through tin foil.