Blood & Tacos #2

by Ray Banks

  He did. It was a Colt Anaconda, stainless steel finish and a walnut grip. Rita had remembered the name of the gun because it was the same nickname Glenister gave his dick. The Anaconda held six and because Glenister was lazy, it would be held at hip height as he lounged in his chair. Unless he was a crack shot or incredibly lucky, a sudden movement from Cruz would mean three or four wild panic shots and a throbbing wrist that would make him pause long enough for Cruz to grab his meaty hand, shove the barrel up against his chins and press on his trigger finger until the gun clicked empty.

  But that wouldn’t do. That wasn’t the plan.

  "You’re calling in the bounty," said Cruz.

  "Already done it. They’ll be here Sunday morning."

  "I see. In that case, I have a few requests."

  "Requests? You don’t get to request nothing, Cruz."

  "For six million, they’ll want me pristine. They won’t pay full price for damaged goods. You look after me, you’ll look after your money."

  "Six million’s a lot of money, Cruz. I could stand to lose a little bit of it."

  "But you don’t want to. You’re a grasping asshole. You’d never forgive yourself if you lost a single dime of that bounty. If I’m the six million dollar man, I refuse to live like a pig."

  He didn’t say anything. Cruz guessed he was thinking it over.

  Finally Glenister said, "What do you want?"

  "I want a room here."

  "Very well."

  "I want the same meals as you and the guards. Otherwise, I want to be left alone."

  "Why?"

  "Because I want the whore you sent me. When I’m finished with her, she can go back, but otherwise she’s mine."

  "Okay. That’s fine. Was there anything else?"

  "No. I’d like to be shown to my room now."

  The room was only fit for a blind man. It was comfortable, but according to Rita, every stick of furniture in here was old, dirty and ugly. It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that he and Rita had privacy to practice. The girl was trustworthy and had already proven herself a quick learner with a good memory. Cruz only hoped that she was as good a teacher as she was a student.

  The first night she spent with him, they practiced disarm and destroy techniques designed to bring down the bigger assailant. He concentrated on a few quick and dirty moves—the girls didn’t have time to learn much more than that, and they had to do it right. Everything else would be easy just as long as that first strike hit home. Because tomorrow was Saturday, and that night would be the only clean opportunity they’d have. Saturday night was when the house guards laid down their arms and commenced to drinking and screwing their brains out. Only Glenister and Cruz were allowed to have whores in their own rooms, and so the guards had to stagger across to the dormitory, where, of course, the girls would be waiting for them. Only this time their smiles would be genuine.

  Cruz ate his afternoon meal, but refused his dinner. He preferred to stay hungry. It would give him an edge. At eight o’clock, the guard outside his door knocked off for the night. Cruz lit a cigarette. By the time the ash reached the filter, he heard the guards carousing downstairs. According to Rita, they would continue like that for a few hours before they left the big house.

  He waited. He heard the guards moving downstairs. Heard footsteps on the marble floor of the hall. Heard the front doors open and close. He saw them in his mind’s eye, moving out across the moon-drenched countryside in a slow zig-zag towards the dormitory. He moved his head, stretched his neck. He saw them bursting through, drunken grins, shoving each other as they picked their favorites and dragged them off to their respective rooms.

  Midnight was the agreed time. It was the only time Cruz could hear. On the stroke of midnight, the church clock in the middle of Fort Johnson would chime twelve times. On the first chime, the girls disarmed their johns with a chop to the Adam’s apple, a well-placed fist to the balls, or a pointed hand in the eye. By the third, they had the guards’ sidearms. By the sixth, the guards were dead or incapacitated, and those puritan assholes who had stayed away from temptation would be next as the crackle of gunfire that had originated in the dormitory moved towards the big house.

  Cruz stood and opened the door. Rita had gummed the lock so it wouldn’t secure, but until now it would have been suicide to attempt an escape. He moved quickly and silently into the hall. Counted his steps once again, skimming a wall with one hand. He walked with his head down, listening. The rooms were empty on this floor, but there was the sound of laughter and music downstairs. A door opened and the laughter grew louder. Cruz counted three or four. He touched the wall until he found a door and pushed inside as the laughing merc climbed the stairs. Cruz left the door open, disappeared into the shadows. The merc stopped on the landing and then crossed in front of the open door, a breeze and whiff of cheap bourbon like an olfactory tracer. The merc opened a door, closed it. Then Cruz heard the sound of water on water, hitting it from a height.

  The merc was taking a leak.

  Cruz kicked open the bathroom door. He felt the air shift in front of him and planted the heel of his hand in the merc’s throat. He grabbed a fistful of ear and hair and slammed the merc’s head into the nearest solid object. Something crashed off its fixtures. Cruz grabbed at the merc’s belt, found the cattle prod, and forced it past the merc’s teeth before he flicked the switch. The merc went rigid, there was the smell of burnt hair, and he tumbled backwards into what sounded like a tub where he kicked the sides in an off-beat jig before he passed out.

  Cruz returned to the landing just as the front doors opened and the girls rushed into the hall, shouting and screaming. The music jumped in volume as one of the mercs came out to investigate and caught six bullets from four different guns. Cruz moved to the next flight of stairs. He heard Rita’s light step as she raced up to meet him. She was breathing heavily. "It worked, señor! They didn’t stand a chance!"

  "There’s another in the bathroom," said Cruz. "I’ll be back. I need to deal with Glenister."

  "I’ll take you."

  "No. It’s okay."

  "You don’t know the way."

  He put a hand on her shoulder. It was bare. "Secure the downstairs, Rita."

  She opened her mouth to say something, the spit clicking against her tongue, but he turned away before she could speak. He took the stairs that led to the top floor and Captain Troy Glenister’s suite. He followed the smell of sex and the sound of a television tuned to static and opened double doors.

  There was movement, but only slight. The sound of silk sheets and a water bed. The hedonist at rest.

  "Cruz?" He sounded groggy.

  "Fort Johnson, named for Andrew?"

  That throaty laugh again. "This is a country for white men and by God, as long as I am President, it shall be a government for white men …"

  "Where are my things, Glenister?"

  The water bed made a sickening noise as Glenister moved on it. "He was an idealist who never went to school, and he became the leader of the free world."

  "It wasn’t free then."

  "And it isn’t now. Who the hell do you think you are, Cruz? You know I could call for a guard—"

  "Your men are dead. The whores are in charge. And you have a choice. You can try to squeeze your ass through the bedroom window, pray you don’t break anything when you hit the ground and then run for your life, or you can die right here and now."

  Glenister laughed again. It was strained. He moved quickly, or tried to, and Cruz knew the Colt was within reach. He lunged forward, felt the air crack with the first bullet, ring with the second, but the third stayed exactly where it was as Cruz kicked the gun from Glenister’s grip and sent it bouncing across the floor. He grabbed Glenister by what felt like a robe and hauled him across the room. He swung the fat man into the hissing television set, smashing it and raining hot sparks against his skin. Glenister dropped to the carpet and Cruz lost him for a moment.

  He straightened
up and stood stock still. Listened. Heard the fat man scrabbling on the floor. He was making a noise like a truffle pig. Then Cruz heard him stand and then the squeak of a cabinet door. He pictured another gun, but didn’t move. Glenister was breathing heavily, but he was doing it through a smile.

  Cruz heard the click of his shikomizue. Of course he’d kept it. And of course he meant to kill him with his own sword. It was the kind of cheap irony that appealed to men with dull minds. Glenister tried to creep to one side, but his breathing made locating him easy. "You’re a dead man, Cruz. You might have the whores on your side, but I have the whole US Army. I spoke to General Jackson himself, did you know that? Stonewall himself. We’re old friends. Anything happens to me, you’re a marked man. So now you have a choice. You can take those whores and get a few hours’ head start on the United States Bounty Service, or I can kill you now."

  Cruz made his choice. Glenister panicked as he lunged. The fat man’s feet shuffled for purchase. Cruz threw a jabbing kick under the fat man’s arms and caught him in the gut. It didn’t move him, but it made him belch air and swing wildly with the sword. Cruz stepped to the side of the swing and the gust of wind it produced, then dipped into its arc and grabbed Glenister’s sweaty forearm with one hand, his bicep with the other and pulled the arm down sharply across his knee. There was a terrific snap and the smell of urine filled the air as Glenister became liquid in Cruz’s grip. Glenister screeched and rolled away, the sword thumping onto the carpet. Cruz dropped to a squat and picked up the sword, following the sound of Glenister as he whimpered and crawled back to the water bed.

  "You haven’t … you haven’t won," he said, but his voice was too high-pitched to be confident.

  Cruz touched the blade of the shikomizue. It needed sharpening, but it would do for what he had in mind. He heard Glenister scrabble on the carpet.

  "You’re still a dead man. Jackson won’t stop. He’ll send more men after you. They’ll find you."

  "And they’ll die, just like the last man he sent after me, just like every opportunistic scumbag who thinks he can make his fortune on the backs of the poor. Just like you, Captain Troy Glenister, and all your men. We didn’t draw first blood, but we’ll definitely draw last."

  "Yes, you will," said Glenister.

  Glenister let out a cackle and rolled to one side. And Cruz realised why the fat man had crawled for the bed rather than the door. He heard the metallic click in Glenister’s hand and prepared to bring the sword down just as the Colt Anaconda roared its resistance.

  There was a sudden rush of air, and then it was all over.

  Rita was waiting on the landing when Cruz emerged from Glenister’s room. He kicked the sheet-wrapped bundle on the floor in front of her. It made a wet sound. He pointed in its general direction with his stick. In his other hand he held his silver spurs.

  "A present," he said. "Something to help get the new regime started."

  Her voice remained at the same height, so she must have opened the bundle with her toe. "His head."

  He’d expected her to be shocked, to act like a woman, but she hadn’t. He was impressed. "You’ll need it to assert power."

  "I didn’t do it."

  He smiled. "Yes, you did."

  "What about you?"

  The smile faded. "There will be men from Mexico City arriving here in a few hours. You need to be ready for them. Tell them what happened, mention my name if they ask, but make it clear that you’re in charge now and that you and the rest of the people here will defend this town with your lives. You have an arsenal, you have resources, and you have a reason. They won’t have the guts to push you. They’ll be outnumbered and outgunned."

  "I don’t know."

  "You can do it, Rita. You’re the strongest person in this whole town."

  She kissed him on the cheek, and he turned into a second kiss that caught him on the mouth. She pressed herself against him. He allowed her for a moment. The warmth and smell were comforting.

  "Victor …" she whispered.

  "No." He broke the embrace and gestured to the head again. "Take it to your people."

  "Thank you."

  He nodded. She picked up the head. He listened to her light footsteps on the stairs as she descended and something stumbled in his chest.

  He heard a cheer from the women downstairs, then the sound of them running out the front doors and a rising commotion from the valley. Cruz attached his spurs and then tapped down the stairs.

  Outside, he heard a mixture of male and female voices, the male outnumbering the female, but the female clearly the ones in control. Above them all was Rita’s voice, confident and charismatic, telling everyone what had happened, and how they didn’t have long to get organized. Cruz listened to her for a few seconds, then pushed his way out through the back of the big house.

  Perhaps people really were capable of rebuilding what they had, given the right kind of head start. And perhaps Yuma wouldn’t have been such a dead loss after all, but Cruz doubted that it would be better than what Rita and her people could manage. They’d have to change the name of the town, though. Fort Johnson, the man Glenister had named it for, Glenister himself and the ideas he stood for, they were all dead. They were relics to be buried and forgotten.

  That was the message the boys from the Bounty Service would get when they arrived. And if they needed it repeated, well, Victor Cruz—the Dead Eye—planned to do so until that whole damn Wall came down. Until then, he would carry on walking and enjoy the first warmth of dawn on his face.

  THE END

  Ray Banks shares his birthday with Chuck Barris and Curtis Mayfield and screeched into the world on the same day that Roberto Rossellini took his leave. He has worked as a wedding singer, double-glazing salesman, croupier, dole monkey, and various degrees of disgruntled temp. He writes novels (like the Cal Innes series) and short stories (like this one) and keeps a fairly clean online abode at www.thesaturdayboy.com.

  THE PEACEMAKER: The Xander Pursuit

  By Sabrina Ogden

  "While relaxing at his country estate of Hewesridge, Barrington Hewes-Bradford, one of the world’s richest and most enterprising men, receives word of the explosive situation on Tarrago, site of a number of his business ventures and an important ally of the United States. Sensing the delicacy of the situation, which could lead to an extended war, Hewes-Bradford uses all of his resources, all of his courage, and all of his potency to vanquish the malignant forces!"

  While reading The Xander Pursuit, book three in The Peacemaker series by Adam Hamilton, I was reminded of my childhood in the late Seventies when I would role-play Charlie’s Angels with my friends, Stacy and Molly. As you can probably guess, I was always assigned the role of Sabrina Duncan; probably because my name was Sabrina, perhaps because my hair, although blonde, was styled the same way, straight, plain, and boring.

  Regardless of how much fun we probably had playing the gun-wielding threesome, I always hated being one of the Angels. Sure, they got to fight the bad guys. But more often than not, they ran around in bikinis and played the kidnap victim needing to be saved by the other Angels. Boring! I was on my tenth assignment for Charlie—my turn to play the part of the kidnapped Angel—when my dislike for that type of role blossomed. And it was the very next day that I started doubling-up my characters by playing the part of Charlie Townsend, as well.

  Me? Playing Charlie? Heck yeah! Charlie had it easy. Lounging about—usually near a beach with what I can only assume was scotch on the rocks—Charlie made important decisions and led his team of go-to girls all while receiving the affectionate attention of numerous women. Switching the women for men and replacing the scotch with some Coca-Cola Classic with extra ice, and you’ve got a win-win situation for a girl like me. I mean, really … who wouldn’t want to be Charlie?

  Barrington Hughes-Bradford, that’s who!

  Having inherited his father’s fortune, Barrington has managed to become the wealthiest man in the world by creating several interna
tional companies and serving as Chairman of the Board to pretty much all of them. All while masquerading as a private spy and do-gooder—head of The Peacemaker Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to making the world a safer place. By dispatching his elite crime-fighting squad throughout the world, Barrington has the ability to track down murderers and prevent wars and economic downfalls without being distracted from swooning the ladies and hobnobbing with the wealthy and powerful.

  In The Xander Pursuit, Barrington is in the middle of a dinner party when a mysterious caller offers to sell him information regarding a plot to topple Tarrago, a small island that Barrington loaned twenty millions dollars to in the hopes of preventing an economic crisis. Believing the information credible, Barrington and his number-one man, Trask, meet the mysterious caller in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, only to find him DOA.

  The mysterious caller and his unfortunate death send Barrington and his crew to Tarrago. In the story you’ll read about a murder, a drowning, another murder, possible love, wine, cocktails, s-e-x, a couple of ladies in distress, and an explosive ending that will leave you questioning whether or not Barrington’s quest for peace isn’t more about protecting his own assets, and if his team of elite crime fighters should consider retirement.

  Considering the book’s Prologue murdered a man carrying a briefcase, I was a little shocked to find another dead man by the end of Chapter One, and another dead guy in Chapter Two. Not to mention the dead woman in Chapter Six, and the other dead woman in Chapter Nineteen.

  Yeah, I know, there can never be too many murders in a crime novel, right? Usually for me, the bloodier the better. But the deaths in this book happen so quickly I found myself rereading sections just to understand what was happening. And the death of the first woman was so senseless, and her character made to be so helpless that I found myself angry and unbelievably irritated, as her death was caused by the learning-curve of one of Barrington’s "elite" members. Even more frustrating is that that same elite member makes the same mistake later in the book, which, unsurprisingly leads to the death of the woman in Chapter Nineteen. I thought these crime fighters were the best of the best? Yeah, not so much. Or maybe Mr. Hamilton just doesn’t know what the word "elite" means.