THUGLIT Issue Nineteen

by Mike Miner

"Help them," Udo snarled. The goons set their weapons on the chair and stepped in.

  Jay shrugged, and peeled his shirt up one-handed. When they got close, he lashed out with his elbow and clipped the nearest one's chin, then drove him into his partner, dragging Lynn behind him. He threw a knee into the thug's gut and crashed his forehead down on his face, spraying teeth and blood.

  Giggles lunged for the pistol. Lynn kicked at his behind and sent him tumbling into the chair with the laptop.

  The thugs grappled with Jay as they fell against the cinderblock wall, dragging him down with them. Bony fists thumped off the anvil of his skull and the brisket of his shoulders, and his knees crunched into their ribs. They were hard men, but Jay had fought for most of his life in closer quarters, against men with nothing better to do than work out and invent new ways to maul each other with toothbrushes and plastic silverware.

  The grinder whirred and Jay felt his back catch fire. Blood sprayed hot against his ear and he writhed like a snake to get away from the pain. The heavies took advantage of the pause in his wildcat fury to shove their way to their feet.

  Lynn stomped Udo's ankle boot with her heel. He stumbled back.

  "I'll turn your face into chop meat!" Udo snarled, and swung the grinder around.

  "Put the damn thing down, pretty-boy," Jay panted.

  "You're next, swamp rat!"

  Jay held up a fist. "If I'm talking, can you guess what I got in my hand? Or did Daddy never play that game with you?"

  The thugs froze, reaching for their scattered weapons. Giggles scrambled for a corner and curled into a ball. Udo bit his lower lip.

  Jay switched the grenade to his cuffed hand and rubbed a blood-slick thumb over its metal olive drab skin.

  "What is going on?" Andrej shouted from the laptop. Giggles reached out with one finger to aim the cracked screen toward Jay.

  "I'm about to turn your boy into meatloaf," Jay shouted.

  "He's bluffing," Udo said. "Shoot him in the knee."

  "You're gonna kill us anyway, stupid. Ask your Dad's war criminal buddies what this thing'll do in confined spaces. If you're real lucky, Lamborghini will make you a custom wheelchair."

  Jay felt a tug at his wrist. Lynn opened the door, and stepped through.

  Jay lowered his arm for an underhand toss, but before he could throw, a thug dived for the gun and bullets pierced the steel door. Lynn ran and Jay stumbled to keep up. Four more rounds followed.

  "Hell, I could've greased them all."

  "Get to the car," Lynn panted, and hit the button to open the garage doors.

  The Corvette was parked dead-center in the detailing room. Jay cut for the driver's seat and Lynn jerked his arm. "Passenger side! My wheels, I drive!"

  Jay recalled fond memories of The Dukes of Hazzard as he planted a boot on the Corvette's door and crashed in. Lynn slid into the driver's side like she'd been born there. The engine roared.

  The cuff jerked Jay's wrist as Lynn gripped the shifter. The grenade slipped in his sweat-slicked palm.

  "Easy," he said, and slapped his other hand over the bomblet.

  "Switch hands."

  The garage door inched up. A gunshot boomed and the windscreen snowflaked, dead center. Jay instinctively reached up and pulled her head down.

  "I need to shift!" The engine screamed in neutral. Two more rounds thunked into the seat rest, the exit wounds blossoming flowers of yellow foam.

  Lynn swore and head-butted the gearshift into reverse, then goosed the gas and the clutch, launching them backward toward the gunman.

  Jay peered back. "Veer left! Your left!"

  Lynn spun the wheel hard and the roadster pirouetted on the smooth concrete. Something hit the rear panel hard with the wet thunk of meat, and a body flew over the open top. The tires squealed as she stomped the brake but not before the car shook with the crunch of fiberglass, and plastic shards peppered them from the rear end. They'd crashed into Udo's Diablo, crushing the passenger-side door in.

  Jay gasped, staring at his hand. His forearm quivered with the effort to keep his grip on the primed grenade. "Can you try not to hit things?"

  Giggles and Stun Gun stared at them in shock.

  "They're shooting at us," Lynn snapped. "Why don't you make yourself useful?"

  "If it weren't for me, we'd be back there making dirty movies with half our skin sheared off!" He reared up to hurl the grenade.

  "Vyser si voko, koòomrd!" Udo fired an undisciplined burst from a cut-down military rifle at his hip, gawping at the wreckage. In the enclosed area, it sounded like a string of firecrackers going off in a bucket you happened to stick your head in. Chips of concrete and fragmented lead sent everyone else ducking.

  Lynn shifted and gunned the pedal. Jay fell back over his seat, clutching the grenade to his chest. The rear tires billowed smoke as the Corvette tore away from the Lamborghini, clouding their exit. Lynn swerved around the crumpled thug she'd flattened and tap-danced on the clutch and the gas to fire through the gears.

  The unflattened henchman slapped the button to shutter the garage. The windscreen shattered as the Corvette clipped the closing doors, and Jay bounced off the dash as Lynn braked rather than drive blind.

  "Go, go, go," Jay hollered. "It's clear."

  "I need to see." Lynn leaned over the driver's door to see around the smashed windshield. "I can't reach the shifter. You shift when I tell you." She revved in neutral. "Uh, hello? First?

  "I can't drive stick," Jay said, flushing.

  "What? I thought you drove that bad-ass Hemi? Don't tell me it's got an idiot stick!"

  "I just learned to drive last month." He studied the shift pattern on the gear knob. It looked like a scorpion having sex with algebra.

  "A monkey can do it. One-two-three."

  The damaged Diablo peeked under the jammed garage door. It was an inch too low to make it, and Udo wouldn't risk more damage to his baby. The Diablo crept back inside.

  A black SUV crashed through the door, smashing its rear window, dragging the steel blanket of the garage doors on top of it. Behind it came the Diablo.

  Giggles leaned out the passenger side and fired an AK47, a burst of rounds pocking the asphalt.

  "First, now!"

  Jay slammed the shifter. The transmission thunked in complaint, but the car shot forward in a scream of tires, the engine whining as the tachometer hit redline.

  "Second!"

  The car nosedived until Jay jerked the shifter back, then it lunged toward redline again.

  "I'm gonna get killed because you're too lazy to learn how to drive properly?"

  "Just drive," Jay said, watching their pursuers. The Diablo swerved like a barracuda hooked on a line. Jay reckoned their impact had bent the frame. The truck lagged far behind, but was slowly catching up.

  Lynn cut onto a four-lane road, swerving between minivans and commuters avoiding the main drag. She kept it in third, the engine whirring like a jet readying for takeoff as she gunned the pedal, then growling and burbling as she let off the gas. The road clogged as they neared a cloverleaf of backed-up interstate onramps.

  "You got a gun somewhere? I ain't throwing a grenade into rush hour traffic."

  "Oh yeah, there's a sweet little Beretta strapped to my garter," Lynn said, zipping up the left turn lane, running a red arrow. "Why didn't I think of that, when they dragged me out of his office?"

  "Just asking," Jay said. Behind them, the Diablo jammed the brakes to avoid a UPS truck. The SUV crunched into the Diablo's rear and sent the spoiler flying off like a boomerang. The SUV backed up, plowed over the stubby shrubs in the median, and roared after them.

  "We gotta get some space," Jay said.

  "Second."

  He slammed the shifter, "Take the frontage road."

  "I know," Lynn said, and cut over a grass strip, spewing mud and divots. "I grew up here. Before every jerk from New Jersey decided to move down for the mild winter and low taxes."

  "Hey," Jay said, shifting into third
, "I grew up in Jersey."

  "Thought you were from Louisiana?"

  "Born there."

  "That explains why you can't drive worth a shit," Lynn snarled, swerving around the slow driver. Behind them, horns blared as the SUV bullied its way toward them.

  "Look who's talking," Jay said. "We're boxed in."

  "No we're not," Lynn said, and pulled into a Hardee's parking lot. The Slovak driving the SUV smiled and followed them in.

  "What, you want drive-thru?"

  "Shut up and downshift." She roared behind the building and performed a controlled 180-degree skid in the U-shaped lot. Most of the spots were empty, and a culvert ran between the lot and the woods.

  "See? It's a dead end."

  "Would you hush a minute?"

  Behind the glass in one of the plastic booths, a dapper man with thinning hair, wearing a gray suit looked up from his laptop. He squinted at them and took a long sip from the straw of his Diet Coke.

  Jay held up the grenade. "I told you—"

  As the SUV swerved around the building, Lynn gunned toward it and clipped the passenger-side tire. The fiberglass crunched as the truck used the Corvette's nose as a launch pad.

  Jay flinched at the impact then turned to stare as the SUV tumbled and crunched into the muddy creek. The men inside had neglected to use their seatbelts, and the image of them crushed beneath their vehicle would've made a good Public Service Announcement poster.

  Lynn hooted.

  The man in the gray suit dropped his Diet Coke onto the Hardee's floor.

  "That was pretty sweet," Jay said. "Don't this thing have airbags?"

  "Sold 'em for pocket money," Lynn said. "If you haven't noticed, Andrej is one cheap old Czech bastard. But I know where he keeps a stash."

  "Then let's go cancel this Czech," Jay said. "The S.O.B. has it coming."

  Lynn took back roads toward the service center. Sirens began to wail in the distance. Two idiots racing through traffic in a Lamborghini with an AK47 out the window tended to attract the attention of law enforcement. So did two handcuffed maniacs driving a banged-up Corvette, so they took their time, and parked behind a Dumpster in a big box store lot behind Privrat's Auto Center.

  "The meat grinder might be better than this," Jay said.

  "What's that mean?" Lynn wrinkled her nose.

  "Just how the fellas around the shop talk," Jay said. "They say fooling with you would be as dangerous as sticking it in a meat grinder, but it might be worth it."

  "I suppose my opinion doesn't cross your minds," Lynn said. "Well? What's your take so far?"

  "Let's get out of this alive, and I'll let you know." Jay passed the grenade from hand to hand. "If I knew where my damn Challenger was, I could probably pick these cuffs with a micro screwdriver from my toolbox."

  "I think there's a tire iron in the trunk."

  "That's great if you wanna break your wrist and wiggle it out."

  "No thanks."

  "So where's the cash?"

  "In the safe."

  "Well that's no good. My lock skills are purely handcuffs and automotive."

  "Mine aren't," Lynn grinned.

  Jay cocked his head. "I gathered you were more than a pretty face from the driving. But that's a surprise."

  "Well, I'm not Privrat's arm candy because I'm into back hair and halitosis," Lynn said. "Are you his pet grease monkey because you love slave wages, or because he knows you're wanted?"

  "He told you? Guessing he told just about everybody. What's your story?"

  Lynn rubbed her cuffed wrist. "Me and an associate were caught playing a short con on one of Andrej's stupid nephews who didn't know my eyes were up here."

  "Where's your associate?"

  Lynn squinted at the engine bays across the lot. "In one of Privrat's junkyards somewhere."

  Jay nodded, then stared into her hair. The blonde was layered, like amber painted over gold.

  "Now that's creepy. I'd almost rather you stare at my chest."

  "I was checking for a bobby pin to remove the cuffs, or maybe pin this grenade. Andrej's sure to have a piece, and he'll know we're coming."

  "What were you in for?"

  "Killing someone who needed killing," Jay said.

  "Another bad-tempered young buck with poor impulse control," Lynn shook her head.

  "It wasn't like that," Jay said. "Well, maybe a little."

  "Just let me do the talking," Lynn said. "Maybe there's another way out of this."

  Jay held up his cuff. "We need a way out of this, first. Ease on over there, hug the left side of the lot, where the security cameras can't see. I think I know where he stashed my ride."

  "Wouldn't it be sneakier on foot?"

  "If he sees us, we're dead ducks. At least in this wreck we can try for a getaway."

  Lynn wrinkled her brow as she surveyed the damage to her car, then rolled from behind the Dumpster and alongside the fence.

  "So how much cash we talking?"

  "He banks it on Saturday, so five days' receipts, without the weekend take. Enough gas money to get you to Louisiana, for sure."

  They made it halfway across the lot before the Diablo swung around from the front of the auto shop. Giggles stuck the rifle out the window and aimed it their way. Udo grabbed him by the shoulder and swore.

  "Get down," Lynn said, and mashed the pedal.

  The rifle barked and the reports crackled across the parking lot. Jay gripped the grenade tight and braced his feet against the floorboards as they smashed into the Diablo. The impact slammed his shoulder into the dash, blacked out his vision, and left his ears ringing. When his eyes worked again, he saw Lynn slumped over the steering wheel and blood on the cracked windshield. He palmed his eye sockets, then stared at his empty hand.

  He leapt out of his seat, then somersaulted as Lynn's wrist jerked him back. His behind hit the asphalt outside her door, and he curled into a ball.

  No explosion.

  Only groans from the wrecked Diablo.

  He kicked himself up to his feet. Trembling with adrenaline, rage at Lynn's unmoving body, and the same fury he'd always felt when an opponent drew first blood. He shook Lynn's shoulder, but she did not stir.

  The grenade sat snug in the cup holder next to the gear shift. Jay blinked. At long last, a miracle that had gone in his favor. He plucked it from its nest, then tugged her cuffed arm across her chest, clutched her around the waist, and heaved her out of the seat over his shoulder.

  The passenger side of the Diablo was a bloody mangled mess, and so was Giggles. Jay walked around to the other side.

  Udo popped the door and it rose in Lamborghini style. He gripped the frame to pull himself out, still dazed. Jay smashed the door down on his hand, then silenced his scream with three quick pounds to the face with the grenade. He slumped onto the wheel, the horn issuing a muted squeal from the wreck.

  Andrej exited the rear door of the shop with a small pistol. "Koòomrd!"

  Jay cocked his throwing arm, and Andrej froze.

  Jay had never had the patience for baseball, but he'd been a half-decent running back in high school. The spoon clanged off the grenade as he dropped it on the unconscious Udo's lap.

  "No!" Andrej shouted, and raised the pistol.

  Jay charged at Andrej, using Lynn's behind like a battering ram. He plowed him through the door and into the lobby. They tumbled into a leather couch and wrestled for the gun. Powder seared Jay's cheek as a shot went off. He heaved Lynn's body off his shoulder onto Andrej's gun hand, and pounded him with his fist.

  "I didn't fool with her, dammit! I sure would've liked to, but I didn't!"

  Lynn's eyes popped open. "Hey!"

  Jay blinked and cocked his fist.

  Andrej jammed the gun in her throat. "No matter now, she dies!"

  The grenade went off behind them.

  "Udo!" Andrej jerked the gun toward Jay. Lynn scrambled over the back of the couch, yanking Jay's cuffed arm across Andrej's throat. Andrej's face balloone
d red and his gun arm swung wild.

  Jay hopped over the couch and ground the cuff chain into Andrej's throat. The pistol peeked over the back of the couch. Lynn grabbed the slide. It fired once, then clicked three times. Jammed.

  Andrej's grip weakened and Lynn tugged the gun from his hand.

  "Let him go," Lynn said, and shinnied up the back of the couch to her feet.

  Jay tightened his forearm. "He's not gonna let this go."

  Lynn racked the slide and cleared the jam. "Too bad."

  Jay sighed and unlooped his arm from Andrej's throat. The old Czech choked and spat.

  "Let him live with it," Lynn said, and clubbed Andrej across the temple with the butt of the Beretta. "If he wakes up."

  "I think my car's in the paint box," Jay said. "Let's get these cuffs off."

  Lynn tugged him toward the office. "First, the safe."

  "We ain't got time to crack no safe!"

  Lynn smirked. "Why peel it, when you know the combination?"

  "Why didn't you mention that earlier when we discussed my lack of safe-lock skills?"

  "I never said what my skill sets were." Lynn smirked. "Locks or otherwise."

  While she worked the dials, Jay tied a handful of ice in his handkerchief, for Lynn to hold to her face. She had one hell of a goose egg over her eye, but no gunshot wounds. The stacked cash in the safe was less than they'd hoped for, but more than enough. Sirens wailed in the distance.

  Jay tugged her into the shop, toward the grinder. "As Steve Perry says, it's time we went our separate ways."

  "They're almost here," Lynn said. "Cops don't take kindly to explosions in the back of a strip mall."

  Jay's Plum Crazy '71 Challenger was hidden in the paint box, just as he'd suspected. He walked toward the driver's side. Lynn tugged the cuffs. "How exactly are you gonna drive?"

  He opened the door and folded the seat forward. "Only need one arm to drive an idiot stick," Jay said. "This time, I'll play chauffeur."

  Lynn sprawled in back with the ice held to her face, and her arm between the door and the seat. "So, still think the meat grinder's the better deal?"

  Jay answered with a squeeze of her hand, and nosed the Challenger toward the highway. "I can't wait to find out."