Shot of Tequila

by J. A. Konrath

  “You never saw me, Frank. I haven’t been in all day.”

  Frank’s eyes bugged out comically at the cash he now held.

  “Yes sir, Mr. Abernathy sir.”

  The elevator doors opened and Tequila hit 30. The ride, which normally seemed so quick, took an eternity. Tequila had no way of knowing who was waiting for him. Big muscular guy? Probably Matisse, since he’d just seen Terco back at Spill. But were there others? How many? What kind of weapons?

  All Tequila had in the way of weapons was an empty revolver and his Swiss Army Knife. He idly wondered how many people he could drop with the corkscrew before they nailed him. The thought failed to amuse him. His hands were aching and his energy used up. If there was a big party waiting for him, Tequila knew he might not live another five minutes.

  There was only one certainty he had, and he embraced it like a shield.

  They wouldn’t take him alive.

  The thirtieth floor dinged, and Tequila stepped out, wary. He moved slowly down the hallway, staying close to the wall, listening for anything unusual. As he approached the corner, his eyes fixed onto the Drexel table with the flower arrangement. The silk and dried flowers were in a good-sized iron vase. Tequila hefted it and dumped the flowers out. The vase weighed close to ten pounds, and gripped by the base made a much better weapon than his corkscrew. He took it, limping silently to his doorway.

  Sweat had broken out on Tequila’s body again, covering him like ants. He held his breath, pressing it up to his apartment door, straining to hear.

  There was a hum coming from inside. It took a moment for Tequila to place it.

  A vacuum cleaner?

  He placed his hand on the doorknob, checking to see if it was locked.

  The knob turned. That meant big trouble. China never left it unlocked.

  Tequila decided to go in slow, hoping the sound of the vacuum would mask his entrance. He gently opened the door, just wide enough to slip inside, locking the door behind him.

  The living room was empty, the vacuuming sounds coming from one of the bedrooms. Tequila gripped the vase and moved towards the kitchen. He was going to trade the vase for a knife before exploring the rest of his place.

  Tequila saw the blood before he saw the body.

  China.

  She was rolled onto her stomach, lying in a thick pool of red. Next to her head was a black, rubbery thing that defied identification until Tequila noticed the eyebrows on it.

  It was China’s face.

  The vacuum cleaner shut off, and a moment later Matisse hurried past the kitchen through the hall entrance. He saw Tequila standing there and did a double-take.

  The vase was in the air before Matisse could even see what it was. It hit him in the face, crushing his left cheekbone and spinning him around like a pinwheel, a swirl of blood streaking across the walls.

  Tequila leapt China’s dead body and sprung at the collapsing giant. He jumped onto his back, clamping an arm across Matisse’s thick neck, trying to cut off the bodybuilder’s air.

  Matisse reached behind him, grabbing Tequila by the shirt. Without much effort, he displaced the small man and threw him down the hallway. Then he brought his hands to his face and moaned at all the blood. It was dripping everywhere.

  “I’ll never finish cleaning!” Matisse shrieked.

  Tequila rolled with the throw and bumped up against something on the floor. At first he wasn’t sure what it could be, but the realization came sickeningly quick.

  Sally. Blood and drain cleaner streaming from her dead, open mouth. He looked lower, saw her ripped panties, the blood between her legs.

  Time stopped. The image seared into his brain and he knew that no matter how long he lived, it would always be there when he closed his eyes.

  His entire life changed in the space of a heartbeat.

  Tequila roared. His roar drowned out Matisse’s hysterics. It was a war cry, anger and agony and hate and sorrow, and it screamed for vengeance.

  Matisse stopped his own wailing and looked over at Tequila, wondering how a human being could make such a sound. It was truly horrible, and it went on and on without pause.

  Then it stopped.

  The silence was even more horrible.

  Tequila got to his feet, staring at Matisse like a malevolent demon. His eyes were filled with thirsting rage.

  “You,” Tequila whispered, pointing at the big man’s chest. Something had changed inside Tequila. Or maybe something had awakened. His whole life had been spent denying emotion. Staying in control. He’d lived by responding logically to different stimuli, without offering anything of himself.

  Now, finally, he had something to offer. Finally, Tequila felt an emotion, and the emotion burned in his heart like coal.

  Hate. Tequila felt hate. It pumped through his veins and screeched in his ears and beckoned him to use his muscles to smash and punch and kill.

  Matisse wet his pants. He fumbled for his gun as Tequila advanced. Drawing it from the holster, he barely had time to aim before it was abruptly kicked away, sailing across the room.

  Tequila, supercharged with anger, hit Matisse with such a devastating right-cross that he broke the big man’s jaw. He followed it up with rapid, rib-crushing hits to the body, working the killer like a heavy punching bag, driving him back against the wall and pinning him there with his flying fists.

  Matisse couldn’t defend himself. It was as if Tequila had five hands. And the man didn’t tire, he just kept hitting and hitting and hitting.

  When the tenth rib snapped, Matisse stopped trying to cover up and instead embraced Tequila with his powerful arms.

  Tequila was crazed, and that scared the shit out of Matisse. But he was also half of Matisse’s size, and if the bodybuilder had any sort of chance, it would be by using his strength and his weight.

  Tequila struggled like a mad bull, but Matisse had spent thousands of hours in the gym, plus thousands of dollars on muscle enhancers. He got a good grip on Tequila and squeezed like hell, even though his broken ribs cried out in agony.

  Tequila felt himself lifted off the ground. He was being crushed. The smaller man struggled and squirmed and kicked, but Matisse had a death hold on him.

  Tequila’s left shoulder popped out of its socket, and his mind registered the fact but he felt no pain. The hate in him was all encompassing, and didn’t let any pain in.

  Air, however, was another matter. Tequila was being so strongly constricted that he couldn’t take a breath. Matisse’s arms were stronger than Tequila’s diaphragm, and Tequila was slowly suffocating. He kicked and twisted but Matisse still held him, and planned to until the tiny dangerous man was dead.

  Tequila tried to butt his head against Matisse’s chin but Matisse held his face away. Stars began to float around in Tequila’s vision. He tried to blink them back, and his head filled with the image of Sally, the bloody gore dripping grotesquely from her mouth.

  Tequila turned his head and sunk his teeth deep into Matisse’s biceps. He bit as hard as he could, feeling his mouth well up with metallic blood, and then stringy muscle.

  Matisse howled like a hurt puppy and tried to push Tequila away. He did, but Tequila took a chunk of Matisse’s arm with him. He spit it out at the big man’s feet and it lay between them like a skinned mouse.

  The color drained from Matisse’s face. He stared numbly at the large lump of flesh on the carpet, and then looked at the wound gushing blood between his fingers. The pain was amazing. A hundred times worse than a charley horse. His arm twitched spasmodically as his tendons contracted and pulled at the surrounding muscle tissue, unaware that the muscle was missing.

  Tequila grinned at Matisse. His grin showed bloody teeth, and his eyes were so evil that Matisse swore he was staring at the face of the devil.

  The devil spun around and reverse-kicked him in the head, sending him sprawling over a couch.

  Matisse was face-down on the floor and trying desperately to crawl away when Tequila kicked him in his br
oken jaw, crunching his teeth together and cracking several. The big man twitched on the floor, and Tequila leapt up over him and came down knee-first on the back of Matisse’s neck, snapping it like Matisse had snapped Sally’s.

  He knelt there on top of Matisse for almost a minute, breath ragged, blood dripping from his lips. Finally he noticed the pain in his shoulder. He glanced at it, judged it to be dislocated.

  Tequila got off of Matisse’s body and sat on the couch, feeling oddly detached from reality. Holding his wrist tightly between his knees, Tequila jerked his body backwards, trying to snap the arm back into the shoulder socket.

  The shock of pain made him scream, but the arm popped back in. Suddenly, almost like being immersed in water, Tequila felt fatigue envelope him. He was tired. So very tired. He needed rest, and to get somewhere safe. He had to rest if he was to do what he wanted to do.

  Moments earlier, Tequila had experienced his first real emotion in decades. With that emotion came a passionate goal.

  He was going to kill everyone associated with his sister’s murder.

  First Slake. Then Marty. Then Marty’s men. And then he was going to find out who started it all. He was going to find out who stole Marty’s Super Bowl money. And he would kill them too.

  Tequila got off the couch and went to his bedroom, careful not to look at Sally. He didn’t see the point of funerals, or burying the dead. Whatever had made Sally special to him had left her body when she died, and he didn’t regard the empty shell on the floor as his sister so he felt no need to venerate it. But that didn’t stop it from being heart-wrenching to look at.

  He didn’t bother with clothes or keepsakes. All he took was cash, the twelve grand he had in the floor safe in his bedroom closet. He stuffed it into a gym bag and headed for the front door.

  “Sorry, China,” he said as he passed her body in the kitchen. He hadn’t been particularly fond of the care-giver, but then he wasn’t really fond of anyone. She’d been good to Sally, and it was wrong that she had to die like that.

  As he passed through the kitchen his eyes caught the refrigerator. The picture Sally had given to him only hours before hung there sadly. He stared at his sister’s drawing of himself, with the three arms and the stringy hair.

  At first he thought he was throwing up, but the sensation was different. This release wasn’t coming from his mouth.

  It was coming from his eyes.

  The man who hadn’t shed a tear since grammar school was now finding it hard to catch his breath through the sobbing. He cried for Sally. He cried for everything she’d gone through in her poor, tragic life. He cried for the pain she felt at the hands of Slake and Matisse. He cried desperately for his big sister, who had needed him, who had loved him, who had held his tiny hands above his head when he was a baby, trying to teach him how to walk.

  And after the tears for Sally had gone, he continued to sob. For himself this time. Because he’d never get to hear her voice again. Or see her smile. Or ride the coal car with her at the museum. Or listen to the sweet, sweet music of her laughter.

  Fighting the twisting of his guts, Tequila reached out for the drawing and stuffed it into the bag with the money. Then he left the kitchen, left China, left Sally, left this entire section of his life behind forever.

  He stepped through the front door and jumped back as fifteen cops in SRT gear came marching down the hall.

  Tequila slammed the door behind him, locking it. He couldn’t allow himself to get arrested. How could he avenge Sally’s death behind bars?

  But what else could he do? He didn’t even have a gun in the house. Was he supposed to fend off that many armed policemen with some steak knives and the iron vase?

  “I have an M-16 in here!” Tequila yelled. “With twenty mags of ammo! Plus enough C-4 to take out the whole building! Don’t make me do it!”

  Without waiting for their answer, Tequila ran into his bedroom. If he couldn’t fight back, he had to run. And there was only one way to get out of a thirtieth floor apartment when the door wasn’t an option.

  He dug under his bed, pulling out the nylon package. Something he’d bought on a whim, months ago, because he’d always wanted to try it someday.

  Well, someday was finally here.

  Not even thinking if it worked or not, Tequila strapped the package to his back, buckling it around his shoulders and his legs.

  Then he went to the large picture window in the living room, facing the Chicago skyline. The view was awesome, which was one of the reasons rent here was astronomical. He had a clear view of the John Hancock building, along with the dozens of sky scrapers that surrounded it. Further east, Lake Michigan loomed huge and impressive, from this height looking calm even in the fiercest winds.

  “Tequila Abernathy! This is Detective Daniels of the Chicago Police Department! We have a warrant for your arrest! Don’t be stupid, Tequila! You can’t get away!”

  “I’ve got three people in here!” Tequila yelled. “They’re dead if you touch that door!”

  Tequila picked up the twenty-inch television resting on the entertainment stand. After a quick sprint he threw it with all his might at the picture window. It was safety glass, and the TV bounced off and onto the floor. But a spider web of shattered fragments covered the entire surface of the pane, obscuring Tequila’s eighteen hundred dollar a month view.

  He hefted the fallen TV and again charged the picture window, hurling the fifty pound projectile with as much force as he could.

  This time the television knocked the entire picture window out of its moorings, and both disappeared over the edge of the building, letting in an immediate blast of whistling, frigid wind.

  Tequila looked out the new opening, thirty floors down, and felt his stomach lurch. The cars below were the size of bugs, even their color indistinguishable. Skydiving was one thing. You were so high up in an airplane that there wasn’t any perspective, no frame of reference to show the mind how high you really were. Here, Tequila knew exactly how high he was, because he could see the ground, see the building, and see his television drop with such agonizing slowness that he wanted to puke.

  He checked the buckles on his parachute one last time.

  Behind him, the door burst inward.

  “Freeze! Police!”

  Tequila jumped.

  His first reaction was shock that he actually did it, but that thought was wiped from his mind instantly as the ground rushed at him. Fast. It was coming so damn fast. Tequila squinted, tears streaking past his cheeks as the wind ripped at his eyelids.

  He’d dropped ten stories in the time it took to take a breath.

  His hand found the ripcord on his chest and yanked it, and he felt his entire body jerk to a stop as his parachute opened above him like a giant yellow flower.

  Son of a bitch. It does feel like driving over a hill really fast.

  Then the wind got him.

  Normally, wind is a one way event. It blows relatively steadily, and air currents follow a singular direction. This did not hold true in a city with skyscrapers, like Chicago. Here, the wind gets chopped up by the buildings blocking its path. It swirls around them, goes off in different directions, forms complex, spinning, uneven patterns that are impossible to predict, let alone glide through.

  Tequila’s first trick was unique in the world of skydiving. A three-hundred-and-sixty-degree loop. The wind hit him from behind and then swirled upward, swinging Tequila forward like a pendulum. When he was upside down gravity took over and he began to fall onto his own collapsing parachute.

  He tucked his knees in and spun to the side, as if performing a dismount from the high bar, trying to drop past his chute. If he landed on it he’d get wrapped up in the silk, plummet, and fall to his death. A question invaded his head, wondering if he would bounce if he hit the ground from this height.

  His shoulder caught the underside of the parachute but he twisted away and plummeted past. Dragging his lines behind him, the parachute pulled into its upright positi
on and again blossomed open.

  But two of the lines had somehow tangled, and Tequila spun wildly, twisting them up even further. A sudden, powerful gust of air came from below, catching the chute and lifting it and Tequila upward. Tequila jerked his body sideways, righting the chute, but he then began to rock back and forth. On the third swing, he smacked hard into the side of his own apartment building, scaring the living hell out of a couple who had been watching The Golden Girls in their living room.

  Stunned from the blow, Tequila could barely make out the ground beneath him, still ridiculously far away. He held onto the cords hanging at his sides, knowing their purpose was to somehow steer this thing, but he had no idea how they worked.

  The wind kicked up again, this time from the west. Tequila rocketed away from the building and out over Lake Shore Drive, the traffic moving below him with dizzying speed.

  He glanced ahead and saw he was headed out onto Lake Michigan. Landing in Lake Michigan, even only a hundred yards from shore, would kill him. He’d be hypothermic after only three minutes in the water. He couldn’t go that way.

  Tequila pulled on the left hand cord. Surprisingly, he turned left. He held the cord until he was facing the city again, once more heading towards his apartment building.

  The wind didn’t like him coming back though, and again gave him a taste. But this time, the hit came from above. His downward speed doubled, his parachute temporarily deflating. Under his feet, traffic was whizzing by at sixty miles an hour.

  How ironic to jump out of a thirty story building only to get hit by a car.

  He tugged hard on his left line, and the parachute swung him around like a sling. He continued to spiral, cutting over the highway, over the sidewalk, and onto the misleading safety of Oak Street beach.

  It was like jumping into an empty swimming pool. He hit the ground on an angle, sort of skidding across it on his left side. He rolled with the fall, skinning the hell out of himself on the frozen sand. It felt, literally, like sliding naked over sandpaper. When Tequila finally stopped a good deal of his clothing had been scraped off, taking some skin with it.