Shot of Tequila

by J. A. Konrath

  Tequila left the bathroom and found his shoe in the hallway. He slipped it back on, wondering what to do next. He didn’t have any weapons left, and he certainly wasn’t in any shape now to take on Slake barehanded. He needed to rest.

  Happy howled from the bedroom.

  Tequila made his way through the house, intending to leave through the rear garage door. Entering the garage, he was hit with a wave of stink. Butcher shop stink. Dead person stink. He flipped on the light.

  On a workbench in the corner of the garage was a meat grinder, industrial-sized. Put the meat in the top, turn the crank, and hamburger came out of the holes in the side. Next to it was a plastic garbage bag, something lumpy inside. Tequila went over for a closer look.

  In the bag were a leg, two arms, and a severed head. The temperature in the garage was below zero, but the parts weren’t frozen solid. Tequila dumped them onto the workbench.

  Whoever this individual was, Slake had dismembered him and was grinding him up into peopleburger. The residue on the meat grinder attested to this. Tequila guessed that Slake probably then fed the butchered corpse to his dogs in their oversized bowls. It was one of the more unique ways Tequila had ever heard of to dispose of a corpse.

  He stared hard at the frosted-over face and didn’t recognize it. But on the right hand of the dismembered arm was a tattoo. A tattoo of a Monarch butterfly, almost identical to the one he had.

  So this was how Tequila had been so neatly framed. Slake and this guy had been the ones who robbed Marty. But Slake must not have wanted to split the take, and this was how he dealt with his partner in crime.

  Tequila realized his discovery hadn’t changed anything. He was still going to kill Marty, and the rest of them. If anything, Tequila was even more enraged at Slake for starting this whole damn mess. Not only had the bastard raped his sister, but he was also responsible for the opportunity to arise.

  He looked around the garage, thinking.

  “Where would I hide a million dollars?” Tequila said aloud. His words echoed through the freezing garage.

  He went back into the house and began to tear it apart. Closets. Furniture. Cabinets. Drawers. Nothing.

  Then he checked the basement, and finally the garage, coming up empty on all accounts. He had almost assumed that Slake had hid the money elsewhere when he realized the house had no porthole to the attic.

  Slake’s ceilings were flat, but his roof was beveled. That implied space between the ceiling and the roof. Usually houses had an access porthole, with a folding ladder that could be pulled down to climb into this storage area. Tequila hadn’t seen such a porthole.

  But in the kitchen he found a patch of ceiling that was whiter than the rest. He brought a chair over and stood on it. There was a new paint smell, and it was slightly tacky to the touch. Tequila squinted and made out a faint indentation in the shape of a three foot by three foot square. He pushed up in the middle of the square and it lifted up on hinges, the new paint in the cracks flaking away.

  Slake had concealed his attic entrance, and then recently painted over the seam to hide that as well. Tequila pushed the trapdoor up until it fell inside the attic, and then pulled himself up after it.

  Four suitcases were under a sheet, balanced on the rafters. Tequila didn’t even need to open them to know they were filled with money. He pushed them through the porthole and down into the kitchen.

  Back on the ground floor, Tequila hauled the suitcases to the front door and unlocked it. He’d drive his car up and then throw them in the trunk. The money meant little to Tequila, but he welcomed the anguish it would cause Slake.

  He was almost out the door when a thought occurred to him. Slake had obviously been the thief, but Tequila could have sworn it was Marty who sent him after Billy Chico. Could Slake somehow imitate Marty’s voice?

  Driven by curiosity, Tequila went back into the living room. Nestled next to the entertainment stand was a computer. Tequila turned it on and watched as the latest version of Windows was booted up.

  He scanned all of the items on the main menu desktop, and wasn’t too surprised to find a file marked Voice Generator. He clicked the file and it booted up.

  Voice Generator had several different options, among them were Record, Synthesize, Pitch, Tone, Volume, Enunciation, Elocution, Emphasis, Dialects, and several dozen saved files. Tequila clicked a file marked Chico and Marty’s voice came through the computer’s stereo speakers.

  “Tequila, Marty. I’ve got a line on a two grand loser named Billy Chico. He’s at 3342 Randolph, apartment 405. Thin guy, thirties, long black hair. Take him tonight.”

  That was the exact phone message Tequila had gotten yesterday on his day off. Somehow Slake had synthesized Marty’s voice, either by recording it first or by trial and error with this software.

  He clicked another file called Me. This time Slake’s voice came through the speakers.

  “Marty? It’s Slake. My mistake, I hit the wrong number on my speed dial.”

  Tequila played it again, wondering what it meant. He was stumped, until he noticed the Timer option on the menu. He selected it and read through the instructions, and then he understood.

  While he’d been robbing the vault, Slake had his computer call up Marty and play the Me recording. Slake had given himself an alibi while committing the crime. Marty couldn’t expect Slake to be in the vault and calling him with a wrong number at the same time.

  Tequila selected the record feature and put his face to the microphone.

  “It’s me, Slake. Don’t bother with replacing the dogs I just killed. You won’t live long enough to train them.”

  He named the file Hey Asshole and then played the message back to see if it worked. It did.

  Tequila left the computer on and headed for the door when he noticed something was wrong. It took him a moment to place what it was.

  Happy. The dog hadn’t howled for a while. Maybe the beast was dead, but Tequila’s imagination suggested something else.

  There was movement to his right, and Tequila twirled around and saw the dog limping towards him, its muzzle soaked with blood, its leg severed at the knee.

  Happy had chewed off its own foot to escape the chain.

  Tequila ran, but the dog was surprisingly nimble on three legs and began to gain on him, sniffing the air before it. Chancing a look behind him, Tequila saw Happy was almost at his heels and he made a quick left and ran two steps up a wall and then back-flipped over it, landing behind the dog.

  Happy heard the sound and spun to snap at it, but Tequila was already midway through a reverse kick and he connected solidly with the dog’s head, knocking out three of its fangs. Then Tequila followed up with a punt to the switchblade, still jammed in Happy’s ribs, ramming the hilt in three more inches. The dog yelped, and Tequila made a fist and threw a haymaker punch to the side of Happy’s head, knocking the animal over.

  Happy rolled to its feet, eager to bite the thing that was hurting it so. For the first time in years it was free to fight back, and it wasn’t giving up yet. Springing off its powerful hind legs, Happy lunged through the air and hit Tequila dead center, knocking him backward. The dog began a biting frenzy, desperate for some flesh to sink its teeth into. Tequila fended off the mouth with his fists, but after four punches they became ripped on the dog’s teeth, and the blood made Happy even crazier.

  Tequila held the muzzle away with one hand and the other roamed Happy’s torso for the switchblade. He touched it once, but it was too slippery with blood to pull out.

  The dog’s teeth found Tequila’s throat.

  Tequila pushed as hard as he could, and then tried to roll, but the dog stayed on top of him. He could feel the needle sharp fangs closing on his neck, the rancid dog breath clogging his nostrils.

  His hand touched the knife again and Tequila yanked it out, bringing it up driving it hard through Happy’s blind right eye.

  The blade slid through the socket and into the brain, and Happy jumped off Tequila and b
egan to gallop in circles, making a high keening sound like a baby crying. Tequila checked his throat and found only minor damage. He got to his feet slowly, staring at the crying dog, trying to think of a way to end its suffering. He didn’t want to get close to it again, because the dog was still dangerous as hell.

  Luckily, he didn’t have to. With one final cry, Happy fell over, kicking its three legs out like pistons. Gradually, the kicking slowed down, and then stopped.

  Tequila left it there, exiting out the front door of the house. The cold air invigorated him, and the walk back to his car went quickly. Once inside, he popped two new clips into his .45s and then headed back to Slake’s house. He parked in the driveway, popped the trunk, and went to the front door.

  Happy, the hound of hell, lunged at him as he entered, the knife still embedded deep in its head.

  Tequila shot him seven times, and the dog went down for good. He loaded the suitcases into his trunk, and then left Slake’s house, somewhat surprised that his gunshots hadn’t drawn police. Either the houses were too far apart, or everyone was at work, earning the money needed to live in such a nice suburb.

  Tequila drove for a while, looking for a place to rest and a place to stash the suitcases. He realized two things during his wandering. The first was that he had to get some new clothes, because these were so ripped up and bloody he wouldn’t last thirty seconds in public before being arrested.

  The second was that he never, ever, under any circumstances, wanted to own a dog.

  Slake headed home for the evening, leaving Marty in the hands of his newest golden boy, that asshole Royce. The way they looked at each other Slake wondered if they were in love. He wished he could end this stupid charade and just take off with the money, but his plan required him to stay with Marty for two more months. Then he could leave, with the Maniac having no idea it was Slake who took the Super Bowl cash.

  The whole plan had gone perfectly. He’d set Tequila up, cleared himself, killed his partner, and hid the money without any problem at all. The only loose end was Tequila, but that little son of a bitch would get his soon enough. Once Tequila was dead, Slake had no more worries. Even the witnesses had been eliminated. That moron Matisse had taken care of Tequila’s retard sister, and Slake had killed Tequila’s nosey doorman early this morning, along with the dumb prick’s wife.

  When Slake had gone back to Tequila’s apartment to grab his sister, as dictated by Marty, he ran into the cop party going on. Something had gone wrong. So Slake waited, and when he saw Frank the doorman leave with a police escort. Slake followed them home.

  Then, when the cops left, he simply knocked on their door. When the woman answered, he cut her throat. Her husband gave him a bit of a chase around the kitchen table, but in the end he caught him too. All the while the coon was pleading with “Mr. Collins” not to hurt him. Slake smiled at the memory.

  He drove his silver Monte Carlo at three miles an hour above the speed limit down the expressway, exiting on Route 53 to Palatine Road. Slake liked Palatine. He liked being the snake in a town full of mice. But he had no plans to stay when his two months were up.

  Slake was going to Mexico, to a little town called Frendes near the southern border. It was a very poor town; so poor, Slake knew, that families would sell their adolescent children if the price were right. Slake had enough money to buy hundreds of kids, to use and dispose of at his whim. He’d live the rest of his life a happy man.

  He pulled into his driveway, opening his garage door with the electronic box on his visor. As the light came on, Slake was hit by a wave of panic. The remaining body parts of his ex-partner were spread out over the workbench, and Slake was positive he’d left them wrapped in a garbage bag.

  Slake got out of the car and closed the garage. He took out his 9mm and forced the panic back. If someone had broken in, they’d be dead. His dogs would have taken care of them. There wasn’t a problem.

  He went into his house and called.

  “Bashful! Doc! Dopey! Grumpy! Happy!”

  No dogs came.

  Slake called again, but they didn’t run up to greet him as they always did when called.

  Full blown fear enveloped Slake, but even stronger than that was the urge to know what was going on. He crept cautiously into the house, his ears peeled, his pistol on full cock.

  When he saw the first dog’s body, he went ice cold.

  When he saw his attic porthole open, he began to scream.

  Jack Daniels lay awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, mad as hell.

  They’d taken her off the case.

  At first, she couldn’t believe it when Captain Bains told her. Jack had been pulled from cases before, but only to be put on a more important one. Never, in her entire career as a police officer, had she been yanked because of politics.

  Bains had orders from high up. Really high. Jack could see how much her boss hated to pass them along, but the man had a family to feed just like everyone else.

  Good old Marty the Maniac had made good on his threat after all. Not only was Jack off the Billy Chico case, she was off the related Binkowski case and the Tequila case.

  At first, Jack had raised a proportionate amount of hell. She demanded to know where the order came from. Bains stayed stoic and wouldn’t say. Recognizing futility, Jack relented and chose to take her yearly vacation starting tomorrow.

  The ramifications sunk in later that evening. After the obligatory fight with her husband about her long hours, Jack became paranoid. Not about her marriage falling apart, but about the Outfit’s obvious hold over the Chicago Police Department. There was some deeply embedded corruption in the CPD, and no one was trying to stop it.

  Well, that ended tonight.

  Daniels, like her mother, became a cop because she wanted to make the world a better place. To serve the public. To protect the innocent, and arrest the guilty. She didn’t become a cop to work for mobsters, or to work alongside others who did. This situation needed to be fixed. And the key to fixing it was finding Tequila.

  She’d been thinking about it all night, trying to guess what Tequila would do next. Tequila’s stay in the shelter last night proved he wasn’t going to run. He was going to stick around. To avenge his sister’s death. And to do that he’d have to go after the king pin himself. Tequila was going to try for the Maniac.

  Let the cops stake out the homeless shelters, waiting for Tequila’s return. Jack was going to stake out Marty Martelli’s place. Maybe it would take some time, but Daniels knew Tequila would make an attempt, and the best place to try for him was at home. At Spill, Marty was surrounded by bodyguards, guns, and people. But killing a bear was easy if you got him while hibernating in his cave.

  Jack assumed Marty was aware of this as well, and would take appropriate measures. So Jack’s plan was to nail Tequila before he put a foot on Marty’s property.

  And once she found him, she’d go to the Feds. They loved being invited to any party that had the faintest whiff of police corruption. Tequila would talk—after all, he wouldn’t have any allegiance to employers who killed his sister and were trying to kill him. Arresting Marty the Maniac would be sweet, but Jack’s real agenda hit much closer to home. She wanted the bad cops. She wanted them so bad she could taste it.

  Jack tossed and turned and tossed some more, and sleep and Jack kept orbiting around one another like two sparrows in a death duel. Finally, the Homicide Detective gave up and went to get dressed.

  If she was going to stake out Marty the Maniac, she might as well start tonight.

  After all, it was her vacation, and she didn’t want to sleep it all away.

  She was pulling on a pair of slacks when the phone rang.

  “Daniels.”

  “Hi, Jack. It’s Herb. Hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “You can’t sleep either?”

  “Mandatory vacation sounds like it should be heaven, but I feel like my balls were just lopped off.”

  “I don’t have balls and I feel the same wa
y.”

  “Call me paranoid, but I don’t know who to trust anymore. Except for you.”

  Jack was honestly touched. “Thanks, Herb.”

  “Don’t take it personally. It’s because you’re a woman and pretty much everyone excludes you from everything. It’s called an old boys network, not a unisex network.”

  “So no one would trust me with mob payoffs.”

  “Exactly.”

  So much for being touched. “Why should I trust you, then?”

  “Because I’m naturally honest. And because I keep you in the loop with all the dirt.”

  Jack grinned. “Tell me you’ve got something.”

  “You didn’t hear this from me. And I can’t pursue this with you, because the wife got all excited once she heard I had time off and already booked us on a flight to California tomorrow to visit her parents.”

  “Spill it.”

  “You know district gossip. Well, actually you don’t, because everyone is tight-lipped around you.”

  “No one likes me. Got it. Move on.”

  “Well, after we got yanked, I made a few inquiries.” Herb lowered his voice. “It’s possible the Outfit has the assistant police superintendent in their pocket.”

  Jack grunted. “That’s ridiculous. They can’t own someone that high up.”

  “This Tequila guy is being charged with not only the Chico murder, but the Binkowski murders, and the murder of his own sister.”

  Jack shook her head. “That can’t be right. The evidence—”

  “The evidence is gone, Jack. And it gets worse. Frank Michaels, the doorman at Tequila’s place, was just found dead in his apartment. His wife too. A neighbor was complaining about the smell and the landlord went in. It happened sometime early this morning.”

  “How?” Jack was stunned. They’d been trying to get in touch with Frank all day, to ID Hector Slake’s picture. But Jack hadn’t guessed the man was dead.