Shot of Tequila

by J. A. Konrath

  “We should buckle up,” Jack said.

  Tequila looked in the rearview and then put his seatbelt on. Jack did the same. The other sedan dropped back as Tequila hammered down on the gas. But the street he was on made a sharp turn, and he was forced to slow for it. Another turn followed that, and then Tequila found himself out of the residential area and on busy Kedzie Avenue, heading into Chicago.

  He slammed on the brakes as traffic ahead of him stopped at a red light. The sidewalk was too narrow to drive up on, and the oncoming lane was full.

  Jack and Tequila turned to look through the missing rear window.

  Three more sedans were coming fast.

  “You’re a cop,” Tequila said. “Arrest them.”

  “You want to take my badge and give it a try?”

  The light remained red.

  Tequila squealed tires and pulled the Trans Am into oncoming traffic.

  Cars honked, swerved, and smacked into each other, blocking off the entire lane. There was no place left to go. After slamming on the breaks, they abandoned the vehicle and ran for it.

  From Kedzie they cut down a side street and through an alley. The alley let out into another alley, underneath the el tracks. As they raced towards the open street ahead of them, three men with machine guns appeared to block their path.

  Gunshots riddled the brick wall to the right, and Tequila and Jack dove behind a Dumpster. As they ducked down, holding their heads, round after round of automatic weapon fire clanged against their temporary cover, so rapid that the Dumpster sounded like it was being hailed on.

  Then, as abruptly as it began, the gunfire stopped.

  “I made out at least six,” Jack said, counting how many weapons were being fired at them.

  “Seven.”

  A look passed between them. They had no chance against odds like that.

  Tequila took in his surroundings: The Dumpster, the alley wall behind him, the el tracks overhead.

  “Window.” Tequila pointed to a wall ten yards in front of them, across the alley. The window had rusty security bars preventing entry, four bars in all.

  “It’s barred.”

  “What are you loading? Sounds heavy.”

  “Hollow points.”

  Tequila raised an eyebrow. Jack shrugged.

  “For when I go hunting. You never know when you’ll run into a deer wearing a bullet proof vest.”

  “Can you hit the bars?”

  Jack squinted at the target. “You mean shoot them off?”

  “Yes.”

  Jack extended her gun arm towards the barred window, lining up the sights. She squeezed off a round, and it ate into the brick wall an inch above the bar. She fired again, this time below it, and the iron bar toppled out of its mortar and clattered to the sidewalk. She emptied the spent brass from her cylinder, popped in a speed loader, and repeated the process with two more bars.

  “Marty wants me alive!” Tequila shouted, not pausing to be impressed by Jack’s shooting. “You assholes kill me, Marty will have your balls!”

  Then he turned to Daniels and said, “That window is about four feet off the ground. You’ll have to dive through it. Can you make it?”

  “I don’t have any Olympic medals, but I’ll manage.”

  Tequila took one of his .45s and shot the window, shattering the glass.

  “You go first. I’ll cover you. Then you cover me when it’s my turn.”

  Jack nodded, reloading her .38.

  “You have a back-up piece?” Tequila asked.

  “No.”

  Tequila reached around his belt and handed her Terco’s .38. Jack eyed it oddly.

  “This yours?” she asked.

  “It is now. You ready?”

  Daniels stuffed the gun into her holster and nodded.

  “I give up!” Tequila yelled.

  He stood up behind the Dumpster and began firing both .45s while Jack took off towards the window.

  Feeling bullets whiz past her legs, Daniels made the window in ten steps and dove face-first through the opening and into blackness.

  She hit the inside hard, banging into something, and scraping her face on the rough wooden floor. Her .38 skittered across the ground into the darkness, and motes of light appeared before Jack’s eyes.

  The booming sounds of gunfire brought her back. Rather than search for her revolver, she took the spare Tequila had given her and wobbled back to the window. Peeking through the lower corner, Jack stuck the gun out and fired wildly in the direction of the alley’s opening. She watched as Tequila sprinted towards her, both of his guns firing like mad.

  Slugs tore up the ground at Tequila’s feet. The Mafioso had obviously heeded his warning and were shooting at his legs, trying to wound rather than kill. Tequila was almost home free when a bullet caught him high in the hip, spinning him around and to the ground.

  Tequila looked up at the window, just five feet away.

  “Drop your guns, Tequila!” said a voice he didn’t recognize, “Or I’ll shoot your knees off!”

  To prove his point, the unknown man shot the tip off of Tequila’s left gym shoe. Tequila sighted where the shot had come from, around the alley corner forty yards away.

  Tequila figured that was the guy who’d winged him. He looked at his thigh and saw the bloody tear in his jeans, meat showing through. A helluva tough shot on a target moving as fast as he was. Tequila knew that the man could easily put a few more in his legs without killing him. And Tequila didn’t have the proper angle to shoot the guy back. He was trying to figure out whether to try for the door or go down firing when five shots rang out from the window.

  Tequila noted that the first shot bit a chunk out of the brick corner where the unknown man was hiding. Jack was firing at the sharpshooter, giving Tequila a chance to make it.

  Tequila took the chance.

  Gaining his feet, he took three quick steps and threw himself through the broken window, smacking right into Daniels, the both of them crashing to the floor.

  It took a moment for Tequila to get his bearings in the darkness. Both guns were still in his hands. He quickly jammed in two more clips and took off his belt, winding it around his bleeding thigh in a tourniquet.

  “Nice shooting,” he told Jack.

  “Your gun. The sights are off, by the way.”

  “I know.”

  They squinted at their surroundings. The dust and the darkness made Tequila realize that wherever they were, it was abandoned.

  “We’ve got to find a door,” Jack said. “They aren’t going to waste any time coming after us.”

  “You smoke?”

  “No. You want a cigarette now?”

  “I want a lighter.”

  A flame appeared before Jack’s face, illuminating it.

  “Matches do? I picked up a pack at Spill yesterday. The only useful thing I got from that place.”

  Using the light as a guide, Jack located her dropped .38, and then the two walked off into the darkness.

  Outside, bits of brick embedded in his forehead from Jack’s shooting, a man named Royce quietly raged.

  Marty the Maniac Martelli had to restrain himself from clapping his hands together in glee. Tequila, and that idiot cop Daniels, were trapped. Trapped in an abandoned warehouse. All the exits were covered. There wasn’t any way out.

  And the best part of it all was that they were in the 12th District.

  Marty’s District.

  He owned the captain here. Owned him like an appliance. A simple phone call had made it clear that absolutely no cops would be deployed to the warehouse, no matter how many shots were fired.

  It was so damn perfect that Marty couldn’t control the grin on his flabby face. He hit the hang-up key on his cellular phone and stood up from his living room sofa, so excited he could no longer sit.

  “What happens to the cop?” Leman asked his smiling boss. Leman wasn’t averse to wasting someone now and then. He’d done his share through the years. But murdering a Ho
micide Detective went above and beyond simple clean-up duties. That could bring down some serious heat, even if Marty did own the assistant super.

  “She disappears,” Marty replied. “After I got her booted from the case, she took her vacation, for chrissake. This bitch isn’t even on city time. We do her, dispose of the body, and no one ever hears of the assbag again.”

  “She’s still a cop, Marty.”

  Marty lost his grin, looking hard at Leman.

  “You think I haven’t wasted cops before, dumbshit? I was killing cops when you were in grade school picking your zits.”

  “As long as it’s not me who does it.” Leman folded his arms in conviction.

  Marty slapped him hard across the face, sending him reeling.

  “Since when did you grow a spine? You do what I tell you, when I tell you. If I say go shoot your own mother, you’d better ask if I want a head shot or a gut shot. Understand?”

  Leman stared at his boss, the shame from the slap hurting more than the actual physical act. Why didn’t he get any respect? Wasn’t he the one who spotted Tequila on the grounds in the first place? Wasn’t he the one who gathered the troops while Marty was off doing god knew what with that dickhead Royce? Wasn’t he the one who figured out Tequila’s companion was Detective Daniels, simply because he recognized Daniels’s car from yesterday at Spill?

  To hell with this. To hell with all this crap.

  “I quit,” Leman said.

  Marty’s face became a darker shade of pissed.

  “You what?”

  “I quit. I’m sick of you treating me like garbage. You wouldn’t even have Tequila cornered if I didn’t see him on the monitor. This is bullshit, Marty. I’m not putting up with it anymore.”

  Leman stood up off the chair, staring face to face with his former employer.

  “Mail me my check.”

  Then Leman made a mistake. A mistake of pride. Intending to show contempt for Marty, he turned his back on him to walk out of the room.

  Marty pulled the .38 from his waistband, shaking with rage. He’d never been so insulted by an underling. Ever. He cocked the gun, and to Leman it was as loud as a trumpet blast. The ex-cop stopped in his tracks and turned slowly.

  “No one quits me,” said Marty the Maniac.

  Leman stared at his death down the barrel of the .38 and cursed his stupid pride.

  “You don’t have to shoot me, Marty,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “All you have to do is acknowledge my accomplishments now and then. Why should I stay with someone who insults and degrades me all the time? Would you?”

  The silence that ensued lasted forever to Leman. Finally, Marty dropped the angry face and his features eased.

  “You’re right, Leman,” Marty said. “I should treat my employees a little better. I’ll do that from now on.”

  Leman, sensing a reprieve, felt relief cascade over him in a shower.

  “That’s all I mean by it, Marty. You know I love working for you. But I bust my ass. Just a pat on the back and an atta boy every now and then would mean a lot.”

  “Fair enough. Atta boy, Leman.”

  “Thanks.”

  Marty fired twice, putting two bullets into the ex-cop’s chest. Leman’s expression wasn’t of pain or horror. It was one of complete and total surprise. He held the expression as he dropped to his knees, clutching his heart. If Marty had bothered to check, he would have found the same expression on the man after he’d fallen face first to the floor and died.

  But Marty didn’t bother to check, and when two of Fonti’s men came bursting into the room after hearing gunshots, Marty directed them to dispose of the body.

  After he got Tequila he’d do it all differently. No more incompetent idiots for collectors. Out of his last five, one had robbed him, one had gotten killed, one had been arrested, one had tried to quit, and the last one was off trying to kill the one who got arrested.

  He doubted Slake was up to the task, but he didn’t care too much. If Slake didn’t kill Terco, then Marty would get Terco in jail. He had a thousand friends in prison, all of whom would be honored to pull a job for him. Terco was as good as dog meat, whether Slake nailed him or not.

  Marty picked up his cellular and dialed, cursing at Fonti’s men because they were leaving a trail of gore across his oriental rug.

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t want no blitz with everyone rushing in,” Marty said. “That’s messy, too many possible mistakes.”

  “Then how do we get them out?”

  A grin curled around Marty’s lips. “Just send Royce in.”

  “Alone?”

  “Alone. Tell him to get rid of the stain, without ruining the shirt. Bring the shirt back to me.”

  “What should be done with the stain after removal?”

  “Put it someplace where it will never stain anything again,” Marty said. He was very careful on cellular phones, because the airwaves could be recorded and used as evidence without a warrant. The last thing Marty needed right now was some bonehead with a ham radio listening in to his order to kill a Chicago Homicide Detective.

  “Will do, Marty. I’ll go tell him.”

  Marty hung up. He felt an odd mixture of power and relief. The first major crisis in his professional career was nearing an end. He’d weathered it well, and learned a few things that needed to be learned. After Tequila gave him his money back, Marty would rebuild. He’d only hire pros from now on, not ex-cops or former gymnasts. He’d be more careful who he trusted, and add more security to Spill. Valuable lessons, all of them, and well-earned.

  Marty smiled again, this time thinking about Tequila and that cop, all alone in the big, dark warehouse. With Royce coming for them.

  Marty wished he could be there to see it.

  But the second-hand details would be just as good. He looked forward to hearing the story from Tequila’s own lips.

  And Tequila would tell.

  When the Maniac was done with him, Tequila would tell all.

  Jack Daniels cursed as the match burned down to her fingers, singeing them with a crackling hiss. She lit another, looking for something in the room to use as a torch. After all, they couldn’t find their way out of there without light, and none of the wall switches in this place worked. They probably hadn’t worked for ten years, judging from the musty smell and the layer of thick dust over everything.

  There was a sound of snapping behind her, and Jack whirled. Tequila was holding a leg he’d broken off a chair. He was winding a tattered piece of curtain around it.

  “Try this.” He handed her the make-shift torch.

  Jack lit the curtain, and they both recoiled from the noxious fumes it produced. But it was light, and held at an arm’s length it did a fair job of illuminating the room they were in.

  It was an office, kitty corner to the other office they’d entered via the broken window. With the aid of the torch Jack easily found the door, and walked out into a large open area, ranks and files of towering shelves stretching off in all directions.

  “It could be worse,” Jack told Tequila. “There are plenty of places to hide out until the cops show up. With all of that gunfire, they’ll be here any minute.”

  “Not in this District, they won’t. Marty owns it. There won’t be any cops.”

  “He can’t own a whole district.”

  “Do you hear any sirens?”

  Jack strained her ears, but all she heard were the empty echoes of the huge warehouse.

  “He can’t own a whole district,” Jack said again, but her voice lacked conviction.

  “Marty’s men will be coming in soon,” Tequila continued. “We’ve got to dig ourselves in. Especially with that sharpshooter they’ve got.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “No. You?”

  “I think it’s that creep I met yesterday with the vampire fangs. Royce is his name. Ring any bells?”

  “I’ve heard of him. If he’s as good as what they say, he’ll be a
problem.”

  “No shit. Maybe you can try pretending to be holding people hostage.”

  Tequila squinted at her. “I needed time to get the parachute on.”

  “I’m sure. Anyone ever tell you you’re a little crazy?”

  “No. Anyone ever tell you you’re a pretty good cop?”

  “Only me. And I only have to remind myself a few times every hour. One day I hope to start believing it.”

  Jack handed the torch to Tequila and loaded both .38s with her hot rounds. Looking closely at the gun Tequila had given her, she asked once more where he got it.

  “Awful nosey about that gun.”

  Jack said nothing. She knew the Binkowskis had been killed with a .38, and had a strong feeling that this was the one that did it. Daniels had pretty much proved that Terco was the murderer, but if this was the weapon, why did Tequila have it?

  Tequila noted Jack’s hesitancy.

  “I got it off a former associate named Sam Terco. I believe it’s registered in his name.”

  “When did you get it?”

  “Early yesterday morning, after kicking his ass.”

  Jack felt a tinge of relief. She wanted to believe Tequila, because she was starting to like the guy. Strange, considering he was a leg-breaker for the mob, and a murderer as well. But Jack sensed something more there. Originally, she thought he was a sociopath. Now, she wasn’t so sure.

  Maybe it was those pictures that Sally Abernathy had drawn for her brother. Hundreds of them, preserved in his floor safe. So valuable to him they were locked up.

  Tequila went off to a row of shelves and leaned hard into them. Jack saw what he was doing and lent her weight to the effort. The two toppled over a high section, sending it crashing hard to the cement floor.

  Climbing into their new bunker, Jack and Tequila found themselves sandwiched by two long planks of sheet metal, three feet high. Their sides were still vulnerable, but they detached two other shelves and made themselves a bulletproof metal cubical, with enough room for both of them to move around in. They had no top, deciding to leave it open to allow for shooting back.