Shot of Tequila

by J. A. Konrath

  After creating their Alamo, Tequila and Jack counted their ammo.

  “Fifteen rounds,” Jack said.

  Tequila handed her five speed loaders of six rounds each for the .38. He counted thirteen rounds for his .45s. Not enough to invade a country, except for maybe Belgium. But possibly enough to hold off the first round of the siege.

  Jack stamped out the torch, and they waited in darkness, letting their eyes adjust, listening for sounds.

  “Do me a favor,” Jack whispered. “Since we might get killed here, lay it all out for me. How’d you piss Marty off so bad?”

  “He thinks I stole some money.”

  “Did you?”

  “I was set up by an asshole named Slake.”

  “I met him. You’re right.”

  “That he set me up?”

  “That he’s an asshole.”

  “It was a good frame, I’ll give the bastard that. But I got away and screwed up his plans.”

  “Through the heating ducts.”

  Jack noticed Tequila had turned his head to face her in the darkness.

  “How did you get on to me?” he asked. “I normally don’t make mistakes.”

  “You first. You killed Billy Chico, right?”

  “He drew on me, it was shoot or get shot.”

  “How about the Binkowskis?”

  “Who are the Binkowskis?”

  “The owner of the liquor store Chico was trying to rob. And his wife.”

  “Is that how you made me? That old man talked? I’d figured him for the greedy type, thought he’d try to rip off his insurance company instead of fingering me.”

  “I can be very persuasive,” Jack said.

  “I bet. So what about the Binkowskis?”

  “They’re dead.”

  Tequila put two and two together.

  “Killed by a .38,” he said.

  “Maybe this one, that you said is Terco’s. We’re holding Terco for their murder. If this gun is registered in his name, we’ve got him cold.”

  “So Binkowski gave you a description, and you ran me through the computer and came up with my dropped assault charge from a few years back.”

  “Right. IDed you from the tattoo on your hand.” Jack saw Tequila’s silhouette nod in the darkness.

  “You’re a good cop. Don’t you guys usually travel with partners, and have back-up?”

  “I was taken off your case yesterday. Technically, I’m on vacation. No one knows where I am.”

  Tequila frowned. “I take back the good cop comment.”

  “Give me the rest of it,” Jack said. “The whole story, starting after the liquor store.”

  Tequila ran it down. He wasn’t quite sure why he was telling Daniels all of this, but he did anyway. Maybe it was because he was damn near certain Jack would be dead within the next hour. But part of it, he knew, was because he sort of liked the cop. Or maybe respected was the better word. He was feeling toward Daniels what he used to feel towards his Olympic coach.

  So Tequila told her about the frame, and about finding Matisse in his apartment with Sally and China dead, and about spending the night at the shelter, and fighting with Terco at the health club, and going to Slake’s and finding out he’d been the one who framed him. He told Jack everything, only leaving out the part about hiding the money. If Jack knew Tequila had the money, Marty might be able to drag the information out of Jack. If and when Marty finally caught Tequila, Tequila would die before he let that fat bastard have his money back.

  “Rough couple of days,” Daniels said when Tequila finished his tale. “When we get out of this, and you testify, you’ll probably be free and clear.”

  Tequila didn’t bother telling her that they weren’t likely to get out of this.

  They were silent for a minute, listening for sounds.

  “Were you the one who got that killer a few years ago?” Tequila asked quietly. “I remember the cop’s name was Jack Daniels. That’s a tough name to forget, especially for someone named Tequila.”

  “That was me. Jack Daniels. Originally Jacqueline Streng. Daniels is my married name. You can guess what people buy me every holiday. I’ve got enough whiskey in the house to get Wisconsin drunk. How about you? Tequila is on your driver’s license, FOID, birth certificate.”

  “I was born almost six weeks premature,” Tequila said. He’d never told anyone this story, possibly because no one had ever asked. “I was only eighteen ounces at birth, and jaundiced from liver failure. Neither of my parents expected me to live, so as a joke my father put the name Tequila on my birth certificate. Because I was yellow and about as big as a shot of tequila.”

  Tequila stopped there, not bothering to go on about how his mother ran off the next day, not able to bear watching her new son die. A Down Syndrome baby and a preemie, plus living with an abusive husband, was too much for her. Tequila had never even seen her picture, and only knew her name was Maxie because his father had cursed her for years after she’d left.

  “When did you get the tattoo?” Jack asked, changing the subject.

  “When I started working for Marty.”

  “After leaving the YMCA,” Jack filled in. “Why a butterfly?”

  Tequila thought about the question for a moment.

  “Because that’s what caterpillars turn into,” he finally answered.

  There was a noise in the distance—a door being kicked in. The two turned towards it, senses heightened and guns pointed.

  “Here we go,” Jack said under her breath.

  But there wasn’t any sudden influx of gun-happy Mafioso rushing in. There was nothing. They strained their ears for sounds of footsteps, but only heard their own breathing.

  “Royce,” Tequila whispered. “He’s coming in alone.”

  That didn’t make sense to Jack. If Martelli had all those men available to him, why’d he only send one in?

  To Tequila, it made perfect sense. The more goombas running around shooting off their pistols, the more likely Tequila would be killed and unable to disclose the whereabouts of Marty’s cash. Sending in a single, trained professional was Marty’s best way of getting Tequila out of there alive.

  Or so Marty thought.

  Tequila had other ideas.

  “Royce!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. Jack tackled him, the pair banging hard into the metal shelf.

  “Are you crazy?” Daniels hissed.

  Tequila broke Jack’s hold with an elbow into the ribs and leapt out of their enclosure.

  “I hear you’re the best, Royce! Is this what the best does, sneak up on two unarmed people in the dark?”

  A chuckle came from Tequila’s right, and he crouched down and pointed both .45s in that direction.

  “You’re supposed to be a real hotshot,” Tequila said. “I bet you five bucks I can kick your ass.”

  Sound to his left. Tequila aimed at it and fired six shots at about chest level.

  “You call that unarmed?” Royce asked from the opposite direction.

  Tequila spun and fired another six from where the voice came from. Royce had obviously thrown something to make the first noise.

  “You’re at a disadvantage here, Royce. You can’t kill me. How can you guarantee wounding me in the dark?”

  Jack stared at Tequila’s dark form from the bunker, wondering if his plan had any merit. He was trying to draw Royce out, but Royce was too damn smart. Jack tried to think like Royce, wondering how she would subdue Tequila, and when she figured it out the hair on the back of her neck stood up.

  I’d take the cop out first.

  Daniels whirled at the sound to her left, bringing up her .38. It was kicked roughly from her hand and went skidding across the warehouse floor. Jack sprang over the top of the metal shelf at the kicking form, tackling him mid-body, pinning him to the ground. She brought her fist down hard into Royce’s face, feeling teeth bend and snap.

  The gun went off next to her ear, the sound so loud and painful it hurt almost as much as getting s
hot. She rolled away, her hand pressed against the side of her head, trying to stop the agony.

  Then she felt a spike drive into her back, and realized she had been shot, and that her earlier assessment had been wrong.

  Being shot did hurt worse.

  She dropped the gun and darkness took her.

  “I killed your cop buddy, Tequila.” Royce was crouching behind the metal shelf. “Tell me where the money is, I’ll let you go.”

  “Jack!”

  No answer.

  Rage bubbled up in Tequila. Jack had been a decent person. She shouldn’t have died like that. If only he’d kept his cool, stayed in the enclosure…

  “The money, Tequila.”

  “Ask Slake. He’s the one that stole it. Check his house out. In his garage, there’s a body with a tattoo like mine. He set me up.”

  “Then you have nothing to fear from Marty. Throw down your guns, we’ll talk this out.”

  Throwing down his guns was suicide. The Maniac wouldn’t care if Tequila took his money or not. He’d torture him to death anyway.

  But Tequila was out of ammo, so the guns were worthless. If he pretended to give up, maybe he’d have a chance at taking Royce one on one. He’d heard legends about this man, how unstoppable he was. A one man army. Tequila didn’t doubt Royce was good, but did he have an enormous ego to match his talents?

  Only one way to find out.

  “I’m tossing over my guns.”

  They clattered to the factory floor somewhere near Royce’s direction. Then Royce yelled, “Light!”

  All at once, the lights went on in the warehouse. Old, incandescent lights, many of the bulbs broken, but still enough to illuminate the entire storage area.

  Tequila squinted against the glare, feeling exposed but keeping his posture erect and his hands raised. His stare locked on Jack, lying face-down a dozen yards away, her back a bloody mess. Then his eyes found Royce.

  “Didn’t I see you in the Wizard of Oz?” Royce asked. “You’re one of the Lollipop Kids.”

  His grin was bloody—the cop had gone down swinging and knocked out a few of his teeth. Good for her.

  “And you were on my cereal box this morning. Count Chocula. You don’t look nearly as badass as the rumors I’ve heard. You look like a pussy.”

  Royce’s grin dropped a fraction.

  “I can take you easy,” Royce said.

  He probably could too. The wound in Tequila’s thigh hurt like a branding iron was being pressed against it, his ankle had swelled to the size of a grapefruit, and the stitches from the dog bite had opened. The only thing keeping him upright was adrenaline, amphetamines, and bravado.

  “You better not try it. Marty wants me bad. It’s safer if you just call in the goon squad, surround me. In fact, you should probably shoot my knees out right now. I’m too dangerous for you.”

  Tequila watched Royce’s reaction. A pro, a real pro, would do just what Tequila said.

  But Royce did have an ego as large as his talents. He was used to being feared, even exalted. Nobody insulted him. Nobody.

  He needed to teach this midget a lesson.

  Royce bunched up his fists and stalked over. Tequila moved in quick, feinting with a lunge kick and coming instead with a right uppercut. His fist whirred through open air, Royce dodging the blow and dropping an elbow onto Tequila’s shoulder, making his whole arm go numb.

  Tequila tucked and rolled away, coming up to his feet and whipping around his left leg in a reverse kick where Royce should have been.

  But Royce wasn’t there anymore. He was at Tequila’s side, throwing a combination punch that split open the smaller man’s lip and bruised his right kidney.

  Again Tequila rolled away. He found his footing and stared at Royce. The man wasn’t even in a fighting stance. He was standing there with his hands on his hips, looking bored.

  This time Tequila didn’t attack. He let Royce come to him.

  Royce did so leisurely, coming within three feet of Tequila before executing a flawless karate kick to Tequila’s chest. There had been no telegraphing the move, no way to duck it, no way to block it. The man was fast enough to fight pro.

  Tequila was knocked onto his back. Royce casually strolled over and his fist shot out like a snake, grabbing Tequila’s right wrist. Before Tequila could pull his hand back Royce had twisted hard and broken his pinky.

  Tequila’s vision went red with pain.

  “Now admit it,” Royce said. “You’ve never seen anyone that fast.”

  Tequila kipped up to his feet and threw his palm at Royce’s chest. He knew Royce would dodge it, but he also knew where Royce would go this time after the dodge. Predictably, Royce rolled away from the punch to the left, and Tequila did a quick reverse kick that smacked the know-it-all look right off Royce’s ugly face.

  Royce was immediately on guard for the follow-up attack, assuming a classic defensive karate stance.

  Well, if the guy knew karate, Tequila would hit him with a little judo.

  He tossed a slow hand at Royce, watching for the block. When the block came he grabbed rather than punched.

  The grab threw Royce off balance, and Tequila used the momentum to flip the bigger man over his shoulder and throw him across the floor.

  Royce hit hard, but was already in motion to gain his feet when Tequila delivered a devastating kick to Royce’s ribs.

  It wasn’t karate at all. It was a football punt. Royce had gotten his hand up to block, but the force from the kick was still enough to strip the air from his lungs.

  Tequila brought up his foot to stomp on Royce’s head, but the fanged man shot out two stiff fingers at the inside of Tequila’s thigh, near the injury, prompting white hot agony that doubled Tequila over.

  He staggered back and Royce was on his feet again, lashing out with a solid chop to Tequila’s head.

  Tequila went down.

  Royce advanced.

  Tequila knew he was outmatched.

  Over by the fallen shelves, Homicide Detective Jack Daniels opened her eyes.

  “I’m going to break every bone in your legs,” Royce told Tequila. “Then I’ll use your balls as a leash and make you walk out of here.”

  Tequila blinked at the double image above him, and brought his knees in tight to his chest, kicking them straight up into the air. The move wasn’t karate or judo. It was straight gymnastics. He caught Royce under the chin and sent him sprawling backwards.

  Before Royce could recover, Tequila was on his feet and charging. He hit the bigger man with a shoulder tackle and drove him hard into the ground. Pinning him there, Tequila threw punches into Royce’s sides, hitting him with all that he had, trying to drive his fists through the man’s body.

  Unable to throw Tequila off, Royce pulled his knife from his sheath and cut a trail of blood across Tequila’s chest. Tequila rolled away, feeling as if he’d been seared with a poker.

  Jack reached up a hand, felt the exit wound in her shoulder. The wound was leaking, pretty bad.

  Royce lunged at Tequila, the blade dull with Tequila’s blood. Tequila parried the lunge with his forearm, getting a razor sharp cut from the elbow to the wrist.

  “I’m the best!” Royce screamed. He jabbed at Tequila with the blade, poking at him like a chef with a meat fork, his eyes glazing over with an insane, violent lust.

  Tequila backed away from the thrusts, trying to avoid getting cut again. Royce kept moving forward, keeping Tequila off balance, not giving him a chance to plant his feet and throw a solid punch or kick.

  Then Tequila’s back hit a wall. There was no place else to retreat, and Tequila had no way to stop an experienced knife thrust. He was effectively trapped, and his opponent knew it, breaking into a monstrous smile.

  Royce lunged hard at Tequila’s chest.

  Tequila put up his forearm to block, taking the blade neatly through his arm up to the hilt, between his radius and his ulna. Then, using his bones as leverage, he twisted the knife from Royce’s grasp and
brought his forearm down across the man’s face. The three inches of blade protruding from Tequila’s arm raked down Royce’s scalp and lodged firmly into the vampire’s eye socket.

  Tequila grabbed the handle of the knife and pushed hard, through his arm, into Royce’s head. Then he brought up a leg and kicked Royce backwards, free of the blade.

  Royce sprawled out onto his back, not moving.

  Tequila looked at the knife sticking in his arm and almost fainted. He put his head down between his legs to get blood to his brain.

  “Pussy,” he said to Royce.

  Rather than reply, Royce jerked up to a sitting position, gore dripping from his black eye socket, his custom .45 pointed and ready to fire at Tequila’s chest.

  Then Royce’s head burst into a brilliant explosion of red, blood spraying out in all directions like a shaken up beer can. His headless body jerked to the ground, the gun clattering to the floor next to it.

  Tequila looked over at Jack Daniels, who was lying on her left side fifteen yards away. The .38 smoked in the Detective’s hands.

  “Little help here,” Jack mumbled.

  Tequila limped over.

  “Royce!” a strange voice called out. “You get him yet?”

  “Can you walk?” Tequila asked Jack.

  Daniels nodded, allowing Tequila to help her to her feet.

  “Looks like you need a Band-Aid,” Jack said, indicating the knife sticking out of Tequila’s arm.

  “I’m afraid if I pull it out, I won’t be able to stop the bleeding.”

  “Keep it there, then. It makes you look tough.”

  They stumbled down the aisle, and Tequila recovered his .45s from where he’d thrown them, putting them back into his shoulder rig. Then he tugged the Demerol and syringe out of his pocket. He gave himself two injections, and then offered the last of it to Daniels.

  “What is it?”

  “Demerol. It’ll numb you.”

  She nodded, and he plunged the needle into her shoulder, next to her gunshot wound.

  “Royce!” someone yelled again.

  Jack cocked an ear at the voice. Tequila came to her side, also listening.