Guns Will Keep Us Together

by Leslie Langtry

  "Let me look at that." Paris snatched the files from me. He frowned, as he read. "I think I can figure this out. Maybe with some help from Missi."

  I threw my hands up in the air. Leave it to him to find the silver lining in a cloud of sludge.

  Dela nodded as if she knew what Paris was going to say that. "I'll keep in touch by cell phone, and I'll expect updates regularly. You two are lucky. Troy wanted to be the handler on this one."

  I rolled my eyes. "Great. He hates me."

  Dela patted my shoulder. "Don't take it personally, Dakota. He hates everyone."

  We thanked Dela and left her apartment, heading for the pool bar. I got a double scotch, and Paris helped himself to a glass of beer. That was another cool perk. Free booze. How many companies with high-pressure work offer that? Of course, you wouldn't want cranky assassins when you can placate them with alcohol. Think of any of your family gatherings…Thanksgiving, Christmas, you know what I'm talking about. The booze helps.

  "You really think we can do this?" I asked after downing my scotch in one swoop. "'Cuz I think we're setting ourselves up for failure."

  Paris made a face. "And you used to be such an optimist."

  "Well, I'm seriously considering pessimism." I poured myself another glass of scotch. "Optimism is definitely overrated."

  "We have everything we need here. The zip codes will narrow things down considerably. Look here." He pointed at the zip code for somewhere in Ohio, then pointed to his laptop. I didn't even realize he'd brought the computer with us. What a geek.

  "Tinker, Ohio, only has 5,000 people." He pointed to the next one. "And this one's in our own backyard. We can do it."

  "How's that? Do you know how long that will take? We don't even know if these are men or women!"

  "Why does that matter?" Paris cocked his head at me. "We take them out no matter what."

  "I don't know about you, my friend, but I've never taken out a woman before." It's true. And it has nothing to do with scruples. I've just never been assigned a woman. In fact, I don't know if anyone in my family has. Why was that? "Huh." Paris sat back in his chair. "I haven't either. I wonder why?"

  I was getting drunk. "I dunno. Women make lousy terrorists?"

  "No. I think they're smarter than that. The only thing women are guilty of is promoting peace." And I could see that he meant it too.

  "You've gone soft on me." I scowled. "Women can be just as evil as men."

  "Oh yeah? Name the worst dictators, serial killers, and murderers. They're all men." Paris folded his arms.

  I struggled to think. "What about Charlotte Corday? Squeaky Fromme? Sarah Jane Moore?"

  Paris shook his head. "Those are assassins. They targeted men who they thought were screwing up the world. That doesn't count. I'm looking for women who, just because they were evil, did terrible things on their own."

  My brain was getting a little fried. "Oh screw it. I'm sure they're out there."

  Paris looked at me in silence for a moment. "You don't really think much of women, do you?"

  Whoa! Where did that come from? "Dude. You're way off. I respect Gin and Liv."

  He shook his head. "I'm not talking about family. I'm talking about women in general."

  "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "Well, for starters you only date empty-headed blondes. Secondly, you've never had a serious relationship in your life. And third, you have extreme commitment issues."

  I think my draw jopped. I mean jaw dropped. Man, I was drunk. How many drinks did I have? I stared at four wavy highball glasses in front of me—all empty. "That's not true! What about Leonie?"

  Paris folded his arms, the smug bastard. He only had one wavy glass in front of him. "What about Leonie? Are you trying to tell me you respect her?"

  "Of course I do!" I sputtered. Paris was now wiggling in front of me like Jell-O. Or at least, that's what I thought I was seeing. If he'd just sit still I could strangle him.

  Paris stood up, gathering his things. "Let's face it, Dak. You don't know what respecting a woman means." With that, he stood up and walked away.

  I was pissed off. But I was too drunk to do anything about it. So, I headed up to my room. Mom was watching Louis sleep. When she saw my state of mind, she decided to stay with us. I can't blame her. I shouldn't have gotten drunk with my son here. Too late for that. I watched her curl up next to him in his bed before I passed out on mine.

  I woke up at 3:30 a.m., hung over and mad about something without any idea what that was. Paris had something to do with it. I was pretty sure about that. I took off the clothes I'd been sleeping in and after brushing my teeth and checking on Louis and Mom, crawled back into bed.

  "You look like hell." Missi grinned into the monitor as she buzzed me into the workshop. I didn't know the password. In all honesty, I'd never really visited my cousin here before. Paris pushed past me into the room, and I followed. I wasn't talking to him. He just didn't know that yet.

  "I've felt better." I ran my fingers through my hair. "Do you know about our assignment?"

  "Yeah. What can I do to help?"

  Paris and I looked at each other. "Well, we were hoping you had a few ideas," Paris said finally.

  She cocked her head to the right and said nothing. She was like that sometimes. Kind of kooky. Missi would just disappear inside her head for a little while, then emerge with something crazy but perfect.

  The workshop was bizarre. I didn't know if she collected this weird shit or was a regular at church bazaars frequented by the mentally ill. I mean, who has a collection of B-list bobble head dolls? Erik Estrada, Charo, and Alan Alda bobbed and nodded in agreement. Yeesh. In the corner was a blast shield. This chick really liked explosives. I remember this one time when she made a toothbrush that blew up when it came into contact with molars—not front teeth or you may not get the whole head. That kind of work takes a creative thinker. Or a madwoman.

  "Well," Missi finally emerged from her thought coma. "I do have a couple of things I can show you." She stood up and we followed her through rows of test tubes, headless kewpie dolls, remote-controlled lizards, and a poster with a kitten dangling from a branch that said, "Hang in There!"

  She stopped in front of a table with a small, silver tube. "I did a little research and found out that one of your hits is a zookeeper."

  Paris and I exchanged looks before I said, "How did you know that?"

  Missi rolled her eyes at us, as if to say Hello! Genius here! "It's the guy in Tinker, Ohio." She tossed us a sheet of paper that did, indeed, have more info on the guy than Dela had given us.

  She continued, "The zoo Vic works at has a bear exhibit. I love bears. So unpredictable."

  Paris and I looked at each other again. Missi tended to get sidetracked sometimes.

  "Anyway," she pulled herself out of a glazed, faraway look and continued, "like I said, bears are very unpredictable. Especially the smaller, black bears. Most people take them for granted because they are smaller and cute. But use this puppy." She lifted the tube and depressed a button. Clear liquid shot about fifty feet, hitting a stuffed bear (the taxidermied kind) in the face. It didn't look like much, but I thought I detected the strong scent of barbecue sauce.

  Paris examined the glass-eyed creature. "What does it do?"

  Missi rolled her eyes. "This is a highly concentrated mixture of meat essence and bear pheromones. Squirt this on the guy, and the bears will charge and tear him limb from limb. Cool huh?" She lifted the tube to her eye, "And I have it in beef, pork, and chicken flavors. The coroner will just think the zookeeper hit a ribs house hard before climbing into the bear pen."

  "And we don't have to lay a finger on him. That is cool," Paris said as he took the tube from her.

  Missi warned, "Don't let it go off here. I got some on my clothes once, and a jaguar stalked me for a week." She patted the head of a taxidermied panther. I wondered if she did the work herself.

  "Great," I replied, wondering how she fought and killed
the animal. "What else do you have?"

  She loaded one of those shopping baskets with two tubes and four vials of the clear liquid. "Okay, this is really cool." We followed her to another part of the room.

  She stopped in front of what appeared to be a collection of little porcelain Santa figurines. Is this chick wacky or what?

  Missi pulled a Glock .45 with silencer out of a drawer. "This is a gun," she said.

  "Wow. Never seen one of those before," I teased. Maybe she was crazier than we all thought.

  Missi shook her head. "It's not the gun that's special. It's the ammo." Paris and I watched as she ejected the magazine and slid one of the rounds out. "It's made of gelatin." The bullet was clear, like plastic, with a clear shell casing that looked like glass. She handed us each a bullet. The end was rubbery and the casing was glass. Huh?

  "I got the idea when I made pineapple Jell-O for the boys. I thought there had to be a way to make a bullet that would cause enough shock trauma to kill a man, but that could also be absorbed by the body so that no bullet would be found."

  "Jesus, Missi!" I shouted, "That would revolutionize our industry!"

  Paris, more cautious than I was—as usual—agreed, "Yes it would. But how does it work?"

  "It works like a dream." Missi grinned. "Speaking of which, I had the weirdest dream last night. In it, I invented a see-through yarn and knitted a sweater out of it, then I flew to California and ate at the Brown Derby. Everyone thought I was half-naked, which of course, I wasn't…"

  "Um, Missi? The ammo?" I interrupted.

  "Oh yeah." She giggled as if she remembered some joke. "It operates on a similar principle as the icicle maker I did a few years back. Now, you can't really shoot bullets made of ice, because when the gunpowder ignites the gun gets hot, and you'd just have a really expensive water gun." She took a deep breath. "And I didn't want to use real Jell-O and have it melt before it entered the body. So I came up with my own mixture that will initially tear into human flesh. Once inside, when it heats up to 98.6 degrees, the bullet dissolves—like Jell-O."

  "And the casing?" Paris asked as he inspected it.

  Missi took the shell from him and popped it into her mouth and chewed. Before I had a moment to react, she stuck out her tongue, showing what appeared to be shards of broken glass.

  "Rock candy. Like they make fake glass out of for the movies." Missi grinned and swallowed.

  I picked up the pistol. "And this doesn't produce a temperature as high as 98 degrees?"

  "Oh, I forgot that part." Missi laughed. "The gelatin takes a couple of minutes to dissolve. It's not in the gun long enough. And I tricked out the silencer with a little cooling system. Kind of like an air conditioner."

  I looked at Paris, then turned back to her, "We'll take two and as much ammo as you have."

  Missi laughed again and stuffed our basket full. It only took her a few moments to bag everything and send us on our way. As we headed for the airstrip that night to return home, I couldn't help wondering about my cousin. She was brilliant, but her work would only ever get noticed by the Bombay family. As the plane lifted off the tarmac, I watched the island shrink below me. Now there was one woman I really respected.

  But maybe Paris was right. I had to think about this Leonie thing. Was I infatuated with her because she was different from the other women I'd been with? Or was it just because she was the only one who could get a rise out of my dick? That was one problem I had to solve.

  Mom and Louis enthusiastically regaled us with the story of how Louis met Grandma. My kid went on and on about her collection of souvenirs from all over the world. But I was only half-listening. I had a lot to deal with when we got back. But first and foremost on my mind was a smart-assed mortician named Leonie Doubtfire.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  "I am the wild blue yonder. The front line in a never ending battle between good and not so good. Together with my stalwart sidekick, Arthur, and the magnanimous help of some other folks I know, we form the yin to villainy's malevolent yang. Destiny has chosen us. Wicked men, you face The Tick."

  ~The Tick

  I called Leonie the next day after dropping Louis off at school (where, I might add, he was delirious with delight about the homework he'd have to make up). She sounded happy to hear from me, and we made plans for dinner in two days.

  That night, Louis and I snuggled up together on the couch with a pizza and watched Survivor: Gobi Desert. I love this show. Louis seemed to like it too, as he filled me in on all the geographic information about the area. I just thought it was funny how the producers had run out of tropical locales and were now using a barren wasteland. At least they were back to being scantily clad—unlike the previous season at the Arctic Circle. Bikinis trumped snow suits any day in my book.

  "Did you know that the word "Gobi means desert?" Louis asked me through a mouthful of pizza. He went on to regale me with other odd facts about Mongolia.

  "No, I didn't know that." I gave him a squeeze. We were two men (okay, one midget genius and one guy with great hair), bonding over the great American pastime of good pizza and bad television.

  Louis and I laughed as the contestants tried to start a fire with no kindling, wood, or matches. Although it did get interesting when some of the women volunteered their T-shirts for the task. That would come back to bite them in the ass when it got really cold that night. Oh well. It's just good fun.

  "Dad?" Louis asked me once I tucked him into bed. "I just wanted to say that this has been really overwhelming lately."

  Didn't I know it. I grinned. "I know, Sport. You've been great about everything."

  He looked around the room slowly, before turning back to me. My heart sank, and I had the feeling I was about to be chastised.

  "It's just," Louis twisted his hands nervously on his lap, and I realized this was the first time I'd ever seen him like that. "It's just that I don't want to be the grown-up in this relationship…like I was with Mom."

  My heart skipped the stomach and went straight for my shoes.

  "Given the circumstances of my conception," he said.

  "Given the circumstances of my conception?" I repeated in shock. "Are you six or forty?"

  Louis rolled his eyes, ignoring my comment. "I've been reading your Maxim magazines. Anyway, with Mom, she had this scattered life. I had to remind her to pay the bills, take me for check-ups, all that stuff. And I'd kind of like to be the kid now."

  The room was literally spinning as I tried to absorb what my son had just told me.

  "This means," he went on, "no swearing, no drinking too much, and no passing me off to sitters so you can go out."

  "Holy shit, Louis!"

  He frowned, and I knew I'd already screwed up. It was literally as if he'd sucker-punched me. My first instinct was to be defensive. But how sad is that to have to defend myself to a six-year-old who was more mature than I was?

  "Okay. I'll try." I said, rumpling his hair. "Anything for you."

  Louis smiled, and I kissed the top of his head. Later that night, I thought about what he said over and over. And I realized that the kid was right.

  Louis and I were really starting to show affection for each other. And to my surprise, I discovered that my favorite time of day was picking him up after school. There was a real emotional rush every time he raced out the door and slammed into my arms. I decided that afternoon that it was time for Leonie and Louis to meet.

  "Hey!" Leonie kissed me on the cheek when she answered the door. "Who's this little guy?" I watched carefully to see if she was upset I brought a child with me on the date.

  Louis extended his right hand, "Louis Torvald Bombay. Pleased to meet you."

  Leonie laughed and shook his hand, shooting me a bemused look. Apparently, she was okay with it.

  I made introductions on the way to the Thai restaurant. To my surprise, Leonie and Louis hit it off immediately. In fact, they talked to each other more than they talked to me. And to my shock, I didn't mind. For once,
all the attention wasn't on me, and yet I felt like everything was perfect. I wanted my new girlfriend to fall in love with my new son.

  While they munched on pad Thai and chatted about the Gobi Desert (Louis's new obsession), I watched them with fascination. It came as a shock to me that I was witnessing the possible birth of a family. So this was what most people did.

  A cold sweat crept over me. Oh my God. I was becoming a family man. What happened to me? I used to be perfectly content with my life. Now, in few short weeks, my life had turned upside down. Oh shit! I haven't had sex in a long time! Panic set in, and for a moment I thought I was going to hyperventilate. What was happening to me?

  I left Leonie and Louis at the table and headed for the men's room. This might sound weird, but I needed a break. All of the sudden, I needed some space. I found a quiet stall and sat down on the toilet fully clothed.

  "'Scuse me," A deep voice interrupted my meditation. "I'm looking for Dakota Bombay."

  That's weird. Someone trailed me into the men's room?

  "I'll be out in a second." I stood up quietly, sliding my leather belt out of the loops on my Dockers.

  The door slammed open, knocking me back against the stool. I recovered quickly, yanking on my opponent's arm and bringing him to the floor with me. I looped the belt around his neck and twisted.

  "What the hell, man?" I asked the gurgling man in my grip, "What do you want with me?"

  "Some guy sent me," he rasped, struggling to get his fingers between the leather and his skin.

  "Who?" I tightened my grip on his throat.

  "Doc Savage…"

  I almost dropped my belt. Again? I thought for a few moments about what I should ask next.

  "What did Doc Savage want you to do?" I growled in his ear.

  Shit. He was unconscious. I watched as his body dropped to the floor. Now what? After slipping my belt back on, I made sure the bathroom door was locked. Working quickly, I sat him on a toilet in one of the stalls, pulling his pants down to his ankles and leaning him back against the wall. I crawled under the door so it would stay closed and cleaned myself up in the mirror. That's a couple of the things I like about strangulation. It's not very messy, and you don't have to actually kill them. It's all about the pressure.