“Barely,” I confess, my senses filled with her every word and motion.
“Get your head in the game, Ax. I’ve scouted this streetcar for the last twenty minutes and haven’t seen anything out of the ordinary except for three Grecian goddesses, a couple of dudes in rainbow glitter bikinis and Elvis,” Bryan says.
“Height differences?” Patti asks.
“There are several children on board,” he informs her. “I’ve tried pinpointing one traveling with a single adult but keep coming up empty.”
“Maybe they’re not on yet?”
“It’s possible they’ll board at the designated stop together,” Briggs says, thinking out loud. “Any kids, Ryder?”
“No, almost everyone at this stop either has a bottle of booze or a cigarette in their fingers,” I say, reminded how good some nicotine would feel right now in my lungs. “Hey, check for a child with two men—or even a very unhappy kid with a set of parents—Miguel could have easily tried to put Lemy into the most inconspicuous situation so as not to be recognized.”
“It’s possible she isn’t even on the streetcar, Ryder, you know that.”
“Miguel has no need for the girl,” Patti states, and I’m grateful.
“We just stopped at Camp Street. Give me a minute.” I know Bryan is doing mental inventory—who’s been on, who’s getting off and who’s boarding now.
Toulouse is only four stops away. We have to get that visual.
Farrington turns her head to spy me, mixed in with the mass of people. Once her eyes settle on me for just a fraction of a second, she keeps looking around casually.
Good girl. She doesn’t give me away.
More tense minutes pass with nothing discovered.
“Canal out of the way—only one more stop before Toulouse,” Bryan announces.
“Hey, handsome. Got a light?” A woman dressed in a sexy Alice in Wonderland costume waves her Marlboro Light at me.
“No, ma’am.”
“Ma’am? Honey, how old do you think I am?” she drawls with a thick accent.
“Excuse me.” I quickly detach myself from the situation so she can’t distract me or make a scene.
“Oh, Ryder, you’re so attractive.” Briggs feigns a female voice—it’s hysterical, considering how low and deep his normal tone is.
“Fortunate you’re not on life support, ’cause I’d be all for pulling the plug,” I quip and watch as a parade of people walk past Farrington, draping her with colorful Mardi Gras beads as they do. She tries to step away from them, but she’s hemmed in.
“There’s no suspicious activity that I can detect,” Briggs tells us. He’s a couple blocks over, sitting in the parking lot of the French Quarter Visitor Center on the corner of Decatur and St. Peter, which runs parallel with the streetcar tracks. We rented a black Camaro, and he’s keeping watch from it, just in case we need a vehicle.
Farrington slips away from the bead givers and checks her position next to the bench. She’s nervous; her leg bounces up and down in frustration, and every couple seconds she runs her hands over the tops of her leg.
“We’re at Bienville. Fuck a duck—it smells like something just died in here,” Bryan yelps. “Holy hell!”
“Can’t be worse than your midnight under the covers flatulence sessions,” Patti says, setting the record straight.
“This is so bad you can’t breathe. Passengers are commenting about getting off before their stops,” he explains. “The driver looks perturbed and I need a gas mask.”
“Toulouse Street”—I glance at my watch for the timed juncture—“is in four minutes. Suck it up.”
“Yeah, Christ, it’s like someone dumped a pile of manure.”
“Like they wanted the streetcar cleared as much as possible?” Briggs suggests.
“Just like a distraction,” Bryan confirms.
“Who remained and who’s getting on now?” I feel the fuel of marked anticipation. It’s all about to go down and my senses experience the familiar buzz.
“There’s a new set of parents with a child dressed like . . . I’m not sure—she has a full face mask and hood with a full length blue gown and her hands are in a . . . I don’t know what it’s called, but I’ve seen it once before in a Russian movie.”
“You mean like Dr. Zhivago?” Briggs tries.
“Yeah, that porn flick,” Bryan declares easily.
“You’re an idiot,” Patti quips. “Do you put a hand in each end?”
“Yeah, and it looks like it’s made of white rabbit fur.”
“It’s a muff,” his wife says matter-of-factly.
“A what?” Her husband’s voice raises a notch.
“A muff??” Briggs squawks. “Are we talking about the same thing?”
“You boys are a bag of limp dicks.” I toss out the insult. “It’s a hand warmer. Get some class.”
“Why the hell would anyone want a hand warmer in the middle of August—it’s almost a hundred degrees out here,” observes Patti.
“It could hide duct tape or handcuffs.” I lock onto a premonition. “What are the parents wearing?”
“Plain clothes with full facial masks of Donald Duck.”
“Donna fucks?”
“Good one.”
“Three minutes!” I bark.
“Just trying to relieve the tension,” Briggs says apologetically. Yeah, this is how we do that, and I’m almost grateful he’s keeping things unemotional, but enough is enough.
“Can you engage?” I ask Bryan.
He says, “I’ve already gotten closer. In total, there are roughly forty passengers.”
“Two minutes,” I count down.
“Child’s head is down, and none of them look like they’re at a party. They’re not talking to each other either—parents are staring straight ahead.”
We can see the streetcar now; it heads towards us as we’re standing on the Toulouse Station platform.
Patti throws me a look from her position about twenty-five yards from me. She’ll wait to move until the back exit doors open. I nod.
Farrington doesn’t turn back, and she doesn’t hesitate; she takes off her mask so she can be easily recognized now and then boldly and defiantly steps up closer to the oncoming streetcar.
“Bryan?”
“They’re the only new family. Plus, after they got on is when the stink started and they didn’t get right back off.”
“Twenty seconds.” The comfortable press of my Glock nestled in its holster against my back is reassuring.
“The parents just separated—mom towards the back with the kid and dad towards the front,” Bryan tells us. “They look ready to get off, but they’re behind eleven other passengers.”
The streetcar slows then comes to a complete stop before the two doors in the front and back open simultaneously.
A couple people shove in front of Farrington and she quickly pushes back.
“I like a woman who plays rough.” A guy who is near naked, his body spray painted to look like Iron Man, snakes a hand around her shoulder. I’m ready to come at the son-of-a-bitch with both fists loaded.
She immediately draws her knee up into his well exposed groin. As he reaches his hands to his jewels, Farrington body checks him to the ground and quickly goes up the streetcar’s steps.
Everyone in line laughs, and I inch—agonizingly slowly—closer. I’m exactly six people behind her.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. Excuse me.” I listen as Patti jostles hard into the woman dressed as Donald Duck.
Hurry up! I groan inwardly. If we don’t make Lemy, I can’t follow Rachel onto the streetcar. I promised her that.
I watch the other families that exit through the door—most have several children or one child playing happily, and none are masked so that they’re unrecognizable. And none look like they could be Lemy.
The next three things happen in rapid succession.
“I’ve got her!” Patti shouts as she exposes the face of a very fearful Lemy.
<
br /> “Wheya’s Waychul?” she cries. “Mu hans hurt.”
At the sound of Lemy’s voice, I spring into action and begin pushing through the people in front of me.
“Perp is on the run,” Patti updates us.
Then two shots ring out.
Bryan makes a horrible, sickening sound. The crowd drops to the ground and people scream as I leap over them in a run towards the door.
“Fuck!” I throw myself onto the metal steps, get a grip on the handicapped bar and pull myself up.
That’s when the bottom of a black combat boot meets my chest squarely, thrusting me back through the door and off the streetcar.
As I scramble to my feet, the fucker takes down his mask—it’s Officer Douchebag from the Mansfield Police Department. Guthrie. He laughs as the door closes.
I run up as the streetcar slowly begins to move away.
Patti is talking to Lemy, trying to reassure her.
My fist closes around the streetcar’s back service ladder, and I get halfway up when I hear Bryan’s strangled voice. “They’ve taken Farrington out the other side!”
I turn my head just in time to see the polished black Escalade veer away from the streetcar and screech down St. Peter Street.
RACHEL!
“I’m on it!” Briggs assures me.
I didn’t realize I’d said anything out loud. The streetcar is picking up speed fast. I need to jump!
“Hold your fucking horses!” Briggs’s voice breaks through my thoughts.
That’s when I see the Camaro he’s driving speeding towards the side of the streetcar.
“Bryan?” Patti’s tone is stressed. He doesn’t answer.
Briggs gets up tight, so close to the streetcar I’m sure they’ll exchange paint.
“Jump, damn it!” he urges.
I balance on the roof of the lurching streetcar, watching the blacktop below me race by with sickening speed. I take three steps back, and then run forward to get maximum velocity.
For a moment I’m airborne.
“You ever pull a stunt like that again I’ll kill you myself!” That’s Chief’s voice in my head. He’d said that the first time I jumped off a moving vehicle—when I was fourteen. I thought I was badass, but Chief just wanted to whip my ass!
My body makes full contact with the top of the Camaro.
“You on, for Christ’s sake?” Briggs barks at me.
“Yeah, I’m fucking on!”
“Grip something!” Briggs shouts as we fishtail right onto Iberville Street.
There is fucking nothing to grip! I think, then find that Briggs rolled the windows down. Relieved, I fold my fingers under the topside of the door’s window frame. I tuck my chin beneath my shoulder until the vehicle straightens out. When I lift my face, I see the Escalade right in front of us.
Briggs’s tone is almost desperate. “911, there’s a shooter in the French Quarter at the Toulouse Station! We need an ambulance and police immediately!”
“Briggs?”
“Concentrate, Axman!” he demands of me.
I have a sickening feeling that Bryan is down.
Bullets careen past my head and skim over the steel roof I’m draped against.
Too close.
The next shot shatters the windshield.
“Briggs!”
“I’m good.”
I can’t fire back, I’d risk hitting Farrington.
“Get me closer!”
“Got ya, boss.” Briggs pulls directly behind the Escalade, bumper to bumper.
With my Glock in hand, I run down across the Camaro’s hood and vault myself onto the roof of the Escalade. With a death grip on the ski rack, I swing my torso over to the side and smash in the driver’s window with the handle of the Glock.
“We’ve got a white Escalade tail, and since it’s smacking into my rear end, I’m guessing he’s swinging for Miguel’s team.”
The Escalade I’m holding onto veers onto Tulane Street and into oncoming traffic. Cars swerve off the side of the road while drivers lay on their horns.
“They’re headed to I-10,” Briggs deduces. “Incoming!”
Before I can figure out what incoming means, the Camaro smashes into the Escalade just as hot lead rips through the metal roof about two inches from me.
“Fuck!” we both curse simultaneously.
Briggs isn’t liking getting pushed around, and I definitely don’t like bullets two inches away from my body!
Briggs warns, “If we let them on I-10 your safety quotient is going to drop fast.”
He’s right, a lot of people could get hurt.
I hang from my right arm and leg over the side of the roof and shoot with my left hand. The driver slumps over as the passenger lunges for control of the wheel.
Then a shot rings over my head.
Peering over the side of the Escalade, I discover Officer Douchebag acquired a motorcycle and is now in hot pursuit. He lifts his pistol for another round of target practice.
I leap, twisting my body onto the Escalade’s hood. Not a position I want to stay in—I’m completely exposed to the guy on the other side of the windshield.
Fuck it. I clip the passenger in the shoulder. He recoils fast from the steering wheel and clutches at his arm.
Farrington screams a warning from the back seat.
Another shot zips past me—it would have been through me, but that’s when the Escalade begins its flip. It pitches wildly, and the left tires catch air as the vehicle careens over onto its side. I hold on as long as I can before I’m thrown into the grass on the side of the onramp to I-10. The air is knocked hard from my chest and it takes me a moment to recover. Briggs brings the Camaro alongside of me like a shield, brakes and slides out the passenger door as the cartel crew riddles the side of the vehicle with ammo.
We both listen, dicks to the dirt and guns drawn at the ready, as the tires of the Camaro are popped and the air whistles free.
When there’s a break in the firing I peer up to see them lugging a kicking and screaming Farrington into the white fucking Escalade that had been chasing us. Quickly, I send out two shots; the first hits one of the guys holding onto Farrington in the back of the knee, and he folds like a house of cards. My second shot blows out the vehicle’s front tire.
More shots force us to retreat. Briggs gives me a frustrated look as our backs lean against the disabled Camaro. When there’s a pause, I pull back up and watch Eduardo Miguel smile at me triumphantly from the passenger side of the vehicle.
I lift my gun and aim then hear a voice behind me: “Drop it.”
“Do it,” Briggs warns.
I hesitate; I don’t have a clean shot as the white Escalade pulls into the stream of traffic and up the onramp to I-10, headed God knows where with Rachel in the back seat.
Slowly, I turn around. Officer Douchebag has us covered. His motorcycle is laying on the side of the road.
“I’ve already called for backup. I’m guessing that gives me about five minutes to decide your fate,” he claims smugly. “I could turn you in and have you arrested for kidnapping and obstructing justice, and maybe we can even make it look like you killed Rachel Farrington. Or I could just shoot you now and say you drew your weapon on me.”
“It won’t make a difference what you decide, you’ll still be goddamn ugly and a lousy shot,” I taunt.
“You know, I think I’d really like to kick your ass,” he tells me. “You.” He indicates Briggs. “Come over here slowly.”
Briggs stands up with outstretched arms and empty hands. When he gets close enough, Douchebag smacks him in the side of the head with his pistol. Briggs drops like lead.
“Get ready to die,” he sneers.
“I don’t have time to die,” I answer. “You think you’re a badass, but you’re really just an ass—a shitass, dirty cop.”
“You know your man on the streetcar cried like a bitch when I shot him in the neck.” He smiles through smoke stained teeth, reminding me that I’m gl
ad I quit. “Get up motherfucker, I’m going to sweep the ground with your ass.”
This is the best possible scenario I could have hoped for—the pride-puffed Guthrie wants to fist fight. He tosses his gun into the grass and puts himself into a fighting stance.
“I had a feeling we’d meet again, but I don’t have time for a movie fight.”
“A what?”
“You know, where the two strongest square off at the climactic scene. See, you’re not that guy—you’re the in-between dude that gets put down fast.”
He doesn’t like that and comes at me with all he’s got. I dodge his attack and give him a roundhouse kick to his spine. But like I said earlier, I don’t have time—all I can see is Rachel’s defenseless frame at Miguel’s mercy.
“I need your phone,” I tell him.
“Fuck you.” He spits.
“It’s easy. Don’t think, douchebag—you don’t have good judgment. Examine your present situation, and it’ll be obvious you haven’t made a right decision yet,” I explain as we square off on the side of the road. “You hurt innocent people who you’ve sworn to protect. You’re nothing but a stain. Now back off and give me your fucking phone.”
He throws a poorly aimed fist. I catch it and keep it in my hand.
“What’s wrong with your fingers?” I ask.
“Nothing.” He pants as I twist his arm at the wrist, and he falls to his knees.
“Sure there is, they’re broken.”
“They’re not broken.”
With three swift maneuvers, I hear the bones in four of his fingers snap before I bend his wrist back until it pops. To make sure he stays put, I put a firm boot against his neck and pull until his arm dislodges from its socket. He screams in pain.
“They’re broken now. You cry like a bitch, douchebag,” I let him know. “Have fun in prison, prick—just wait till you’re roommate says lights out.”
At that, I lay a kick to the side of his head and render him unconscious. My fingers lift the cell from his back pocket. While I’m looking through his calling history, I go over and carefully nudge Briggs.
“Are you dead, or are you going to wake up and pull your own weight around here?”
He groans and cusses at me.
“Good, you’re alive.”
And there it is—MASON DIRECT. I hit redial.
Defy (Brothers of Ink and Steel Book 3) Page 17