3 Great Thrillers

by Churton, Alex; Churton, Toby; Locke, John; Lustbader, Eric van; van Lustbader, Eric

  “I don’t want him sneaking up behind me while I’m attacking the others.”

  “You’re planning to attack the others? Trained killers? No way,” she said. “I’m calling the cops!”

  I put my taped hand on her arm, shook my head. “Don’t make such a fuss. This is what I do.”

  She looked … everything at once. Angry. Frightened. Exasperated. The businessman at the table across from us got to his feet. He put a little menace into his voice for my benefit while speaking to Kathleen. “Are you okay? Do you need any help?” She looked at him and back at me, and we locked eyes. She smiled at the man and shook her head no. Then she settled back in her seat, took in a deep breath, let it out slowly. When she spoke, her voice was small but steady. “Okay.”

  “Ma’am?” the businessman said.

  “I’m fine. Really,” Kathleen said, and the guy eased back into his seat, much to the relief of his wife. He did the right thing, too: stood up for a woman in distress, impressed his wife. If all went well, we’d probably both get laid tonight.

  “You okay now?” I asked.

  “I trust you.”

  I nodded and looked back at my plate. It was harder to finish my greasy fries with my hands taped up, but I managed it. Then I asked, “You going to eat that sandwich?”

  14

  “Care for any dessert today?” Our waiter looked nervous.

  “What’s your name, son?” I asked.

  “Jared, sir.”

  I passed Jared a Franklin and asked if he’d seen the big guy in the kitchen, the one in the dark suit with the black shirt who kept peeking through the glass every thirty seconds. Jared’s face clouded over. He tried to give me back the hundred. “I really don’t want to get involved in this,” he said.

  “Don’t look toward the kitchen,” I said. “Just answer me. Where is he standing in relation to the door?”

  “When you go through the door, he’s on your right.”

  “The door pushes open to the right,” I said. “So when I first walk through, he’ll be hidden from view, yes?”

  “Yes, sir. What are you going to do?”

  “Has he caused any trouble yet?”

  Jared lowered his voice to a whisper. “He’s got everyone scared. He’s got a gun.”

  “Anyone call the cops?”

  “They don’t dare. And I don’t blame them.”

  “Good,” I said. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do.”

  “We, sir?”

  “That’s right, son. You’re going to be a hero today.”

  I told Jared and Kathleen my plan. She asked, “What’s a Glasgow Kiss?”

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  “Assuming it works,” she said.

  “It’ll work. These aren’t DeMeo’s best people.”

  “How do you know?”

  “First, I know his best people, and they’re in LA, guarding him. Second, there are three guys here.”

  “So?”

  “If they were really good, he’d only need two. The one in the kitchen is the least experienced. He’s related to one of the goons in the parking lot, probably his kid brother. I can tell by the resemblance. That bit of knowledge will work in our favor.” I removed my belt and measured a space about twelve inches from the buckle. I pushed the tip of my knife there and worked it enough to create a small hole. Then I draped it loosely around my neck. To Jared I said, “Ready son?”

  He looked at my hands. Swallowed. Looked at Kathleen. She shrugged. He looked back at me. I nodded. He said, “Yes, sir.”

  I waited until the goon checked the window again. When he ducked back behind the door, I jumped to my feet. Jared began walking straight to the kitchen door, deliberate pace, me right behind him. As he pushed the door open, I spun around and backed into it. Everything else happened in real time, in sequence, and though I didn’t see it all happen, I heard or felt it playing out around me. Jared lowered his head and ran full speed through the kitchen, screaming at the top of his lungs. A waitress shrieked and fell to the floor in a dead faint. The cooks waved their hands and ran in all directions. I ducked under the roundhouse right my grandmother would have seen coming.

  Jared’s job was to run into the parking lot screaming, “Oh my God, he’s dead!” That would create a diversion and force the parking lot goons out of their plan. This was important because the fundamental lesson every successful street fighter learns is you do not want to fight your opponents the way they are trying to attack you.

  I trusted Jared to do his part and began focusing on mine. While the kitchen goon was off -balance, trying to recover from the haymaker he’d launched in my direction, I straightened to my full height and slammed the top of my forehead down into the bridge of his nose full force, instantly shattering it.

  The Glasgow Kiss.

  I’d done this in the gym a thousand times, though maybe only twenty in real life. The Glasgow Kiss always works, even against experienced fighters, provided they’re not expecting it. I would never attempt to lead with my head against a real pro, but this guy was easier to hit than the heavy bag in my gym.

  The momentum I’d created carried my forehead downward into his cheekbones, which meant his nose fragments had to follow the same path. He crumpled to the floor. I noticed a gun bulge in the small of his back, under his suit jacket. I stuck his gun in my pocket and rolled him over with my foot, glanced at his face. I didn’t recognize the guy, but even his wife or girlfriend would have a hard time recognizing him now. His nose and the blood from it had spread outward from the center of his face like pancake batter poured into a hot skillet.

  Breaking the bridge of a man’s nose in this manner creates a surprising amount of pain, dazes him, and blurs his eyes, which gives me time to explore other options. Like removing the belt from my shoulders, wrapping it around his neck, threading it through the belt buckle, and pulling it tight while pushing his head in the opposite direction with my foot. I forced his huge neck to fit into the tiny space created by the hole I’d cut into my belt moments earlier.

  The goon was choking. His face sprayed blood like the blow hole of a whale, and I guessed he’d be dead in two minutes. I jerked him to his feet, but he was too heavy to hold with one hand, twitching and kicking as he was. I pulled the door open, got it between us, draped the belt over the top of it, and held him in place by pulling on the belt with my left hand. This way, the door was doing most of the work and the goon was hanging on the front of it, with me behind. I backed us up into the wall, which was a good place to be because the two parking lot goons had just burst through the back door of the kitchen with their guns drawn.

  The first thing they saw was their partner hanging from a belt over the door, choking, spewing blood everywhere, grabbing at his neck, kicking and gasping for breath. The second thing they saw was part of my head poking out from behind the guy.

  The one who looked like the dying goon’s brother screamed, “Ray!” The other one called me a bad name and threatened to shoot me if I didn’t let Ray go. Everyone else in the kitchen had long since hit the floor and found cover—everyone except the waitress who had fainted. She was starting to regain consciousness. The customers in the front part of the diner were just beginning to realize something very wrong was happening in the kitchen. I heard the sounds a group of strangers make when they’re trying to decide what to do. If they were smart, they’d follow Kathleen’s lead and jump under their tables.

  “Here’s how it’s going to happen,” I said to the gunmen. “You’re going to drop your guns and kick them across the floor to me. Or else Ray chokes to death.”

  Ray’s friend sneered. “I don’t give up my gun to no one.”

  I squinted to get a better look. “That a Monster Magnum?” I asked. “Hell, I don’t blame you. That’s a damn fine gun.”

  The guy with the magnum ignored me, kept talking while he took a step away from Ray’s brother, trying to create distance between them and work his way into my blind side. “Br
oken nose, belt around his neck—he’s not gonna die. That’s total bullshit.”

  Ray’s brother wasn’t so sure. “Joe, shut up. He’s dying. Look at him! My brother’s dying.” To me, he said, “Let him go, Creed. Let him go and we’ll walk away, I swear to God.”

  But Joe had other plans. He grabbed the fallen waitress and put his gun to her ear. “Let him go, Creed, or I’ll kill her. Don’t think I won’t!”

  She screamed. I laughed. “You think I care if you shoot her? Someone must have forgotten to tell you what I do for a living.”

  Ray, the goon on the door, was heavy, and my left arm was starting to gimp up from the strain of holding him there. I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep him upright much longer. Ray had been packing a small frame .38-caliber revolver, a good choice for a belt gun. I gripped it in my right hand.

  Joe said, “Last chance, Creed. You know what this cannon will do to her head. It’ll put you in mind of Gallagher smashing a watermelon.” He pulled the hammer back and cocked it for dramatic effect.

  It worked. It made the satisfying, precise clunk I’d come to love in that particular hand gun. I’m sensitive to the unique sounds each gun makes, and my ears were able to isolate this one over the gasping death rattle in Ray’s throat, above the sound of his legs kicking the bottom of the door from which he hung. I heard it above the commotion in the front of the restaurant as customers screamed and ran and knocked over chairs and trampled each other while trying to evacuate. I heard the sound of Joe’s gun and loved it. Though the .500 was too big to use in everyday situations, I couldn’t wait to add it to my collection.

  Joe had made his threat and felt compelled to follow through on it. He instinctively leaned his head back, away from the waitress, which told me he was about to pull the trigger and didn’t want some of her brains on his face. I felt the heft of Ray’s gun in my hand. At twenty ounces and less than seven inches in length, its capacity was only five rounds, but I’d only need one to kill Joe. I didn’t know what Ray was using for ammunition, but I put one of them in Joe’s temple and his head jerked when it hit. He fell to the floor, and a thin wisp of smoke escaped from the hole in his head as dark blood started to puddle. I heard the nonstop shriek of the waitress and wondered how many years of therapy this experience might require.

  But I didn’t look at her. I was too busy looking at Ray’s brother. He said, “Creed. Please. Let him go.”

  “You going to drop your gun?” I asked.

  He shook his head no and I could see tears streaming down his cheeks. Ray’s left leg had gone limp, and his right one was barely twitching. “I love you, Ray,” he said.

  I saw what was coming and released Ray just as his brother shot him. Then Ray’s brother dove for the floor to my right, angling for position on me where I was most vulnerable. I couldn’t let him get there, so I took a knee and squeezed a round into his left eye and another into the top of his head. I tried to push the door forward, but Ray’s body kept it in place, so I eased my way out from behind it and checked myself to see if I’d been shot through Ray’s body.

  I hadn’t.

  I walked over Joe’s body and spotted the magnum a few feet away. You don’t just pick up the Monster Magnum; you have to lift it. I did so and took a few seconds to admire it. The .500-caliber Smith & Wesson Magnum was the biggest, heaviest, most powerful factory-production handgun in the world. It makes Dirty Harry’s weapon of choice look like a BB gun. I hadn’t been counting on a gun this size and wondered why Joe hadn’t thought to shoot Ray. The 50-caliber bullet would have gone through him as well as the door, me, and the wall behind us.

  I couldn’t wait to tell Kathleen how lucky I’d been. I felt I finally had a woman I could talk to about these things besides Callie. Callie was great, but there was no warmth to her. She was part killer and part smartass. Callie wouldn’t have considered me lucky; she’d have said Joe was stupid. And don’t even get her started on Ray and his brother. She wouldn’t have fallen for the Glasgow Kiss, she wouldn’t have tried to cut a deal with a guy hanging her partner from a door, and she wouldn’t have waited around in the parking lot in the first place. Callie would have marched right in the front door of the diner, put a slug between my eyes, and stolen Kathleen’s sandwich for the ride home.

  I told the people in the kitchen they could come out now, told them to take care of the waitress who was no longer hysterical but had turned catatonic with shock. I took my trophy gun, walked into the diner, and found Kathleen hiding under the table where I’d told her to wait for me. I got on one knee to get a better look at her. She was pale, shivering violently. I put the magnum on the floor and reached out to her. She screamed and slapped my hands away. I told her it was over. She was safe; everything was fine. I wanted to tell her what had happened, tell her how shocked I’d been when Ray’s brother killed him to prevent his further suffering—I was even prepared to tell her more about how I earned my livelihood—but she kept screaming and told me she never wanted to see me again. I knew she’d probably be upset, but I’d failed to gauge the extent.

  I removed the tape from my hands and wrists and put the plastic back in my wallet.

  As I left the diner, walked to my car, and began the relatively short drive back to Manhattan. When I hit the turnpike, I called Lou first, then Darwin, and caught them up to speed. I asked Darwin if he had the power to prevent police from stopping my car.

  He said he’d try.

  15

  It was early afternoon, and I was back in Manhattan, in my hotel room. I’d ordered a glass tumbler and a bottle of Maker’s from room service, which for some reason took them over a half hour to deliver. The tardy delivery guy tried to make conversation to increase the tip I noticed was already added to my order. While money is not an issue for me, the thought of paying one hundred and twenty dollars for a thirty-five dollar bottle of whiskey is enough to discourage an extra tip. I dismissed him curtly, and we exchanged frowns. I went to the sink, turned on the hot water faucet, and waited for it to work.

  It had been a hell of a day so far. I’d learned that Addie’s entire family had been murdered in order to cheat them out of their lottery winnings. I’d been attacked by three goons who tried to kill me in a public diner. I’d lost Kathleen, the first woman in years who had offered a glimmer of hope for a possible relationship and normal future. I’d made an enemy of Aunt Hazel, which probably cost me visiting privileges with Addie.

  The water from the faucet was steaming. I hoped that in a hotel like this, no one had peed in the glass tumbler, but I rinsed it thoroughly anyway. Then I poured a half-ounce of whiskey in it and swirled it around to flavor the glass and kill any stubborn germs that might be hoping to breach my bloodstream.

  I sipped some whiskey.

  There’s something special about high-tone Kentucky bourbon. My favorite is the twenty-year-old Pappy Van Winkle, but Maker’s Mark is easier to come by and is plenty sumptuous in its own right. Bourbon is not a pretentious drink, although there’s a movement underfoot to make it so. Experts have started organizing tasting groups to explain the “softness” of the quality bourbons and the elegant flavors you’re likely to encounter when tasting them, including such exotic notes as orange peel, licorice, almonds, and cinnamon.

  In my opinion, listing all these flavor and aroma components leads to snobbery. As they might say in Kentucky, “Don’t go around talking metric to decent folk.” All a good Kentucky bourbon needs to show you is a smooth, mild burn on the tongue and the hint of a caramel taste. You drink bourbon straight, without mixers or ice, and if you’ve chosen a good one, it will taste like bourbon and not medicine or rubbing alcohol like most other spirits do.

  I sipped some more.

  I wanted to call Kathleen, wanted to work things out. I thought about calling her, wondered if humor might be the best approach. I thought about that awhile but decided she wasn’t in the right mood to find any of this amusing. I could apologize, but what sense would that make?

  Firs
t of all, I hadn’t done anything wrong. I’d been investigating a crime someone else had committed, a crime that had permanently disfigured a darling little girl and caused the brutal murder of her entire family—a crime that caused the loss of her house and her inheritance, and would certainly have an impact on her future mental stability. And did I mention this was a little girl Kathleen was very fond of? And did I mention I had done all this while putting my own life in danger? And did I mention I had done all this for free?

  Hell, she should be apologizing to me!

  Second, because I had taken it upon myself to help Addie, three professional killers nearly destroyed a wonderful diner and traumatized an excellent cook and wait staff while attempting to whack me.

  Third, Kathleen’s life hadn’t really been in that much danger in the first place. I thought about that and decided I might have to rethink being with a woman who could be so drastically affected by such a minor event. If someone attacked her on the street while we were out for a stroll, would I refuse to see her again?

  Of course not.

  Then again, if things worked out between us—even if I quit the business—there would always be the random murder attempt to deal with. After all, there were plenty of husbands, wives, parents, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, business associates, and friends whose lives I had impacted by whacking someone close to them. Most of these people would pay to see me dead. Whether they come after me by themselves or in groups, or pay someone else to do it, I’d be a fool to assume they wouldn’t even try.

  Fourth, the violence at the diner could have been avoided altogether had Kathleen not driven out to the house, uninvited, to question my motives.

  I was running out of whiskey in the glass so I added a couple inches and then dialed the number on the card Aunt Hazel had given me a few hours earlier. I sipped from the glass as Greg and Melanie’s lawyer, Garrett Unger, told me he refused to discuss the details of Greg’s estate with a non-relative.