Back in Black (McGinnis Investigations Book 1)

by Rhys Ford

  A car on the level above us started up, its engine grumbling through the silence. The air was dry, scented with the untreated wood used to build storage units and the smoky pitch of the tar someone used to waterproof the walls. I shifted to my left, debating if I could make it to the van and maybe use it for cover, but Marie’s aim tracked my movement.

  “Adele was a mistake. Ivan went to the pickup with a ski mask on,” Marie spat with a heat as deadly as the bullets her gun held. “She knew it was Ivan, because he didn’t keep his mouth shut like I told him to. I told her to hand over the goods, and he said something stupid. It was supposed to be a handoff, a lot of diamonds from her past jobs, but he knew they were fake as soon as he saw them. He recognized the bag they were in.”

  “So what? He called her a liar and just shot her?” I shook my head at the stupidity of the whole thing, inching closer, but Marie wasn’t buying it. “Those fake diamonds? They’re still worth a hell of a lot of money. Apparently even when diamonds are fake, if they’ve got a big name attached to them, people will still pay through the nose for them.”

  “Stop right there, asshole,” she growled at me in her high-pitched voice. One thing was certain—Marie couldn’t swear for shit, because she sounded more like a voiceover from a kid’s show than a hard-nosed criminal. But by my count, she had at least one killing under her belt, maybe even more if it wasn’t Ivan who’d gunned down the fake Marlena that day. “She tried to cheat me and paid for it. After I get rid of you, Arthur’s next. Then I’m going to work on their granddaughter and help clean out all of their shit. Ivan said Adele had a big nest egg, and I’m going to find it. No more living with that asshole upstairs, listening to him talk about how good he is. I might even kill him after I kill you, fucker.”

  She squeaked on the last syllable, and I would’ve laughed, but once again, gun.

  The elevator rumbled, and to give the woman credit, she didn’t even glance behind her when the doors slid open. That told me a lot of things—she was very confident about her ability with the gun, and she’d been expecting backup. It looked like I was right on at least the second guess, because as soon as the main doors opened, a mountain of flesh ambled out.

  At some point, a bit of sperm and an egg kissed and began life. The developing cells lodged into a woman’s soft flesh, cradling the growing bits of bone and tissue until it developed a brainstem and then enough solid mass to be on its way to sentience. From that microscopic spark, this man emerged as a tiny baby, and then, from what I could see, he absorbed everything around him until he was the size of a small elephant.

  His thinning blond hair was cut into a pageboy I’d only seen on a film character named Rocky who preferred to grunt and run around in a gold lamé Speedo. There was muscle underneath the flab. There had to be in order to move his enormous body, because if he wasn’t nearly seven feet tall and four hundred pounds, I was a rubber ducky. Wearing a blue Watson Gallery T-shirt stretched over his broad chest and ample belly, he shuffled forward toward the van, working at the string of his gray sweatpants as he walked. The look of surprise he gave me when he spotted me standing in front of Marie’s gun was nearly as comical as her swearing, but that expression quickly fell away to an intense irritation, focused directly at me.

  “You hired someone else?” the shambling flesh grumbled at Marie. “I’m doing it.”

  “No, this is McGinnis. The asshole Ivan was trying to kill.” Marie still hadn’t gotten the accent right on the word asshole. “Grab him so I can shoot him in the head and we can get him into the van to dump him someplace. We can move the rest of the paintings later, dumbass.”

  My sneaker squeaked as I moved my right foot back, digging my toe down to pivot on. Marie was still a problem, but the overgrown Dutch Boy paint kid was a much bigger one. I don’t know what he was pissed off about, but the red flushing through his cheeks wasn’t because he was shy and I’d tossed him a seductive come-on. He was angry—bull-in-a-china-shop angry—and something I’d done got him to that volcanic level as soon as he heard my name.

  “I liked Ivan.” He cracked his knuckles, sending the sound of rolling dice through the tension between us. “You shouldn’t have killed him.”

  I didn’t get a chance to tell him I didn’t kill Ivan, because he was on me like Honey went after a swampy tennis ball. He moved quickly for a large man, which honestly wasn’t all that surprising, because there was a lot of muscle beneath that flesh, and it was used to shoving around that weight. He huffed as he came near, a locomotive engine churning through anything in its way. I had one spare thought hit me before Dutch was within arm’s reach.

  Marie wasn’t comfortable with the gun. She didn’t trust herself using it. Not if she wanted him to grapple me before shooting me in the head.

  Then my worldview filled with a rippling beige flow of skin and flab stuffed into a navy-blue shirt and sweatpants, and I put Marie to the side.

  Sparring with Bobby taught me how to deal with an opponent with a lot of skill and a body tight with toned muscle. But the best thing about learning from Bobby was he often roped in various guys working out at JoJo’s so I didn’t get too comfortable when facing someone in a fight. Every guy came at a situation differently. Sometimes they were driven by ego and other times by the need to dominate. And every once in a while, I was paired up with somebody who was a lot larger than me and pissed off at the world in general.

  I’d taken a lot of beatings from those kinds of guys over the years because they were unpredictable and no amount of strategy seemed to work… or at least not at first. Those were the types of guys that taught me the best way to win a fight was to keep moving and shoot out every hit I could.

  I lost sight of Marie, but I knew I couldn’t risk her getting a clear shot at me, even if she was unsteady using such a big gun. She didn’t seem like the type who would be sentimental about shooting her lackey, more like a woman who would gladly put a bullet through both of us, wipe the gun down to put it into someone’s hands, and pull the trigger again so there was gunshot residue everywhere.

  Marie was a planner, and she was going to have to be the one who I strategized around much more than Dutch.

  I just had to make sure I kept Dutch between me and that now-wavering muzzle.

  The Brinkerhoffs’ choice of cars ran to an old Volvo and a pair of bicycles chained together to prevent theft, so I was thankful for Watson’s testosterone-driven brain because he felt it necessary to park a midget Hummer in his space. The empty spot between them was probably where Marie normally left her car, and it was wide enough to give me enough fighting room but not so big Marie could get around Dutch’s heft.

  Dutch’s breath was ripe with onions and pickles, and he drooled like a Newfoundland puppy as he attacked, long lines of spittle trailing back across his jowls. It was going to be a risk but one I had to take because there was no way I was going to be able to fight off not only his weight but also his momentum, so I slid out of the way.

  And he crashed into the wall, coming up as dazed and confused as a sunlight-blinded rhino.

  I’d folded myself up against Watson’s Hummer, sliding around the front end to give myself cover, and I followed through with a quick punch to the side of Dutch’s head. I rocked his skull enough to jerk his face around, his chin grazing his shoulder, and he groaned, keening in pain. The howl had only reverberated for maybe a second when Marie let loose a round from her monstrous gun, deafening all of us with its thunderous boom.

  The wood next to Dutch’s temple exploded in a tornado of splinters, and he flinched, probably startled at the heat of the blast and then at the trickle of blood running down his face and neck. She’d shot at the space between us, obviously no longer caring if she damaged anything inside of the open locker. If I hadn’t punched Dutch, I would be tasting his brains in my open mouth, and judging by the look of confusion on his face when he turned to look at me, he was still working through that possibility as he lurched to his feet.

  “I didn’
t kill Ivan. Cops already cleared me for it.” I shuffled back, keeping the Hummer’s solid mass between me and Marie. “They even took my guns to check.”

  Dutch wasn’t willing to listen to me, or maybe he hadn’t quite figured out his boss was willing to kill him just to see me dead, because as soon as he was on his feet, he came after me. Trapped between the Hummer and the wall, I did my best to get away from him. I needed enough room to land a punch but not enough space to give him room to maneuver.

  Glass jaws are a real thing. There’s a bundle of nerves along the chin that, when hit right, sends a guy into a spiraling blackout. It was too much to hope to get the shot in right the first time, but I’d had enough practice, and I’d already rattled his brains.

  “Going to kill you,” he grunted at me, snarling with his chin straight where I needed it. “You cut my face.”

  Jesus, the guy was too stupid to even realize he’d been shot at and the bullet had done a number across his cheek. His side dug into the car’s grill, and I took my shot, plowing into his chin. I felt one of my knuckles blow, popping the joint out of place with a sharp sting. Dutch’s head rocked back, jerking in response to the solid hit, and I shuffled farther back, careful not to leave myself open. My left hand ached, and my ring finger swelled, throbbing with a hot pain. Grabbing at the first joint, I jerked hard, popping it back into place when Marie took her next shot.

  She was really shitty with a gun, but it didn’t take a lot of aim to kill a man, not when you were armed with something big enough to kill an elephant. The Hummer’s back windshield blew out, and then the front followed, the bullet piercing both of them before finally burying into the air-conditioning duct running above the storage lockers’ doors. She was too short to get a straight shot through the area, and the Hummer was too tall, providing us with enough cover to hide behind. But despite Dutch’s eyes rolling back into his head, he remained upright, lodged between the grill and the wall.

  “Stop shooting at me,” Dutch groaned, but I couldn’t tell who he was talking to. He didn’t seem conscious enough to really understand what was going on, and I briefly wondered if I’d hit him too hard. But then I remembered he’d promised to tear my head off of my neck, so that pretty much gave me free rein. “Stop moving.”

  Since I hadn’t taken a step away from the Hummer for fear Marie would get a clear shot, I figured Dutch was quickly losing all sense of reality. It didn’t seem to stop his determination, because he pushed forward, ripping his shirt on the Hummer’s chrome, and shoved through the tight space. His hands were almost on my neck before I realized he’d moved as far as he did. I heard shuffling behind me and, sure it was Marie, I took a chance and dove across the empty parking space next to the Hummer, rolling as I went.

  That move always looked cool in the movies, but the truth was it only scraped up my elbows and knees and, with the slightly tacky surface of the structure’s floor, brought me up short of the Lexus I was trying to hide behind. Dutch followed close on my heels, his grunting more wheezy than a bad ’70s porn shoot.

  He was having a hard time breathing, and a sheen of sweat plastered what hair he had across his temples and down over his broad skull. There was already a purple mark forming along his jaw, a sure sign I’d at least gotten a solid hit but not good enough to take him down. I wouldn’t win a fair fight. He had too much mass, and I didn’t have enough room to dance back. Not with Marie hunting me down like I should’ve taken that left at Albuquerque and it was now rabbit season.

  Dutch was in my face before I could blink, and either it was muscle memory or just simply fear, but I jabbed him in the throat with my left, swallowing a grunt of pain when my blown-out knuckle connected with his Adam’s apple. Not waiting to see if the choking strike would work, I followed up with my right, aiming just a little bit to the side of that bruise I’d already given him. Still, I wasn’t fast enough, because Dutch’s fingers were in my hair, knotting into the strands with a fierce grip, clubbing me in the chest with his other hand.

  The shock wave of his punch made my heart skip, and not in a good way. It knocked the wind out of me, and I stumbled, unable to break free of his grasp as he went down, choking on his own tongue or spit. The clatter of his breath coming out of his open mouth wasn’t good, but much like Marie, I really didn’t give a shit. One of the still unhealed cuts on my forehead split open, and hot blood ran down into my left eye. I fought to regain the function of my lungs, pulling away from Dutch’s thrashing body just to roll over onto my back as I tried to remember how to breathe.

  That’s when Marie walked down between the parking spaces, her big-ass gun lifted up as steadily as she could and aimed directly at my head.

  I couldn’t sit up. Hell, I felt like Dutch had just used a defibrillator on my chest, and it was all I could do to keep my stomach from crawling up my throat and emptying out onto the ground. Both the Lexus and Hummer had rims, so grabbing a hubcap and flinging it in an act of desperation was out. Marie was too far away to kick at, and judging by the smug expression on her face, she knew I was trapped. Behind me, Dutch’s heels were beating at the floor, his arms flailing about as if he were fully committed to his role as a dying replicant who’d fallen into Decker’s crosshairs.

  “You’ve cost me a lot of money, asshole,” she squeaked, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if she wiggled her nose and somehow sprouted whiskers. I was amazed at the stupid things my brain bubbled up with, especially when it looked like I was about to die. “Now I’ve got to figure out where to dump your body and how to get you into the van, because Stanley isn’t going to be able to do it.”

  “Really? His name is Stanley?” I shifted on the ground, pulling up onto my side. Something crinkled in my back pocket, and I winced, knowing it was my broken phone. I wasn’t ready to die. Not when I had Jae at home and a lot of Christmases ahead of me with a niece I needed to spoil. Marie wasn’t going to be the end of me, not if I had anything to say about it. “Are you going to kill him next? That’s what you do, right? Pick off the people working for you so you cover your own ass? Ivan didn’t kill Adele. You did. Just like you killed the girl and him.”

  “Wow, smart and pretty,” Marie mocked me with a whining drawl. “I should feel sorry about killing you, but I don’t. Say bye-bye now.”

  Private investigators always seem to have some smartass rejoinder before they pull their final ass-saving move, but in real life, there’s really not a lot of time. Marie’s finger gently squeezed down on the trigger with the perfect pressure someone obviously taught her how to do, even though they didn’t school her on picking a gun inside of her weight class.

  Growing up with Mike pretty much as my only playmate, we spent a lot of our time trying to figure out how to keep ourselves occupied. Back when we were kids, he couldn’t throw or catch a ball for shit, so we occupied our time playing politically incorrect games of gun-toting oppressors as well as Frisbee. Now, while a phone is a lot heavier than a plastic disk, Marie was a lot nearer to me than the standard distance people stood while tossing around the disk, so I was thankful for the up-close-and-personal approach she wanted to take to murdering me. I’d already taken my phone out of my back pocket, and as she squeezed down, I flung it straight at her wrist.

  She got off the shot a split second after the phone hit her fingers.

  That split second was all I needed.

  She lost her steady grip on the stock, her hand loosening enough to put a dangerous flexibility into her wrist. The gun boomed with the third loud and deadly report in such a short time. I was hoping to God somebody heard this one, somebody with balls enough to send for the cops or a security guard or a fucking Girl Scout if there was one outside selling Thin Mints.

  My ribs still felt like they were stabbing my lungs, and I fought to roll away, hoping to avoid getting plowed through by a hot piece of metal. I didn’t need to go far, because not only did Marie’s shot go wide, slamming into the Lexus’s front quarter panel and probably through its engine, but her loose gr
ip had tragic consequences.

  The Desert Eagle is probably one of the heaviest guns I’d ever held in my hand, and it required a firm grip and a steady aim. Shooting one usually left my shoulders in a slight twinge from the jerk of the weapon after it’s fired. I’d been shooting guns for decades, where Marie definitely hadn’t, because as soon as the phone struck and she loosened her hold, she lost her grip on the gun, and it recoiled straight up.

  The casing popped back, and I lost its trajectory after it bounced off her forehead, but I caught the full crunch of steel meeting bone when the Eagle, powered by the momentum of its blast, slammed back into her face.

  I was on the move before she hit the floor screaming, every joint and tendon in my body aching still from Dutch’s punch. But I needed to get to the gun. It was my only chance of survival, because if either one of them got to it before I did, there would be no second chance.

  Or at least that’s what I thought, because as soon as I dropped to the ground, reaching for the Eagle with my fingers ghosting over its hard stock, I heard O’Byrne shout that she was LAPD.

  “Get out of the way, Mac,” she yelled in that delightful hard-cop voice everyone who prayed to be rescued wanted to hear in a gunpowder-scented parking structure. “You two on the floor, hands behind your necks where I can see them. And if you make one move towards any weapon, I’ll be glad to add another hole into your head. So go ahead and flinch, if you want to know what it’s like to see out of the back of your skull.”

  Epilogue

  “WHY IS the kid walking like that?” Bobby jerked his chin toward Lisa, who was leaping about as if she was wearing a giant’s seven-league boots. Stretching out her leg in front of her, she hurtled forward, landing on the one foot, then stretching out her other leg to take another lunge. “She looks like she’s training for the Ministry of Silly Walks.”