“God, am I glad to see you!” George said, gasping and fondling his fingers as if to reassure himself that they were all there. “What took you so long?”
“Can’t’ve been more than two minutes,” Jack said, slipping the handle of the hammer through his belt and pulling the automatic again.
“Seemed like a year!”
“The rest of them out front?”
“Just three—Reilly, the skinhead, and Reece.”
Jack paused. “Where’s the rest of them?”
“Don’t know.”
Jack thought he knew. The other three had probably been on that rooftop trying to plug him in his hotel room. But how had they found him? He hadn’t even told George about staying at the Lucky.
One way to find out . . .
“Okay. You lock the back door and stay here. I’ll take care of the rest.”
“There’s a girl out there—” George said.
Jack nodded. “I’m on my way.”
He turned and almost bumped into Reilly coming through the swinging doors from the front. He was counting the fistful of cash in his hands.
“How we doin’ back–?” Reilly said and then froze when the muzzle of Jack’s automatic jammed up under his chin.
“Happy Halloween,” Jack said.
“Shit! You again!”
“Right, Matt, old boy. Me again. And I see you’ve made my collection for me. How thoughtful. You can shove it in my left pocket.”
Reilly’s face was white with rage as he glanced over to where Tony writhed on the floor next to the unconscious Rafe.
“You’re a dead man, pal. Worse than dead!”
Jack smiled through the ski mask and increased the pressure of the barrel on Reilly’s throat.
“Just do as you’re told.”
“What’s with you and these masks, anyway?” he said as he stuffed the money into Jack’s pocket. “You that ugly? Or do you think you’re Spiderman or something?”
“No, I’m Pumpkinman. And this way I know you but you don’t know me. You see, Matt, I’ve been keeping close tabs on you. I know all your haunts. I stand in plain view and watch you. I’ve watched you play pool at Gus’s. I’ve walked up behind you in a crowd and bumped you as I passed. I could have slipped an ice pick between your ribs a dozen times by now. But don’t try to spot me. You won’t. While you’re trying too hard to look like Billy Idol, I’m trying even harder to look like nobody.”
“You are nobody, man!” His voice was as tough as ever, but a haunted look had crept into his eyes.
Jack laughed. “Surprised to see me?”
“Not really,” Reilly said, recovering. “I figured you’d show up.”
“Yeah? What’s the matter? No faith in your hit squad?”
“Hit squad?” There was genuine bafflement in his eyes. “What the fuck you talkin’ about?”
Jack sensed that Reilly wasn’t faking it. He was as baffled as Jack.
He let his mind wander an instant. If not Reilly’s bunch, then who?
No time for that now. Especially with the muffled screams coming from the front. He turned Reilly around and shoved him back through the swinging doors to the front of the diner. Once there, he bellied Reilly up against the counter and put the .45 to his temple. He saw Reece covering half a dozen customers with a sawed off shotgun. But where was that psycho, Cheeks?
“Okay, turkeys!” Jack yelled. “Fun’s over! Drop the hardware!”
Reece spun and faced them. His eyes widened and he raised the scattergun in their direction. Jack felt Reilly cringe back against him.
“Go ahead,” Jack said, placing himself almost completely behind Reilly. “You can’t make him any uglier.”
“Don’t, man!” Reilly said in a low voice.
Reece didn’t move. He didn’t seem to know what to do. So Jack told him.
“Put the piece on the counter or I’ll blow his head off.”
“No way,” Reece said.
“Don’t try me, pal. I’ll do it just for fun.”
Jack hoped Reece didn’t think he was bluffing, because he wasn’t. He’d already been shot at twice tonight and he was in a foul mood.
“Do what he says, man,” Reilly told him.
“No way!” Reece said. “I’ll get outta here, but no way I’m givin’ that suckuh my piece!”
Jack wasn’t going to allow that. As soon as Reece got outside he’d start peppering the big windows with shot. He was about to move Reilly out from behind the counter to block the aisle when one of the customers Reece had been covering stood up behind him and grabbed the pump handle of the scattergun. A second man leapt to his side to help. One round blasted into the ceiling, and then the gun was useless—with all those hands on it, Reece couldn’t pump another round into the chamber. Two more customers jumped up and overpowered him. The shotgun came free as a fifth man with a deep cut in his forehead shoved Reece back onto the seat of the booth and began pounding at his face. More fists began to fly. These were very angry men.
Jack guided Reilly toward the group. He saw two pairs of legs—male and female, struggling on the floor around the far end of the counter. He shoved Reilly toward the cluster of male customers.
“Here’s another one for you. Have fun. Just don’t do anything to them they wouldn’t do to you.”
Two of the men smiled and slammed Reilly down face first on the booth’s table. They began pummeling his kidneys as Jack hurried down to where Cheeks was doing his dirty work.
He looked over the edge of the counter and saw that the skinhead held the woman’s arms pinned between them with his left hand and had his right thrust up under her bra, twisting her nipple, oblivious to everything else. Her right eye was bruised and swollen. She was crying and writhing under him, even snapping at him with her teeth. A real fighter. She must have put up quite a struggle. Cheeks’ face was bleeding from several scratches.
Jack was tempted to put a slug into the base of Cheeks’ spine so he’d not only never walk again, he’d never get it up again, either. But Cheeks’ knife was in the way, and besides, the bullet might pass right through him and into the woman. So he pocketed the .45, grabbed Cheeks’ right ear, and ripped upward.
Cheeks came off the floor with a howl. Jack lifted him by the ear and stretched his upper body across the counter. He could barely speak. He really wanted to hurt this son of a bitch.
“Naughty, naughty!” he managed to say. “Didn’t you ever go to Catholic school? Didn’t the nuns tell you that bad things would happen to you if you ever did that to a girl?”
He stretched Cheek’s right hand out on the counter, palm down.
“Like you might get warts?”
He pulled the meat hammer from his belt and raised it over his head.
“Or worse?”
He put everything he had into the shot. Bones crunched like breadsticks. Cheeks screamed and slipped off the counter. He rolled on the floor, moaning and crying, cradling his injured hand like a mother with a newborn baby.
“Never hassle a paying customer,” Jack said. “George can’t pay his protection without them.”
He grabbed Reece’s scattergun and pulled him and Reilly free from the customers. Both were battered and bloody. He shoved them toward the front door.
“I told you clowns about trying to cut in on my turf! How many times we have to do this dance?”
Reilly whirled on him, rage in his eyes. He probably would have leapt at Jack’s throat if not for the shotgun.
“We was here first, asshole!”
“Maybe. But I’m here now, so scrape up your two wimps from the back room and get them out of here.”
He oversaw the pair as they dragged Rafe and Tony out the front door. Cheeks was on his feet by then. Jack waved him forward.
“C’mon, loverboy. Party’s over.”
“He’s got my ring!” the brunette cried from the far end of the counter. She held her torn dress up over her breasts. There was blood at the corner of her mouth. “My
engagement ring.”
“Really?” Jack said. “That ought to be worth something! Let’s see it.”
Cheeks glared at Jack and reached into his back pocket with his good hand.
“You wanna see it?” he said. Suddenly he was swinging a big Gurkha kukri knife through the air, slashing at Jack’s eyes. “Here! Get a close look!”
Jack blocked the curved blade with the short barrel of the sawed off, then grabbed Cheeks’ wrist and twisted. As Cheeks instinctively brought his broken hand up, Jack dropped the shotgun. He grabbed the injured hand and squeezed. Cheeks screamed and went to his knees.
“Drop the blade,” Jack said softly.
It clattered to the counter.
“Good. Now find that ring and put it on the counter.”
Cheeks dug into the left front pocket of his jeans and pulled out a tiny diamond on a gold band. Jack’s throat tightened when he saw the light in the brunette’s eyes at the sight of it. Such a little thing . . . yet so important.
Still gripping Cheeks’ crushed hand, he picked up the ring and pretended to examine it.
“You went to all that trouble for this itty bitty thing?” Jack slid it down the counter. “Here, babe. Compliments of the house.”
She had to let the front of her dress drop to grab it. She clutched the tiny ring against her with both hands and began to cry. Jack felt the black fury crowd the edges of his vision. He looked at Cheeks’ round baby face, glaring up at him from seat level by the counter top, and picked up the kukri. He held it before Cheeks’ eyes. The pupils dilated with terror.
Releasing the broken hand, Jack immediately grabbed Cheek’s throat and jaw, twisted him up and around, and slammed the back of his head down on the counter, pinning him there. With two quick strokes he carved a crude “X” in the center of Cheeks’ forehead. He howled and Jack let go. He grabbed the shotgun again and shoved Cheeks toward the door.
“Don’t worry, Cheeks. It’s nothing embarrassing—just your signature.”
Once he had them all outside, he used the shotgun to prod them into the alley between the diner and the vacant three story Borden building next door. They were a pitiful bunch, what with Tony and Rafe barely able to stand, Cheeks with a bloody forehead and a hand swollen to twice normal size, and Reece and Reilly nursing cracked ribs and swollen jaws.
“This is the last time I want to do this dance with you guys. It’s bad for business around here. And besides, sooner or later one of you is really going to get hurt.”
Jack was about to turn and leave them there when he heard tires squeal in the street. Headlights lit the alley and rushed toward him. Jack dove to his left to avoid being hit as the nose of a beat up Chrysler rammed into the mouth of the alley. His foot slipped on some rubble and he went down. By the time he scrambled to his feet, he found himself looking into the business ends of a shotgun, a 9mm automatic, and a Tec 9 assault pistol.
He’d found the missing members of Reilly’s gang.
Even though it made his ribs feel like they were breaking, Matt couldn’t help laughing.
“Gotcha! Gotcha, scumbag!”
He picked up the fallen scattergun and jabbed the barrel at Ski mask’s gut. The guy deflected the thrust and almost pulled it from his grasp. Fast hands. Better not leave this guy any openings.
“The gun,” he said. “Take it out real slow and drop it.”
The guy looked at all the guns pointed at him, then reached into his pocket and pulled out his own by the barrel; it fell to the alley floor with a thud.
“Turn around,” Matt told him, “lean on the wall, and spread ‘em, police style. And remember—one funny move and you’re full of holes.”
Matt patted down his torso and legs and told him, “You musta thought I was a stupid jerk to hit this place without back up. These guys’ve been waiting the whole time for you to show. Never figured you’d come in the back, though. But that’s okay. We gotcha now.”
The frisk turned up nothing, not even a wallet. The blue jacket had nothing in the pockets except the cash from the register. He’d get that later. Right now, though, it was game time.
“All right. Turn around. Let’s see what you look like.”
When the guy turned, Matt reached up and pulled off the pumpkin headed ski mask. He saw an average looking guy about ten years older than he and his boys—mid thirties, maybe—with dark brown hair. Nothing special. Matt shoved the mask back on the top of the guy’s head where it perched at a stupid looking angle.
“What’s your name, asshole?
“Jack.”
“Jack what?”
“O’Lantern. It’s an old Irish—”
Suddenly Cheeks was at Matt’s shoulder, brandishing the special services knife they kept in the car.
“He’s mine!” he screeched. “Lemme make his face into a permanent jack o lantern!”
“Cool it, man.”
“Look what he did to me! Look at my fuckin’ hand! And look at this!” He pointed the knife at the bloody “X” on his forehead. “Look what he did to my face! He’s mine, man!”
“You get firsts, okay? But not here, man. We’re gonna take Mr. Jack here for a ride, and then we’re all gonna get a turn with him.” He held the shotgun out to Cheeks. “Here. Trade ya.”
Matt took the heavy, slotted blade and placed the point against one of the guy’s lower eyelids. He wanted to see him squirm.
“Some knife, huh? Just like the one Rambo uses. Even cuts through bone!”
The guy winced. His tough guy act was gone. He was almost whining now.
“Wha . . . what are you going to do?”
“Not sure yet, Mr. Jack. But I’m sure Cheeks and me can think up a thousand ways to make you wish you’d never been born.”
The guy slid along the wall a little, pressing back like he was trying to seep into it. His right hand crept up and covered his mouth.
“You’re not gonna t torture me, are you?”
Behind him, Cheeks laughed. Matt had to smile. Yeah, this was more like it. This was going to be fun.
“Who? Us? Torture? Nah! Just a little sport. ‘Creative playtime,’ as my teachers used to call it. I’ve got this great imagination. I can think of all sorts of—”
Matt saw the guy twist his arm funny. He heard a snikt! and suddenly this tiny pistol was in the guy’s hand and the big bore of the stubby barrel was staring into his left eye from about an inch away. And the guy wasn’t whining anymore.
“Imagine this, Matt!” he said through his teeth. “You do a lousy frisk.”
Matt heard his boys crowding in behind him, heard somebody work the slide on an automatic.
“You got no way out of this,” he told the guy.
“Neither do you,” the guy said. “You want to play Rambo? Fine. You’ve got your oversized fishing knife? I’ve got this Semmerling LM 4, the world’s smallest .45. It holds five three hundred-grain hollowpoints. You know about hollowpoints, Matt? Imagine one of those going into your skull. It makes a little hole going in but then it starts to break up into thousands of tiny pieces that fan out as they go through your brain. When those pieces leave your head they’ll take most of your brain—not a heavy load in your case—and the back half of your skull with them, spraying the whole alley behind you.”
Without turning, Matt could sense his boys moving away from directly behind him.
He dropped the knife. “Okay. We call this one a draw.”
The guy grabbed the front of his shirt and dragged him deeper into the alley, to an empty doorway. Then he shoved Matt back and dove inside.
Matt didn’t have to tell the others what to do. They charged up and began blasting away into the doorway. Jerry, one of the new arrivals, stood right in front of the opening and emptied his Tec 9’s 36 round clip in one long, wild, jittery burst. He stopped and was grinning at Matt when a single shot came from inside. Jerry flew back like someone had jerked a wire. His assault pistol went flying as he spun and landed on his face. This big wet red hole ga
ped where the middle of his back used to be.
“Shit!” Matt said. He turned to Cheeks. “Go around the other side and make sure he doesn’t sneak out.”
Reece nudged him, making climbing motions as he pointed up at the rusty fire escape. Matt nodded and boosted him up. It creaked and groaned as Reece, his scattergun clamped under his arm, headed for the second floor like a ghost in white fringed leather. Matt hoped he got real close to the bastard before firing—close enough to make hamburger out of his head with the first shot.
Everybody waited. Even Rafe and Tony had come around enough to get their pieces out and ready. Tony was in bad shape, though. His nose was all squished in and he made weird noises when he breathed. His face looked awful, man.
They waited some more. Reece should have found him by now.
Then a shotgun boomed inside.
“Awright Reece!” Rafe shouted.
Matt listened a moment to the quiet inside. “Reece! Y’get him?”
Suddenly someone came flying out the door, dark blue jacket and jack o lantern ski mask, stumbling like he was wounded.
“Shit, it’s him!”
Matt opened up and so did everyone else. They pumped that bastard so full of holes a whole goddamn medical center couldn’t patch him up even if they got the chance. And then they kept on blasting as he fell to the rubble strewn ground and twisted and writhed and jolted with the slugs. Finally he lay still.
Cheeks came running back from the other side of the building.
“Y’get ‘im?” he said. “Y’get ‘im?”
“Got him, Cheeks!” Rafe said. “Got him good!”
Matt pointed the guy’s own .45 at him as he approached the body. No way he could be alive, but no sense in taking chances. That was when he noticed that the guy’s hands were tied behind his back. Matt suddenly had a sick feeling that he’d been had again. He pulled off the ski mask, knowing he’d see Reece’s face.
He was right. And he had a sock shoved in his mouth.
Behind Matt, Cheeks howled with rage.
Abe ran his fingers through the shoulder fringe of the white leather jacket.
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