Nobody Move

by Philip Elliott

  “Drop the weapons!” said the woman in the suit, probably a detective. “The building is surrounded, you have no other choice.”

  Saul said, “The building’s surrounded and they brought you three in? Sounds about as likely as my wife growing a dick.”

  The detective said, “The way it is, either you’re going to drop your weapons, or we are, otherwise we’ll all be killed. If we drop ours you’ll kill us anyway. But you know we won’t shoot if you drop yours. You don’t have a choice.”

  Eddie glanced at the cops behind her. The older one appeared still and composed, his gaze slowly scanning the room. The younger one, though—he looked tight as a coil, his back foot trembling and his eyeballs darting all over the place.

  “Did someone hand out invitations?” Saul said. “Who told you about this meeting?”

  “Nobody,” the detective said. “We’re here for him.” She nodded toward the cowboy. “But I can’t leave without those hostages.”

  The cowboy smirked when the detective referred to him, watching the cops in the mirror. The smirk turned into a wicked grin exposing a mouth of yellowed teeth, a chunk of them missing. Now he was laughing audibly, a deep, slow bellow, the sound echoing through the restaurant.

  Everybody watched him.

  “Do you know how many pigs’ve come lookin’ for me, girl?” the cowboy said at last.

  The detective licked her lips and straightened her fingers before tightening them around the pistol again. “Drop the shotgun or I’ll drop you. Something tells me these men wouldn’t give a shit about that, and I’d like to put you in the ground.”

  The cowboy grinned that horrible grin. “As you wish.” The shotgun clattered to the floor.

  “Raise your hands and step back toward me. Slowly.”

  The cowboy met Eddie’s gaze, his grin morphing into something more menacing. He raised his hands above his head and stepped backwards.

  The detective gestured to the younger cop. The guy looked shocked. The detective nodded, and the cop nodded in return, his eyes wide. He fumbled his pistol into its holster and pulled a pair of handcuffs out of his ass.

  “Slowly,” the detective said as the cowboy approached her. “Nobody else try anything. We’re all better off with him in cuffs.” She kept her gun trained on Saul while the cop behind her kept his on Saul’s men. That cop hadn’t moved a muscle. Shit, he might not have even blinked.

  The cowboy came to a halt three feet from the detective. She nodded at the cop with the handcuffs and he stepped carefully toward the cowboy.

  The cowboy looked at Eddie again, not smiling now. Absolute darkness lived behind his eyes, Eddie could feel it, as if the cowboy was the grim reaper himself. Maybe he was. A chill shivered through Eddie’s bones.

  The cop reached out to grab the cowboy’s wrist and the cowboy spun so fast Eddie almost couldn’t see him, the cowboy’s hand slipping inside his jacket. A blur of movement and flash of silver later and the cop was holding his throat with one hand while the other reached out toward something ethereal, the fingers tragically stroking the air. By the time the blood had begun to squirt out of the cop’s neck the cowboy had grabbed the man’s pistol from its holster and was sprinting toward the bar at the side of the room.

  Eddie wasn’t sure who’d squeezed the trigger, but after that first shot the place became a warzone. A cacophony of bullets zoomed over his head in both directions. He launched himself onto the floor and hit it hard, pain stinging his palms and swelling inside his kneecaps. He squeezed his eyes shut as glass shattered around him, bracing himself for a bullet.

  Dakota. She was right in the line of fire with her hands tied together.

  He lifted his head. One of Saul’s men lay unmoving on the floor, and Saul and the other three men had dispersed across the restaurant, shooting now at the cops from behind tables and chairs.

  But Dakota was gone.

  Alison couldn’t remember diving behind the wall in the foyer but here she was. The pistol trembled in her hand, which was drenched in blood, as was her arm, neck, and face. She tasted the hot metal of it in her mouth. It wasn’t her blood. The man it had belonged to—been a part of—lay pale and lifeless on the floor a few feet from her, his hand stretched out toward her like an accusation. Officer Bukowski, the rookie, the soon-to-be-father, who she had delivered to his death. She didn’t even know his name.

  The Texan will die for that.

  Davies was crouched on her right firing shots through the hollow in the wall that separated the foyer from the restaurant. The Texan had sprinted toward the bar.

  Alison peeked out from behind the wall. The other men were scattered across the back of the restaurant, squatting behind tables. One of the hostages—the male—was lying flat on his stomach; she couldn’t tell if he’d been shot or not. There was no sign of the woman. In the space in the center of the room, a black sports bag sat on top of a round table. Either drugs or cash were inside that bag; whichever the case, The Texan wouldn’t leave without it, Alison was sure of it.

  She couldn’t lose sight of that bag.

  A bullet tore through the wall an inch from her face.

  How long until back-up arrived? It couldn’t be much longer. Keep them busy so they can’t escape out the back.

  She aimed at one of the men crouched behind a table on the right side of the room. The man’s head came up like a Whac-A-Mole. She squeezed. He dropped.

  Killing the pig had been easy, but getting out of here alive with the cash would be a challenge. And Saul and Eddie had to die. That was more important than anything.

  Rufus squatted beneath the bar while bottles smashed around him, soaking him in pungent alcohol. He examined the gun he’d swiped from the dying cop. A full clip. He could do some damage with that.

  He peered over the bar. One of the men lay dead in the center of the room, another lay dead on the right, and the waiter lay unmoving at the far wall. Eddie lay on his front, his head up and moving. Still alive. Good. A bullet was too merciful for him. That left Saul and two of his men, and the two pigs.

  Time to thin the herd.

  Rufus scanned the room for one of the two remaining thugs. Gotcha. The man, a broad-shouldered grunt with a face like a bulldog’s, was reloading behind a group of chairs he’d fortified himself with. The pigs had his full attention. Rufus aimed the pistol and closed his left eye. The man finished reloading and peered over the chairs, exposing half of his body to Rufus. Three shots and the man was down.

  Hallelujah.

  Next.

  Rufus scanned the room for the remaining thug, feeling how a shark must feel when it cruises the vast darkness of the ocean. Killing was easy work, and he missed being a working man. Maybe after this was all over he’d put out the word and take some contracts again. Why go down a legend when you can go down a god.

  He spotted the final thug beside Saul, a skinny jumpy-looking fool who looked fresh out of San Quentin. The thug was firing at the cops from behind a large rectangular table flipped onto its side. Rufus could see only the man’s head each time the man raised his weapons to fire, Saul’s head peeking out intermittently beside him.

  Saul glanced his way and met Rufus’s gaze. Saul’s eyes widened. Rufus smiled. Saul’s eyes widened further. He ducked behind the table. A moment later the thug’s head surfaced and the man looked straight over at Rufus. The head descended. The thug would soon be creeping toward Rufus on Saul’s orders.

  Rufus slid to the end of the bar that was closest to Saul, where the thug would arrive from, and tucked his body tightly beneath it. He removed one of his daggers from his jacket and gripped the cool handle in his fist. The blade was hungry for blood and he would feed it. Gunshots continued to go off, but they were fewer now, and further between. The pigs would soon realize that most of the men were down, if they hadn’t already, and would sweep the room.

  Thirty seconds later, a shiny gun barrel appeared above Rufus’s head as the man holding it no doubt wondered where its would-be victim
had vanished to. Rufus lunged upwards like a Great White, the dagger coming up with him. He roared as the blade found the man’s chin and went up through it all the way to the hilt. Rufus had put such force into the movement that he stood now holding the man high above his head with one hand, the dagger jammed in his skull and Rufus roaring still. He felt powerful, more powerful than he’d ever felt. He could kill a hundred men like this. They were beneath him. He was something else, something better, something more—

  A gunshot bellowed and Rufus was thrown forward. He dropped behind the bar and grasped for the pistol he’d left on the floor. He snatched it and rose.

  The male cop was out of the foyer and approaching the bar, gun raised. Something smashed into Rufus’s chest and twisted his body backwards before he registered the flash of the pig’s gun. But Rufus had squeezed the trigger as he’d been hit. Rufus saw the cop’s head snap backwards as he crashed into the bottles behind the bar, more alcohol drenching him.

  The cop hit the floor and lay still. Pain exploded inside Rufus’s chest, but pain was of little concern right now. More pressing was Saul, Eddie, and the cash.

  Looking for the latter, Rufus saw Eddie grab the bag from the table, throw it over his neck, and dart toward the kitchen, the shotgun in his hands.

  Not today, Eddie.

  Rufus lunged over the bar in a single bound and chased after him.

  “No!” Alison had screamed when Davies went down, and now she screamed it again kneeling over him. It was all going to shit, and it was her fault.

  She pulled herself together. There was plenty of time to feel guilty. Right now she had to get the Texan.

  She grabbed her Glock and sprinted for the doorway the Texan had disappeared through and crashed through it, feeling no fear now but a focused calm.

  The Texan was at the end of the kitchen, about to turn a corner. She aimed and fired. The man crashed into an oven, buckling its steel door. He vanished beneath the island of countertops and appliances that ran the along the center of the kitchen.

  Alison moved toward him, pistol raised. The floor behind the countertops came into view as she neared the back of the room, but the Texan wasn’t there.

  She sensed him before she saw him. Something gleamed at the edge of her vision. Then a sudden burning heat in her side.

  The shotgun was heavier than he’d expected, and the bag of cash on his back wasn’t making things easier. Nor was his leg, still sore from the wound the day before despite being treated by a nurse who had owed him a favor.

  Eddie swept the kitchen with the barrel, looking for Saul. He’d seen him flee through here only moments ago. Shiny steel glinted at Eddie from every side. He took a left into a large pantry. Saul was waiting for him, holding a pistol to Dakota’s head, who had at some point managed to get her hands untied and removed the gag.

  Saul said, “Your bitch thought she could sneak out the back door. Drop the gun and give me the bag and I’ll let you both live.”

  “Hurt her and I’ll blow you away.”

  A gunshot went off nearby, possibly as near as the kitchen. Saul flinched, the gun drifting a few inches from Dakota’s head. Dakota snatched at the opportunity by raising her arm and driving something into Saul’s shiny shoe. Saul screamed like his skin was being peeled as Dakota rolled away from him.

  Eddie pulled the trigger. The shotgun almost jumped out of his hands, winding him and sending shockwaves through his wrist. Saul’s head popped like a grape, painting the room red and pink with blood and brain.

  Eddie gazed open-mouthed at Dakota. She was spattered with blood, fleshy red pieces caught in her hair.

  Dakota grabbed the pistol Saul had dropped and slipped it into her jeans.

  “Lose the shotgun,” she said. “It’s too conspicuous out there.”

  Eddie nodded, relieved to hear her speak, and dropped the weapon.

  Dakota ran for the back door. Eddie took one final glance at the headless Saul sprawled on his back, a steak knife sticking up through his snakeskin loafer.

  The man’s head had always been too big.

  The Texan had sliced her with the dagger, but she’d seen him coming and twisted her body out of the way just enough to avoid the worst of it. It hurt like hell. And she’d dropped the Glock.

  Alison ducked as the blade came around again, but didn’t see the fist that followed until it collided with her jaw and sent her reeling onto the tile.

  “You like that, bitch?”

  Alison crawled backwards as the Texan stepped toward her, desperately scanning her surroundings for something to defend herself with.

  “Only thing I hate more’n a pig is a woman,” the Texan said. “But pigs and women have something in common: they both end up in the kitchen.” The man had been shot twice, at least, but, except for the dark, wet patches on his jacket, you wouldn’t know it.

  “What the hell are you?” Alison said.

  “The devil.” He bared yellow teeth and stepped forward until he was standing over her, the dagger dripping blood in his right hand. She caught an overwhelming stench of alcohol and saw that his jacket was soaked with more than just blood. He’d been hiding behind the bar. All those bottles …

  Alison shoved a hand into her pocket and fished out the golden Zippo and flipped it open. She thumbed the wheel and a flame leapt out of its mouth.

  “Lose something?” she said, and tossed it at the Texan.

  His jacket ignited immediately. Shock swarmed across his face, followed by terror.

  Alison kicked him in the crotch and scuttled backwards. The Texan buckled onto his knees, wailing as the flames spread across his shoulders, hands grasping at his jacket.

  Alison rolled the two yards to her pistol and snatched it from the floor. She pointed it at the Texan’s head.

  He was screaming now, the flames on his legs, in his hair, devouring his face, and looking right at her, into her eyes, as if begging her to pull the trigger.

  She lowered the gun a few inches and shot him in the shoulder. He collapsed onto the floor on his back, silent, as the flames consumed him.

  His screaming resumed.

  Alison leaned a hand on the countertop and pulled herself to her feet.

  The Texan writhed in agony. The flames had eaten most of his hair now, the leather jacket coming apart, exposing scarlet skin. The acrid stench of burning flesh made her want to puke.

  She watched him scream, and when he looked about to pass out, she put a bullet in his skull.

  His hairless, sizzling head was shiny and pink. Like a pig.

  Alison spat on his corpse.

  They burst through the restaurant’s back doors into a narrow alleyway washed in the glow of the moon. The night was warm and filled with promise. A lone piece of graffiti in an ugly black scrawl marked the otherwise untouched brick wall: “FUCK THE NRA.”

  Halfway down the alley, Dakota stopped jogging and Eddie caught up with her.

  “I’m so glad you’re okay,” he said. “I was so fucking worried. Man, was I worried. I missed you.”

  “Is the money in there?” Dakota said, her blank expression impossible to read.

  “What? Yeah yeah, the money. Well, half of it. Are you okay?”

  “What do you mean ‘half of it’?”

  “The other mil’ is in a locker in the airport. It was the only leverage I had.”

  “You got the key?”

  Eddie looked at her curiously. “Yeah, I got the key. What’s with the questions?”

  Dakota’s eyes narrowed, the moonlight bathing her face in silver. Her hand reached behind her back and returned with Saul’s pistol. She pressed the cold muzzle against Eddie’s forehead.

  “Give me the key,” she said.

  Eddie’s breath seeped out of him like air from a blown tire. “What are you—”

  Dakota fired a round behind him. Pain exploded inside Eddie’s ear, followed quickly by a piercing ringing. He dropped onto one knee, a hand against his head, and heard someone yelling, then
realized it was him.

  The gun kissed his forehead again.

  “I said give me the key.”

  Eddie reached inside his pocket, hoping to Christ the key was still there. How could she do this to him after everything they’d just been through?

  His fingers found the key.

  “Here,” he said, extending his hand.

  Dakota snatched it from his fingers, the gun never breaking contact with his skull. “Take the bag off.”

  Eddie lifted the bag over his neck and dropped it at her feet. The ease with which Dakota pulled it onto her shoulder surprised him.

  “Did she cry when you murdered her?” Dakota said.

  Eddie looked up at her, his heart deflating in his chest. Silver tears streamed down her face like drops from the moon. That was it, then—she knew.

  “Dakota—”

  “Answer me!”

  Eddie flinched. “Yeah, she cried. But—”

  “You bastard. You fucking bastard.”

  “Dakota, I didn’t—”

  “How could you do something like that?” She was crying audibly now, her body shuddering. “How could you do it? My sister. My baby sister.”

  Eddie opened his mouth to speak, but what answer could he give? He had no idea how he could do something like that.

  “Tell me it isn’t true,” Dakota said, wiping her eyes with her free hand. “Tell me that bastard was lying.”

  Eddie met her gaze and held it. “I don’t know what to tell you, but Saul wasn’t lying.”

  Dakota screamed at the sky so violently it must have shredded her throat.

  “My sister’s name. What is it?” Her voice raspy. She pressed the gun hard into Eddie’s skull, almost knocking him over.

  “Dakota, wait—”

  “Say her name!”

  “Kaya.”

  “Kaya what?”

  “Kaya White.”