“Technically, she was harassing me,” I reply, shrugging casually. “Although I wasn’t about to complain about it.” I look over at her and wink, to give them the impression I’m naïve and more mouth than anything else.
“Looked to us like you were causing problems,” he says.
“I was just asking to speak to the boss, that’s all. I was given the names of either Tommy Blunt or Jonas Pike. They around?”
Both men exchange a concerned glance. Everyone obviously knows about Blunt, but they’re not about to say anything.
“Mr. Blunt’s not here,” he says after a moment.
“I know, Tammy’s already said that. You know when he’ll be back?”
He shakes his head.
“What about Jonas, is he here?”
“Not seen him since last night, actually,” he replies, sounding surprisingly helpful.
“So, who’s in charge right this second?”
The guy on my right shrugs. “Me. Who’s asking?”
“It’s not important who I am. I’m just after some information. You help me out, I’ll leave you all in peace.”
“And if I don’t?” he asks, smirking.
“Then I’ll leave you all in pieces.”
He smiles and looks around. His friend on the left starts laughing.
“Listen, asshole. I’ve no idea who you are, or what you’re after, but you’re in the wrong fuckin’ place. Do you have any idea who owns this joint?”
I smile. Bingo.
“Yes. Does he have any idea you’re dealing drugs out the back of this place?” Both men’s eyes go wide. “What am I saying?” I continue, feigning stupidity. “Of course he does. Because he’s the worst kind of piece of shit there is, isn’t he?”
In the blink of an eye, I whip one of my Berettas out from behind me with my right hand and place the barrel against the forehead of the man now in charge. The music stops, the girl on the stage stands still, and everyone’s eyes are now on me. Luckily, I’m not the self-conscious type.
“What’s your name?” I ask, calmly.
“J-Justin,” he replies. Any confidence he once had now departed.
His friend shifts anxiously back and forth next to him. In another swift movement, I produce the other Beretta in my left hand and place it right between his eyes.
“And you...” I say to him. “Name?”
“Eight Ball,” he replies quietly.
“Eight Ball? Really?”
He nods silently, almost ashamed.
“Fine, whatever. Listen, I’m an old acquaintance of your boss’, and I’d like to get a message to him. Anyone gonna tell me where I can find him?”
Tammy, who’s standing off to the side, watching on more with curiosity than fear, steps toward us.
“Hey, Mister, you want some advice?”
I look at her, somewhat bemused.
“Sure,” I say.
“These guys won’t tell you shit. They’re more scared of Mr. Trent than they are of you. You’re wastin’ your time here.”
“Tammy, shut your goddamn mouth!” shouts Justin, who then addresses me. “You’ve got no idea how much shit you’re in right now.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the bartender suddenly duck down behind the counter.
Well, he’s getting his gun…
He quickly re-appears holding a shotgun, which he levels in our direction. Time slows down for me as I look on, assessing every possible outcome and planning my response.
He’s holding an Ithaca, which is a versatile pump-action model designed to fire many different caliber rounds. The shotgun itself is a close-range weapon, and when it fires, it sprays the buckshot in a conical arc toward its target, meaning that the farther away you are from the gun, the less accurate the shot is, but the wider the target area, meaning you’re more likely to get hit but less likely to receive heavy damage. However, if it’s fired close quarters, it’ll blow you in half.
I’ve got maybe three seconds before that guy fires…
I quickly flick my wrists toward Justin and Eight Ball, slamming the butt of each pistol into their noses. They stagger back a few steps but stay standing. Having made some space for myself, I rush to my right, wrapping my right arm around Tammy’s waist as I move, scooping her up with ease, and dragging her with me.
“Hey!” she shouts in protest.
The anticipated blast from the shotgun sounds out, thundering around the near-deserted club, drowning out her voice. She screams as the buckshot peppers a nearby wall, narrowly missing us. I throw her onto the stage and spin around, returning fire with both guns at the bar.
The guy ducks for cover, and as he does I quickly sprint over toward him. He springs back up again to fire off a round, but this time I’m directly in front of him with just the bar counter between us, practically nose to nose. For a split second, he completely freezes, and the color leaves his face. I level one of my pistols and put a bullet in his head, causing a thick spray of blood and brains to explode across the back of the bar.
As his lifeless body slumps to the floor, I turn around to see the bouncers running away in opposite directions. Justin’s heading toward the back, but Eight Ball’s making his way over to the entrance, so I take aim at him quickly and fire. I hit him in his right leg, just below the knee. He stumbles and sprawls over near the steps, his face contorted with pain as he lets out a scream.
Happy he’s out for the count, I turn to see the door to the back office closing. I run over, navigating past the half-drunk, half-depressed patrons who are all rooted to their chairs, probably in a cross between fear and curiosity.
I pause at the door, listening for any movement behind it. I doubt he’ll be lying in wait for me, if I’m honest. I push the door open, pausing momentarily before going through. Just like Josh had said, I’m in a corridor facing to my left. Ahead of me is the door I know leads to the office, with the fire exit just before it on the right. Behind me are the changing rooms. I figure he’ll be heading to the office to make an emergency phone call for some back up.
I walk down the hall and kick the office door open without breaking stride, almost taking it off its hinges. Justin is in the far corner, standing in front of a desk holding a phone to his ear with his left hand and dialing with his right. He turns and looks at me like a deer caught in the headlights. I quickly aim and fire, shooting his left hand, and blowing his first two fingers clean off. He drops the receiver and screams in pain as he crouches down, holding his injured hand.
I re-holster my guns, walk over to him and smash my right knee into the side of his face, right on the jawbone, knocking him clean out. I pick up the receiver and put it to my ear. There’s a deep, angry voice on the other end.
“Hello? What the fuck’s going on there? Answer me, you piece of shit!”
I smile to myself. Wilson fucking Trent…
I physically bite my tongue to stop myself from saying anything. It’s not the right time. Not yet… I simply hang up and look around the office. There’s minimal furnishing, with just the desk and a couple of chairs in the center of the room, and a filing cabinet against the back wall in the opposite corner. A small painting hangs on the left wall as you walk in that has no business being in a place like this. It’s a portrait of a woman sitting on a chair. I’m sure it’s very good, if you like that sort of thing. I mean, it’s not the Mona Lisa or anything, don’t get me wrong, but come on… this is an office in a strip club, not the fucking Louvre. There’s only one reason it would be here…
I walk over to it, inspecting it briefly before pulling the right edge away from the wall like a small door, revealing a decent-sized safe. I walk back over to Justin and slap him hard across the face to wake him up, dragging him to his feet and over to the wall.
“Do you know the combination?” I ask, gesturing to the safe.
He groans and holds his left hand up in front of him, inspecting the wound where his index and middle fingers used to be.
“My fucki
ng hand!” he yells, as panic slowly sets in.
“Oh, relax—you still have another one, which is in perfect working order. And you can use it to open this safe. Now.”
“B-but... But...”
I take out a Beretta and place it against his head.
“Don’t make me ask you again. We all know Blunt and Pike are dead, which means you’re running the show now. So logic would dictate you’re able to open this safe... so, in your own time, asshole.”
He’s almost crying, but he complies, using his trembling right hand to work the dial and eventually open the safe. As it swings open, I pull the trigger, putting a bullet through his head and painting the wall and door with blood, bone, and brain.
I look inside and smile.
There’s a large wad of cash—maybe twenty thousand dollars’ worth of twenties and fifties in bundle, and two large bags of cocaine, each containing maybe five kilos.
I’ve just had a brilliant idea…
I walk out of the office and down the corridor to the changing rooms. I stride in with no hesitation, ignoring the two half-naked women who are holding each other, and quickly find a backpack. I empty its contents out on the floor and, without a word, head back to the office. I clear the safe out and put everything in the bag, then sling it over my shoulder. I take a look around and locate the security camera, which is in the right corner of the room, level with the door. I walk right underneath it, take my baseball cap off and stare directly into the lens, smiling. Then I raise my gun and fire, destroying the device.
I walk back out through the club, ignoring any looks and comments, head up the steps, through the door, along the corridor, and back outside. I put the cap back on my head, squinting as my eyes re-adjust to the natural light from the gloom inside. It’s started to rain lightly. I jog across the street and open the back door to the Winnebago.
“How’d it go?” asks Josh, looking up from his laptop as I step inside. “And what’s in the bag?”
I don’t say anything; I just smile at him as I rest the bag on the seating by the back window. His eyes narrow and he sighs wearily.
“Adrian, what have you done?”
11.
12:18
Josh is worried. It’s my fault; I know that.
Look, I had to make a bold statement and hit Trent where it hurts. I’ve managed to steal just over twenty-three thousand dollars from his club, and probably ten kilos of cocaine, which I imagine has a street value of around a quarter of a million dollars or so.
That would certainly get his attention…
We left Shakes and headed straight back to our hotel in the center of the city. We’re both in my suite. I’m lying on the bed with my head propped up on the pillows, and Josh is pacing back and forth.
I smile to myself at the role reversal—it’s normally Josh who’s the calm and collected one, and me wearing the carpet out in frustration.
“Can I speak freely?” asks Josh after a few moments of silence.
“Don’t you always?” I reply.
“You’re an absolute dick.”
“Huh, fair enough,” I say, letting him get a much-needed vent of frustration out of his system. “What’s today’s reason?”
“Smiling and fucking waving at Wilson Trent!” he shouts. He glares at me, then almost immediately puts his hands up and takes a step back in apology. “Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to scream at you.”
I wave my hand dismissively.
“Forget about it,” I say. “People need to let their anger out sometimes, and I’d rather you did that than let things build up and fester inside and slowly drive you insane...”
“Thanks.”
“But talk to me like that again and I’m gonna have to shoot you just a little bit, okay?”
I smile, signaling a joke, which he returns with a weak attempt of his own.
I let out a heavy sigh and stand up. I walk over to the shoulder bag I brought back from the club and empty it out on the bed.
“If it’d make you feel any better, I’ll donate all the money to charity and flush the drugs down the can,” I say.
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath in obvious frustration.
“Jesus... Adrian, it’s not about the fact you robbed him. Well, it is, but I don’t care about what you took. It’s the fact you took it and mocked him on a goddamn security camera. What happened to maintaining the element of surprise?”
“Look, for a moment back there, I was on the phone to the bastard. I restrained myself from saying anything to him and just hung up. But I realized that it’s all well and good hitting him where it hurts and disrupting his business, but if I’m gonna get to him, I need to get inside his head. Anonymity is no use long-term. I saw an opportunity to re-introduce myself to him, and I took it. He’s gonna go out of his mind when he sees the footage, but what can he do? He has no idea where we are, or even who I am anymore. He’s gonna think he’s still the Big Bad, and I’m the same wannabe who ran away from him almost a decade ago. I’m gonna mock him, openly, and make sure he underestimates me. Then I’m gonna bury him.” I pause. “Are you still with me on this, Josh?”
He shrugs and takes a deep breath. “It’s your show,” he says reluctantly. “I’ve got your back, you know that.”
“You don’t seem too happy about it though, and this isn’t the first time since we got here...”
“I’m just worried about you,” he says. “I’m sorry, but you’re acting like you’re invincible, and all the years we’ve spent together, carefully planning hits and executing them with meticulous accuracy... y’know, all the stuff that’s kept us alive? You seem to be forgetting all that, and I’m genuinely afraid that you’re gonna get yourself killed. There—I said it. You’re acting like you’ve got a fucking death wish, Adrian, and if that’s the case, I want no part of this.”
“So, what are you saying? That you don’t think I’m capable of stopping Trent?”
“No, I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying the way you’re going about stopping him is reckless, and I think you’re blind to that fact because of the emotion driving you. I think you’re running the risk of making a mistake, and we both know you can’t afford to get it wrong when you live the life we do.”
His words hang in the air as silence descends on the room.
Shit.
I hate when he’s right. You’d think I’d be used to it by now—ninety-nine percent of the time he knows better than me.
He paces slowly around the room before finally settling in front of the large window, looking out over the city below us.
“What would you do?” I ask, finally.
He turns to look at me. “What do you mean?” he replies.
“I mean, we’ve been doing this my way since we left San Francisco and, like you say, maybe I’m losing control of the situation a bit—letting my emotions cloud my judgment...” I sigh, having never found it easy to admit when I’m wrong. “What would you do differently?”
He stands and looks out the window silently for a moment. Then he turns around with a smile on his face. “How’s this?” he begins. “You want to hit Trent where it hurts, right?”
“That’s the plan,” I reply.
“Okay. And the guy’s a businessman, so hitting his businesses seems the logical way forward.”
“Like I did at the strip club?”
“Exactly… well, sort of. But just robbing him and shooting his staff won’t make a dent in an empire that stretches as far as his does.”
“So what are you thinking?” I ask with genuine curiosity.
“While your approach is good for messing with his head, there’s no long-term damage. What we need is a hammer blow that will hurt him more permanently.”
“I’m sensing you have just such a hammer?”
“Maybe… Going after his wallet is a good idea, we just need to think bigger. If I could hack his bank accounts, I could directly control all his assets. I could seize them, delete them, give
them to the FBI… Anything, really.”
“Jesus… you could do that?”
“Theoretically, yeah. It’s not easy, but I’ve got a few contacts I can hit up for some help. The hard part is covering your tracks—the hacking itself is pretty straightforward with the right equipment, but I imagine Trent will have someone keeping an eye on all his financials. Assuming they’d be halfway competent, it’d be difficult to not get caught.”
“But you’d be sat in front of a computer, not physically breaking into a bank or anything,” I say. “How will they know it’s you?”
“Oh, Adrian…” he replies, smiling condescendingly. “I could easily explain it to you, but it would be like trying to explain Einstein’s Theory of Relativity to a five year old!”
I pull a face of mock offense.
“Whatever, asshole. That sounds like a great idea though, Josh. I’ll keep doing what I’m doing. It’s visible and exactly what I want him to expect from me. Meanwhile, you can be arranging this in the background—he’ll never expect such an intelligent and sophisticated assault to come from me, and once we’ve crippled him, I make my move and take him out.”
Josh nods enthusiastically. “Now you’re talkin’, Boss!”
We stand in silence for a moment, both happy we now have a more solid plan of attack that we both agree on completely. I think he’s more relieved as well, as he has more control over what we’re doing, and I think it’s put his mind at rest over the recent concerns he’s been having over my approach to everything.
“So, what now?” he asks.
I walk over to the bed and pick up the bags of cocaine.
“Wanna help me flush two hundred and fifty grand down the drain?”
He smiles. “Why the hell not?”
12.
MEANWHILE…
17:03
It was just after five p.m. when Jimmy Manhattan’s phone rang. He had spent most of the day in his hotel suite working on his strategy for claiming Allentown as his own, happy with what he’d planned so far.
He looked at the screen and saw Tarantina’s number flash across.
One Last Bullet: An Action Thriller (Adrian Hell Series Book 3) Page 7
