by Asia Marquis
Ryan lays his head back. I keep underestimating how tired he is, but he looks tired. Like hell, in fact.
"No deal," he says, finally. His voice is a little hoarse.
Carabello's face twists up in frustration, but he doesn't bring the gun back up. Ryan hasn't moved, no reason to kill him if you can do it another second later.
"Why not? What don't you like about it?"
"The girl. Maguire's important to me. She doesn't come with, no deal."
Carabello rolls his eyes. "You think she should have a say in this?"
"Not really," he rumbles. "It's selfish, but if she wants to leave, she can do it after we're away."
He looks at me. I'm still as I can be. I feel like even the tiniest movement will see Logan Beauchamp blowing the other side of my ribs out of my chest.
"Fine. She's not arguing, whatever. But the money doesn't change. We square?"
"Sure."
Carabello flips the safety on his gun and tucks it into the small of his back, under his slacks. The belt, loose before, now strains just a little to stay closed, but it works great. You almost wouldn't know he had it.
"I'm glad we could finally see eye-to-eye on this."
He holds out his hand to Ryan. Ryan looks at it, considering. Weighing his options. Then he takes it, and they shake.
"Logan, you can put that gun down now."
"What should I do with it?"
"I don't know. Keep it, if you want. Can't use it for anything. Maybe we could move it along the road, but she's always gonna know you have it."
"Can't give it back to her, though."
They're right. You can't afford to give it back to me, because I'll use the fucking thing. I don't like being put with my back up against a wall, and I like it least of all when it's some drug running piece of shit, and a guy who couldn't help cutting and running for the money.
I don't need to look Ryan's way to figure out what his thoughts are. But I'm done fighting.
"Keep it, give it back without any bullets, throw it in the garbage can, whatever. But could you take it out of my side?"
He does. Logan flips the safety on, and slips the pistol into his pocket, where it remained for the rest of his life.
Chapter Fifty-Two
RYAN
My head still hurts. I want to know how Brian's doing. That's what I really want. Instead, I'm pushing my too-heavy body out of bed, and I'm damn sure not certain what I'm supposed to do about getting home.
Maybe they'll give me some kind of ride, I don't know. I don't much care, either. Long as I get home. How they think I'm going to ride a motorcycle out of the state is a better question.
It won't happen, but maybe their plan is to put it in the back of a trailer. That would make some sense. It's too bad, for their sake, that I'm not planning on doing it.
A lot of this plan's going to rely on Maguire. More than I'd like. But you have to trust someone, and of the four, she's the only one I can. Possibly.
She follows us out. She's close to me. I think she's still worried. My limbs are moving more and more the way I want them to. They still feel like they've got weights attached, and I'm still pretty exhausted.
I don't think I'm supposed to be moving my arms much. Or using them at all. I'm sure, that shit-grinning doc had his way, he'd have me in a matching pair of slings, one for each arm.
Maybe Maguire would take care of me. The thought almost brings a smile to my face. She wouldn't like to know what I was thinking of, because what makes me smile is how much I can't imagine her doing it.
Yet, I can't imagine her fretting over me like I'm an old man about to fall down the stairs, neither. Yet, here she is, her hands constantly ready to catch me if I slip.
I don't so much mind the escort out as I mind that the nurses are going to try like hell to stop me from getting out of here. Doctor's orders, they'll screech. Can't stand that, but I can't stop them, can I?
Sitting down in the car is nice. Sure, I don't have my regular clothes. So I'm sitting bare-ass on the leather seats. Logan goes with Sara to get her car. It would be real suspicious-like if a government car just went missing, now, wouldn't it?
The car pulls around in front of us, real slow-like. I'm sure that Logan's got her following real specific instructions, though I can't guess whether or not Carabello's giving them.
The big Mexican pulls the car out of the spot and starts it moving along behind. The ride back isn't anything to worry about. Maguire's being real professional. No risks. No danger to herself, no danger to me.
That's good for now. The only time to take a real risk for no tangible benefit is at the last minute, and we have plenty of minutes left. In fact, they've given me a whole lifetime of minutes, just in case.
I'm not a smart guy, but I know when to wait for a golden opportunity. And thankfully, they've decided to take me back to my God damned house, a place full of opportunities just like that.
The problem will be that their eyes will be all over me. No opportunity for anything if they just have to squeeze the trigger and my whole plan is ruined. I have maybe a second to turn things around, if that's the case.
If I have ten seconds, twenty, thirty, then we have a game on our hands. Then I have a real shot. That's what I have to rely on Maguire for. I need a distraction, and I need it to be a damn good one.
I take a deep breath and lay my head back. No use getting excited, though. Not yet, anyway. There's nothing for me to do, nothing for Maguire to do, until we step inside. Then we start the act, and she has to make herself real impressive, real fast.
Once I finally get myself settled in, the time passes pretty quickly. Carabello has some Spanish music playing, I don't know it well. Don't recognize it. Don't know if I'm supposed to care, but it's good enough anyways.
The house looks the same. My bike's been brought. I know I didn't damn-well leave it here, but sure enough, there it is. They didn't even scratch the paint job. What a thoughtful gang of murderous bastards.
The front door's still locked, too. Very nice. Very comforting. It makes me feel like having nothing parked out front of the house might not have given someone permission to go right—
"Mother fucker!"
All of the 'keep my temper under control' flies right out the window. I just bought that god damned flatscreen! Now there's a big old blank space where my TV used to be on the cabinet!
I should be moving faster. Getting everything I need out of this place by tonight is going to be a hassle already, and that's assuming that I don't waste more time trying to fight a battle I can't win.
Not that I can't win it, of course, with a little help from my Bureau friend, but if I'm going to have to get out of the state, I'd better be hurried. No time to waste getting mad about my flatscreen, but it doesn't stop the frustration from boiling all the way to the surface and then some.
"Did your people do this!"
Carabello smiles at that, almost a chuckle. "No," he says.
"Fuck!" I throw myself down on the couch. I shouldn't be that upset. I've got enough money to buy myself a new one. But I can't get over it. It's the invasion of my personal space that really gets me, more than any loss of my actual stuff.
That's the real problem with all of this, really. That no matter how mad I get, I'm always going to have to deal with the fact that some son of a bitch thought he could break in here and steal my shit.
They thought they could come into my house and take my gang, take my position, take my brother away from me. Well, I'm not going to allow that to happen. Not for a god damned second.
I let out a breath. No, sir. No way is that going to happen.
I push myself back out of the couch. It's comfortable.
"You guys got a truck I can use? I got a lot of stuff, and I only have the bike."
"Sure, whatever. We'll take the expense out of your cut. Where you want it?"
"Why don't you go get it, and then I'll figure that out?"
Carabello gives me a flat look. A
look that says that he's not as stupid as I think he is. Well, it doesn't much matter. I wasn't expecting him to leave. Wasn't really expecting Logan to leave, either, but I take what I can get.
Neither one does. Instead, he pulls out his phone and turns to lean against the wall. Opportunity was standing right outside the door, and all I had to do was get Maguire to let him in. I move over to the rear of the room.
I hear Carabello's call connect. "Hey, it's Michael."
I don't hear the other side of the conversation, but I'm not trying to listen, per se. My eyes meet with Maguire's for a moment. I slide them pointedly off to the side. I'm hoping to hell that she gets my meaning.
Her face hardens up.
"Wait a damn minute, you son of a bitch! You thought I was the leak? You, right there, as you sold your brother out to everyone who would listen?"
I move out of her way. She would have shoved right past me if I hadn't. Logan's hands come up defensively.
"Hey, I had to—"
"Don't you 'had to' me!"
She circles around him, like a lioness stalking her pray. He circles to face her. It's not thirty seconds, but it's time enough to get a drawer open.
Chapter Fifty-Three
MAGUIRE
I curl another tight circle around Logan. Never mind listening to his excuses, I'm barely listening to the words coming out of my own mouth. Ryan wants me over here, I'll do it, because I want the fuck out of this mess.
The weapon fires, with a bang like someone dropped a big church bible flat on the floor. Carabello slumps to the floor, his phone still connected. I set my weight against Logan and hold him back as best I can. My barricade lasts a couple of seconds, but it's enough time for Ryan to pick up the phone and disconnect it.
"What the fuck did you do?!"
Logan's wild. I can see from the way that he shifts his eyes from the body on the floor to Ryan. I don't know how I wasn't aware of the suppressor on that pistol; I thought I'd seen it before, but apparently he's got several holdouts throughout the house.
I don't know how we're going to get out of this, but now Ryan's committed. And, though I don't know why, I feel like I'm committed to it, too.
I swallow hard.
"Ryan."
His head turns towards me just enough to let me know he's listening.
"What do we do? They'll have heard that."
"Good. I'm counting on it."
He reaches down and pulls a set of keys out left-handed and tosses them to me.
"There's a rifle cabinet on the second story. Go on, take your pick of the litter, and I need you posted upstairs. How good a shot are you?"
"With a rifle?"
"Naw, with a catapult, babe."
"I can hit what I'm shooting at, up to say fifty yards."
"It'll do."
His eyes don't go off his brother. I don't know if I want to be there when they say whatever they've got to say, and then I decide that I sure as hell don't.
The cabinet's pretty easy to find, and one of the keys—the one that obviously isn't for a door, or for his old Indian—fits. There's a surprising selection, even considering that he's a gun runner himself.
Everything about the house seems to be hard to coincide with what I've known about him. It's small, it's unassuming. It gets broken into all the damn time, if he's to be believed, and I'm starting to see evidence of that already.
Sure, there's apparently a dozen-odd hold-out pistols hidden in various parts of the house, but… other than that, and you don't even know that to look at it.
The closest he comes to the guy I thought I knew before I met him is this gun rack. It would fit in better in Texas than Arizona, but even this isn't outside the realm of the ordinary for some folks.
I take a convincing-looking weapon with a composite body. I test the weight in my hands. Heavy enough to have some heft, light enough that it doesn't look like it'll tire me out. I take a magazine, test the fit.
I haven't counted, but I'm fairly certain that this magazine wouldn't be legal in the state of California. We're not in the state of California, though, so I don't have anything to say about it. I should be looking into all of this.
As a Special Agent in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms… well, it's right there in the name. But I don't have any interest in poking into the legality of these weapons right now, not when it's my ass on the line. My phone rings a minute later, as I'm settling into a chair by a window.
I pick it up.
"Yeah?"
"You ready up there?" Beauchamp's voice is cool and calm. I don't know how he does it, because even though I'm not the one they're coming after, my heart's beating a thousand miles a minute.
"Sure."
"I need you to keep an eye out. Keep this line open, and you see anyone, call them out to me."
"And?"
"And nothing. Call it out."
"What's the rifle for?"
"Just in case," he says. The line doesn't go dead, but he goes quiet. I set the phone on the windowsill and prop the rifle between my knees. A deep breath in, a deep breath out.
Nobody's coming yet. All quiet. A minute passes, then two. Two becomes five, and still, nothing. It's starting to be a little nerve-wracking. They're going to come. I'm sure of that.
If they've got more than one or two guys coming in, then they're going to need to move them all together, or it'll be a slaughter. Which means that they'll be coming in, like it or not, right down the road I'm looking at.
But if they're coming, how much longer could it possibly take? Why aren't they here yet?
I hear it before I see it. A low growl. I'm not sure, but I think I know the sound. Then a front fender crests the edge of a house, followed by a wheel, followed by a bike, with a man sitting on top of it.
Another comes after, and another. They're coming in two columns, and the columns split to accommodate a big, boxy European car. Pretty old.
"They're coming."
It takes a second to get a response. "How many?"
I count as quick as I can. "A car, plus ten on bikes."
He curses into the open voice line. "Alright. Stay calm. Maybe get that rifle ready. Don't shoot until you don't have another choice."
"I won't," I tell him. It's true. I'm not planning on shooting anyone. But that's never stopped me before, I have to admit. If I have to shoot someone, I have to shoot them, and that's how it is.
The rifle isn't light. I trace the line of bikes as they go. The scope's set for targets way further out than I'm using it for. As they pull up in front of the house, row by row, I could practically close my eyes and hit someone.
A posse of people stands outside, and all I have to do is aim in their general direction and the bullet will be magically guided into one of them by the power of dreams.
With that in mind I pull the rifle down. I don't have a lot of time, but I hope to hell I'll have enough. I start working the thumb-screws that hold the scope onto the rifle at a frantic pace and toss it back onto the bed behind me.
The scope's already forgotten by the time it hits the fabric because I'm bringing the rifle back up into line. The sights on it are a hell of a lot clearer, now. I can see what I'm aiming at.
I count them off. Scheck, Rosen, Dupree. That completes the set. Scheck stays in the back.
"Dupree's coming up. I just lost sight of him, but he's coming up. Three other guns with him. Rosen and Scheck hanging back."
I don't get a response from the other end. Instead, I hear someone put their shoulder into the door. I don't know how it goes for them, but I don't hear any gunfire. That answers the question, I guess.
They put their shoulder into it again. This time I hear another pop, just like the one that put Carabello on the ground. Like someone downstairs dropped their phone book. Bang.
Another a second later. Bang. I don't have time to wonder what's happening, how it's going. I have my eyes on Scheck. It's twenty yards to her, I figure, and so I can't be sure if I'm re
ading her face right, but she doesn't look happy.
She doesn't look like her guy just got inside and put an end to all her problems. A different shot goes off. I can hear the pitch different. This one is sharper, higher-pitched. Like someone smacked chalk into a blackboard.
The shots start all firing at once, now. Like the initial lull was all setup to what's happening now, to train my ears to get used to slow firing.
I take a deep breath and move my finger onto the trigger. Do I take the shot? It would end several problems right away. Right now. All I'd have to do would be to squeeze a little tighter, and…
I lift my finger back off. It would be easy. Very easy, in fact. Which is why I'd better wait for Ryan to tell me to do it.
Chapter Fifty-Four
RYAN
I can't stop thinking that I might have really fucked up this time. I don't recognize the guy whose body is clogging my door, but I'm not going to get it shut again, even if my only hope is to get myself out of sight.
I have to move back. The dividing wall between the kitchen and the living room provides a nice place, but it opens me up too much. Two ways through means that no matter which way I'm watching, someone can come up either side. I take a deep breath.
I could go up the stairs a little way, as well. Shorter sight lines, though, mean that I have to work on reaction a hell of a lot more. I'll know their coming, but I won't have more than a fraction of a second to aim and fire.
Never mind missing, if I just wing a guy and he gets the chance to shoot back, I'm done. Two down, though. At least nine more to go. I take a deep breath.
I raise the phone to my mouth. "Maguire?"
"Talk to me," she says. She sounds alert. Ready. So different from how I'm feeling.
"I'm sorry."
"Where the fuck did that come from?"
"Should've have gotten you involved in this."
"Ryan, if you have time for that kind of shit—"
"I don't want you to get hurt. So when you take the shot, I want you to get the fuck out of that window, you hear me?"
