Shot of Tequila

by J. A. Konrath

  The heat and the strain were taking their tolls. Twice Tequila had to stop his ascent for fear of passing out. Passing out meant a drop down to the furnace again. He was at least four stories up now, and if the fall didn’t kill him, he had no doubts that the heat would.

  The problem was that all of the ducts horizontally adjacent to this main one were too tiny. He could barely get his head into some of them, let alone his whole body. The vent running from the vault had apparently been some kind of fluke in its size, because Tequila hadn’t found another as big to climb into, and he had to be at least halfway up the building.

  He paused to rest again, making sure his feet had a firm grip on the walls before wiping the blood and sweat off of his hands and onto his shirt. That didn’t help much anymore, because his shirt was equally drenched.

  Wouldn’t it be funny if the only way out of this duct was back through the vault room?

  He began to climb again.

  Though his eyes were by now accustomed to the dark, they still couldn’t penetrate the all-encompassing blackness. That’s why he was completely surprised when he reached the grating.

  His right hand touched it on the side of the duct, and he almost lost his balance. Planting his feet, he moved his fingers around the edge, getting a feel for what it was.

  It covered an opening almost three feet by two feet. Though Tequila couldn’t see it, he sensed space beyond the barrier. He clicked his tongue quietly, and listened to the sound extend down this new duct. It probably led to some office, or maybe to one of the bathrooms that graced every floor. If Tequila could remove the grate, then he’d be able to move horizontally for a while instead of vertically. Even if it didn’t lead anywhere, it would at least give him a space to lie down and rest for a bit.

  He pulled on the grate but it didn’t give. It was thick, like fence mesh, though with smaller holes. Tequila felt around for a release lever and came up empty. Then he tried feeling for screws, but his burned, tired hands lacked the sensitivity to find their holes.

  Tequila stifled a cough. Then he had to stifle another immediately. Something was different. He opened his nostrils and took a tentative sniff of the air around him.

  Smoke.

  Coming from below.

  The bastards were trying to smoke him out. Either that or the building was on fire.

  Either way, he was in trouble.

  Tequila tried to make the decision. Keep climbing? Or try to force the grate open?

  He pressed his face against the grating and found he could breathe a little better from the clean air coming through it. Smoke rose, which meant it would follow him as he went higher. If he had any chance at all, this was it.

  No longer worrying about noise, Tequila grabbed the grating with both hands and yanked as hard as he could.

  It didn’t budge, and his feet slipped, causing him to hold himself suspended by the fingers he had wedged into the grate. The wire bit into them like tiny teeth, and he flailed his feet around until he finally got another grip with them.

  Okay, pulling didn’t work. Maybe pushing would.

  Tequila coughed again, a burning sensation beginning to fill his lungs. He climbed up the duct another twenty inches, until one foot was on the grating. He put his back against the duct wall opposite it, and put his other foot on the mesh as well. His hands holding onto his holster which he had magnetized to the duct wall, Tequila pushed against the grate with both feet.

  He grunted with effort. Little flashes of color danced before his vision. His jaw clenched hard enough to crack marbles. He focused all of his energy into his legs, willing them through the barrier.

  Then, suddenly, the grating burst inward.

  Tequila’s hands slipped off of his rig at the sudden loss of tension, and he began to fall. But his legs were now past the grating and into the new duct, and he splayed them out and managed to hang upside from the opening by his knees.

  The smoke was thick as soup now, and Tequila wasted no time pulling himself up to the new opening. Before sliding into it he took his rig off the wall and pushed it ahead of him. Then he began to crawl through the duct on his belly.

  The smoke followed. Tequila tied part of his soggy wet shirt around his mouth and nose in a futile effort to breathe better. After crawling ten yards down the curving duct he began to suffer the primary effects of smoke inhalation. He became disoriented. Light-headed from lack of oxygen. His throat and lungs burned as if on fire. Passing out was only minutes away when he finally reached the vent.

  He pounded at the new barrier with his palms. On the third hit one of the screws snapped. The fourth hit snapped the other screw, and the vent fell down into a room.

  Tequila pulled himself out after it, gulping in the clean air. The room was completely dark, but the cold tile floor and the echo of his coughing told him he was in a bathroom. He got to his feet, still shaky, and felt his way through the dark until he bumped into a sink.

  The water was like honey in his throat. After drinking his fill he splashed it over his face and arms and body. He felt around for the liquid soap dispenser by the sink and rubbed the sweet smelling gunk into the cuts on his wrists. It hurt, but hurting meant he was still alive, and Tequila welcomed the pain.

  He was just about ready to leave when the door burst inward and the lights came on.

  Squinting against the sudden brightness, Tequila saw the looming form of Terco blocking the doorway.

  “You look like shit,” Terco told him.

  Tequila forced his eyes wide open, trying to speed up their adjustment to the new degree of illumination. Terco drew his .38 and pointed it at the small man’s head.

  “Come on. Marty’s got a few questions for you. I’m sure it will hurt.”

  “You need…” Tequila said. His voice sounded ripped from his throat. He hacked, spit on the floor, and tried again. “You need a gun to handle me? I always knew you were a wimp, Terco. Twice my size, and you need a chickenshit gun.”

  “Kiss my ass, shrimp. I don’t need a gun to kick your little punk butt.”

  Tequila spat again.

  “Sure you don’t, Terco. You’re a real tough guy. Roughing up kids trying to get in with fake IDs. Scaring sixty-year-old men with heart problems into paying their markers.” Tequila coughed. “Are those muscles just for show, or can you use them for more than jerking off?”

  “I’m a taekwondo black belt. I can break boards.”

  “Boards don’t hit back.”

  Terco stuck the gun back into his shoulder holster. Then he planted his feet and held out his hands. He made his voice low, like Stallone.

  “Come on, Tequila. Show me what you got.”

  Tequila showed him. Taking two quick steps forward, Tequila launched himself into the air in a flying kick aimed at Terco’s mid-section. Terco tried to swat Tequila away, but at the last moment Tequila scissored his legs and drove his heel into the underside of Terco’s chin.

  Terco stumbled backward, biting off the tip of his own tongue. Tequila rolled gracefully to the floor and up to a standing position.

  Terco advanced, keeping his center of gravity where it should be. He feinted a left and then spun around much quicker than a man that size should have been able to, lashing out with a right leg and kicking Tequila into the sink. Terco took a step forward, then executed the reverse kick again, connecting with Tequila’s right shoulder and hurling him to the ground.

  Tequila rolled up to his feet and wondered if he might have underestimated the weightlifter. That reverse kick was almost as fast as his own, and with the weight and the power behind it, Terco could literally kick Tequila to death.

  Terco moved in, sensing victory.

  “Board’s don’t fight back, huh Tequila? Neither do you.”

  Tequila noticed the slight pivot of Terco’s hips, telegraphing that he was going to try another reverse kick.

  Tequila ducked under it this time, feeling the wind as the big limb moved over his head. Still crouched, he sprang out at
the man’s vulnerable body, driving a fist into Terco’s left kidney.

  Terco doubled over. Tequila cracked the top of his head into Terco’s jaw, then stuck out a leg and tripped him onto his ass.

  Terco didn’t even have time to open his eyes before Tequila executed a reverse kick, the same kind Terco had used on him except Tequila’s was faster and cleaner. It connected with the muscle man’s left ear and pitched him onto his side like a three hundred pound sack of manure.

  “Should have stuck with boards,” he told the unconscious figure.

  Tequila took Terco’s gun and then got out of there, exiting into a hallway. It was dark and deserted, and Tequila moved cautiously. Smoke was coming into the halls through the floor. Perhaps the building was on fire. That made the elevators a definite out. Instead he found a staircase. Now the question was whether to go down or up?

  Tequila was sure that down meant Marty and his bodyguards, all armed. He chose to go up.

  Fatigue was gnawing at him when he reached the access door to the roof. As he’d expected, it was locked. Shooting a lock open wasn’t as simple as it was in the movies. Blowing off a door knob didn’t do a thing to disengage any dead bolts or locking mechanisms. The way to do it was to aim at the door jamb where the dead bolt entered. Then there was a chance of shooting the bolt off, or at least weakening the jamb that held the bolt so the door could then be forced. Tequila wasted five of his six rounds before he was able to kick the door loose from the jamb.

  The cold wind felt clean on his body, and the coolness in his lungs seem to rid them of the last vestiges of smoke. He headed south on the rooftop, where he knew the fire escape to be. Leaning over the side of the building he saw it there, a wrought iron framework of ladders bolted to the side of the building beginning a floor below him.

  He also saw, about halfway down, someone waiting on the fire escape for him. It was Leman, and from his quick glance Tequila saw what appeared to be an automatic weapon occupying the ex-cop’s arms.

  One bullet from a revolver, even in Tequila’s capable hands, didn’t beat an unlimited supply of ammo that could be dispensed at twenty rounds a second.

  Tequila considered the situation. He could go back down the staircase, but how did he know his gunfire hadn’t already drawn attention? Someone could be coming up the stairs right now.

  So the only solution was to find another way off the roof.

  Tequila went around to the opposite end of the building and looked over the edge. No fire escape here. But he noticed that every office window had a concrete sill that extended out about six inches. Enough to stand on. But enough to land on from a distance of ten feet every floor?

  Balance beam was women’s competition, but in his youth Tequila had attempted some simple routines just to see if he was any good.

  He wasn’t. Flexibility and strength he had. Agility he had. Balance wasn’t his strong suit. He could still remember the back flip he tried on the four inch beam. He’d missed his footing and landed squarely on the family jewels. It still hurt to think about it.

  He went to the adjacent corner of the building, hoping for maybe a gutter or an antenna cable. It had no such contrivances. Neither did the side opposite that.

  He was about to go back to the staircase when he heard voices.

  “He’s up there! Move your asses!”

  They were coming.

  So what would it be—Leman or the window sills?

  A small grin formed on Tequila when he realized he’d made more decisions in the last two hours than he had during the whole rest of his life.

  “The sills.”

  Tequila again went to the side of the building opposite the fire escape and looked down. He knew that if he tried to land on the sill with his feet, his momentum would knock him off balance and he’d be street pizza. He also knew that his fall would want to push him away from the building, when he wanted to stick close to it.

  But what if, instead of trying to balance on the sill, he tried to grab it instead? He won a silver medal on the high bar. Catching and holding something while in the air was something he could do, and well.

  He put the revolver into his shoulder rig. Then, easing himself over the side of the building, he hung from the roof. Looking down between his legs he saw his target; a concrete window sill sticking six inches out from the building, about ten feet below his hands. He tried to focus on that instead of the ground, which spoke of a pancake death a hundred feet below.

  The voices spoke again, closer this time.

  “He’s on the roof!”

  Tequila gave himself a slight push off from the building—so his feet wouldn’t hit the sill and so he had a clear view of his target without his body in the way.

  Then he let go.

  The drop to the sill took less than three seconds, but during it Tequila entertained the thought that he might not be able to grab a slab of sharp concrete. Not with his burned hands. Not from this height. It was a far cry from a comfortable, powdered high bar.

  But his hands found the cement outcropping, gripping it hard by the corners, and his feet braced to take the impact of the wall as he swung into it.

  The sill held, and so did he, hanging there like a comedy sketch of a suicide attempt who had a change of heart a moment too late.

  One down. Nine floors to go.

  Without taking time to revel in his small victory, Tequila eyed the next ledge between his legs and again pushed off from the wall and dropped.

  He caught the ledge, but his left hand scraped hard against the cold concrete corner of the sill, ripping roughly into the palm. Tequila hung there a moment, feeling his grip become slippery as the blood began to run. He considered chinning himself up and then breaking into the eighth floor window, but he worried that the sound of glass would be heard.

  He sighted on the sill below him, and dropped another floor.

  This time his injured left hand slipped, and for a crazy moment Tequila hung seven floors up by one hand, swinging wildly against the building. He regained his grip, but his stamina was nearly gone. And the cold, which he’d so welcomed when he first got on the roof, was numbing his muscles and freezing all of the sweat on his body. He knew he couldn’t do this many more times, let alone six. He decided to climb in through this window and hope that Marty’s goons were already higher up than that.

  It turned out Marty’s goons were higher up. They were on the roof, staring down at Tequila.

  A gunshot rang out and Tequila felt the bullet whistle past his head. He fought off panic and tried not to flinch.

  “You stupid shit! Don’t kill him! If he dies, you die! Get your ass down to that window!”

  Tequila chanced a glance upward as he hung by his hurting hands, and saw Marty grinning down at him.

  “Hey, Tequila! Why don’t you hang around for a while?”

  Tequila quickly sighted the sill below him and dropped to it, causing Marty’s breath to catch in his throat. As he fell, legs behind him, hands outstretched to grab the outcropping, he calculated that his drop was wrong. This window, for whatever architectural reason, was a foot over to the left.

  Out of his reach.

  Tequila had an experience he’d had many times before when he knew a trick was going wrong. An instant, panic surge of adrenaline that sent a shock through his system.

  Twisting his body sideways, stretching out with his right hand, Tequila caught the corner of the sixth floor ledge. But he couldn’t stop the momentum of his body and he swung—too far for him to keep his grip. So instead of stopping, he went with the swing and used it to propel him towards the next sill, one floor below him but one office window over.

  He came at the fifth floor window sill on an angle, heading for it diagonally as he dropped. This time he had seen it coming and was able to adjust his body to the catch. He twisted back so he faced the building and caught the ledge firmly with two hands.

  While the adrenaline was still pumping away, he sighted the floor below him and let go of
the sill once more. The ledge looked as big as a tree trunk and he caught it without difficulty.

  Then his hands began to give out.

  He was still four floors up, a good forty feet. His grip was slipping fast, and he knew that attempting another window sill grab was impossible. Tequila had used up his reserves, and he hung there, unable to decide what to do next.

  He knew the answer. Instead of grabbing with his hands, he’d have to try to land on his feet.

  He sighted down below him again. The sill, which had jutted out enough to grip onto, didn’t look like nearly enough space to stand on, let alone land on from ten feet up.

  Actually, Tequila reminded himself, since he was hanging he could subtract the length of his body. The window sill was only four or so feet beneath his shoes.

  That didn’t comfort him much. Try landing on a six inch board jutting out from a wall from four feet above it. He knew that if he wasn’t perfectly centered, he’d catch the ledge with his toes and then topple over backwards. The same would happen if he touched the wall at all during his drop. That would push him away from the building, and from the sill. It was either perfection, or eating sidewalk.

  Tequila took a deep breath and eyed where he wanted to land his feet. He didn’t have to let go of the ledge. His hands simply couldn’t hold on any more.

  He tried to float down rather than fall, willing his body against the side of the building without actually touching it.

  His toes hit the sill and he cocked his knees out to either side, trying to absorb the impact in an awkward-looking squat.

  The squat had its desired effect. He hugged the wall, knees at opposite angles, perched on the sill like an odd ballet dancer ready to perform a leap. Slowly, ever so slowly, he flexed his legs and brought his body up to a standing position.

  Three floors above him Slake appeared at the window sill he’d hung from only moments ago.

  “Tequila, you thieving shit! Guess what I did to your retard sister!”