Shot of Tequila

by J. A. Konrath

  Rage burned through Tequila like a drug.

  “She was sweet, man. I wonder if all Mongoloids fuck that good. Or do you already know for yourself, little brother?”

  The anger picked up where the adrenaline left off, and Tequila jumped on a diagonal to the window sill below him and to the left. Grabbing it with his right hand he held on for just long enough to swing from it, and then he swung away from the wall and dropped twenty feet, completing a double forward flip and a full axle before landing on the concrete below.

  He hit feet first, but the height was too high and the ground too hard, and his ankles couldn’t take the shock of the fall and he crunched hard onto his ass. He rolled backwards to offset some of the force, but everything went blurry when the rolling stopped.

  He stared up at the night sky. There were no stars in the city. The smog swallowed them all. He wondered idly if he’d broken his spine.

  Then the pain hit and he knew he hadn’t. The pain was in his left ankle. He pulled it to his body, quickly and expertly feeling for damage.

  It didn’t seem bad. A hairline fracture maybe, or just a bad sprain.

  He’d had worse. He’d competed with worse.

  Tequila pulled himself to his feet, limping as fast as he could go, gun in his hand. He went around to the back of Spill and headed for his car.

  Two floors above him, on the fire escape, Leman let out a yell.

  “Hold it, Tequila!”

  “Marty wants me alive!” Tequila yelled back. “You gonna wound me with an Uzi from thirty feet away?”

  Leman’s hesitation was enough for Tequila to plant his feet and aim, in a two-handed shooting stance, for Leman’s head. He fired, hitting Leman in the shoulder and knocking him sprawling backward on the fire escape. As he dug out his car keys, Tequila idly wondered why he hadn’t hit Leman in the head, where he’d been aiming.

  The sights must have been off on the revolver. Then he pressed his car alarm button and climbed in, laying down ten feet of rubber as he peeled out of the alley.

  He thought about Sally.

  If Slake had so much as touched her…

  He made the ten blocks to his apartment in under two minutes, fearing the worst.

  Jack Daniels hung up the phone. The warrants were on their way. She should have been feeling anticipation, the anxiousness that usually enveloped her when going off to arrest a suspect.

  Instead she felt tired. Sick and tired and sad.

  The crime scene was anything but smooth. The lab boys had barely gotten home from their late night work at Binkowski’s liquor store before they had to come back and work some more on Binkowski himself. As a result their efficiency and alertness were noticeably lacking. One guy even tripped and fell down the stairs, landing on one of the bodies. And it was all captured lovingly on tape by the crime scene videographer. Maybe they could send the tape to America’s Funniest Home Videos. Jack tried to find humor in the notion, but couldn’t.

  Two men in disposable plastic suits were scraping a lamp and part of a wall with tiny spoons, picking up Binkowski’s brains and sealing them in individually labeled plastic bags. Another was using a wire brush on the staircase, picking pieces of Mrs. Binkowski up off of the shag carpeting.

  The Homicide Detective couldn’t help but blame herself. Why hadn’t she seen this coming? Why didn’t she post a watch on Binkowski, after the poor man spilled his guts in the interrogation room?

  Because Jack hadn’t predicted Tequila Abernathy correctly.

  She broke the first rule—her own first rule—when involved in a homicide investigation.

  Assume nothing.

  Jack’s assessment of Tequila had been wrong. She’d figured that since Tequila had let Binkowski live, he’d continue to let him live.

  That wasn’t the way to play ball with a psychopath. And this guy clearly qualified.

  “We found a slug, Detective,” said one of the ponchoed officers. With a pair of tweezers he held the misshapen ball of lead that he’d just dug out of the wall.

  Jack scrutinized the slug. It didn’t match those found at the liquor store. Too little, and its expansion wasn’t the same. This one looked like it imploded in on itself, resembling a tiny, gray mushroom. The slugs found at the store were star-shaped.

  Again her assumptions had been wrong. She figured Tequila was the type who’d stick with only one weapon. This was obviously the work of two different guns.

  So far the only thing that Jack Daniels had predicted correctly was that there would be more bloodshed. She’d gotten that one right. In spades.

  Detective Herb Benedict wandered into the house, looking appropriately ragged and sleep-deprived. He winced as he took in the scene around him. Jack couldn’t be sure if he was wincing at the bloodshed, or at the plastic-suited officers stumbling around from lack of sleep.

  “The good news is, we know who the guy is,” Jack said. “I was on my way here for Binkowski to ID him, but he beat me to the punch. Name’s Tequila Abernathy. Blond hair, blue eyes, five foot five, one hundred and thirty-five pounds. Tattoo of a Monarch butterfly covering the back of his right hand. He lives off of Lake Shore. I just talked to Judge Peterson, and Binkowski’s testimony coupled with his recent demise was enough to get us warrants.”

  Herb yawned.

  “I wouldn’t have figured the perp for this,” the thin man said. “Record?”

  “Assault. Case thrown out.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t know. Yet.”

  Herb stroked his mustache, extending the motion into rubbing his pointy chin.

  “Why would he come back to kill Binkowski when he had the perfect chance to earlier, before the guy could ID him?”

  “He’s psychotic.”

  Benedict stifled another yawn. “No shit.”

  “That money part keeps bugging me too. For some reason, I read this guy all wrong. I pictured him to be, I don’t know, more level-headed. He only robbed Binkowski of the money that Chico supposedly owed him, he didn’t take it all. Why? Some misguided sense of right and wrong? And Binkowski said Tequila shot Chico in self-defense, that Chico pulled on him first. Does that mesh with someone who would kill two old people?”

  “Maybe this was self-defense too.” Herb pointed to the shotgun lying by the late Mrs. Binkowski’s feet.

  “Loaded with rock salt. Can you believe it?” Jack shrugged. “Lab boys found some blood on a few salt crystals by the front door. Maybe they can type it. Problem is, Binkowski’s wife seemed to have also shot him. It will be tough to sort out all the blood.”

  “But your self-defense theory might work here too.”

  “Then why kill Binkowski as well? He had no weapon.”

  “He could ID him.”

  “Then why didn’t he kill him at the liquor store? I don’t know, Herb. I really screwed this up. I thought we were dealing with a hard-ass. Some mob collector who wants to be Clint Eastwood. But now it seems like this guy’s totally off his nut. First he’s playing Robin Hood, then he’s killing innocents. My gut tells me it doesn’t seem like the same guy. But my gut has been so wrong the last few hours…”

  “Maybe Abernathy didn’t kill these people. Maybe this is something else entirely.”

  “And what’s the chance of that being the case?”

  They were silent.

  “Christ, I’m tired.” Herb yawned. “Bernice made this horrible meat loaf. Tasted like one of my old shoes, but tougher. Feels like I’ve got a weasel in my stomach, trying to gnaw its way out.”

  “You ever been checked for an ulcer?”

  “Huh? No. Why?”

  “Every time you eat, you complain it hurts. Maybe you’ve got an ulcer.”

  “You think so?”

  “That or a tapeworm. You’re way too thin.”

  “I’m not thin. I’m wiry.”

  Jack changed directions. “You think Tequila will be good enough to be home when we stop by?”

  “Doubt it. He’s probably crossing the
border as we speak. Or maybe he’s waiting for us, ready to kill a few pigs.”

  “We’ll wear full body armor, go in with the Special Response Team.”

  “Not me. The vest chafes. And that helmet doesn’t match my shoes.”

  The partners were quiet as the body bags were brought in. For the first time, Jack noticed a picture on the wall of the Binkowski’s with two young adults who were obviously their children. The deceased weren’t the only victims. They hardly ever were.

  “This would sure make a good headline,” Herb said.

  “What?”

  “TEQUILA, CHASED BY JACK DANIELS.”

  Jack stared at him and frowned.

  “Hell,” Herb said. “I’d buy a copy.”

  “We’ll swing by the armory, pick up our flak suits.”

  “There’s another headline for you. TEQUILA SHOT.”

  “That could go the other way too.”

  Jack wondered if she would mind that terribly much. Being shot and killed. It was better than going senile or becoming riddled with cancer. In the line of duty was a good way for a cop to go.

  She could almost hear her husband say I told you so at the funeral.

  “You okay, Jack?”

  Jack nodded. “Let’s go get the bad guy.”

  Marty the Maniac raged. It was a lucky thing that none of his collectors were around him at that moment, because in his anger he might have killed one or two.

  Tequila, impossibly, had gotten away. Probably never to be seen again. Gotten away with Marty’s money.

  The Maniac howled, firing his gun up into the night on the roof of his building, emptying the chamber but still squeezing the trigger over and over until the clicking brought him back to the here and now.

  He needed to regroup. Slake was somewhere on the fifth floor. Leman was shot, moaning on the fire escape, his value to Marty now questionable. That idiot Terco was off God knows where. And Matisse…

  Matisse was at Tequila’s apartment. If that’s where the little shit was heading, there still may be a chance.

  Marty hurried down the stairs as quickly as his chubby legs could carry him. When he reached his office he was panting harder than he had in years. Twice he misdialed, wasting valuable time and getting more frustrated by the second. When he finally punched in the correct phone number, he was treated with a busy signal. He tried it three more times with the same results.

  “You stupid rectal sore!” he screamed at Matisse through the dead receiver. The dumb son of a bitch was probably on the line with 1-900-WANKOFF. Didn’t he know to keep the lines cleared? Didn’t he figure they’d try to call him?

  And where was that screw-up, Slake? Where was anybody?

  Marty hit the hang-up button and dialed another number. He paced his office while it rang.

  “Yeah?”

  “Put Fonti on.”

  “Who should I say is calling?”

  “It’s Martelli, you ignorant shit. Put your boss on now.”

  “Just a second.”

  The was a pause that lasted so long Marty was about to start screaming again.

  “Marty?” a low, unrefined voice finally answered. “It’s late. How are you doing?”

  “Shitty, Fonti. Look, I need a favor. Remember that little guy Tequila, works for me? He’s gone rogue, hit me for some money and shot up my guys. I need some men.”

  “Of course, Marty. My men are your men. How many do you need?”

  Marty saw Tequila in his mind’s eye, rappelling down the side of his building bare handed.

  “Forty,” Marty answered.

  Fonti laughed. “You gotta be joking. This is a joke, right?”

  “I need everyone you’ve got, Fonti. Everyone you can spare. And what’s that guy’s name? That guy you hire for wet work now and then?”

  “Marty,” Fonti warned, his voice lowering an octave. “This ain’t a secure line.”

  “What’s his name, Fonti? Royce! That’s the crazy mother fucker. I want him too.”

  “You can’t have him. And you can’t have forty men. I don’t even have that many on duty now, I’d have to pull guys out of bed.”

  Marty inhaled deeply, knowing that to get the help he needed, he’d have to spill all.

  “He took the Super Bowl take, Fonti. Over a mil.”

  “Marty! How the fuck you let this happen?”

  “I need those men, Fonti. If we get him before he goes to ground we could have this wrapped up by daylight. I think he’s going home, to the Lindenburg Apartments on Lakeshore.”

  “I’ll send some men.”

  “Thanks, Fonti. Don’t kill him. I need him alive to talk.”

  “You’ve lost a lot of face here, Marty. A man should be in control of his employees. A general is only as effective as his soldiers are.”

  Terco walked into the office, his face swelled up like a bloatwurst and blood matting his hair.

  “No shit,” Marty said, and hung up.

  “He blindsided me,” Terco whimpered, unable to meet his master’s eyes.

  “You worthless waste of protein!” spat Marty. “You incompetent bag of gas! Why did your father waste the sperm on you?”

  Marty raised his .38 and fired four times at Terco’s chest, the hammer falling on empty chambers.

  Terco, already drained from the fight with Tequila, felt the blood leave his head when Marty pulled the gun. He fainted, falling onto his face, and Marty went to find some bullets. He was searching his desk when Slake walked in, stepping over the unconscious Terco.

  “Did you call Matisse, tell him Tequila was coming?” Slake asked.

  “Line’s busy.”

  Slake picked up the phone and tried for himself.

  “Do you want me to go over there?” Slake replaced the receiver.

  “It’s being taken care of. Go grab that screw-up Leman off the fire escape. If he’s too far gone, shoot him.

  Slake smiled softly, enamored with the idea of taking Leman’s life. Maybe he’d do it anyway, even if the fool only had a superficial wound.

  Outside, approaching like a storm, a siren whistled.

  “What the hell is that?”

  Marty tore out of his office, running down the stairs and through the access door into Spill. Firemen were rushing in like salmon in a strong current.

  “What the hell?” Marty demanded.

  “Smoke is coming from your building, sir,” said the nearest fire fighter. “You’ll have to evacuate.”

  Marty took in his surroundings and noticed for the first time that it was smokier than usual. That asshole Leman. How many lousy wet blankets did he throw into the damn furnace?

  “Kiss my hairy dago ass, fire boy. I ain’t going nowhere. Everything’s under control.”

  The fireman, a husky and very determined young man who’d dealt with dozens of disoriented victims, approached Marty with his hands in front of him, trying to appear non-threatening.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but you’ll have to leave the building.”

  Marty withdrew the .38 from the back of his waistband and pointed it at the fireman’s head.

  “I said go play with your hose someplace else, pole jockey. Or I’ll ventilate your head.”

  The fireman backed off. Some people just didn’t want to be rescued.

  Terco appeared through the door behind Marty, rubbing his eyes and looking bewildered.

  “Is there a fire?” Terco asked.

  Marty slapped him hard enough to be heard in Indiana, and then went back up to his office to wait this little fiasco out. Never in his life did he want somebody as badly as he wanted Tequila. Every nerve in his body screamed for a chance to have that little shit in his hands. What should have been the celebration of the year had turned into the biggest failure of Marty’s entire life.

  Slake re-entered the office, disappointment inherent in his eyes.

  “Leman’s not on the fire escape. He probably wasn’t hurt too badly.”

  Marty barely heard him. His entire
being was focused on Tequila, and all the things he’d do to him when he had him in his grasp. He tried Matisse again, but the phone was still busy.

  “You want me to go over there?” Slake asked again.

  “How much do you know about Tequila?”

  “Not too much. He never talks about himself. I didn’t even know he had a sister until tonight. She’s a retard, if you can believe it.”

  Marty’s eyes flickered.

  “She lives with him?”

  “Yeah. Matisse is probably humping her Mongoloid ass right now.”

  “Go, as fast as you can. Bring her back here. If he lets the bitch live with him, she’s probably important to him. Don’t kill her, for God’s sake.”

  Slake nodded and went off.

  The sister.

  Maybe this colossal ratty-assed clusterfuck would work out after all.

  Tequila parked on the street and came in through the lobby. At first, Frank the doorman didn’t know who the bloody, filthy figure was, and almost went for the security phone. The familiar tattoo of a butterfly on the figure’s hand stopped him.

  “Mr. Abernathy? What happened? Should I call a doctor?”

  “No. Has anyone come to see me, Frank?”

  “No, sir. Are you sure…?”

  “No one came here at all? Or asked about me?”

  “Well, Mitch in the garage called me to say you left your headlights on. Were you mugged?”

  Tequila ignored the question.

  “Did any men show up that you didn’t know? A tall thin guy who looks really mean?”

  “Mr. Abernathy, what’s going on?”

  “Frank, goddammit, has anyone been here that you haven’t recognized?”

  “Yeah, a tall guy. Well, two guys, a tall one and a big one. Tall one said his name was Collins, just moved into 1212 this morning.”

  “Are they still here?”

  “The tall guy left. The other guy, big and muscular looking, he’s still here.”

  Tequila picked up the house phone, setting on a stand to his left, and dialed his phone number. Busy. He headed for the elevator, trying not to imagine what he’d find in his apartment. He imagined it anyway.

  “Mr. Abernathy?”

  Tequila pulled out his wallet and extracted five hundred dollars of the money he’d taken from that old man at the liquor store. He handed it to Frank.