Shot of Tequila

by J. A. Konrath

  But, son of a bitch, he was alive.

  Then the wind gusted again, filling his parachute, tugging him backwards. Into highway traffic.

  Tequila felt a momentary panic, so startled by the sudden movement he didn’t know what was happening. The wind blew steadily, and his feet began to lift off of the ground. His parachute was only twenty yards away from the near lane, and if a car snagged it Tequila would get dragged.

  He unbuckled his legs, feeling the harness drop away from his lower back. Then he reached up for the releases on his shoulders, but in his distress couldn’t find them.

  A bus, moving at seventy-two miles an hour, was coming up on the parachute.

  Tequila’s hand frantically searched for the buckle, tried to release it, couldn’t.

  The bus rocketed closer, the driver oblivious to the parachute in his peripheral vision.

  Tequila’s fingers dug into the buckles and unsnapped them, and he fell five feet to the sidewalk as his parachute was jerked away from him by the 2345 to Irving Park.

  He landed, for the umpteenth time this evening, on his ass. His first thought was the bag of money, which was still wrapped around his waist.

  His second thought was to vomit, which he did, voiding onto the concrete. Sirens, a lot of them, shrilled nearer, cutting through the freezing night.

  Tequila got to his feet, half-limping, half-stumbling. He needed a place to hide.

  And he had one in mind.

  “I’ll eat my badge if he has people in there,” Benedict said after hearing the threat through the closed door.

  “He’s bluffing,” Jack agreed. But why? To stave off the inevitable? At first, when Tequila had yelled about an M16 and C-4 explosive, all of Jack’s men cleared away. But now, it seemed as if the man behind the door was just trying to buy a little time.

  Time for what? Daniels thought. He couldn’t get away. Was he trying to fool us into believing he had hostages so he could make a ransom demand?

  “Schultz, Jackson.” Daniels motioned to the two men with the portable battering ram. It was a thick three foot tube of concrete with handles. Cops called it the Universal Key. With one or two swings it could open a meat locker.

  Jack motioned for the men to ready the ram. Tequila was doing something in there, and Jack didn’t want to give him the time to finish whatever it was.

  “On three.” Daniels held up one finger, then two…

  On three they swung the ram, smack dead against the doorknob. The door burst inward, Schultz and Johnson hitting the floor, Jack and two others covering the doorway, guns pointed.

  A short man with a backpack was standing by the window in the living room. No, not a window. A big hole in the side of the building.

  “Freeze! Police!” she yelled.

  The man jumped.

  Everyone was quiet for a moment. Then Herb Benedict said, “Holy shit.”

  Jack checked around her and then entered the apartment in a crouch, her .38 on full cock and gripped in both hands. Her men streamed in behind her, some going left and some going right, all fully armored and ready for war.

  Daniels only had eyes for one thing. The hole in the wall. The wind was rushing in with a savage strength, and Jack approached the edge with equal amounts of fascination and awe. Almost fearing to, she peeked over the edge, making out the descending yellow parachute as it floated out over the highway.

  Vertigo began to kick in and Jack took a step back, bumping into Benedict and scaring the hell out of herself.

  “So much for him not getting away,” Jack said.

  “That guy’s got more guts than a slaughterhouse.”

  Officer Williams came over to report.

  “We’re clear, Detective. Three dead. One in the kitchen, one in the hall, one by the sofa here.”

  “Call the CST again. I’m sure they aren’t asleep yet anyway. Then I want every available man down in the street, looking for this joker. Call the coast guard as well. He might be headed out to sea.”

  The three watched the diminishing parachute sail out over Lake Michigan. It was so absurd, so ridiculous, that Jack, without knowing it, cracked a tiny grin.

  “Ever see anything like that before, Detective?” Williams asked.

  “This is the third one this week,” Daniels replied. “Where have you been hiding?”

  Williams noted the sarcasm and hurried off. Jack radioed down to the surveillance team and gave them Tequila’s whereabouts as he faded from her sight. She wouldn’t be joining them. She had a crime scene here to work on. Daniels often said that she didn’t catch criminals, she just gathered the evidence to convict them. And surrounding her was evidence aplenty.

  She and Benedict started with the body by the sofa. A big Caucasian, with a large laceration on his left arm. Jack couldn’t determine cause of death, especially without turning him over, but she noticed the man’s head was cocked at an odd angle.

  “Broken neck?” Herb asked.

  “Either that or he’s extremely double-jointed.”

  Jack followed the blood drips, surprisingly easy because the carpet was light beige and the man had bled a lot. She followed it over the sofa, to the opposite wall. There was a small pool of blood there.

  “He got wounded here, somehow fell over the sofa, and broke his neck,” Benedict said.

  “Think a man that big could break his neck just falling over a sofa?”

  Jack went back to the body and touched the dead man’s arm. Then she touched Herb’s.

  “This guy is still warm. Real warm. Couldn’t have died more than five, ten minutes ago.”

  Jack took off her Kevlar vest, happy to be rid of its bulk. Fishing into her jacket pocket she came out with an evidence bag and some latex gloves. After snapping them on, she bent down and removed the lump of a wallet from the deceased’s back pocket and opened it, finding his driver’s license.

  “Matisse Tomaglio. Heard of him?”

  “A week back.”

  “You heard about him a week back?”

  “I heard he had a weak back. See?”

  Herb pointed at the man’s twisted spine. Jack shot her partner a look.

  “Sorry,” he said, sheepish. “Over-tired.”

  Jack dropped the wallet in the bag and the bag into her pocket. She got up and walked over to the hallway to look at the second body. A woman, with the almond eyes and curved hands indicators of Down Syndrome. Her mouth was a bloody mess, and Jack couldn’t guess what had happened there. But the blood between her legs and the ripped panties gave her an idea of what occurred before her death. She touched her neck and found her lukewarm, but still above room temperature.

  “Jesus.” She turned to Herb. “Go get the doorman up here. The one who tried to convince us Tequila wasn’t home. Frank, I think his name was.”

  Benedict nodded and strolled off, happy to leave. It was getting awfully cold in there, with the window missing.

  Jack went into the kitchen, but she didn’t stay there long; it was too messy. Just enough to feel that her body was coolest of all.

  She went next into the nearest bedroom. At first glance all the pink frills and stuffed animals made her think the room belonged to a young girl. Crayon drawings were proudly pinned to one wall. Children’s books were stacked neatly in a bookcase by the bed.

  But the closet was filled with adult female clothes and shoes, of a size that would fit the woman in the hallway. This was her room. Was she related to Tequila somehow? Jack took a look at the rumpled bed and saw the blood on the sheets. Had Tequila gone crazy and raped her?

  She left the bedroom and went to the room next door down. It too was a bedroom. The furnishing was minimal but appealing, neither masculine nor feminine. A guest room, Jack guessed. The mattress on the bed showed a deep indentation, as if someone heavy had slept there often. There was a purse on the dresser, and Jack opened it and found a wallet.

  She found ID in the name of China Johnston. She also found a card saying she was a licensed CNA. Jack checke
d the closet and found it full of clothing, all sized for a heftier woman. The corpse in the kitchen.

  She went to the last bedroom. This one was completely devoid of any personalization. It looked to be an empty room, except for the bed and the dresser and some strange kind of stand next to the bed.

  This was Tequila’s room. This was the room of a sociopath. Someone who felt nothing. Aesthetics meant little to people of that type. Show them a beautiful swan, and they’d kill it as easy as pet it.

  Something caught her eye on the bottom of the closet. Jack went to it and found a combination floor safe, yawning open. It was a good-sized safe, not very deep but wide. Filling it were papers. Hundreds, if not thousands, of neatly stacked papers. Jack reached in for a handful and turned on the closet light to see them better.

  They were all drawings. Some in crayon, some in paint. Some on colored construction paper, some on loose-leaf. All were juvenile, and they matched the ones hanging on the wall in the first bedroom.

  Jack flipped through them, fascinated. Had the Down Syndrome girl done all of these? Why did Tequila have them? In a safe of all places?

  She looked through more. As she got to the bottom of the stack, the paper became brittle and yellowed. Finally, on one of the last pictures she grabbed, she saw writing for the first time.

  It was a child’s writing, and a child’s picture, but more mature than the others. Done in pencil, on paper so faded it had to be almost thirty years old. The drawing was of two stick people holding hands, the taller one with long hair and a skirt, the shorter one in pants. A boy and a girl. Under the girl’s name, written in Kindergarten hand, was SALLY 10. Under the boy’s name was scrawled TEQUILA 6.

  The realization gave Jack a slight surprise, and thoughts began to rush at her so quickly she needed to sit down and think.

  Sally was Tequila’s older sister. China must have been someone Tequila hired to take care of her. Matisse had come over, killed China, and raped and killed Sally, and then waited for Tequila to come home. When Tequila arrived, he got the better of Matisse and killed him first. Then he saw the cops coming and jumped out the window.

  But why had Matisse done that? Was he after Tequila for something? Had they known each other?

  Jack suddenly wondered if it was Tequila who had killed the Binkowskis after all. Maybe it had been Matisse. Or someone else looking for Tequila. Someone who’d known where Tequila had been.

  His boss?

  Questions, there were a million questions. But Jack wasn’t feeling sick and tired anymore. She was oddly invigorated. Maybe it hadn’t been her fault the Binkowskis died. Maybe this was something big, some Outfit operation, that she’d stumbled onto accidentally.

  Benedict came in, towing Frank the doorman.

  Jack made her face look hard, shrugging on the role of tough cop.

  Time to get a few of those million questions answered.

  Marty Martelli bit into his knuckles hard enough to draw blood. He didn’t seem to notice, until it dripped down his shirt and tickled his flabby neck.

  “Get me a freaking napkin,” he said to Terco. Terco hurried off to find one. He was the only one of Marty’s elite entourage still there at Spill. Matisse was at Tequila’s, and Slake had gone to join him and get the sister. Leman had taken a cab back home and called from there, stoned on painkillers after pulling a Rambo and taking the bullet out of his shoulder himself. And Tequila…

  No one had seen Tequila since he’d left Spill.

  The phone rang, and Marty almost toppled over in his eagerness to answer it.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s Fonti. What the hell you trying to do, Marty? Get me nailed?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I send ten guys over to Lake Shore Drive to take care of your little problem, and the place is swarming with pigs.”

  Marty’s hopes sank. If Tequila was in custody, it would be a lot harder to get to him.

  “They got him?”

  “Not from what I hear. Seems your friend jumped off the thirtieth floor with a parachute. No one’s found him yet.”

  “Dead?”

  “I don’t think so. The cops found the chute, but no Tequila.”

  Marty’s thoughts seemed to mix around in his head and run out his ears.

  “Any word on his sister?” he asked.

  “I didn’t know he had a sister. Found his car, though. Got two guys watching it.”

  “Pass the word to the network. Tell them to cruise bus and train stations, and the airports. And see if you can get a line on hotels and motels in the area. He’s got to stay somewhere.”

  “Who’s picking up the bill for this operation? Way I see it, you’re broke.”

  Marty squeezed the receiver as if he were strangling the life out of a kitten. He needed Fonti’s help, but he also knew he had to tread lightly. Power meant nothing without money. You couldn’t buy soldiers or guns or the respect that came with it. The years of loyalty didn’t matter. Yesterday didn’t matter. What mattered was today, and today Marty was broke.

  “Don’t make me remind you I’m good for it,” Marty said through clenched teeth. “You and I go back, Fonti. Back to the old days. We always helped each other. I didn’t know you were keeping markers.”

  “I’ll do what I can, Marty. The guy should turn up. What is he, Superman?”

  “He’s just a punk, Fonti. Just a sawed-off hard-ass little punk. Keep me posted.”

  Marty hung up, wondering if he really believed it to be true. The fact was, when Fonti told him Tequila had parachuted from his apartment, Marty wasn’t surprised. He didn’t ask for details. He could picture the little shit, doing just that. He’d always known Tequila was better than his other collectors. He just hadn’t realized he was this good.

  Idly, he wondered if Slake and Matisse were dead. No big loss. Dumb muscle was abundant in Chicago. But the real pros, the guys who got things done and demanded the respect normally reserved for made men, they were a rarity. Marty only knew of one such man like that, the man that Fonti retained named Royce.

  He’d seen Royce at work once, years ago. Not from the outside either. From the inside, up close and personal.

  Some bike gang had tried to hit a family operation. It was an after-hours club, with some gambling and some whores for members who liked a taste. A decent money maker, but hardly top mob dollar. It was operated by some wise guy named Dino, and he ran a pretty tight ship. Until the bike gang showed up.

  They came in, twenty of them, armed to the teeth, and killed a few bodyguards. Not only did they clean out the place, but they took Dino hostage and wanted ransom for his wop ass too. As well as for the lives of the thirty or so members who’d been there that night.

  Marty had been one of them, playing high stakes five card draw with some chronic losers, when the gang came in. One second he was bluffing a straight, the next he had five shotguns in his face. It was one of the only times, if not the only time, in the Maniac’s life that he was actually afraid.

  The mob had only one way of dealing with problems like this. It liquidated them. But there had been several of the higher-ups in there that night, along with a senator and two police captains. If they’d sent an army in after the gang, there would have been a bloodbath, and friendlies would have died.

  So they didn’t send an army. They just sent Royce.

  Armed with two suppressed 9mms and a fillet knife, Royce had taken out the entire bike gang.

  He wasn’t a large man. About five foot nine, athletic build. But he knew about eighteen different martial arts, was an expert sharpshooter, knife-thrower, explosives expert, and a whole bunch of other dangerous shit. Former military, worked with one of those special ops teams that no one admitted actually existed.

  Marty witnessed, in the blink of an eye, Royce shoot six men dead, break another’s spine with a karate kick, and gut one more from crotch to sternum. Eight men killed in five seconds, and all of them in different parts of the room.

  Be
fore the hostages even had a chance to hit the floor, Royce had shot two more bikers and drawn the gunfire away from the crowd and over to an empty bedroom. The bikers, thinking they’d trapped him, shot the hell out of that room. They’d pumped enough lead into it to destroy the walls and make the building structure unsound. When the shooting finally stopped, three bikers went in to confirm the kill.

  The three didn’t return.

  Three more went in, and also didn’t return.

  The four men left were terrified, and one of them had grabbed Marty, forcing a shotgun against his head and demanding Royce show himself.

  Royce had blown the biker’s head off from across the club. A distance of almost fifty yards. The other three ran upstairs, hoping to escape. Royce went after them.

  He came down four minutes later. His fist was bloody, and at first Marty thought he’d been hurt. But it wasn’t Royce’s blood. Clenched in his fist were the three men’s genitals.

  That’s who Marty needed right now. He needed Royce. He’d wipe his ass with Tequila, no problem. The only difficulty would be convincing Fonti that Marty had to have him. Fonti was odd when it came to Royce. He treated him like one would treat a rare, exotic jewel. You don’t flash it around, only take it out on special occasions.

  How could he convince Fonti that this occasion warranted it?

  Terco skulked back in, holding a roll of paper towels. With his two front teeth missing, he looked even more dim-witted than before. Marty snatched out at the roll with such speed that Terco flinched.

  The big man was near the end of his stamina. Marty had attacked him twice, Tequila had kicked the tar out of him, he’d gotten a chest full of rock salt, and every single inch of his body hurt. If he hadn’t feared Marty so much, he would have quit then and there.

  Marty recognized the beaten look in his man’s face, and knew that a good leader would throw the guy a bone. Terco, with all his stupidity, was loyal, and loyalty was something that Marty might not have for very much longer.

  “You look like shit. Go take a rest,” Marty told him.