Duke City Hit

by Max Austin

  “I’ll just go make sure Vic’s okay.”

  She shook her head, her black ponytail dancing. “I don’t want you to go.”

  “I have to, Tina. He’s my father.”

  “Two months ago, you’d never heard of the man. Now you’re going to throw your life away on him?”

  He didn’t answer. He opened a dresser drawer and dug among socks until he came up with an extra magazine for his gun.

  “You don’t really know anything about these people, Ryan. You don’t know what they’re mixed up in.”

  “I know more than you think.”

  “Well, I don’t! I don’t understand any of this! It’s crazy. People running around with guns—”

  He wrapped his arms around her and held her close. He kissed her forehead, then gently steered her toward the closet.

  “Get your things.”

  “I don’t want you to go.”

  “You’ve got to trust me, Tina.”

  “I do trust you. I don’t trust them.”

  Chapter 46

  Vic edged along the side of the tall white house, peeking in windows, looking for Joaquin Zamora.

  A shout arose behind him. A man’s voice, gabbling in Spanish. Vic couldn’t make out the words, but it was clear the bodies had been found.

  He hurried along the wall, no longer bothering to duck under windows. He’d almost made it to the front yard when a shout went up there, too. Two men with automatic rifles came running from the driveway gate, yelling at him.

  He raised the pistol and fired twice. The shots went wide. The men stopped in their tracks and raised their rifles. Brass glinted in the sun as shells arced away from the chattering guns. Bullets kicked up turf near Vic’s feet, spattering his jeans with mud.

  He fired twice more, but he was already running, covering twenty feet of open ground to reach the fat trunk of the gnarly cottonwood that dominated this side of the yard. Bullets whizzed all around him. He crouched behind the tree, its rough bark comforting against his back while he reloaded the .22.

  More rifle fire, chewing up the far side of the trunk. The ancient tree was so thick that two grown men couldn’t reach around it, but Vic still tried to be as narrow as possible. Chunks of bark flew off the tree, littering the lawn around him. He pressed against the trunk, his gun up near his face, the familiar scents of gun oil and cordite mixing in his nose.

  A red-haired man peeked around the corner at the back of the house. Vic saw him immediately, had been expecting gunmen to come from that direction. Hadn’t expected a gringo, though.

  He aimed at the spot where he’d seen the redhead. As soon as the head popped into sight again, Vic pulled the trigger. The bullet chipped stucco off the wall, spraying the man’s freckled face. He shouted and fell back.

  A moment of silence, gun smoke wafting away on the breeze. Vic shifted behind the tree to look around the trunk. The riflemen had spread out, trying to get the angles on him.

  A window slammed open upstairs, and Zamora appeared there. He’d changed out of his hunting clothes, and now wore a loose white shirt over jeans. He fired a pistol almost straight down at Vic.

  Bullets thudded into the soil as Vic rolled away. From flat on his back, he fired the silenced pistol four times, the bullets shattering the window and splintering the sills. Zamora vanished from sight.

  Vic rolled back behind the tree as the riflemen opened up again. Sod and bark and hot lead filled the air as he hugged the ground.

  A moment’s hesitation. Vic heard the unmistakable sound of a magazine slamming home. He peeked around the trunk and saw one of the gunmen looking down as he reloaded.

  Vic squeezed off two quick shots, hitting the man in the chest. He crumpled to the ground.

  The other rifleman opened fire. A bullet sheared another chunk of bark off the cottonwood, and it caromed off Vic’s head. A quick sharp pain on his scalp, easily ignored for now.

  No way to win this shoot-out, not trapped out here under a tree. Zamora’s men could come from too many directions. How long could he hold them off? How long before the police arrived?

  An engine roared out front, and he peeked around the tree, expecting to see cops. A black SUV raced backward into the driveway and crashed through the clanging gates, then slewed around crazily in the driveway, tires screaming.

  The rifleman who had Vic pinned down whirled to shoot at the vehicle, but he was too late. It hit him square-on, the front bumper knocking him down. Tires bumped over his body, pressing it into the sod. The SUV skidded sideways as it came to a stop, tearing black stripes in the dry lawn.

  The driver’s door opened and Ryan spilled out, falling to one knee, his .45 already in hand, his head whipping around as he looked for someone to shoot.

  “Son of a gun,” Vic said.

  Ryan aimed and fired past him, the .45 booming, the slug taking another chunk out of the corner of the house where the redhead continued to play peekaboo.

  “You all right?” Ryan called to Vic.

  “Yeah. You?”

  “Never better.” Ryan hurried over to him, staying in a crouch. “I got away from those guys who were holding me. Penny told me where to find you.”

  “I must say, your timing’s excellent. But why did you come roaring through the gate backward?”

  “I didn’t want to get punched in the face by the air bag.”

  “Ah. Good thinking. But you lost points on the dismount.”

  “What about for parking on top of a guy?”

  “Probably get you a ticket.”

  A gunshot hacked another chunk of bark from the tree, just above Vic’s head. He turned in time to see the redhead duck back out of sight.

  “This fuckin’ guy,” Vic said.

  He aimed the .22 at the spot where he’d last seen the redhead.

  Ryan said, “You want me to—”

  “Just hold on.”

  The redhead peeked around the corner. Vic shot him in the forehead.

  “There,” he said. “Now we can get to work.”

  “Shouldn’t we just get out of here? I’m not kidnapped anymore.”

  Vic shook his head. “There’s stuff going on here you don’t understand. You should leave. I’ll finish up.”

  “I’m not going without you,” Ryan said. “You need someone watching your back.”

  “I never have before.”

  Ryan scanned the windows of the house. “We can both leave.”

  “Nah. Zamora will be pissed now. He’ll never drop it.”

  “You sure he’s inside?”

  “I saw him in a window upstairs, but I haven’t actually made it indoors yet.”

  Ryan grinned. “What are we waiting for?”

  “The cops will be here any minute.”

  “Then we’d better hurry.”

  Chapter 47

  While gunfire crackled and boomed outside, Joaquin Zamora sat on the edge of his bed, dabbing blood off his chest with his wadded white shirt. The shattered window had sprayed him with broken glass, a flurry of razors across his face and chest and belly. The cuts weren’t deep, but they hurt like hell. Some still had shards of glass in them.

  He’d had his opportunity. A good shot at the stranger in blue denim at the base of that tree. But he’d misjudged the angle and gotten a faceful of broken glass for his trouble.

  More gunshots. Joaquin stood and leaned over so he could get a view out the shattered window. From up here, he could see two men dead on the lawn and a black SUV with its door hanging open. The vehicle’s fat tires had torn wide black arcs in his expensive sod.

  Least of his problems at the moment. He’d locked himself in the bedroom when the shooting started, and now he was low on bullets. He’d been so busy ordering his men into position, he’d forgotten to take care of his own ammo supply.

  “Fuck it,” he muttered. “He’ll never get up here.”

  Joaquin plucked a shark’s tooth of glass from his chest, clenching his teeth against the pain. He pressed the blood
-streaked shirt against the wound. He wasn’t in any danger of bleeding to death, not right away. But he wouldn’t mind some pain pills.

  He needed to buy time. Keep the killer on the other side of the thick bedroom door, fighting with lackeys, until the cops reached the mansion. Let the fucking police protect Joaquin for once. They’d get him to a hospital, get him some medical attention.

  A little more time, that was all he needed.

  Once more he’d walk away from certain death. His legend would grow. They would write songs about Joaquin Zamora, the cocaine king of Albuquerque, the man who would not die.

  Chapter 48

  Ryan ran up the front steps, his heart thumping in his chest. His cheeks ached, but he couldn’t stop grinning. He wouldn’t expect Vic or anyone else to understand why. He wasn’t entirely sure he understood it himself. But this much he knew: As fucked up as this situation was, it felt good to work alongside his dad.

  Tall, tinted windows bracketed the mansion’s front door, a thick slab of oak carved with crosses and curlicues that were sharp against Ryan’s back. Vic pressed against the door beside him, his silencer pointed skyward.

  “Locked?”

  Ryan checked the latch. “Yep.”

  “Too bad.”

  “I can squeeze through one of these windows.”

  “Wait,” Vic said. He reached into the gym bag he was carrying and pulled out a heavy snub-nosed revolver. “Here. You might need that.”

  “Thanks.”

  Vic put fresh magazines in his twin .22s and set the gym bag aside.

  “You ready?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let’s break the windows at the same time,” Vic said. “One, two, three.”

  They slammed pistols into the tall panes, leaning toward each other as glass crashed to the floor.

  Ryan chanced a look through his broken window. A fat man was jiggling out of the foyer, ducking down a dark hall. Ryan reached the .45 through the window and shot him between the shoulder blades.

  Vic stepped in front of the window on his side, guns pointed into the house, while Ryan raked the barrel of his big Colt along the edges of the window to remove remaining teeth of glass. He squeezed through the gap, a gun in either hand.

  The foyer had white walls and tile floors the color of butter. A staircase with a wrought-iron rail curved up one wall to a balcony overlooking the room.

  Ryan tucked the snub-nose under his arm so he could unlock the door for Vic. As Vic came inside, a stocky man in a maroon tracksuit appeared on the balcony, black pistols barking in his hands. Bullets sang off the tile floors, ricocheting and thudding into the walls and the heavy door.

  They both opened up on the man, and the bullets made him do a crazy dance before he plunged over the rail and belly-flopped onto the tile floor with a wet splat.

  “Goddammit!”

  Ryan looked over at his father in alarm. “You hit?”

  “No, I’m fine. But look.”

  Vic pointed at his left sleeve, where the denim was scorched by a bullet’s furrow.

  “Fucker ruined my shirt.”

  Ryan shook his head, trying not to laugh, afraid he wouldn’t be able to stop. He was giddy with adrenaline.

  He pointed at the fallen man. “Is that Zamora?”

  “Too fat. I definitely saw him upstairs, though.”

  “I’ll go first.”

  Ryan hurried up the stairs before Vic could argue, keeping the foyer covered with the Colt. Vic puffed up the stairs behind him.

  Nothing on the balcony but a potted plant and a litter of brass shells. A central hallway divided the second story. Wooden doors were set into the plaster walls along each side and at the far end, where a small window admitted a slanted sunbeam. All the doors were closed.

  “Do we have time to go through all these rooms?” Ryan asked.

  As if in answer, a siren wailed in the distance.

  “The big door at the end,” Vic said. “I’ll bet he’s in there.”

  They strode down the carpeted hall. As they reached the end, one of the doors behind them creaked. Ryan turned in time to see a man emerge from a doorway twenty feet back. His broad face and orange shirt registered in Ryan’s mind, but before he could even raise his gun, Vic’s silenced pistols were drilling holes in the man’s chest. He slumped to the floor, halfway into the hall.

  “Try the door.”

  To Ryan’s surprise, the knob turned. They both stepped aside as he gave it a push and the door swung open.

  Gunfire erupted from inside the room, bullets whizzing down the empty hall. Then the familiar clack of a hammer dropping on a spent chamber. Ryan whirled into the doorway, keeping low. The sunny bedroom was sparsely furnished, so it seemed even bigger than it was. Near the bed stood a dark man who wore jeans, but no shirt. His chest was decorated by bright red slashes. He didn’t look up as Ryan came into the room. He was too busy reloading his shiny revolver.

  Ryan shot him in the knee.

  The man pitched forward onto the floor, losing his gun. He curled into a fetal position, both hands grabbing his shattered knee.

  Ryan aimed for his head, but Vic grasped his arm before he could shoot.

  “Hang on a second.”

  Vic stepped past him.

  “You’re Zamora?”

  Through clenched teeth, the man cursed in Spanish. Vic, unfazed, kicked Zamora onto his back, then leaned over him, pointing both guns at his face.

  “Harry Marino sends his regards.”

  Zamora’s dark eyes widened.

  “Who?”

  Chapter 49

  Vic felt something heavy shift inside his chest. Zamora seemed sincerely bewildered.

  “I don’t know any Harry Marino.”

  “Cartel guy? Over in Phoenix?”

  “Never heard of him.”

  Vic glanced at Ryan, who stood to his left, keeping watch. The house was still, but those sirens were close now. Vic turned his attention back to Zamora.

  “You didn’t hire somebody to kill Harry Marino?”

  Zamora shook his head. He still clutched his bloody knee, but his scowl had relaxed. Looked as if he might be biting back a smile.

  “You got the wrong guy,” he said. “You shot up my house and killed my men, and you got the wrong fucking guy.”

  “You’re the guy,” Vic said. “You ordered Harry snuffed. Harry’s people want you dead.”

  The drug dealer’s face split into a big white smile. “I’m not dead yet.”

  “I can fix that.”

  Vic pulled both triggers, and Zamora’s head bounced against the floor. His eye sockets spurted blood.

  Vic walked away without a glance backward. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  As they hurried along the corridor, Ryan said, “You killed him because he was lying?”

  “I killed him because he was an asshole. Unfortunately, I think he was telling the truth.”

  That heavy feeling in his chest again. Vic swallowed against it. He hoped he wasn’t having a heart attack. Not a good time.

  They went down the stairs at a run, but no more bodyguards popped out of hiding. The front door stood open, sunlight glittering on the broken glass and spent brass.

  Ryan ran out into the bright sunshine. Vic chased after him, panting for breath. No more sentries outside, but a Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Department squad car turned into the long driveway, red and blue lights flashing. Two officers silhouetted inside.

  The cops paused at the broken gate, which hung half off its hinges, partly blocking the driveway. The black-and-white eased around the end of the gate and zoomed toward them just as Vic and Ryan climbed into the still-running SUV.

  “Go around back,” Vic shouted over the roar of the engine.

  The Escape fishtailed across the grass. Looking back over his shoulder, Vic saw the cops were tight behind them.

  Cool air flooded into the car as his window slid down. Vic turned in his seat, leaned partway out the open window
and, shooting left-handed, put a bullet in the windshield between the two cops. The squad car slid sideways as the driver hit the brakes.

  Ryan shouted, “Where am I going?”

  “There,” Vic said, pointing. “That break in the hedge.”

  “It’s too narrow.”

  “This car’s already fucked up. What difference does it make?”

  Ryan stomped the accelerator and the Escape sped across the back lawn, the patrol car right behind.

  Vic rolled up his window, shouting, “As soon as we’re through the hedge, hang a hard left.”

  “Left?”

  “Yes, left! Hard!”

  “Got it!”

  The SUV hit the gap, and pyracantha branches shrieked along its fenders and windows.

  Ryan cranked the steering wheel to the left as they burst through the hedge in a shower of leaves and thorns. The SUV danced sideways, as if it wanted to take a swim in the muddy water, but he held it on the dusty lane that ran alongside the ditch.

  Vic turned to watch as the sheriff’s department car burst through the hedge. The nose of the car dipped as the driver braked, but too late. The car splashed nose-down in the water. Inside the car, white air bags exploded.

  “We’re okay now,” Vic said. “Turn left again up there. It’s a wider ditch bank.”

  “We going to your Cadillac?”

  “No, we’ll get it later. We’ve got someplace else to go.”

  “Where’s that?”

  Vic felt that unfamiliar heaviness again. This time, he recognized it as grief.

  “Go to Penny’s house.”

  Chapter 50

  After they bumped onto Rio Grande Boulevard, headed south, Ryan took a deep breath and blew it out. Nothing in the rearview but a cloud of dust, drifting away on the breeze. He felt triumphant, but Vic was frowning.

  “When you got away from the kidnappers, did you get a good look at them?”

  “Sure. One was a little fat guy, Hispanic, with a thin mustache. The other was a big white guy with a shaved head.”

  “You get names?”

  “I didn’t take time to check their IDs,” Ryan said. “But the little guy called the big one ‘Shep.’ ”