Double Shot

by Chris Bostic

  “I’m gonna take that back,” I said, and gave it a quick shake to fling off any potential lingering bourbon contamination. Then I wiped it on my pants.

  Paul looked at me curiously as if I was acting like I thought it had his cooties on it or something.

  “Just cleaning it off,” I whispered. “You can sit tight. We’re working on a plan.”

  Clarice still wasn’t to be seen, so I assumed that meant she’d gone back to her office. Probably lying on her desk again, only having a whole lot less fun.

  By the time I was back to the hallway, I found Lee working all the way down at the end, moving some of the smaller furniture.

  “I’m waiting,” he said when he noticed my furrowed brow. “Just gettin’ ready.”

  I went over to help him, lifting some of the heavier items like the two desks so they wouldn’t drag noisily on the floor. We moved them to the side, just far enough so the door would swing open.

  With the path clear, we stared at the door, perhaps lost in our thoughts. Mine were mostly centered on how the throbbing in my head had pretty well drowned out my stinging eyes and aching chest.

  Lee reached out for my hand. We linked fingers, and he squeezed.

  “Alright, so…we have to split up this time. We can’t let him get behind us,” he said. “I go left, you go right.”

  “That didn’t work out so good last time.”

  “Then you take left. Deal?”

  “Deal.” Not a great one, but it wasn’t like I really had a choice.

  Lee dropped my hand after another squeeze and held out a fist. I wasn’t ordinarily a fist bump kind of gal, but if there was ever a time, that was it.

  “Let’s do it, partner,” I said.

  “Giddy up.”

  Lee reached for the lock and turned the deadbolt as slowly as if he was tuning a Swiss watch. Then his hand dropped to the door handle.

  I took a big breath and released it.

  Let’s end this.

  I dropped to a crouch, ready to rush out and take my spot.

  Before Lee got the door open, a clatter came from the gift shop. Glass shattered on the floor.

  Paul shrieked, “Fire!”

  I turned to see an orange glow. Flames licked at the floor, then flared even higher when they hit the pool of bourbon that had doused me by the display shelves.

  Damned if the flare burned my eyeballs too.

  Lee took off like a bullet. He raced down the hallway, gun at the ready.

  He paused only for a second at the corner to tell me, “Wait there.”

  I wanted to follow him, but I had to shield my eyes from the searing heat. Lee came back a couple seconds later dragging Paul by the collar.

  “Get down there!” Lee shouted to him and turned back to the gift shop, his weapon pointed at the windows while the fire raged.

  I didn’t know how he could handle the heat, but there was no time for thinking, only action. With Paul halfway saved, I took it as my job to get Clarice out.

  Paul blubbered something unintelligible as I shoved him toward the back door.

  “Wait at the door! Don’t go outside!” I ducked into the office.

  Clarice sat in her chair by where her desk had been, reclining with her eyes closed.

  “Get up!” I shouted. “We gotta go!”

  She startled. Her eyes took a second to focus.

  “There’s a fire!” I yelled. “Get out here!”

  She scrambled, nearly falling out of the chair. Once under her own power, she tripped over Bethany’s wastebasket as she turned to follow me.

  I left her to find Lee and brushed past Paul again. Behind me, I heard him tell Clarice, “Crazy guy threw a bottle through the busted window.”

  Lee backed toward our direction. He shielded his face from the heat with his bandaged forearm.

  “Keep coming.” I held out an arm and guided him next to me.

  “We gotta get them out the back,” he said, as he took a quick look behind us to check on Paul and Clarice.

  It made total sense. That’s what I’d figured all along, but a sudden, nagging doubt creeped into my brain.

  “Hold up,” I said, taking Lee by the arm. “It’s an ambush. He’s waiting out there for us.”

  Lee looked back toward the fire, which raged through the gift shop, already licking at the walls. As soon as more bottles broke, the building would go up like a bonfire.

  “I feel it. Like I know he’s out there.”

  “Fuck. You’re probably right.” Lee scratched at his shoulder as he kept shielding his face. “We’re dead either way.”

  For the briefest of seconds, I’ll admit to considering using Paul and Clarice as human shields. I shook my head and cursed myself for even remotely considering it.

  It was a standoff. Lee was ready to come out shooting, but I didn’t see how that would work. We were sitting ducks if the thug was waiting there.

  There was no time to move heavy furniture away from the other doors.

  I stared Lee in the face and pointed back toward the gift shop.

  “Cowboy, I don’t know about you, but I’m going out that broken window.”

  CHAPTER 33

  “You can’t climb out a window,” Lee insisted without providing any evidence otherwise.

  “The hell I can’t.” I put my head down and started toward the fire.

  “Fine,” he relented.

  As I kept walking, hunched over to avoid too much smoke, I heard him tell the others, “You two get on the ground and wait here. We’ll have you out in a minute.”

  I stuck my head into my office space to get a giant suck of slightly cleaner air, then I continued down the hall.

  In no time, the heat seared my skin.

  For a moment, I thought it couldn’t have been a stupider idea to head into the blaze, especially considering how much my eyes already burned.

  I shut my eyelids to slivers and copied Lee’s earlier move, with my left forearm over my face. I held onto the pistol tightly with my other hand.

  Heat and smoke be damned. The worse it got, the faster I went.

  I couldn’t tell if Lee was behind me. The crackling of the fire overwhelmed all other sounds.

  As I approached the window, I briefly considered a dive right through it. Lee had other ideas.

  With superior speed, he rushed past me and grabbed at the blinds. One mighty yank later and they pulled free of the brackets to clatter across the room.

  Lee stuck his head and gun out the window and checked both ways as I threatened to push him out so I could get free of the inferno too.

  He didn’t shoot. Luckily it was just a short step up and he was out on the deck, pistol pointing toward the back of the building.

  I turned sideways and got out as quickly as I could, but not without scratching the top of my shoulder on a hanging shard of razor-sharp glass.

  Pistol at the ready, I followed behind him, headed to the rear of the building. I kept checking behind us too, just in case my intuition had been off.

  Outside air proved to be a vast improvement, at least for my lungs. I blinked my eyes multiple times to try to clear them, but they stayed blurrier than I’d hoped.

  I tapped Lee on the shoulder, and whispered, “We need to surround him. I’m gonna circle back to the right.”

  “It’s longer.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “He could be up front.”

  “I know,” I said, but brushed the darker thoughts aside. “Just count to twenty or something, and I should be caught up.”

  Before he could argue anymore, I took off. I tried not to slap my feet against the deck as I moved as quickly and quietly as possible.

  In no time, I was close to the front of the building, about to ease my head around the corner.

  I realized my limited eyesight would be a hindrance, so I opted for speed. After leaning back to gain a little momentum, I jumped around the corner, gun aimed at the old pickup.

  Nothing moved, s
o I kept racing, heading across the porch and past the front door. At the next corner, I repeated the movement.

  Still no one.

  In my mind, that proved my theory. Little Willie had to be waiting to ambush us at the rear—which meant I needed to move even faster. No doubt it was already past twenty seconds, and Lee wasn’t one to wait.

  I sprinted along the side of the building, only slowing right before I made it to the corner.

  About five paces shy, gunfire erupted.

  First a boom. Presumably the shotgun.

  Then the sharper crack of the pistol. Several shots.

  I prayed he got him, but I also knew Lee would run out of ammunition in that little pistol. He needed me.

  Now or never.

  I stretched out to where only my head and arms extended beyond the building.

  The brute crouched against the wall on the far side. He had his back to me. As I slid farther out to take aim, he tried to ease around the corner to get at Lee.

  “Drop the gun!” I shouted.

  He fired again toward Lee, then turned to me deliberately, shotgun pointed at the ground.

  A crooked grin creased his ugly mouth.

  “Well, well, well. You look different.”

  I ignored the comment about my clothes and barked, “I said drop the fucking gun.”

  In that moment, I knew he wouldn’t. I hoped Lee would come up behind him and put his pistol to the back of his head. Or pistol whip him, but my man was right to be cautious around that brute.

  “Don’t make me shoot your ass.” I tightened my two-hand grip on the pistol. The sight beads blurred the more I squinted, but he wasn’t so far away that I couldn’t get a decent shot off, if necessary.

  Hopefully not, but I knew better.

  “You won’t do it.” He glanced over his shoulder to see if Lee was coming up behind him.

  “The hell I won’t.”

  “Yeah right. You would’ve done it already if you were gonna.”

  “I wouldn’t test me.” I kept a close eye on the shotgun, which thus far remained pointed at the ground, though a bit higher than it had been seconds before.

  “Shit, bitch. You ain’t got it in ya.”

  He straightened up a little, his bulk swelling to where it more than filled the sight beads on my pistol. No way I would miss.

  “Who do you think shot your boy back there?” I gestured with my head toward the distillation building. “Don’t think I won’t do it again.”

  He rebalanced his weight, slowly uncurling to his full height. Intimidating for sure, as he no doubt intended, but I still had the upper hand.

  I had no idea why Lee hadn’t come up behind him yet. He had to hear us bickering. I could only pray he hadn’t been hit by the gunfire. The thought made my finger tighten on the trigger. A little more pressure and it would go off whether I wanted it to or not.

  “Don’t do this,” I muttered.

  He shook his head and erupted in laughter. “I got nothin’ to lose. How about you?”

  I made a quick mental list.

  My life.

  Two people inside the building if this doesn’t hurry up.

  “Dammit, Lee!” I shouted. “I got him. Get over here!”

  He answered my call, shouting back, “We got you surrounded, Bill. Drop it.”

  The brute didn’t bother to look over his shoulder, which was probably just as well since I couldn’t see Lee from where I was standing.

  Little Willie took a couple deliberate steps in my direction, practically daring me to shoot him. If I had to, I would. But only if he made the first big move.

  “Hold it there,” I said as calmly as I could muster. “Not a step closer.”

  He laughed again and took another step, bringing him even with the back door.

  There was still room, but not much.

  Lee’s voice carried around the corner of the building again. “Just drop the gun and get your hands up.”

  I saw Lee’s face and hands poke around the corner. At that point, I was sure it was all going to work out—until I remembered Lee’s statement about desperate fools.

  Only the brute wasn’t the only desperate one.

  The rear door swung open, surprising us all.

  CHAPTER 34

  Without a word, the brute whirled and brought the shotgun up toward Lee.

  I fired three times, hitting him with every shot.

  Little Willie hit the ground as the back door slammed shut.

  Lee rushed to him and kicked the shotgun away from the motionless body. He continued over to me, wrapping an arm around my shoulder.

  I dropped the pistol on the ground.

  “Thanks for saving me again,” he whispered as he hugged me tighter.

  “How?” I mumbled, not sure what he meant since he easily could have taken the brute down.

  He held up his pistol. “I was out of ammo. It was you or no one.”

  “Oh…dang. Then don’t mention it.” I shook my head. “Seriously, don’t.”

  As I stood there trembling, he guided me over to the door and pulled it open.

  “You dumbasses can come out. It’s all clear.”

  Smoke billowed out the door, following Clarice and Paul like a shadow. They coughed as they scampered well away, steering clear of Little Willie’s body. They wouldn’t even look his way, not that I could blame them.

  Clarice looked so far away she gazed in the opposite direction, and refused to turn around even when Lee asked if they were okay.

  “Fine,” Paul said, fighting off another cough. “We didn’t have much time left…but thank you. Both of you.”

  I nodded back at him and kept my lips in a firm line. I couldn’t fault them for trying to get out of a smoke-filled inferno. In retrospect, I couldn’t see how anything would have ended any differently if they hadn’t opened the door.

  I picked up my gun, since it didn’t feel right to leave it on the ground. When Lee came back over to me, I held it out for him like it was a snake.

  “Take it,” I said. “I don’t want to…I dunno.” I shook my head to clear the cobwebs. “Just never again.”

  “Never.” Lee slipped it back into the holster and put away his own. “I get that.”

  “Thanks.”

  I leaned into him and let me wrap him in his arms again. After a long sigh, I looked up to see him tilt his head as he pulled slightly away from me.

  “You know, you’d make a helluva partner, though.” He gestured wide with a hand as he said, “I can see it now…Rogers and Fields Security Agency.”

  He would have been disappointed if I hadn’t criticized the name.

  “Why not Fields and Rogers?”

  “Just doesn’t have the same ring.”

  I stifled a retort and leaned back into him. He guided me away from the building over toward Clarice and Paul. Not too close to them, but plenty far from the building.

  I sank to the grass first, pulling Lee down with me.

  Smoke billowed out the back door, as well as through the broken window. Then the flames joined in. They raced up the siding to lick at the roof.

  “Better call the fire department too,” I deadpanned. “Maybe they’ll show up quicker.”

  “No shit. Should’ve called them first.”

  Lee grew quiet, though I sensed some anxiousness in him. I followed his eyes to determine he was looking at Little Willie’s body.

  “Should we move him?” I asked. “Or does that do something to the crime scene?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” he replied matter-of-factly.

  I sat there waiting to see if he would get up, but he just slumped against me. We made like a teepee and leaned to the middle, our shoulders holding each other up.

  After a while, I slipped more back into my old ways, and joked, “I never did get that nightcap.”

  Double shot would’ve been the right term, but I couldn’t bring myself to think, much less say, those words in the moment.

  “You kin
da did.” Lee brought up a hand to wipe at my brow. “You probably got a little off your face thanks to the shotgun.”

  “Thanks for reminding me.”

  He put his arm around my shoulder and we closed our eyes. Despite the whining and roaring from the fire, I was just about asleep when we finally heard the sirens.

  Police cars. Finally.

  Two of them pulled into the property and rolled toward the gift shop parking lot. Lee stood first and helped me up. Clarice and Paul followed behind us as we skirted well around the building.

  They parked their cars at the far end of the lot and didn’t get out right away. Though my vision remained cloudy, I could tell they eyed us suspiciously as we started across the parking lot toward them, hands at our sides.

  “All threats have been neutralized!” Lee shouted, raising his hands. “It’s all clear.”

  The men got out of their cars but stayed behind the doors. One had a black rifle aimed at us.

  “You can put that thing down!” Lee kept walking toward them like he didn’t have a care in the world. I struggled to keep up with him. “We’ve got everything but the fire under control.”

  “Who are you?” the younger of the two officers called out.

  The one with the rifled added, “Stay right there and identify yourself.”

  “Leland Rogers, Director of Security.” He mumbled to me, “Probably former director.” When they didn’t reply right away, he added, “I’m the one who called this in.”

  The younger man stood up while his partner kept us covered. “Helluva mess you got here.”

  “Wouldn’t have been this way if you’d showed up on time,” Lee said, not holding back. “What the hell took so damn long?”

  “The call came to us low priority,” the officer replied, lowering his eyes to avoid Lee’s piercing stare.

  I jumped in. “Low priority. No fucking way.”

  “We had some reports of shots fired around here this morning, ma’am.”

  “Yeah, I heard ‘em,” I said. “So what?”

  “It was just some residents target shooting in their backyard.”

  “No shit,” I muttered through gritted teeth.

  “We figured that out too. That’s why I didn’t call on that one.” Lee shoved his temporarily nicer demeanor aside to give the cops hell again. “But I sure as fuck called two other times. Y’all don’t respond to a legit call like this one right away?”