Bullets Are My Business (9781101616413) (17 page)

Later

This has been the longest couple of weeks of my entire life.

I just have to make it through one more day of this bullshit. After that, I'll have Maise in my hands and my problems will all be solved. Maise will lead me to the killer. I'll have Veronica off my back. The mint green envelopes will cease. Then I can get back to hiring myself out instead of watching out for my own ass constantly. I don't like to have to focus solely on that. It's not in my job description.

Something is itching at the back of my mind as I'm driving. Megan. Chenille obviously hasn't found anything at all. If she had, I would've received a phone call at the bare minimum. In all actuality, I would've received several phone calls over the course of a few minutes.

I'm back driving on streets that I recognize now, which means that I'm almost home. I just want to get back to my apartment and fall asleep. I have to be at my best tomorrow when I pick up Maise. Once I get her, there is no room for slipups. If I lose her, I'm done. I glance out my window and almost break my neck to do a double take.

Megan's car is parked at the gym.

I check the clock on the dashboard to make sure that I haven't completely lost track of time. It's after one
A.M.
There's no reason that there should be any cars in the gym parking lot this late. Even the custodial staff would be at home by now. Unless the gym is running some late night special. I get the feeling that this isn't the case. I run through my options in my head. Go home, go to bed, and hash all of this out tomorrow or hit the brakes and check it out now.

I pull the car to the side of the road and slip out the door. Thankfully there's not a lot of traffic at this time of night. I slink, unnoticed, across the street to the gym's parking lot. Going home and going to sleep is not even in the running at this point. Not anymore.

I move like a ghost across the barren parking lot. I let my eyes wander over the pale blue Neon in the lot. Dent in the back. Bumper sticker. License plates. It's definitely Megan's car. I reach the gym and put my back against the wall. No one's shooting, so, for the time being at least, I must be in the clear. I do a quick take of my surroundings, looking for an out-of-place shadow. I find nothing. I ease my way to the gym window and peek inside. No movement. I have to case the building. Megan is here someplace. I move quietly across the front of the building, and as I slip around the corner, I hear the sound of the front door opening.

I drop to the ground behind the moistened hydrangea bushes. I can't very well get caught now. That would put quite a cramp in my style. A cramp that would probably leave me six feet under. I can hear voices. A man and a woman. I recognize the dame's voice immediately. Megan. I can't place the man's. I inch forward slightly to catch a glimpse of the bodies that the voices belong to. Even though it shouldn't catch me off guard, somehow it does. Chenille was right.

Megan is talking with Bruiser.

They're too far away for me to hear what they're saying. I can't inch any closer or I may as well be wearing a neon sign with an arrow saying, “Here I am.” I can pick out the occasional word, but nothing hits home. Mostly adjectives. That doesn't help in the least. I have to get closer if I want to find out anything at all. I inch along on my belly like a serpent.

“. . . Vincent was . . .”

I stop, midcrawl. My stomach drops. My initial thought is that my ears are playing tricks on me. Megan didn't just use the name Vincent. Even if she did, there's gotta be a million different people with the same name. It's just an obvious coincidence.

“. . . Drug deals . . .”

It's not. You'd think that I'd listen to the brick in my gut by now. Megan and Bruiser are at her car. Megan opens the door and turns. My stomach drops even further. I can feel my trigger finger itching incessantly as she kisses Bruiser heartily on the mouth before she gets into her car. Before she puts her car in drive, Megan winds down the window and I hear one last snippet of their conversation.

“. . . Find that bitch.”

Never trust a dame. I should have cards printed up to remind myself. Bruiser watches her drive off, and as soon as her taillights are gone from view, he puts his fingers in his mouth and whistles. A Cadillac comes around the corner from the back of the building. Its wheels are so close that I could stick my tongue out and lick the asphalt off them. It's a good thing I didn't continue around. I would've walked right into a firefight I wasn't prepared for.

Bruiser gets into the car. They drive out of the lot and disappear into the night. I give them a good five minutes, lying in the mulch, before I stand up and shake the wood chips from my clothes.

How does Megan know Vincent?

The only answer to my question is a simple one.

I need a drink.

Seven Minutes Later, Give or Take

When I get back in the car my phone is beeping, letting me know that I missed a call. A quick glance at the display informs me that I've actually missed three calls. It's a good goddamned thing I left my phone in the car. Being Mr. Popularity wouldn't have helped keep my profile low as I was laying in the bushes. I scroll through the missed calls. Two of them are Chenille. One of them is Jacks. I should've seen that one coming. Not a word from them all day, but the second I walk away from my phone, all hell breaks loose. I dial Chenille's number as I'm pulling into a parking space outside my apartment. She answers on the first ring, with every bit of drama that she had when she was a teenager.

“Where the hell have you been?” I can't tell who she sounds like, my mom, my dad, or some random twit that asks too many damn questions. She doesn't even wait for me to respond before she launches directly into her next item of business. “I have some very important information that I dredged up regarding ‘Megan Basset.'” I exit my car and begin walking toward my apartment. I don't say a word. At this point, it doesn't really matter if I say anything or not. Chenille isn't going to listen to me anyway.

“‘Megan' isn't an innocent thing,” Chenille spouts, sounding far too proud of herself. “I happened to find out a little bit of information from a reliable source. ‘Megan,' it seems, palled around with someone you've become very well acquainted with recently. A one Mr.—”

“Vincent Bagliato,” I cut her off. I had to knock her off of her high horse. I can hear the sound of her ego deflating like a balloon.

“How the hell did you know that?”

“I'm fucking psychic.”

“You're an asshole is what you are,” she retorts. “But, regardless, yes, she was one of Vincent's ladies. His biggest earner. Apparently, he knocked her around a bit, when he was high, a couple of days before he expired.” She doesn't even need to finish her thought.

Megan and Bruiser. Megan and Vincent. Vincent whacks Megan around a bit, Megan goes to her friend and confidant, Bruiser, and regales her tale of woe. Bruiser is not a happy camper. So what does he do?

He kills Vincent.

If Maise was working for Vincent, she must've known Megan. Word would've spread about Megan being knocked around, so, even though Maise was with me when the hit happened, she still would've been able to piece together the fact that Megan, in a roundabout way, killed Vincent. Maybe Maise was extorting her. Maybe not. If I can find Maise, I can get my answers. Maise must've said something about this to Veronica. Which explains her cryptic way of telling me that her sister knew who was trying to kill me.

I'm tempted to just go straight back to the Asian immediately and finish this whole thing off now. Unfortunately, something keeps gnawing at my brain. I still have to get Maise back to Veronica. If it wasn't for her, I would've never put two and two together. Once I get to Maise, I can ask her some questions and put this thing to rest. Then it's a done deal.

A little over three days have gone by and I'm almost off the hook. The Asian gets his, Veronica gets hers, and I walk free.

Something about this feels too easy.

Dammit.

The Next Night

Some days it feels like everything's a repeat of the day before.

Today isn't one of those days.

As I pull the Lincoln up in front of Han's apartment complex, I get the feeling that something is askew. I make a turnaround and take a spin around the block, followed by another one, looking to see if anyone's on me. There's no one around. Not a single car in the streets aside from mine. I park my Lincoln at the curb and pull my .45, making sure she's ready to fly. I put it back, doing one final check of my surroundings. Still clear. I walk to the door.

I ring the buzzer, just like I did yesterday. No one answers. No static comes through the intercom. No black guy comes to retrieve me. Maybe Han felt some shit coming down and he skipped out. I hope it's that simple, but I've got a feeling in my gut that's telling me it's something deeper than that. I have no idea what it is, but there's only one way to find out. I bring my foot back and kick the door. There's a brief splintering and scraping of metal as the door flies open. Good thing there's no alarms.

I have my gun in my hand as I step through the doorway. I take the stairs two at a time. I can smell it before I even hit the second floor. There's been gunplay. Powder and smoke fill my nostrils, with just enough of a coppery overtone mixed in to let me know that there are casualties. I round the corner to the third floor stairway, and as I step over what I can only assume is the right side of what used to be a head, I immediately understand why the black guy didn't have the decency to let me in. On my way up the stairs, I step over the remainder of his body. I put my back against the wall and enter the hallway. Han's door is barely hanging on by the hinges. I attempt to ease it open and it crashes to the floor of the apartment. I leap back, standing around the corner. Nothing like a grand entrance. Too bad nobody's alive to see it. I wait a few seconds for the fireworks to commence. Nothing happens. That's always a good sign in my opinion. The gunfire still doesn't come, so I cautiously step through the door to survey the interior of the apartment. Good Lord.

Han's apartment was a feat of grotesque filth when I came by yesterday. That doesn't hold a candle to the scene before me tonight. The filth is still here, only now the garbage is covered with a fine layer of matted blood and tissue. This wasn't gunplay, this was an outright assault. Whoever was behind this wasn't fucking around.

I see Han sitting on the sofa. He appears to be sleeping. For a moment, I have the faint hope that somehow, Han survived. I step toward him. That's when I see the torn edges of the holes in his chest. Han isn't going to be talking to anyone. Ever.

I put my gun back in the holster and move around the room. There must be fifteen bodies strewn about. Most of them are still intact for the most part. I lean in to check their faces, if they still have them. I sincerely hope that Maise's is not one of them. That would put a definite crimp in my plans.

Out of the fifteen bodies, the twelve that have faces don't ring any bells. The other three I write off. One's too fat, one's too tall, and the other one just ain't right. Maise isn't here. Either she wasn't here when whoever did this showed up or they took her with them. I hope that it wasn't the latter.

Now I have to hunt her down. I'm back at square one. Dammit. I step over the corpses and move back toward the hallway. Just before I reach the doorframe, a hand grabs hold of my ankle. I stop midstride, pulling my gun and pointing it in the general direction of the grasp. The hand belongs to some wiry, greaseball-looking kid. He looks like he's straight out of high school. Looks like he picked the wrong day to lose his virginity.

He's laying on his side underneath the naked, bloodstained legs of one of the girls. I can tell right away, judging from the blood coming out of his mouth and his labored breathing, that he's got a slug in his belly. He's not going to make it into the next hour. I tug my ankle away, and bending down, I shove the lifeless girl's body aside. I grab the kid by the shoulders, propping him up to a sitting position against the wall.

“What do you know, kid?” I ask, taking out a cigarette and placing it between my lips. I offer one to him. He shakes his head. I put the cigarettes away and light the one in my mouth. I don't have time for small talk. “Who did this?”

The greaser's lips start moving, but no sound comes out. I'm afraid that I've just wasted my time so that I could watch blood bubbles in his saliva. I'm about to get up and leave, when I hear his vocal chords crack to some semblance of life. I give it a moment. He sputters to life.

“Big guys . . .” He croaks out. His breathing is heavy and wet. I want to slap him and tell him to talk faster. I restrain myself. He's already had a hell of a day.

“What did they do?”

He takes a deep, painstaking breath. His eyes are glazing over. “They came in . . . shooting . . . looking for a girl.”

Maise. They came here looking for Maise. “Did they find her?”

The greaser nods his head. I take a drag of the cigarette. “What did they look like?”

“Big . . . guys . . . ,” he wheezes. “Body . . . builders.”

Fuck. Bruiser's crew. I knew it. “Where did they take her?”

The greaseball kid sucks in a final breath. His eyes roll back in his head and he takes the step into the great beyond. I reach out and close his eyes. At least I know who to call.

“Thanks, kid.”

Five Minutes out the Door

I punch Megan's number into my phone and put the receiver to my ear. I can't tell right away if the sound I hear is the phone ringing or the blood boiling in my ears until Megan picks up the phone on the other end.

“Hey, what time is it? I missed you toni—”

“Cut the crap, sugar,” I growl. I don't have time for this cat-and-mouse bullshit, so I opt to make it brief. Silence meets me on the phone line. She realizes that the game is over, so now things can move along at a decent pace. “Where's Maise?”

“Meet me at the gym,” she tells me. “We've got plenty to talk about.”

“You're goddamned right we do.” There's an audible click on the receiver. Can't tell who hung up first, her or me. It doesn't really matter at this point.

This ends tonight. I'm going to see to it.

I put the pedal to the floor, hoping to God that no cops are milling about, waiting to meet their quotas. Despite what I do for a living, I've never really had any scuffles with the law. I don't want my lucky streak to end tonight. It wouldn't be a pretty sight.

I pop open my cell and key in Chenille's number. The phone rings twice before I hear the garbled beginning of her salutation followed by silence. My first thought is that they got to her as well. I look down at my phone. The service out here is practically null and the battery is about to die. I speak as quickly as possible, trying to fill Chenille in on what's going down.

“I'm on my way to the gym. Call Jacks and bring backup.” I move the phone away from my ear. It's dead. I toss it aside. I hope she heard me. No phone means no Chenille. No Jacks. If she didn't hear what I said, my backup is gone. And the beat goes on. I hope Megan doesn't feel it necessary to bring her own posse. Too late to worry about that now.

The streetlamps fly by so fast that they look like Christmas lights. I pull my flask from the inside pocket of my jacket and take a long pull. I replace the flask at my lips with a cigarette. I'll be at the gym in a few minutes. Time to take inventory.

I have my shoulder holster packed. My drop is ready. I reach into the glovebox and remove my .38. There's enough ammo in my trunk to start, fight, and finish World War Three. At the very least, I'm prepared. I suppose that's the bright side I can look at. The silver lining to this ever-darkening black rain cloud. Hopefully this will be over quick.

Famous last words.

I squeal into the gym's parking lot, screeching to a halt in what may or may not be a parking space. What are they gonna do if it's not? Have me towed? I reach over and take one final look at my cell phone. Nothing but a blank screen. Shit. I toss it back to the passenger side of the car. I throw open my door and flick my cigarette aside. I move to the trunk, filling my pockets with ammo. I slam the trunk.

Let's get this show on the road. Dim the lights. No flash photography. Please keep your hands and arms inside the car at all times. Get ready for a bumpy ride.