Drawing Dead (2 page)

“The way they're carrying on back there, probably wouldn't even see
that
much. You walk in the back door, like you was expected, see? Then you do the work, walk out the
front
door, and it plays the same way.”

“So
you're
the expert now? Ain't done even a single one of these yet, but you gonna give
me
tips?”

“I don't gotta be no expert to know that people, they got peepholes and things like that in their front door. The bitch in there sees you, maybe asks what you want through one of those speaker things. There ain't no guarantee she's even gonna
open
that door.”

“You know a lot about all this, huh?”

“The boss said, ‘Watch Antoine.' Watch and learn, is what he said. I'm gonna be where you is, cuz. Not today, not tomorrow, I got that. I'm just saying—”

“You said enough, rookie. We
already
been sitting out here too long.”

ANTOINE SLID
from the passenger seat and strolled casually up the driveway, as if that had been his intention all along.

The sound of raucous children reached his ears just as he turned left, looking for the back door.

A huge Akita, all white except for its black head, lay on its belly, watching the children. It sensed Antoine: whirled, snarled, and launched in the same motion.

Antoine froze. The 9mm in his sample case was miles away—death was much closer
.

A mass of chartreuse and tangerine flew across Antoine's vision, snatched the dog, and wrestled it to the ground.

“Sweetie, no!” some cartoon-muscled monster shouted, holding the dog squirming against his chest. “He's probably a friend of Sharyn's.”

Antoine blinked, twice. When his eyes focused, he saw that the monster was human…sort of. It wasn't just the insanely overdeveloped physique, or the anaconda arms embracing the dog. It wasn't just the shaved head, or the veined muscles covering his upper body like a coat of armor. No, it was the slathered lipstick, the outrageous eyeliner, and the rouged cheeks that riveted the hired killer in place.

“Hi!” the monster said, grinning.

Antoine took off. He reached the car and flung himself into the opened door, screaming, “Go!”

The silverfish Infiniti sedan pulled smoothly away.

“YOU NOT
gonna believe what was back there, man!”

The driver was silent, calmly waiting for Antoine to finish his story.

“First this dog—some monfucious thing with a black head—it shoots right at me like a damn missile! Then this…Man, I don't know
what
to call that thing—all muscled up like those iron freaks in the joint, but he's a stone sissy! Makeup and all, I'm telling you. He
flies
over the dog, picks him up like he's a little puppy. Saved my life, no doubt!”

“Yeah?”

“
Yeah!
I don't know what was inside that house, and I don't ever wanna know. The boss…I don't know how this could be, but he must've got the address wrong.”

“Hemp don't make mistakes, you said. And you had it written down, too, remember?”

“Hey! I'm saying this to
you,
bro; it ain't for broadcast.”

The driver slashed his right index finger across his lips.

“You got it,” Antoine said, sealing their pact.

A FEW
minutes passed before the failed assassin looked up, suddenly realizing they were headed in the wrong direction.

The
wrongest
direction. Instead of the crusher safely nestled deep into the West Side, they were within eyesight of the Badlands.

“You stupid—”

“It ain't me who's stupid, cuz. Ain't even you. It's Hemp that's the sucker in this game. He thinks he's gonna put himself on top behind taking out Ace's woman? He's got to be the stupidest—”

“
You
gonna be the one to tell him that?”

The supposedly stolen Infiniti slowed to a stop as the driver's left hand came up. Before Antoine's eyes could register the image of a dull-black pistol, the third hollow-point was already ripping through his upper body. He slumped forward, hitting his head on the dash. The airbag failed to deploy.

The driver shot twice more. Fully jacketed rounds penetrated Antoine's skull, each slug slamming into a flat-lined brain.

Leaving the body untouched, the driver opened his door and climbed out, holding the pistol by the barrel in his upraised hand.
Three to the body, two to the head, just like they told me.

Within seconds, he was surrounded by a mixed-race mob of teens his own age. Their leader, a gaunt young man with a severely curved spine and a blue Mohawk coxcomb, waved his hand in a “Come here!” gesture.

A pale-green Kia Soul pulled up.

“That's your ride to O'Hare,” the blue-Mohawked leader said, pointing. “And here's your ticket. One-way to Phoenix. You land, you take a cab from the airport to the bus station. From there, you go wherever you want. Here's your new ID. And here's your money.”

“I…”

“Don't waste time. You did your job, just like you was supposed to. So…here…you just got paid, too. Now all you got to do is to get
gone.
”

“WHAT'S NEXT,
Condor?”

The young man with the blue Mohawk looked steadily at a powerfully built youth whose face was a mixture of Asian and African. “Next? What'd I tell you, A.B.? This job, we do it
exactly
like we was told to, the ‘next' is that we move up. We get to take care of more business.”

“You mean, this was for…?”

“Never say names,” Condor warned. “That's a bad habit.”

“You say Buddha's name all the time,” a slender Latino spoke up, keeping his tone reasonable—a question from someone who wanted to learn.

“Buddha don't care, 'Zeus,” Condor answered. “You've seen him do the card trick, right? And you've seen the Shark Car, too. No reason not to say his name, understand? Nobody shoots like him. And nobody else drives that car, neither.”