Shot of Tequila (12 page)

T
erco had gone to the
Blues Note
first. He asked both the fat bartender and the old bag of bones on piano—a black man so old he probably farted dust—if a short muscular guy with a tattoo had been in there that night.

Both had said no.

Terco pushed a little. Giving the old man a slap. Throwing a bar stool. Breaking some glasses and scaring the hell out of the only two customers in the place.

They still denied seeing Tequila that night.

That was good enough for Terco. He used their phone to call a cop friend of his, someone out of the 12th on Marty’s payroll. The cop had heard about the liquor store murder, and gave Terco the owner’s address after looking it up.

Terco was there in twenty minutes.

It was a small house off of Addison. He parked in the alley in back and walked through the yard to the front door, the cold forcing him to blink so his eyelids didn’t freeze. He knocked twice, and was pleasantly surprised when the door opened without him having to lie his way in.

“You Binkowski?” he asked, pushing inside and grabbing the old man by the loose skin hanging from his chicken neck. The dude was wearing a nightcap, for chrissakes, with a fluffy dingle ball on the end of it. He reminded Terco of the guy in that
Night Before Christmas
poem.

The old man’s eyes bugged out and he nodded as well as he could with his neck being pinched.

“Tell me what the man looked like,” Terco growled. “The one who robbed you tonight.”

Binkowski’s mind whirled. Was this a friend of the short man? Did he know that Binkowski had talked to the police?

“He… he was black.” Binkowski blurted. “With a green jacket. Tall. Real tall.”

“You telling the truth?” Terco snarled. “You sure it wasn’t a short guy with a tattoo on his hand?”

Binkowski’s lower lip quivered like an earthworm doing a rumba.

“I swear! Tall black guy! Green jacket!”

Terco dropped the man, apparently satisfied. Binkowski almost passed out from fear. He knew it wasn’t over yet.

Detective Daniels had called and would be here any minute. In fact, that’s who Binkowski assumed was at the door when he opened it. If this maniac was still here when the cop arrived, he’d put two and two together and figure that Binkowski had snitched. The situation couldn’t get any worse.

“Get out of here!”

It just got worse.

Terco and Binkowski turned to face Binkowski’s elderly wife, Marie, standing at the bottom of the staircase. She was shaking like an epileptic on a caffeine binge, and cradled in her arms was the family twelve-gauge.

“Marie! No!”

“You stupid bitch.” Terco laughed, but it came out forced. Understandable, since a gun was pointing at him. “From there, you’ll hit both me and the old man.”

“I said get out!”

“Marie, please!” screamed Binkowski.

“Marie, please!” mimicked Terco. Then he regretted it. His hero, Sly Stallone, wouldn’t tease an old woman. He’d say something cool. Terco tried to think of a cool line.

“I swear,” Marie Binkowski said. “I’ll shoot you if you don’t leave.”

“That gun will take your arm off, you dried up old lizard. Put it down or I’ll come over there and shove it up your, uh, shove it in your shriveled, your wrinkled, uh…”

Shit. Another Stallone opportunity, lost to history.

Marie fired, peppering both her husband and the intruder across their chests.

Terco stumbled backwards, shocked. Sly never got shot. He looked down at the blood on his chest, wondering why he wasn’t dead.

“What the hell?”

“Want some more, buddy?” Marie challenged. “I said go!”

Terco studied his chest more closely, and noted that his wounds were superficial. Looking at the floor he saw why. At his feet were dozens of white crystals. He picked one up and sniffed it.

“Rock salt? You loaded your shotgun with rock salt?”

“My wife’s a pacifist,” Binkowski wailed, clutching his bleeding nightshirt.

The pain hit Terco like a wave. The shock of the blast had worn off, and now he had a chest full of salty wounds, which hurt like a hundred bee stings.

“You mean she was a pacifist,” remarked Terco, drawing his revolver and shooting the old bat in the head. Her husband cried out, so he gave him a pop in the dome as well. Served the butt nuggets right, shooting him with rock salt.

“Butt nuggets,” he told them, and then shut the door behind him, careful to smear his prints.

Sly would have been proud.

On the way back to
Spill
, he began to whistle, unaware and unconcerned that in the car passing him in the oncoming lane was a Homicide Detective named Jack Daniels.

M
arty the Maniac tugged at the gold chains hanging around his fat neck. It was a nervous habit, brought about by his impatience with Terco. What was taking the bastard so long? In retrospect, he should have sent Leman to check Tequila’s alibi. Steroids did things to the brain, and Terco was two injections away from Potatoville. The guy’s head was so empty that when he had a thought there was an echo. It was surprising the man could still dress himself.

Marty glanced at his watch, seeing it was almost four.
Spill
would be closing soon, and normally at this time on Super Bowl Sunday Marty and the boys were either playing high stakes poker or whoring it up.

Lousy stinking bastard Tequila.

He’d talked to his accountants, and they’d confirmed it had been his biggest take ever. Marty was planning on going to Hawaii for two weeks on that money. Had the Presidential Suite at the Hilton in Honolulu already booked.

Hell, fuck Hawaii. He had bills to pay. Property tax for
Spill
. Payoffs. Salaries. Gifts. Bonuses. He gave the local Outfit chapter a meaty cut every year for letting him operate in their territory. If he didn’t come up with the scratch…

Marty fidgeted in his chair. He’d get his cash back. There wasn’t any other way about it. And if he were somehow wrong about Tequila, he had no problems with sacrificing the rest of his goombahs, one by one, until someone talked. He’d get his money alright, even if he had to kill every goddamn employee with his own bare hands. That’s the kind of boss he was.

Terco, finally, showed up at his office door. Marty resisted the urge to scream at him. Instead, with the infinite patience and kindness that all good leaders were endowed with, he waited for Terco to begin.

“I got shot with rock salt,” Terco finally said, unnerved by Marty’s silence.

“I don’t give a shit, you walking hunk of Spam! Did his alibis check out?”

Terco flinched at the attack and became red in the face. When he didn’t answer immediately, Marty bounced a stapler off the crown of his forehead.

“It didn’t check out,” Terco whimpered, covering his face. “Tequila was never at the bar, and that old bag of wind at the liquor store swore a tall black guy robbed him.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah. I scared them all enough.”

There was a sneeze from somewhere in the room. Both Marty and Terco looked confused as to its origins. Then Marty pointed at his closet, and made a motion for Terco to check it out.

“Huh?”

“The closet,” hissed Marty.

“Who’s in the closet?”

“Check the goddamn closet!”

Terco shrugged his shoulders, and Marty threw a scotch tape dispenser at him. Then he pulled his .38 out of his waistband and checked the closet himself.

Empty.

Leman appeared in the doorway with Marty’s toolbox. It had taken him that long to find because it was behind a fake wall in a moldy corner of the basement, expertly hidden because the tools inside were covered with enough forensic evidence to give Marty the death sentence seven times over.

“I saw a rat,” Leman said. “Big as my head.”

“Quiet.” Marty snarled. “We heard a sneeze.”

“Could be a rat. Rats sneeze.”

“Shut your dumb-hole!”

The three of them listened in silence, and then a loud clanging sound came from the heating vents next to the closet.

Terco pointed. “The heater!”

“Rats in the heater!” Leman nodded.

“Has anyone bothered to check on Tequila?” Awareness crept up Marty’s spine, ready to bloom into rage.

“I was getting your toolbox…”

“You sent me to check on his alibi…”

“Move it!”

The three of them fought through the doorway and Marty led them to the vault room. Punching in the access code, he yanked the handle open and saw the room…

Empty.

Leman pointed. “He’s in the vent!”

“No shit, chuckle-head,” Marty spat. “And you were a cop?”

Leman hid his anger from the jab, and removed the .32 from his holster. Without waiting to be asked, he climbed up on the chair and peered into the darkness.

“I don’t see him.”

“Looks like he cut the rope.” Terco held up a severed length of clothesline.

Marty came up behind Terco and smacked the bigger man across the side of the face with his .38. Leman grimaced at the sight, unconsciously holding his sore ribs from Marty’s assault earlier today. Sure, they made a lot of money. But maybe, next pay raise, they should also ask for full health coverage.

“This is how you do a proper frisk for knives, you dumb tub of amino acids. First, check the pockets.”

Marty swiftly kicked the fallen Terco in both hips.

“Move down the legs,” Marty continued, kicking all the way.

Leman winced. The foot to Terco’s kidney made a thump that he could practically feel.

“Armpits!” Marty yelled.

Terco clenched his arms to his side.

“Lift your flabby arms!”

The flabby comment hurt as much as his master’s assault. Terco raised his arms and Marty kicked the insides of them, also taking the opportunity to stomp on Terco’s chest.

Leman heard something in the duct and aimed his weapon into the blackness, firing five times.

Marty body-tackled him, spittle flecking off his chin like a rabid dog.

“You stupid shit! You want to kill him, so I never find my money?”

Leman knew anything he could say wouldn’t stop his boss’s anger, so he tried very hard to look blank. Fortunately, Marty’s eyes weren’t focused on Leman. They were thinking about other things.

“We can smoke him out of the vents,” Marty said.

“Good idea, Marty.”

Marty got off of his collector and tugged at the gold dangling from his neck.

“We block off all exits except one,” Marty went on, “then send some smoke through the heating system. What’s something that smokes?”

“Leman smokes,” Terco offered.

“Good idea, Terco. We’ll send Leman into the furnace with a pack of
Kools
. That will flush Tequila out.”

“How about the smoke machine on the dance floor at
Spill
?” Leman offered.

“No good. It only pumps out that people-friendly CO2 crap.”

“Wet blankets.” Leman said. “Throw them right into the furnace. Real wet, so they won’t burn. A wet blanket smokes like a mother.”

“Fine. Leman, fill up the furnace with wet blankets.”

Leman frowned, not anxious to go into the basement again and confront the rat. It was a big goddamn rat. He thought about mentioning it, but the quicker route would just be to slap himself. So he lumbered off, silent.

“Terco, call up Slake and Matisse at Tequila’s and tell them to get their asses over here. No, just tell Slake to come. Leave Matisse there, in case Tequila somehow gets away and goes home. Then get some plywood and start sealing off vents. Move it!”

Terco nodded, repeating the key words in his head so he didn’t forget them. He’d been using that
Mega Memory
program to help improve his retention, the one that advertised on TV real late a night with the guy who memorized all the names of the studio audience. What was that guy’s name again? Terco sucked his lower lip, trying to remember. Then he realized he was in danger of forgetting his instructions, so he went back to his repetition. Slake, Matisse, Plywood. Slake, Matisse, Plywood. He trudged off.

Marty uprighted the chair and stood on it, peering into the blackness of the vent.

“Tequila!” he screeched. His voice echoed through the ducts like a bouncing basketball. “I’m coming for you, Tequila! I’m coming for your ass!”

Marty listened for a reply.

There wasn’t one.