Authors: Max Austin
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.
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?”
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.”
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 âShep.'â”
“Shep? Like a dog?”
“That's what he said.”
“Hmm. You got away from them how?”
“I caught 'em off guard. Kicked 'em a few times. Knocked 'em both out. Found the handcuff keys. Got the hell out of there.”
“And where was this?”
He glanced over at Vic, who sat watching him, mouth hanging open, as if he were waiting for Ryan to put a bad taste in there.
“That's the weird part. It was at that same house where we met. The one with the sheets over all the furniture.”
Vic clapped his mouth shut. Ryan stopped for a red light, his blinker going. He looked over at Vic, saw a muscle twitching in his jaw.
“Those guys,” Ryan said. “You know them, right? That's why you're so pissed.”
“Just get me to Penny's.”
Finally alone in her house, Penny ran a brush through her hair and got dressed in weekend clothes: jeans, sneakers, a loose white blouse trimmed in red ribbons. Then she sat at the kitchen table, Vic's pistol next to her coffee cup.
She fiddled with a police band radio, picking up some sheriff's department chatter about a shoot-out in the North Valley before the reception faded. She feared the damn batteries were dead.
Gravel crackled in the driveway.
Penny went to the window. A dusty black SUV with tinted windows stopped at the kitchen door.
Ryan climbed out from behind the wheel. On the far side of the car, Vic unfolded to his full height. He was still dressed in denim, dusty now, bits of dry grass in his hair. He was looking right at her.
Unnerved, Penny went back to the table and put the radio away. She sat facing the back door, the pistol in her lap under the table. She watched the brass doorknob as it slowly turned. Her finger tightened on the trigger.
The door swung open and Vic stood there. His hands were empty.
“Vic,” she said. “Thank God you're all right.”
He pursed his lips, glaring at her. Uh-oh.
Ryan crowded into the doorway behind him, wide-shouldered in his biker jacket. The two of them made quite a target, but Penny couldn't force her finger to pull the trigger.
In two smooth strides, Vic was across the kitchen.
“Close that door, kid.”
Ryan came inside and shut the door behind him.
“That's better,” Vic said. “Shuts out the traffic noise. I want us all to hear what's said here.”
“Yeah?” Penny tilted her head, giving him her famous crooked smile, same as on the billboards. “You got something to say?”
It took Vic a second to work up to it, as if he had to swallow his anger first.
“You've been lying to me, Penny. About Zamora. About Marino. About the kidnapping.”
She kept smiling.
“You set it up,” he said. “You had Shep and Marty snatch Ryan out of his motel room. You had them keep him at that porn guy's house, the one where Ryan and I first met.”
Penny lifted a shoulder. “It seemed fitting.”
“What if they'd killed him when he tried to get away?”
“They had strict orders not to hurt him.”
“They punched my guts out!” Ryan protested.
“You should've gone along peacefully,” Penny said. “I just needed them to hold you there long enough for Vic to get rid of Zamora.”
She turned to Vic. “
Did
you get him?”
“He's dead, but not before telling me he never heard of Harry Marino. That's when I put it together.”
Vic gave her his fake grin, a wolf showing his teeth. “Harry Marino had nothing to do with the cartels, did he?”
“No,” she said. “I made up that part. Harry was a whistle-blower in a court case against some solar energy company. Completely unrelated, but the timing was perfect. I knew you wouldn't question what I told you about him. You never do.”
“How much are you getting paid to make Zamora disappear?”
Her hands were sweaty on the gun, but she kept smiling as she said, “A cool million.”
“You knew I'd never go for it,” Vic said. “Not even for a million bucks. So you cooked up the kidnapping. Made me believe going after Zamora was the only way to save Ryan's life.”
“The kid gave me leverage,” she said. “I saw how you'd gone nuts over him. Suddenly, because of this kid, you're making retirement noises. What was I supposed to do without your revenue stream?”
“You could train somebody else. Shep, maybe, since you now trust him so much.”
She made a face. “He and Marty couldn't handle a simple kidnapping. I needed you for this job.”
“So you lied to me.”
“I was trying to engineer the biggest score we've ever made, and were you any help? No, you're all googly-eyed over your bouncing baby boy.”
“Fuck you, lady.”
Vic held up a hand. “Now, Ryan, there's no reason to be rude.”
“You're kidding, right? She set you up, had me kidnapped, pulled a gun on my girlfriend. We're supposed to be
nice
to her?”
“Good manners are a sign of good breeding,” Vic said. “Also, she's holding a gun under the table. Unless I'm mistaken, that gun is pointed at the very jewels responsible for your existence. So mind your manners until we get this sorted out. Okay?”
Ryan looked twitchy, barely containing himself. Under the table, Penny aimed the pistol at him. At the moment, he seemed the more dangerous one.
“Nobody else has to die,” Vic said. “We left a pile of bodies at Zamora's house, and the heat's going to be intense. No reason to bring it here.”
“There's nothing to connect me to Zamora,” she said. “Shep and Marty don't know anything.”
“You shoot either of us, and the cops
will
connect the dots. Your world will come tumbling down.”
She said nothing, busy watching Ryan.
“Or, we can all just walk away,” Vic said. “Get out of town before the cops link us to anything.”
“Go our separate ways? After all these years?”
“I'm afraid it's got to be that way,” he said. “We'd have trust issues.”
“I can see that. You'd always worry that I'm setting you up.”
“And you, my dear, would worry about finding me standing over you in the night.”
She gave him her saucy smile. “You make it sound kinda sexy.”
“You wouldn't like it. It wouldn't last long.”
Penny's mind was busy. The Zamora bounty was set to go directly into her overseas bank account. She could catch a plane, be far away by the time Vic fully sorted out the depths of her treachery.
She eased the pistol out from under the table. Rested her hand on the table, the Ruger pointed at a spot between the two men.
Ring!
The phone was on the wall behind Penny, and she jumped at the sudden noise, nearly pulled the trigger. She involuntarily glanced at the phone, and another sound came from the other direction. A sound like the slapping of a leather belt.
Ryan. She turned toward him, but too late. He'd pulled a big pistol from inside his biker jacket. Had it pointed squarely at her face.