Rock Chick 07 Regret (72 page)

“Stay calm, darlin’.” Duke’s gravelly voice came at me and my eyes sliced to him.

“
You
stay calm!” I snapped, again trying (and failing) to push at him. “
My
boyfriend’s out there!”

“He knows what he’s doin’ and there ain’t no way you can help him,” Duke shot back.

My heart racing, I glared at Duke, knowing he was right. Then I glared at Jet then at the trembling female customer who was huddled next to Jet and who looked like one of those grunge rock band people who needed a shower and shampoo.

Without any option open to me, I did the only thing I could do.

I made an empty threat.

“All I can say is, if this is a Balducci, I’m hunting him down and I’m going to rip his heart out with my bare hands and use it as a soccer ball!”

The Grunge Customer stared at me and slid a little closer to Jet.

I heard sirens and noticed that there weren’t any more gunshots.

“The shots have stopped,” I told Duke immediately.

“Stay low,” Duke replied.

“We need to see if Hector and Bobby are all right,” I went on.

“Sadie, stay low,” Duke repeated.

Even though I really didn’t want to, I stayed low and tried to deep breathe.

This was hard.

My eyes locked on Jet’s. She nodded reassuringly to me, put her arm around the trembling customer and pulled her close. I nodded back and pulled in more breath but no matter how deep they were, I couldn’t seem to get enough oxygen in my lungs.

We waited what seemed like four days.

Four
long
days.

Finally, I heard Bobby say from the front of the store, “Tex, Duke, Shirleen, we’re movin’ Sadie out.”

Before I could react to Bobby being back, Duke hauled me up and hustled me out from behind the book counter.

I saw Bobby, alive, no bullet holes or blood visible, seemingly fit as a fiddle standing at the door, gun in his hand. The black Nightingale Explorer was pulled up on the sidewalk right outside the front door.

“Hector?” I asked Bobby.

“He’s fine,” Bobby answered.

I pulled in more breath and finally felt oxygen hit my lungs.

Then, as if she couldn’t hear Bobby, I shouted toward the book counter, “Jet, he’s fine!”

“I heard! Get gone!” Jet’s voice shouted back.

“Indy?” I yelled.

“I’m fine, go!” I heard Indy yell back from behind the espresso counter.

“Tod, Stevie?” I called.

“Girlie, go!” Tod called back from somewhere in the bookshelves. “We’re fine.”

Before I could do any more, Shirleen, Tex and Duke got close and hurried me out while Bobby kept his gun up and his eyes peeled. In seconds flat, I was out the door, in the back of the Explorer and the door was closed. Shirleen climbed into the passenger side, Bobby behind the wheel and we took off.

“Where’s Hector?” I asked, buckling up.

“With Ricky,” Bobby replied.

It felt like a ten ton weight hit my chest and I stopped breathing entirely.

Luckily, Shirleen spoke for me. “What’d you say?”

“It was Ricky Balducci shootin’ at him. I drew his fire, Hector rounded the building, climbed the fire escape and got him,” Bobby answered.

Visions of Hector choking the life out of Ricky (or worse) filled my head. I started breathing again (more like hyperventilating) and yelled, “Go back! You can’t leave Hector with Ricky, he’s going to –”

“He had him disarmed, cuffed to a door and he’s got a gun on him,” Bobby interrupted me. “The cops were approachin’ when I left. Ricky’s facin’ rape, arson and now attempted murder. Hector assaults him, he fucks it up. Hector’s a wild man but ain’t no way he’s gonna fuck this up, no matter how much he wants to kick Balducci’s ass.”

This made sense and it made me stop hyperventilating.

Then another thought occurred to me.

“Why did you move me out?”

“Hector wants you at the offices,” Bobby answered.

“Why?” I pressed.

“I didn’t ask, I don’t care. He wants you there, I take you there. I follow orders and I don’t question them. Ever,” Bobby returned.

I decided (since Bobby had just been in a gunfight), that maybe now was not the time to be asking any more questions.

He took us to the offices and parked in the underground garage. I didn’t have time to have an emotional drama that I was back in the garage for the first time since I’d careened in there after being raped. Shirleen and Bobby hustled me out of the car, up the stairs and into the offices before I could blink.

Shirleen stayed in the reception area but Bobby took me straight through the door to the back rooms and into the surveillance room which was filled with a couple of desks, monitors, equipment and the big, muscular bulk that was Jack.

Jack turned to us, his eyes did a professional full body scan of me then they moved to Bobby.

“Got the call,” he told Bobby.

“Code One?” Bobby asked.

“Yup,” Jack replied.

I looked between them wondering who would explain.

“I’m off,” Bobby said then he was.

The door closed behind him. This I took as Bobby not being the one to explain.

Therefore, I turned and asked Jack, “What’s Code One?”

“Sit. Watch the monitors,” Jack responded.

I sat in a swivel chair in front of the bank of monitors, six across, four rows, each with what looked like a DVD recorder under it. I trained my gaze on the screens and repeated, “What’s Code One?”

“Do as I say, when I say, no matter what you see on the monitors,” Jack answered.

Though this wasn’t really an answer I didn’t quibble. I didn’t suspect that now was Quibble Time. Quibble Time was after whatever Code One was
was
over and I was innocently playing Yahtzee with my friends again.

“Should I be worried about whatever’s happening?” I went on.

“Nope.”

“You’re sure?” I pressed.

“Yup.”

I didn’t really believe him but, as I mentioned, it was not Quibble Time.

We watched the monitors.

Then I asked, “What are we looking for?”

“Anything.”

“What kind of anything?”

“Anything, anything.”

I was feeling ill-equipped to be Jack’s Monitor Helper but I decided to stop asking questions about my assignment. It was not only not Quibble Time it was probably not Question Time either. Except for things looking like they’d gone back to normal at Fortnum’s and a bunch of people in the pool hall doing pool hall type activities, nothing much was happening.

I decided on a different subject. “Can I call Hector?”

“Nope.”

Blooming heck!

“Can I call him in, say, fifteen minutes?” I tried.

“You can shut up. That’d be good.”

My back went straight but my eyes didn’t leave the screens.

“Did you just tell me to shut up?”

“I see you didn’t hear me.”

“Hector was in a gunfight!” I snapped.

“Not the first, probably not the last.”

Oh my.

That
shut me up.

I decided not to think about that until I was, say, six hundred years old and silently we watched the screens.

Then I saw something in the pool hall.

“Oh my God!” I cried.

Jack went on alert.

“What?”

“Look at her outfit!” I pointed at a girl in the pool hall. “Her tank top is skintight and she’s not wearing a bra. And her skirt is shorter than the one I wore to Stella’s gig!”

Jack was silent but I felt he’d lost his intensity.

I peered closer, the girl on the screen bent over a pool table and I gasped when I was treated to a partial moon. “Blooming heck! She’s wearing a
thong!
” I exclaimed then went on, “Now, if you’re going to wear a skirt that short, you really should wear proper underwear.”

Jack remained silent.

I looked at him. “Don’t you think?”

Jack’s eyes remained on the screens. “I think Hector owes me big time is what I think.”

Hmm.

Perhaps Jack was not the kind of man who discussed women’s underwear choices, even after dramatic shootouts (or, perhaps, ever).

I decided that was my cue to stay silent again.

This lasted less than a minute.

“Why are we watching a pool hall?”

“The Balduccis own that pool hall.”

I felt bile slide up my throat and I swallowed it down.

I thought that was apropos. The Evil Fitzpatrick clan hung out at a pool hall in Veronica Mars.

I didn’t share this with Jack.

“Oh,” was all I said but I watched closer.

We sat in silence for awhile and then I saw Hector’s Bronco enter the garage.

“Thank you God,” I breathed, watching him park.

He got out, started toward the door to the stairs, I felt my body begin to relax but then I saw Hector stop and look toward the entrance of the garage.

Jack tensed.

I tensed.

Then I saw a BMW careening into the garage.

Hector pulled his gun out of the back of his jeans again and I automatically went into a squat, not standing, not sitting and not sure what I was going to do.

“Sit,” Jack ordered, not taking his eyes from the screen.

I sat.

I stared.

The BMW halted and Hector had his head cocked and his gun up, trained on the car.

I held my breath.

Marty Balducci got out of the BMW and my body automatically went into my ready to run squat again.

“Sit!” Jack repeated, louder this time and I didn’t want to, I really didn’t want to but I sat again.

Marty didn’t look good and I felt the blood drain out of my face. I couldn’t see all that clearly on the small screen but he appeared to be bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds to the chest.

Marty held onto the open car door to keep himself up but I could tell he was struggling. He lifted his gun toward Hector but he couldn’t quite lift it far enough. I could see they were talking (or shouting) at each other. Hector, arms out, gun up, was advancing slowly.

Jack hit a button on the console and the room filled with the ringing of a phone.

Then, on another monitor, I watched as an Explorer entered the garage.

I stared, body tense, as it parked at an angle behind Marty’s BMW and Lee and Luke got out, already armed, guns up and trained on Marty.

“What’s happening?” I whispered but Jack didn’t answer. He had his hands on the console in front of us, close to both the phones that were pointed in his direction and a number of buttons and knobs.

“Nine, one, one,” a voice said. “What’s your emergency?”

“I need an ambulance, there’s a man with multiple gunshot wounds in the garage under Nightingale Investigations…” Jack told the operator, speaking clearly, calmly, giving an address, his name, a telephone number.

While Jack talked, I saw Lee and Luke advance on Marty, just like Hector, they all seemed to be talking to each other and moving in slow motion.

Without warning, likely unable to hold himself up anymore, Marty suddenly went down.

“He’s down,” Jack said to the 911 operator.