Too Wylde (15 page)

"I'd like to have that lunch."

"You don't work these guys. They were working
people before you were born. You play the game by the rules:
respect. Do what you say you're going to do. Keep your boundaries
clear from the get go. Don't ever mistake them for anything other
than what they are: stone cold killers who have been running a
criminal enterprise for longer than both of us been walking the
earth. And they are also men of their word. They will do exactly
what they say they will do. Remember that."

"I get that." He paused. "Thanks. For
trusting me."

"I don't," Nina said. "I wanted to see if
maybe some day I will. Get in the car. You got that location mapped
out?"

"Here, it's on Google Maps."

"I want to run the name, look for priors and
what else we can get on this guy before we take him."

"What about the OGA broad?"

"She knows me. She knows what she's got.
We'll hand her the whole bag. We don't do progress reports. Fire
and forget, that's how we roll."

"Glad you're including me."

"Don't push it."

They drove off down the mean streets of Lake
City.

Lance T

This old fucker can *drink*
, Lance
thought. They'd started on cognac, shifted to brandy, and the old
man was still going on about the old days in Saigon, his party
houses in Vientiane, the whorehouse he ran in Patpong, Thailand,
and his house on the beach in the Phillippines, the women he'd
fucked, the booze he'd drank, and, after a while, the men he'd
killed.

That part made Lance a little uncomfortable.
Okay, a lot, because that wasn't his area. He was on the fringe of
that, and he didn't want to be reminded how close.

"Oh, yes, baby, do it to me one more time!"
the old man crowed as one of the dancers did a number to Britney
Spears. "Lance, my friend, perhaps that girl would give a private
dance for me...later, maybe, my friend?"

Lance bit his lip to stop his smile from
spreading too far. One of the girls had already complained that she
didn't want to do a dance for someone older than her grandfather in
a wheelchair. Customers were supposed to keep their hands to
themselves, and it hurt bumping into the wheels and the armrests of
the chair!

Gawd. The things he had to do.

"So Tony," Lance said. "Aren't you supposed
to be hiding out?"

The big silent Hmong warrior who sat at the
table next to them, a series of empty Coke glasses in front of him,
glared at Lance.

"I *am* hiding out," Tony Po said. "Who is
going to look for an old man in here!"

He choked on his brandy. "I am hiding in
plain sight! Nobody looks for an old man where the young men are!"
He gestured to the waitress. "More brandy!"

"Hay for my horses!" Lance said, waving at
the waitress, who shook her head, hiding her grin, and brought the
old man another brandy.

"You want another Coke?" Lance said to the
silent bodyguard.

The bodyguard shook his head no, arms crossed
in disapproval. Lance shrugged and turned to his guest.

"Tony? You want to move the party upstairs? I
got plenty of room up there..." Lance began.

"No! I like it here!"

"Hell, everybody likes it here..."

Kiki Warren

Squirmed in the Corvette's passenger seat.
"Am I going to like this?"

Dee Dee laughed. "Oh, honey. C'mon. How many
strip clubs you been in?"

She pulled into the lot, waved off the valet.
Kiki noticed that Dee Dee backed her Vette into a slot, near an
exit door.

"Is that so if we need to get out in a hurry
we can go this way?" she said.

"You're sharp, Kiki. That's why we're going
to go far together," Dee Dee said. "When you go anyplace, you want
to think about your exit strategy. How do you get in? How many ways
out? Where do you park your car? If the valet takes it, he's got to
get it for you. Want to wait if you're in a hurry? Or if someone
pays off the valet to stall you? No. So we plan for the worst, and
if it doesn't happen, then we're golden. If the worst happens, then
we're golden. Get it?"

"I saw that in a movie. Old one, RONIN."

Dee Dee laughed and laughed. "Doing your
homework? Where you been all my life, Kiki? I think I'm going to
steal you away...get that ID of yours handy."

Kiki got out. This so rocked! She didn't let
her excitement mask her checking things out, "situational
awareness" is what the guys on the internet called it, scoping
things out, far and wide, and she said, the tone of a proud
student, to Kiki: "Like should we be watching that van over
there?"

She pointed at the white van that had pulled
up into the lot and then turned around and faced out, the engine
idling while the valet was waved off.

Mr. Smith, aka Hank

Damn it. Missed his turn, or maybe it was
just the Hand of Fate on his steering wheel. Lake City was a river
city, and all the downtown streets were a maze of one-ways that had
grown up over the years along the cart tracks where goods were
hauled up from the riverboats to the thriving village at the
intersection of the waters. So if you weren't tuned in all the
time, and completely familiar with the streets, neither of which
applied to him right now, it was easy to miss a turn and get turned
around. Not that he had a particular destination in mind; just
driving around, out for the night for a pint and a fight...okay,
just kidding, since either one would strain his bodily mechanism to
the breaking point, and he wasn't going to have that till he got
done what he came here to do, the covert-overt agenda (damn, this
whole hall of mirrors thing got tiresome...), so it was back around
the block, and there was that strip club, The Trojan Horse, and
I'll be dipped and triple fucked, if that wasn't Jimmy John Wylde
his own self in front of the club, opening the car door of that
funky FJ Cruiser and letting out one of the most Divine
Incarnations of the Goddess that Mr. Smith had ever laid his eyes
on, good or bad...

...and in the parking lot, the sliding doors
of a white van opened up, and something deep inside ol' Hank went
PING PING PING and he saw movement that came together someplace
faster than the speed of light that said: Shooters.

Hank cut across a lane of traffic, sliding
the car in a bootiful lil ol bootlegger turn and locked it in place
across the exit to the parking lot, hit the door and got out, as
quick as he could, G-17 out and coming up, and shouted "Jimmy John!
Targets two, targets two!"

As soon as he saw the muzzles of the AKs he
started his firing cadence, keep up the fire, which is why he liked
the 9mm, lots of beans in his shooter, and a good bonded round like
the Speer Gold Dot would fuck them up just as good as his old
trusty .45 ball, but he had more of them, hell, he had over 100
rounds in magazines on his body, take that motherfucker!

He stayed behind the engine block, no fire
and maneuver, too old, too cold, too rolled in the old deep shit,
but he could still roll heavy when he had to, though it might take
him out, because THIS was not something he was read in on, and if
they were trying to tag Jimmy John WITHOUT reading him in on it,
well, he'd just have to fuck up their whole day, though he doubted
the people he worked for would want him pissed off, and the first
guy he lit up, at least three rounds into the torso and one into
the neck before he went down, but hell, he was pumping out lead as
fast as he could, give Jimmy John time, give him time to read it
and either get in the fight or get the fuck gone...get outta here,
Jimmy....

Jimmy John Wylde

At the first shot, I grabbed Lizzy and ran
her towards the door. Silent Kai grabbed her and I yelled "Get her
inside, call the cops!"

And I grabbed my brand new redone Glock 19,
the grip rough in my hand and a perfect fit, just like Deon, little
finger feeling for the extension of the Dawson mag and I pied out
around the corner of the building where the guard shack for the
parking lot was taking fire and...

"Jimmy John, get outta here! Get
outta..."

That was Hank's voice.

"NO!" I shouted, and I came around, putting
fire down range where Hank's cone intersected and overlapped with
mine, and the white van was in that intersection. There were two
down and one half in and out, the driver either dead or wounded
because Hank was servicing the shit out of the driver's windshield,
keep 'em in the vehicle, take away their mobility, bonded bullets
on glass, through the glass and into the body of the car, and I
kept it up on the open door, put some through the sheet metal into
where the occupants would be huddled back, because there is nothing
more frightening than bullets tearing through sheet metal when
you're inside a metal box and can't get out,
unless it's on
fire...
and I saw a leg come out and put one through it and
then grabbed for another Dawson mag, slapped it into place and then
--

-- Hank had stopped, too. Ears ringing, I
looked around. No sirens yet.

"Jimmy! Get the fuck out of here!"

"No! You go! Go! I got this!"

And then a black Suburban smashed into Hank's
Cherokee and knocked it, and him, back about ten feet.

The Cherokee burst into flames...

Dee Dee Kozak

This was a pretty fuck up if ever there was
one. Dee Dee was no stranger to gunplay but she preferred a
particular type; she was an ambusher, a shooter from a position of
surprise with all things stacked in her favor. She most decidedly
was *not* someone who sought out a gunfight face to face and head
to head without a whole ton of back up, tactical air, indirect and
direct fire, maybe even some drones with Hellfires. Now, just who
the hell was this about?

All of that went through her pretty head a
whole lot faster than it could be said, or written, as she sussed
it all out. Now, just WHO the hell was that shooting at that van,
and WHO the hell was shooting at him and was this about her, or
just that random violence thing that crops up from time to
time?

She grabbed Kiki by the arm and hustled her
towards the side exit, teetering in her high heel boots, and along
the way she snaked her free hand down the front of her tight
leather pants to the pouch right in front of her hip hollow and
pulled out the Beretta 21A she kept there, feather-light but a
whole lot better than bashing a bad guy with her purse, get to the
door, one-way out, bang hard on it and yell: "Let us in!"

The door opened wide and there was a scared
looking girl in a bathrobe standing there. Dee Dee dragged Kiki
through, then pulled the door shut and said to the scared dancer:
"Is there a door on the other side of the building?"

She elbowed the scared silent dancer out of
the way and dragged Kiki down the hall. Kiki called back to the
dancer: "Thank you! Thanks for not leaving us out there!"

Down a hallway, women screaming to each
other, and there, like an island of calm in the middle of a great
storm, stood Lizzy, her cellphone to her ear.

"Lizzy!" Dee called.

Lizzy waved her over, and Kiki stopped and
stared at the tall blonde dancer.

"What the fuck, Lizzy?" Dee said.

Lizzy held up her hand. "Nina, can you come
now? There's a gunfight..."

And then Lizzy looked at Dee and Kiki. "Help
is on the way."

Nicholas Le Fronte, aka Nico

Nina turned the car sharply around and hit
the siren. The light bar in the dash began to flash blue.

"Where we going? What's going on?" Nico
said.

"Shooting in progress. 'bout a mile from
here."

"Well," Nico said. "At last. Something I can
do."

"You got the talking part done," Nina said.
"This is heavy."

Nico rolled down the window. Over the siren
and the racing engine, he heard the steady crack of rifle and
pistol fire.

His partner whipped the squad in and out of
traffic, came around turns like a stone pro on a closed track.

And on the straightaway, wrong way down the
block, he saw figures outside a building, and at least one car on
fire...

Mr. Smith, aka Hank

Fire...

He rolled away, felt scar tissue crack and
break, the pain shut away, partially from the drugs, partially from
force of long habit, and while he was down here better slap another
magazine into place, wish he had a happy stick, even though they
were a pain in the ass to transport concealed, but the Dawsons were
almost as many rounds, and fit flush to the butt, so he inserted
one, his thick fingers still able to do so, press checked the
chamber just to be sure, and then rolled on his side, pushed
himself up slowly and he heard the cadence of fire coming around,
pointed his pistol, swearing under his breath, and Jimmy John his
own self, coming around, pistol locked out and the falling brass a
fountain of joy if you were a shooter, arcing up out of the pistol,
and then he grabbed Hank by the sleeve pulled him up, yelled
"Reload!" and dropped to one knee, slamming a mag into place as
Hank took over the fire because, surprise surprise, there was at
least one cool head (relatively speaking) inside that van, who was
sending some heavy lead their way, but the advantage Hank had was
mobility and volume of *aimed* fire, while the guy inside the van
was shooting out the shattered windshield and had a limited arc of
fire, and then Jimmy was yelling "Up!" and he got up, shoulder to
shoulder just like the old-timey times and then Jimmy John looked
him in the eye and Hank registered the shock and the sorrow and
horrible, horrible guilt all at the same time and he shouted out of
the slit of his mouth, "Service your target, motherfucker!" and
inside, he wished he had time for his eye drops, because his eyes
hurt something fierce right now, and he was probably dripping blood
out of his tear ducts, that had to be what it was...