Have Gun, Will Travel (The Bare Bones MC Book 5) (14 page)

Aha
. Sax could easily see the mass of a sleek sports car now parked in the driveway. That hadn’t been there when he’d checked at the beginning of the night, so someone must’ve moved it out of the garage in anticipation of splitting. Tobiah’s drone only worked up to a hundred yards, so the idea was to walk up the hill with his notebook and little quadcopter, set it free, and hide in the bushes until the drone told them it was time to attack.

Meantime, this was the perfect opportunity for Sax to sneak out and place the tracker on the sports car.

The engine wasn’t running and no one seemed to be waiting. He prayed that there wouldn’t be any security cameras, or if there were, the guard would be asleep at the controls. The risk was worth it if they could get a tracker on the car, in case they failed to ambush the people getting into the vehicle.

Sax succeeded in placing the tracker and making it back down to the van, which Tobiah had brilliantly had painted to look like a flower delivery van. Sax just thought that “This Bud’s For You” sounded more like a marijuana delivery van. Although in general, it still looked like a rape van.

Sax told the two buffoons what he’d seen. “I think it’s time to walk up the hill toward the house.”

Wolf Glaser leaped into action. He’d been checking every implement on his utility belt a hundred times over the past several hours, and he was beyond battle-ready. “Maybe I’ll get to use my nunchuks for once.”

“No nunchuks,” Sax ordered. “We want to just slam them with our Glocks and be out of here. No fucking hand-to-hand combat, Wolf. Tobiah, remember, you can’t just run back to the van the second we go uphill toward the house. We’ll still need your drone telling us if more guys are coming from a different direction. If we pick them all off, we’ll have more than enough time to meander back to the van.”

“Ten-four,” Tobiah said obediently. For a bowl-headed dweeb, he seemed to have guts, to have what it took to work for an outlaw motorcycle club. “I’ll have eyes in the sky. But it’s still too dark out for my drone to see.”

Sax said, “We’ll walk up there, be prepared, be in place. Sun should be bright enough in half an hour. Sunrise five-sixteen.”

Wolf made a lip fart as he leaped efficiently from the van’s sliding door. “Good thing you dressed like a fucking leaf-headed burning bush,” he said. He referred to Tobiah’s head-to-toe camo outfit, including a pullover hat adorned with fake leaves that left only a visor-sized eye opening. “Wouldn’t want to mistake you for a pole, or a microwave oven.”

Tobiah bridled. “That’s the
idea
, you moron. Better they think I’m a bush than an obnoxious, clanging superhero Dominant who got lost on his way to The Racquet Club.”

“The Racquet Club?” Wolf whisper-shouted. Everyone was now outside the van, and sound carried far in this silent, windless canyon. “Isn’t that the bondage place in Flagstaff? How’d you know about that place unless you like a golden shower yourself, byte-boy?”

“Knock it off,” growled Sax. He didn’t want to advertise that he used to be a regular at that club. He didn’t want to set the Prospect straight that golden showers were more of a myth among lifestylers. “We don’t need any fucking infighting while we’re trying to accomplish a mission.”

Maybe the word “mission” drilled some sense into the two rivals, but they suddenly straightened up. In the dim early morning light, Sax looked sternly at the beak-nosed face of the IT guy. He hadn’t yet put up his leafy hood, and he brandished his notebook and tiny helicopter with serious sobriety. Wolf Glaser had not only his Glock in its holster but a street sweeper and an AK in addition to his usual toys and tools. He looked like he was heading into a major firefight. Sax didn’t mind the extra firepower. He’d made sure even Tobiah had a pocket rocket, a .380 Smith and Wesson, shoved into his waistband. It was agreed they’d hold their fire if they only saw Tormenta’s minions. Much as they’d like to, it wouldn’t behoove them to piss Tormenta off further and tip their hand. He’d just run away and slash more women.

They were able to get within a hundred yards of the front door while still remaining hidden behind the curve of the hill. Now they just had to wait for the sky to become a bit brighter.

“I think you should nail that sexy former nun, Boss,” Wolf whispered chummily.

“He was already doing a pretty good job of it,” goofed Tobiah.

Did
everyone
except him know Beatrix had been on her way to becoming a nun? “Shut the fuck up. I don’t want to ‘nail’ anyone,” he lied. “I just want to sell minerals and be a service to the club.”

But Wolf was insistent. “She’s like goody two-shoes hot. Just thinking of her wearing a nun’s habit is enough to give you a Captain Standish.”

Tobiah scoffed. “What are you, five years old? Seriously, a Captain Standish?” Even though he had to whisper, he affected a mock-dork voice. “‘Not tonight, dearest, I can’t seem to find my Aaron’s rod.’ ‘My joy knob got a little bit stuck.’”

Sax couldn’t resist joining in. “‘My giggle stick is melting.’”

“Ah,
c’mon
!” Wolf Glaser was pissed. “Women appreciate it if you don’t talk in such coarse, direct language. They don’t want to hear about your cock, your cream. They’d rather hear about you crossing the crime scene tape, burying evidence, or getting involved in an 11-99.”

Tobiah fell for it. “What’s an 11-99?”

Wolf had a straight face. “An officer down.”

Tobiah rolled his eyes. “Oh, for God’s sake! Most women—well, I’ll just speak for my current flame, Tracy—love hearing that lowdown and dirty talk. My woman really gets off on talking about how rock-hard my rod is.”

Sax said, “Sounds like a romance novel.”

Wolf spat, “Oh yeah, right. Tracy’s really going to give a shit about your microscopic winkie dinkie. She’s obviously never had a
real man
.”

That was about the limit, Sax could tell. Any second now and they’d be strangling each other while uttering oaths about ding-dongs or fishing rods. “Tobiah!” he rasped. “It’s got to be bright enough to send up your little plane. Do it now! Keep it over the roof, so they don’t see it, but we can see them. You’ll see the Corvette out in the driveway—I think it’s silver.”

“Here we go.” With shining eyes, Tobiah made the four blades of the quadcopter whirr soundlessly. By tilting his iPad screen, he gave it lift-off. It soared at a top speed of fifteen miles per hour, apparently an amazing feat for a remote copter—Sax wouldn’t really know. Even Wolf Glaser was impressed.

“You can see the live video feed, everything the drone is seeing? Cool.”

“Yeah,” said Tobiah excitedly. “It’s a flight recorder. If we need footage later, it’ll be here. Check out the wide-angle view! I can see all the way to that snow!”

“Listen,” said Sax, “make it look into windows, can you do that?”

“Sure! That’s what it’s made for—for spying on your neighbor taking a shower.”

“Not that anyone would want to do
that
,” harrumphed Wolf.

Tobiah said, “Let me check out the backyard, look in the windows there. When they come out the front door, I’ll be ready to hover over the roof so they don’t see me. Whoa! We’ve got a visual. There
is
a dude taking a shower! Gross! Who wants to see that?”

Sax looked over Tobiah’s shoulder. “We might want to see it, unfortunately, if it’s Tony Tormenta.”

“Can’t tell. He’s behind that foggy sort of shower door.”

“Come back to him in five. We’ve got to determine whether Tormenta is even
in
the house. He could’ve had a goon make that Facebook post from here just to throw us off the track. Hey, what’s that outbuilding, that shed? Go check that out.”

“Ten four,” said Tobiah, while Wolf rolled his eyes.

Wolf had had a different idea the entire time. He voiced it again now. “I still say we just run on up there and hide behind the car. When someone comes out the front door, we just
Bam! Pow!
You know, give them the business.”

Sax was losing patience with his right-hand man. “No. We discussed that. We can’t just start blasting away on any old guy. Then they blast back at us, and we don’t achieve a single thing.”

Wolf muttered. “Other than getting to blast away at some guys.”

“Whoa, whoa!” said Sax, pointing at Tobiah’s screen. “What the fuck? Go back. Go back.”

“What’d you see?”

“I swear to fucking God, there was a strange fluorescent green patch behind that shed. Didn’t really seem to fit in. Right behind the weed whacker and ladder that were leaning against the shed, back—yeah! That’s it.”

Tobiah grinned widely. “That’s right. You’re a gemologist. You can see the different—what the fuck? That’s a
dude!
”

Sax leaned so close he practically breathed on the screen. “Damned right that’s a dude. Not just any dude. That’s fucking Santiago Slayer.”

For it
was
the erstwhile bounty hunter, clinging to the side of the shed like a chameleon. Slayer clutched the siding of the shed as though he had suction cups on his fingers, dramatic as if someone had a camera on him. His wide eyes darted theatrically from side to side as though he waited for his close-up, and he hadn’t even bothered to change out of his flashy polyester outfit. True, he seemed to be wearing tennis shoes now instead of the pointy white things. He was a true lounge lizard, even in the harsh mountains.

Tobiah chuckled. “Who the fuck is Santiago Slayer? Sounds like a reject from the X-Men.”

“Pretty much,” Sax agreed.

Wolf said, “I’ve heard of Slayer. Traffic cameras caught him hanging some guy from a bridge in Mexico. That’s how he earned his bones.”

Sax should explain to his associates. “The Flagstaff sweetbutts were desperate to get Tormenta, so in addition to hiring me—for free, you know we’re not getting a fee—they got ahold of Slayer. The more the merrier, I say. I’m not threatened by honest competition. Let me go pay him a visit, make sure he doesn’t fuck up our scenario. Meanwhile, you’re on radio, right, Wolf?”

Wolf tapped his little earpiece. “Ten four. I’m ready to roll. If you’re over there, you roll from that side. I’ll roll from here.”

Sax gave him a thumbs up and walked uphill, skirting the driveway, making sure he couldn’t be seen from the house.

Santiago Fucking Slayer
. Actually, Sax was impressed the former soap actor had gotten this far without their Facebook knowledge. How
had
Slayer done it? He obviously had other sources, and Sax found himself actually curious about how the guy had gotten this far.

However, nothing stopped him from surprising the hell out of the guy. That was an opportunity Sax couldn’t pass up. He came around the blind side of the shed, literally tip-toeing in the fresh pine needles. Slayer was too occupied with hugging the shed’s wall and remaining as flat as possible. When Sax reached an arm out and touched Slayer’s polyester sleeve, he hadn’t calculated how far the dandy would jump. About three feet, as it turned out.

Actually, Slayer drew his piece in the blinking of an eye. Sax hadn’t calculated
that
, so
he
drew
his
piece, too. It was a Mexican stand-off with the actor’s perfectly coiffed hair gleaming in the soft rays of the sunrise. He looked ripped from the frames of a
telenovela
about a guy hiding in the wilderness from his evil twin brother. But you never knew how itchy a man’s trigger finger was, so Sax played it safe.

“Slayer,” he acknowledged.

Slayer nodded tightly. “Saxonberg.”

“Let’s lower our pieces. We’re not the fucking enemy here.”

“Agreed.”

Simultaneously they lowered their pieces. When Sax holstered his in the back waistband of his jeans, Slayer holstered his in a hidden shoulder holster.

Sax tossed his head. “How’d you find this place?”

Slayer tossed his head, too. “None of your business. I have many fingers in many pies all across this great state. How’d
you
find it?”

“Facebook. One of the women who’s paying you was murdered by Tormenta yesterday.”

Slayer’s deeply tanned face blanched. “Which woman? Not Rhetta! Don’t tell me it’s Rhetta! We’ve been close friends since the chanting, swaying, meditating days!” He referred to their relationship up at the ashram, the ashram The Bare Bones had taken down to the ground.

“Not Rhetta. The older woman, Brenda Ridings.”

“No! Not Brenda!” Placing the back of his hand on his forehead and looking to the heavens, Slayer pirouetted about in seeming agony. He couldn’t have known Brenda well, since Rhetta was his sole contact with the sweetbutts, the one who’d hired him. But he’d met her at least once at the bar where Sax had run into him again, and his pain seemed real. “Those
bastards!
” he hissed, his nostrils flaring. “I am even gladder than ever that I am here to avenge the maiming of poor Hassie Casselbeck—”

“Cassie Hasselbeck.”

“—and to right a grievous wrong from ever happening to any other woman!”

Although overly dramatic, Slayer did seem sincere, and Sax felt a kinship with him. “Okay, then. I’m not taking a fee for this, so if you happen to pick off Tormenta—he
is
in the house, isn’t he?”

Just then Sax’s earpiece beeped. A small, tinny Wolf said into his ear, “Confirmed guy in shower is Tormenta. He’s gotten out, getting dressed.”

“Copy that,” Sax told Wolf. To Slayer, he said, “Listen. Some men are about to come out of that front door any minute now. I’m going strictly for Tormenta. I’ve got a man down the hill who’s going to come running up—”

Slayer wasn’t listening. Fire was in his eyes. “I will shoot
anyone
related to Tony Tormenta! Anyone who ever knew, loved, or sat next to Tony Tormenta will go down by my knife! His
sicario
killed the only person I have ever loved, and for that I hung the
pendejo
from the Rio Magdalena bridge! I tell you, Saxonberg, this is more personal for me than it is for you.” He poked Sax in the chest, right in his bulletproof vest. Sax didn’t appreciate it, but he needed to keep his eye on the prize, not get all carried away with drama. “There is much more at stake for me regarding
amore
, honor, pride!”