Shot of Tequila (28 page)

After he got Tequila he’d do it all differently. No more incompetent idiots for collectors. Out of his last five, one had robbed him, one had gotten killed, one had been arrested, one had tried to quit, and the last one was off trying to kill the one who got arrested.

He doubted Slake was up to the task, but he didn’t care too much. If Slake didn’t kill Terco, then Marty would get Terco in jail. He had a thousand friends in prison, all of whom would be honored to pull a job for him. Terco was as good as dog meat, whether Slake nailed him or not.

Marty picked up his cellular and dialed, cursing at Fonti’s men because they were leaving a trail of gore across his oriental rug.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t want no blitz with everyone rushing in,” Marty said. “That’s messy, too many possible mistakes.”

“Then how do we get them out?”

A grin curled around Marty’s lips. “Just send Royce in.”

“Alone?”

“Alone. Tell him to get rid of the stain, without ruining the shirt. Bring the shirt back to me.”

“What should be done with the stain after removal?”

“Put it someplace where it will never stain anything again,” Marty said. He was very careful on cellular phones, because the airwaves could be recorded and used as evidence without a warrant. The last thing Marty needed right now was some bonehead with a ham radio listening in to his order to kill a Chicago Homicide Detective.

“Will do, Marty. I’ll go tell him.”

Marty hung up. He felt an odd mixture of power and relief. The first major crisis in his professional career was nearing an end. He’d weathered it well, and learned a few things that needed to be learned. After Tequila gave him his money back, Marty would rebuild. He’d only hire pros from now on, not ex-cops or former gymnasts. He’d be more careful who he trusted, and add more security to
Spill
. Valuable lessons, all of them, and well-earned.

Marty smiled again, this time thinking about Tequila and that cop, all alone in the big, dark warehouse. With Royce coming for them.

Marty wished he could be there to see it.

But the second-hand details would be just as good. He looked forward to hearing the story from Tequila’s own lips.

And Tequila would tell.

When the Maniac was done with him, Tequila would tell all.

J
ack Daniels cursed as the match burned down to her fingers, singeing them with a crackling hiss. She lit another, looking for something in the room to use as a torch. After all, they couldn’t find their way out of there without light, and none of the wall switches in this place worked. They probably hadn’t worked for ten years, judging from the musty smell and the layer of thick dust over everything.

There was a sound of snapping behind her, and Jack whirled. Tequila was holding a leg he’d broken off a chair. He was winding a tattered piece of curtain around it.

“Try this.” He handed her the makeshift torch.

Jack lit the curtain, and they both recoiled from the noxious fumes it produced. But it was light, and held at an arm’s length it did a fair job of illuminating the room they were in.

It was an office, kitty corner to the other office they’d entered via the broken window. With the aid of the torch Jack easily found the door, and walked out into a large open area, ranks and files of towering shelves stretching off in all directions.

“It could be worse,” Jack told Tequila. “There are plenty of places to hide out until the cops show up. With all of that gunfire, they’ll be here any minute.”

“Not in this District, they won’t. Marty owns it. There won’t be any cops.”

“He can’t own a whole district.”

“Do you hear any sirens?”

Jack strained her ears, but all she heard were the empty echoes of the huge warehouse.

“He can’t own a whole district,” Jack said again, but her voice lacked conviction.

“Marty’s men will be coming in soon,” Tequila continued. “We’ve got to dig ourselves in. Especially with that sharpshooter they’ve got.”

“Do you know him?”

“No. You?”

“I think it’s that creep I met yesterday with the vampire fangs. Royce is his name. Ring any bells?”

“I’ve heard of him. If he’s as good as what they say, he’ll be a problem.”

“No shit. Maybe you can try pretending to be holding people hostage.”

Tequila squinted at her. “I needed time to get the parachute on.”

“I’m sure. Anyone ever tell you you’re a little crazy?”

“No. Anyone ever tell you you’re a pretty good cop?”

“Only me. And I only have to remind myself a few times every hour. One day I hope to start believing it.”

Jack handed the torch to Tequila and loaded both .38s with her hot rounds. Looking closely at the gun Tequila had given her, she asked once more where he got it.

“Awful nosey about that gun.”

Jack said nothing. She knew the Binkowskis had been killed with a .38, and had a strong feeling that this was the one that did it. Daniels had pretty much proved that Terco was the murderer, but if this was the weapon, why did Tequila have it?

Tequila noted Jack’s hesitancy.

“I got it off a former associate named Sam Terco. I believe it’s registered in his name.”

“When did you get it?”

“Early yesterday morning, after kicking his ass.”

Jack felt a tinge of relief. She wanted to believe Tequila, because she was starting to like the guy. Strange, considering he was a leg-breaker for the mob, and a murderer as well. But Jack sensed something more there. Originally, she thought he was a sociopath. Now, she wasn’t so sure.

Maybe it was those pictures that Sally Abernathy had drawn for her brother. Hundreds of them, preserved in his floor safe. So valuable to him they were locked up.

Tequila went off to a row of shelves and leaned hard into them. Jack saw what he was doing and lent her weight to the effort. The two toppled over a high section, sending it crashing hard to the cement floor.

Climbing into their new bunker, Jack and Tequila found themselves sandwiched by two long planks of sheet metal, three feet high. Their sides were still vulnerable, but they detached two other shelves and made themselves a bulletproof metal cubical, with enough room for both of them to move around in. They had no top, deciding to leave it open to allow for shooting back.

After creating their Alamo, Tequila and Jack counted their ammo.

“Fifteen rounds,” Jack said.

Tequila handed her five speed loaders of six rounds each for the .38. He counted thirteen rounds for his .45s. Not enough to invade a country, except for maybe Belgium. But possibly enough to hold off the first round of the siege.

Jack stamped out the torch, and they waited in darkness, letting their eyes adjust, listening for sounds.

“Do me a favor,” Jack whispered. “Since we might get killed here, lay it all out for me. How’d you piss Marty off so bad?”

“He thinks I stole some money.”

“Did you?”

“I was set up by an asshole named Slake.”

“I met him. You’re right.”

“That he set me up?”

“That he’s an asshole.”

“It was a good frame, I’ll give the bastard that. But I got away and screwed up his plans.”

“Through the heating ducts.”

Jack noticed Tequila had turned his head to face her in the darkness.

“How did you get on to me?” he asked. “I normally don’t make mistakes.”

“You first. You killed Billy Chico, right?”

“He drew on me, it was shoot or get shot.”

“How about the Binkowskis?”

“Who are the Binkowskis?”

“The owner of the liquor store Chico was trying to rob. And his wife.”

“Is that how you made me? That old man talked? I’d figured him for the greedy type, thought he’d try to rip off his insurance company instead of fingering me.”

“I can be very persuasive,” Jack said.

“I bet. So what about the Binkowskis?”

“They’re dead.”

Tequila put two and two together.

“Killed by a .38,” he said.

“Maybe this one, that you said is Terco’s. We’re holding Terco for their murder. If this gun is registered in his name, we’ve got him cold.”

“So Binkowski gave you a description, and you ran me through the computer and came up with my dropped assault charge from a few years back.”

“Right. IDed you from the tattoo on your hand.” Jack saw Tequila’s silhouette nod in the darkness.

“You’re a good cop. Don’t you guys usually travel with partners, and have back-up?”

“I was taken off your case yesterday. Technically, I’m on vacation. No one knows where I am.”

Tequila frowned. “I take back the
good cop
comment.”

“Give me the rest of it,” Jack said. “The whole story, starting after the liquor store.”

Tequila ran it down. He wasn’t quite sure why he was telling Daniels all of this, but he did anyway. Maybe it was because he was damn near certain Jack would be dead within the next hour. But part of it, he knew, was because he sort of liked the cop. Or maybe respected was the better word. He was feeling toward Daniels what he used to feel towards his Olympic coach.

So Tequila told her about the frame, and about finding Matisse in his apartment with Sally and China dead, and about spending the night at the shelter, and fighting with Terco at the health club, and going to Slake’s and finding out he’d been the one who framed him. He told Jack everything, only leaving out the part about hiding the money. If Jack knew Tequila had the money, Marty might be able to drag the information out of Jack. If and when Marty finally caught Tequila, Tequila would die before he let that fat bastard have his money back.

“Rough couple of days,” Daniels said when Tequila finished his tale. “When we get out of this, and you testify, you’ll probably be free and clear.”

Tequila didn’t bother telling her that they weren’t likely to get out of this.

They were silent for a minute, listening for sounds.

“Were you the one who got that killer a few years ago?” Tequila asked quietly. “I remember the cop’s name was Jack Daniels. That’s a tough name to forget, especially for someone named Tequila.”

“That was me. Jack Daniels. Originally Jacqueline Streng. Daniels is my married name. You can guess what people buy me every holiday. I’ve got enough whiskey in the house to get Wisconsin drunk. How about you? Tequila is on your driver’s license, FOID, birth certificate.”

“I was born almost six weeks premature,” Tequila said. He’d never told anyone this story, possibly because no one had ever asked. “I was only eighteen ounces at birth, and jaundiced from liver failure. Neither of my parents expected me to live, so as a joke my father put the name Tequila on my birth certificate. Because I was yellow and about as big as a shot of tequila.”

Tequila stopped there, not bothering to go on about how his mother ran off the next day, not able to bear watching her new son die. A Down Syndrome baby and a preemie, plus living with an abusive husband, was too much for her. Tequila had never even seen her picture, and only knew her name was Maxie because his father had cursed her for years after she’d left.

“When did you get the tattoo?” Jack asked, changing the subject.

“When I started working for Marty.”

“After leaving the YMCA,” Jack filled in. “Why a butterfly?”

Tequila thought about the question for a moment.

“Because that’s what caterpillars turn into,” he finally answered.

There was a noise in the distance—a door being kicked in. The two turned towards it, senses heightened and guns pointed.

“Here we go,” Jack said under her breath.

But there wasn’t any sudden influx of gun-happy Mafioso rushing in. There was nothing. They strained their ears for sounds of footsteps, but only heard their own breathing.

“Royce,” Tequila whispered. “He’s coming in alone.”

That didn’t make sense to Jack. If Martelli had all those men available to him, why’d he only send one in?

To Tequila, it made perfect sense. The more goombas running around shooting off their pistols, the more likely Tequila would be killed and unable to disclose the whereabouts of Marty’s cash. Sending in a single, trained professional was Marty’s best way of getting Tequila out of there alive.

Or so Marty thought.

Tequila had other ideas.

“Royce!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. Jack tackled him, the pair banging hard into the metal shelf.

“Are you crazy?” Daniels hissed.

Tequila broke Jack’s hold with an elbow into the ribs and leapt out of their enclosure.

“I hear you’re the best, Royce! Is this what the best does, sneak up on two unarmed people in the dark?”

A chuckle came from Tequila’s right, and he crouched down and pointed both .45s in that direction.

“You’re supposed to be a real hotshot,” Tequila said. “I bet you five bucks I can kick your ass.”

Sound to his left. Tequila aimed at it and fired six shots at about chest level.

“You call that unarmed?” Royce asked from the opposite direction.

Tequila spun and fired another six from where the voice came from. Royce had obviously thrown something to make the first noise.

“You’re at a disadvantage here, Royce. You can’t kill me. How can you guarantee wounding me in the dark?”