“Blake,” I said. “What did you do?”
“The midnight six,” he said. “I think you know them.”
Sam’s face fell. She shook her head as if to say, “Well played, gentlemen. Well played.”
The midnight six are a team of assassins for the Gran Tiburón cartel, Calder and Rizzo’s main rivals in Mexico. The exploits of the midnight six are legendary and if even half of it is true, they are some bad dudes. Decapitation? What else you got? Bodies dumped in the desert? Too high to count. Dismembered body parts mailed to relatives? Ought to get a discount at Fed Ex. These are the baddest of the bad. And Blake cut them some sort of deal.
For me.
Blake’s cover was blown, he’d be fired for going around DEA regulations. He should have a dozen cars up here storming the castle in blue windbreakers and kevlar, but he chose to keep it all in the family. I felt horrible about the whole unrequited love thing and wished like hell we could end this and somehow rehabilitate Sam so she could go with him and he could have what he always wanted. If he still wanted her, that is, after she shot him.
Either way, it was a brilliant play.
“What do you want?” Sam asked.
“Let them go.” Lucas brought the camera back around to his face.
“And then you’ll let them go?”
“Yes.” I saw Blake starting to tense up. We’d reached a crucial moment in negotiating a hostage situation.
“Bullshit. You’re lying.” She nodded her head toward me. “You still know how.”
“We all just want this to be over,” Lucas said.
“It could have been over if you hadn’t tried to get cute and you showed up here like I asked. Now I’m pissed off.”
Blake spoke up. “Let me take them out of here. They’re not a part of this.”
“Neither are you, fuckwad.” She thrust the gun at his nose. “God, marry him or fuck you. What shit choices I had.”
“You might as well take a match to your twenty million,” Lucas said.
“You already fucked me out of that, Lucas. You bring those psychos in there and expect me to believe Calder and Rizzo are walking out alive? You have me confused with the other one. She’s the shit-all stupid twin.”
“Lucas,” I said. “Don’t do this for me. Call in the DEA. Call whoever you want. Don’t worry about protecting me. You’re the important one. You’ve got a case.”
“I got no case without you, Samantha. I need what you know. I need my sister safe and I need you back here with me and the rest we can sort out.”
I felt my forehead burning. The inside of my skull pulsed red hot. Sam. Her anger. I shuddered to think what inferno raged inside her head.
“You now what Lucas? I’m not doing it for the money any more. Now I’m gonna kill you just because you really pissed me off.”
Sam turned and shot Barry through the chest.
“No. Wait!” Then Lucas was drowned out by the sound of gunfire on his end.
Brilliant plan, Blake. Your big mistake? You didn’t plan on someone with no morals, no empathy and nothing to lose. You didn’t plan on the other side of me.
LESS LIKE CLAY PIGEONS, MORE LIKE SITTING DUCKS
I bet Barry forgot all about his hand.
His eyes were saying, “I can’t believe it,” but his mouth said nothing because he couldn’t get any air in his lungs, what with the big hole in them and all. Right through the heart. I turned away from him. No point in watching another man die.
All that in half a second as every living thing in the room moved at once. My mind stayed on the phone, the other end of it anyway. With Lucas. More than one gun fired and the image went all shaky before Blake jerked the phone away as he went for his gun.
Like some coordinated dance move I went left, Sam went right, Blake crouched down and Marjorie flung her body over her husband. I headed for the couch. I hooked three fingers under the thin coffee table on my way and flipped it up, making a shield over the sofa as Sam ripped off another shot. Wood splintered and did little to stop the bullet which went on to dig deep into the meat on Marjorie’s arm. She wailed.
Blake fired into the ceiling. I knew he was a great shot, maybe better than me (maybe) so I knew he’d fired a warning shot to distract Sam and give us some time.
It bought me and Marjorie a few seconds, but only because Sam turned and shot Blake. He was already in motion after his shot so she clipped his back and I couldn’t tell how bad he’d been hit. He fell to the ground and spun as he did, firing a shot at her legs.
I felt a hot poker singe the flesh on my right calf—my portion of the gunshot that tore through Sam’s leg. Her right knee hit the ground and she fired again, but missed.
“What the fuck, Blake?” she yelled.
Blake snaked his way across the carpet and picked up the fruit bowl that fell off the coffee table. He popped up like a cobra and slapped the ceramic bowl, emblazoned with a bright yellow sunflower, across Sam’s face. In stereo we yelped and she fell back as I fell forward onto Marjorie.
Blake stood in a flash and grabbed my arm. “We gotta go.”
I shook it off, still a little woozy. I knew she’d be worse. I held on to Marjorie’s arm, trying to think which was the shot one. I needed to get her out. A little more arm pain is nothing compared to what would happen if I left her there. A potato peeler? Only the opening act.
“Let’s go, Marge,” I said.
“Barry,” she said as tears streaked her face and slurred her words.
Sam struggled to get her feet under her.
Blake pulled hard and in a chain the three of us were yanked up from the couch. I watched as Marjorie let Barry’s hand slip from her grasp. His eyes were locked onto hers and he watched her go with the last few seconds of life. Marjorie howled the way you’d expect a woman leaving her nearly-dead husband behind.
Sam fired again from a crouch and Marjorie took another bullet, to the leg this time. High, just below her well-padded behind. The cry of pain had nothing on the scream of anguish.
Blake had left the door open. Old trick when you know you might want to escape a situation in a hurry. With him in the lead we hooked arms and sprinted out the door. Not before Sam managed one more shot catching Marjorie in her leg again. Those high meaty thighs took the shots and kept on pumping. As much as I hated to haul the extra weight behind me, damn I’m glad she kept that padding and could suck it up when the bullets came.
Blake left the door open and the car running also. Always with a plan, that one. Some even work. He slid into the driver’s seat and I pushed Marjorie ahead of me into the back then tumbled in after her. Only when I landed on top of her did I realized the amount of blood she’d leaked.
Blake didn’t wait for silly things like doors to be shut, he dropped the car in gear with his good arm and gunned it. Sam appeared in the doorway and fired another shot that sounded like it pierced the trunk lid. Blake made it half way down the block before she could shoot again.