“Seven means we have to kill three each and hope one of them pisses his pants and runs off.”
“Well, that’s damn easy, no? You’re crazy.”
“El Mago’s fucked—we’re all fucked—if we don’t get those pictures. Come on, are you a wimp? Do I have to do it alone?” he said, his voice a blade, thinking of all the times El Güero had called him a marshmallow and the Antelope had snickered in agreement.
But not today, no sir, and ultimately the Antelope was the kind of man who did what he was told, and Elvis was…well, he wasn’t sure what kind of man he was, but he knew he was going into that building. He wanted blood and he wanted that film because, fuck it, they’d been working at this too long to let it go and it was a night for death.
“You’re all machín when it comes to shooting imaginary motherfuckers and American gangsters, but what happens when it’s for real, huh? Did your balls shrink?”
“Fuck you,” the Antelope muttered as he took out his gun and patted the pocket where he was carrying his ammunition. “I have better aim than you, you prissy fucker. I’ll put three bullets up their ass, like I promised. I bet you can’t hit one of them, you fuck.”
“Up yours.”
They went into the building and up the stairs carefully and quietly, the way El Mago liked it. Elvis poked his head through the open door of the gallery. Three men stood near the entrance to the office, at the other end of the room.
Because the gallery space had little in the way of furniture and because it was essentially one long rectangle, there would be few if any places to take cover, though there was a small nook in the wall right in front of the gallery’s entrance.
At the same time, three men standing like that, a little distracted, were three men in the open ripe for the picking. Elvis stepped back into the hallway and whispered what things looked like to the Antelope, who frowned and nodded.
“So three in the gallery. Where’re the rest of them?” the Antelope asked.
“Probably in the office, maybe torturing someone.”
“What do we do then?”
There was the sound of a gun going off and a shrill scream. “Let’s roll,” Elvis ordered. No time for elaborate plans.
They ran into the gallery. The Antelope shot dead one of the men standing by the office door with his first bullet and ran straight toward the nook, kneeling down and then peeking around and shooting again. No luck this time, he missed his target. Elvis ran behind the Antelope and also took cover behind the nook.
“I’ll cover you and you run across, back to the entrance,” the Antelope said. “Draw them out.”
“Like hell.”
“You think I can’t cover you? You wanted to come in here in the first place. We can’t hide in the corner. We need to move, fast.”
“Fuck it,” Elvis muttered.
Shots rang again, shattering glass, and Elvis gritted his teeth. He sprinted across the gallery, back in the direction of the doorway. When he reached the entrance, he spun around and crouched low. One of the men had taken the bait and was headed in his direction. Elvis shot and missed, but the Antelope did not. He got the agent square in the back. When the man spun around, in the Antelope’s direction, Elvis shot again. This time he made the target.
The Antelope motioned to Elvis, pointing toward the office, and they both sprang forward and aimed their guns in the direction of the remaining agent, who was taking cover behind a large statue. For a few minutes the fucker managed to tuck himself safely there, like a snail, before the Antelope got tired of this bullshit.
“Cover me,” the Antelope said.
Which Elvis did, although there wasn’t much need for this, since the Antelope essentially unloaded his gun and the agent didn’t have time to scream, much less shoot back.
The Antelope reloaded his gun and grinned. “Pretty neat, no? Told you I was a better shot than you. Three down. That’s half, no?”
“Nearly half,” Elvis muttered, looking at the blood on the floor.
“Come on, let’s get it over with,” the Antelope said and rushed into the office.
Elvis followed, but had not taken more than three steps when the Antelope staggered back into the gallery space and slumped onto the floor. Elvis pressed himself against the wall and eyed the door to the office.
There was yelling and the sound of broken furniture and someone had shot the Antelope dead. Or was he dead? Elvis needed to check. He couldn’t leave him there on the floor.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Elvis dashed forward and pulled the Antelope by the arms, dragging him away from the spot where he’d fallen. He checked his pulse, pounded on his chest.
“Come on, you prick!”
The blast of a gun and the piercing sting of a bullet hitting him smack in the arm made Elvis yelp. He raised his hand and shot back at the agent standing by the doorway. He didn’t even aim properly, just pulled the trigger and hoped he hit someone.
The agent stumbled back into the office.
Elvis took a breath and reached for the messenger bag dangling from his shoulder, fumbled with the speedloader for a second, and reloaded his gun. He winced as he held up the weapon with both hands.
He thought the agent would be back to fill him with lead, but the doorway was empty.
He walked into the office. The agent who’d shot at him lay flat on his back, with his mouth open. Gone.
He spotted two more agents on the ground. Maybe they were dead too, Elvis wasn’t one hundred percent sure. A woman, her mouth filled with blood and missing a few teeth, stared at Elvis from behind a desk. She had a broken lamp in her hands. The hippie Elvis had been following was slumped in a corner. He couldn’t see Maite, but there was an unexpected spectacle: the fucking Russian who had given him a beating was fighting with Anaya, both of them struggling over a gun. Anaya seemed to be winning, though Elvis wasn’t sure if he was playing fair—the Russian had been wounded. He was trailing blood down his leg, and by the gash on his trousers it was a knife injury, which could be very bad news.
He took a deep breath, trying to decide if he should intervene. This was like watching Godzilla versus King Kong, and he didn’t know if he should be cheering for the lizard or the monkey. Probably neither, but he also didn’t feel it was right to shoot both of them while they were distracted.
Anaya gave the Russian a fierce blow to the head and grabbed the gun; then the fucker turned his head, saw Elvis, and pointed the damn weapon at him. Elvis couldn’t even duck. Jesus Christ, not again! He was going to get shot a second time in the span of three minutes.
The bullet hit the shelf next to Elvis, steered off its course by the Russian, who had smacked Anaya in the arm, making the agent miss his mark. The gun went flying through the air, and the Russian clutched his leg, grimacing.