We make it to the back of James’s vehicle, and I balk at what I see.
“You. Are. One. Sick. Motherfucker,” Brad breathes, taking the words right out of my mouth as we take in the sight, James leaning casually on the side of his car. I cock my head, nodding, counting the number of missing body parts. No fingers. No ears. Half a nose.
“Nice,” I muse.
James joins us, leaning into the car and pulling off the man’s blindfold. He’s hardly breathing, but his eyes work, and they widen when he cops a load of me. “Hi,” I say cheerfully, lifting my shades to my forehead. “Lost something?”
He garbles a load of fuck knows what, blood spraying from his mouth. No tongue. I look at James. “Well, he can’t fucking speak now, can he?” And he also won’t last much fucking longer.
James takes a leg and drags him out of the Range, and his body hits the gravel with a thud. “He’s got nothing more to tell.” Taking an ax from his car, James swings it casually as he stands over the half-dead guy. “Or have you?”
A moan. A weak cry.
“I think that’s a no,” Brad quips, flicking his cigarette at the man before stuffing his hands into his pockets.
“I got that too,” James says, cool as a fucking cucumber as he raises and swings the ax, taking off the guy’s right arm. I grimace and take a step back, but Brad virtually dives out of the way of the spraying blood.
“Fuck me, James,” he mutters, brushing down the jacket of his suit. “This is bespoke.”
“What am I missing?” Ringo appears between Brad and me, taking in the scene. His ugly face twists more, his huge nose wrinkling. Then Otto shows up too, circling the body like a vulture.
James steps over the guy, getting in position for his next hit. “What’s my name?” he asks, bending slightly, putting himself in the line of what is certainly blurred vision. “Tell me my name.”
A few garbles, but I definitely catch the tail end, deciphering it as “ma.” The Enigma.
“You say that to Beau when you’re fucking her?” Brad asks, as James raises his arms ready for his next strike.
“You’re next, Brad,” he grunts, and I chuckle, along with Ringo, Otto, and Brad himself. But we all shut up and flinch when the ax comes down again, taking the guy’s left arm. James exhales, looking up at us. “Don’t send me psycho.” He moves down to the guy’s legs.
“You’re not now?” Brad blurts, waving a hand dementedly at the mutilated body before us. “I think he’s dead, by the way.” There are no sounds now. But there’s plenty of spasms, the guy’s body jerking all over the dusty stones.
“As a dodo,” Ringo adds, his face still repulsed. “Definitely as dead as a dodo.”
But James isn’t done, and we stand there, quiet, as he proceeds to take his legs too, until all we’re looking at is a torso. Like one of those freakish dummies people practice CPR on. But messier. James, finished, stands back and dusts off his hands.
“You forgot his head,” Otto quips, and James immediately pulls his gun from the back of his jeans, aims, and fires, sending the bloke’s brain spraying far and wide. We all jump back again, out of the firing line of blood and gore.
“And what did they call this one?” I ask, frowning at the sleeve of my shirt, flicking off what I expect is a piece of brain tissue. “The Worm? The Jellyfish?”
“The Dodo,” James replies swiftly and coolly, and my eyes snap to his, along with everyone else’s. James shrugs. Is he fucking kidding me? “Straight up.” He points his ax at the remains. “They called him The Dodo.”
After a few stunned looks passed around us, we all fall apart laughing, and it’s the stomach-cramping kind. The bend-over, delirious, eye-watering, uncontrollable, body-jerking kind. “If you tell me there’s one called Rex, I’m quitting life.” I chuckle, struggling to catch my breath. “Get rid of him.”
“Oh fuck,” Brad whispers, and I turn, getting him in my sights. He looks stricken and confused, and I’m thrown by it.
“What?” I follow his line of sight until I have the source of his disturbed expression in view. “Oh fuck,” I mimic, seeing all the men in my peripheral vision move back. Behind me. Out of the line of fire.
Busted.
Shit, I thought she had a dress fitting today. “Hey, baby.” I slap on a cheesy smile and step in front of the dead body like I might be able to hide it from her. Not because she’ll be pissed, but because, frankly, it’ll give her nightmares. My wife has seen me kill many men. She’s watched me decapitate the Romanian cunt who bought and handled her for years. She’s watched me cut out my dad’s cousin’s tongue and force-feed him it when I found out he was the man who took her baby and sold him. She’s seen some disturbing things. But that was years ago. And I don’t want her used to that shit.
“Hey,” she says slowly, her scrutinizing eyes circling the men and where we are.
I’m bracing myself for the explosions. I don’t know how she got here, how she knew I was here, but I’ll find out once I’ve dealt with this unexpected situation. And if I come out alive. I point at the dismembered body. “That wasn’t me. I didn’t do that.”
Her head tilts, eyebrows high, lips pursed. “It looks like a standard Angel-faced Assassin kill to me.”
“It was James.” I throw an arm out toward him, unhesitant and unashamedly chucking him under the bus.
“Where’s Beau?” he asks, stepping forward, tense.
“In the car.” Rose keeps me in place with her burning blues as James tosses the ax aside and marches off. “Who is it?” she asks, raising a limp hand and indicating to what’s left of James’s latest catch.
“The Dodo.” I say it without thinking, and laughter erupts behind me.
No. Fuck, no, do not laugh.
My cheeks blow out, and I try so fucking hard to shut off any orifice that could let me down. The knobheads behind me aren’t helping my cause, snorting and tittering in the background. Death wishes, the lot of ’em. It’s no good. I lose my fight and bend at the waist, having to brace my hands on my knees to hold myself up. I haven’t laughed like this since leaving St. Lucia, our life taking a swift turn from carefree and easy to serious and, frankly, fucking taxing. I need this release. Rose, however, looks like she needs to punch me in the face.
“You finished?” she asks, her posture threatening.
I focus on composing myself like my life depends on it, because it probably does. “Finished.” Back to serious business. I raise a hand in indication for everyone to fuck off and leave me to handle this alone. “What are you doing here, Rose?”
“Me?” She looks at me like I’ve sprouted horns. “What are you doing here?” She motions around the site, to the diggers and cranes and piles of materials. She knows what’s happening.
“No,” I say firmly, and she recoils, indignant. “You will explain. How did you get here?”
“I drove.”
“You gave Goldie the slip?”
“No one gives Goldie the slip.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. “You held her at gunpoint, didn’t you?” My lips straighten, annoyed. “I gave you that gun so you can protect yourself, not so you can brandish it at my men/woman when you feel like it.” This isn’t the first time this has happened. But it’ll be the last. I stalk forward and grab her bag from her shoulder, rootling through. “Where is it?” I ask, looking up for an answer. I don’t need one. It’s on the tip of my nose. Literally. My eyes travel up the barrel to her hand, up her arm, across her shoulder, her face, to her eyes. The wicked glint is satisfaction personified.