“How about we drive there and shoot everybody?”
“Except for Jill,” I corrected. “But that’ll do.” We were going to need a little more finesse than that, probably, but that was pretty much what it amounted to. Valentine held out one hand. I didn’t trust him. I didn’t like him. But I knew he could fight, and he was the best option Jill or I had right now.
We shook on it.
Chapter 27:
Last of the Gunslingers
VALENTINE
Once again I was in the middle of somebody else’s fight. The story of my life, right? Well, not so much this time. I had reason to believe that Gordon’s group was behind the abduction. It wasn’t really through any desire to repay Lorenzo for saving my life, because fuck him. But I liked Jill. And like I told Lorenzo, she didn’t deserve to die because of her association with us.
As for Lorenzo . . . he was a strange one. He was constantly on edge, with a sort of angry nervous energy. I didn’t trust him, though I really didn’t think he’d try anything while Jill’s life was on the line. Frankly I couldn’t see how somebody with a heart of gold like her could fall for such a prick.
Lorenzo was hard to describe. He was short, six inches shorter than me at least. I couldn’t tell what ethnicity he was. His skin was a pretty indistinct shade of brown that could’ve originated from dozens of countries. His black hair was cropped short, and he had some kind of permanent stubble thing happening on his chin. His eyes were like knives, and I swear he was always watching you.
He had gone into the other room to make a phone call, muttering about “gathering intel” or something. I listened to his half of the conversation through the door all the same. Some guy named Bob had been pissed about something but had known right away who Gordon was. The conversation had ended abruptly after that.
A couple hours later, Lorenzo’s so-called associates arrived. His associates consisted of exactly one skinny Goth kid dressed all in black, carrying a laptop. He had a big hockey bag slung over his shoulder.
The kid was a trip. Black fatigue pants, combat boots, black Rob Zombie T-shirt, black trench coat, and his hair hanging in front of his eyes. He had piercings in his nose and ear. He had tattoos on what small amount of his pasty white skin could be seen.
He looked surprised when he noticed me sitting against the far wall.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked.
“Who the hell are you?” I retorted.
“Wait . . . it’s you! You’re that guy!”
Raising my eyebrows, I looked over at Lorenzo. Seriously? Lorenzo just shrugged.
“What are you doing here?” the kid asked.
“I’m going to help you get Jill back so I can get on with my life,” I said, going back to my cleaning. On a table in front of me was my disassembled DSA FAL carbine. It had a short, sixteen-inch barrel, a folding stock, and rail hand guards. It was equipped with an ACOG scope and a weapon light. It was nearly identical to the carbine I’d carried while on Switchblade 4. Also on the table was my beloved .44, a S&W Performance Center Model 629 Classic. It had a five-inch heavy barrel, a smooth, stainless-steel cylinder, and a black Melonite finish on the rest of the gun. Lorenzo had given me a dirty look when I pulled it out. I just smiled at him in return.
Lorenzo addressed his associate. “Reaper, this is—”
“I know who he is,” the kid interrupted. “Is he for real?”
“He’s for real,” Lorenzo replied.
Reaper, I guess his name was, stared at me. “Dude, what’s wrong with your eyes? They’re like totally different colors. That’s fucked up.”
Lorenzo ignored him. “Let’s get started. How are we gonna do this?”
“I’m still on board with the ‘go in and kill everybody’ plan,” I said. “Or did you get enough information to make a better plan than that?”
“No.” Lorenzo frowned. “We need to find Jill first. We still need more information. Their meet will be a turkey shoot. I called somebody earlier who might know. He’s working on it now.” Reaper raised an eyebrow, but Lorenzo didn’t elaborate about his mysterious phone call.
“I don’t think we have a lot of time,” I said. “We don’t know what we don’t know. We’ll just have to go in and play it by ear.”
“Not really my style,” Lorenzo said.
“Mine, either,” I confessed. “But nobody ever tells me what the hell is going on, so I just roll with it. You guys got weapons?” If they didn’t, Hawk sure had a basement full of them.
“Hells yeah, we got weapons!” Reaper said. He picked up the hockey bag and dumped it out onto a table. Lorenzo rolled his eyes as weapons, magazines, radios, body armor, and night-vision equipment came clattering out of the bag, landing in a heap on the table.
So this was the crack team that had managed to track down Dead Six and infiltrate our compound. I shook my head and went back to my cleaning.
Reaper handed a carbine to Lorenzo, who proceeded to check it. Some kind of short, select-fire AR-15, with a twelve-inch barrel and a suppressor. Reaper pulled from the bag a Glock 17. He inserted a magazine, chambered a round, then stuck the pistol in a shoulder holster under his trench coat. On his belt he had more magazines. He then picked up what I assumed was his primary weapon.
“Benelli M1,” Reaper said proudly as he started stuffing 12-gauge shells into every available pocket. “Semi-auto, short barrel, badass all the way.”
“That’s actually a Benelli M2,” I corrected. Reaper frowned. I wondered how well Reaper could use his shotgun, though. He looked like an extra from The Matrix. Reassembling my rifle, I watched the two of them get suited up. I could tell they’d been working together since . . . well, probably since that kid graduated from high school, which couldn’t have been all that long ago. Still, for old friends, they didn’t talk much. It might’ve been because of my presence, but then, professional thieves probably have some weird interpersonal dynamics going on.
Like I’ve got any room to talk, right?
Hawk came home while we were still playing dress up. He scowled first at the strangeness that was Reaper, then at me, then finally gave Lorenzo a silent nod. “Been a long time.”
“Hawk,” Lorenzo responded uncomfortably.
The two stayed, exchanging a look that I couldn’t decipher. There was a lot of history there, and I couldn’t tell if they were friends or enemies or maybe somehow both. Finally, Hawk spoke. “No sign of the girl. No one in town knows anything.”
“I guess we keep waiting,” I said.
Lorenzo reached into his pocket as his phone vibrated. “Yeah?” He listened for at least a minute straight. “Okay, I got it. Thanks. I’ll be in touch.”
Hanging up the phone, he looked at me.
“What’s the word?” I asked, fiddling with my thigh holster like a woman adjusting a stocking.
“Our next stop is a closed rest stop down the highway. Out past it is an abandoned prison work camp. That’s where they’re holding her.”
“You’re sure of this? Can your friend be trusted?”
“Oh, I’m sure. He’s like a brother to me.”
LORENZO
The four of us were still in Hawk’s house, readying equipment. We would be leaving in a few minutes. At one point I caught Hawk studying me. He motioned for me to step aside to speak. I stopped loading magazines long enough to follow. He had aged a lot since I had seen him last. I knew Hawk was at least a decade older than I was, and there had apparently been some hard years in there. His hair was grayer, his face lined and creased by the sun and wind of several continents, and he’d picked up a limp at some point.