It became deathly quiet inside the barn. She heard a car pull up and held her breath as the engine was killed, then doors opened and closed.
Lauren didn’t waste any time looking for a place to hide. She scuttled over to Paolo and jerked the. 45 from his cold dead fingers. Okay, so they weren’t cold. What the hell.
Paolo had fired three shots. How many were bullets were left in the magazine? Four? Ten? A hundred? Lauren didn’t have a clue. She pointed the pistol at the doors.
One of the barn doors opened. A man poked his head inside.
Lauren pulled the trigger. The. 45 slug tore through the wooden door about three feet to the left and a foot above where the man’s head had been. Lauren wasn’t much of a shot.
The door opened all the way, and the man stepped inside. He didn’t seem afraid. Lauren didn’t blame him, but she fired the pistol anyway. And missed again, still wide left.
The man didn’t even blink. “You’re wasting your time,” he said. “My friend’s waiting outside, so even if you get me, which I doubt you will, he’ll come in and take care of you.”
Lauren pulled the trigger. The bullet went wide to the right this time. Over-correction.
“That pistol’s a Kimber,” the man said. “I heard four shots before, so that means you got one left. Wanna try again, or you just wanna come with me and Frankie? Jimmy wants to see you. Says you got something belongs to him.”
Lauren heard a low rumble. It was getting louder. She looked at the Kimber. It might as well have been a water pistol for all the good it did her. She dropped it to the dirt floor.
“Why did Jimmy send three, for insurance?”
That rumbling sound. Hadn’t he noticed? No. He was too busy studying her breasts. The man nodded. “We gave Paulo his space until you two took off. It looked like he was more up for dipping his wick than carrying out orders. So we lit out after you.” He looked at Paulo’s corpse, skin so waxen, the dirt and straw darkly stained. “Thanks. You didn’t waste him, we would have had to.”
And then he finally heard the noise. Stiffened.
“Is this some kind of convention?” Lauren asked. The stranger moved from registering the rumbling sound to something else, something more sinister. Lauren could see his mind struggling. Jimmy wants it back, but he also wants the bitch dead. What do I do now? Now that there’s some other car.
“Hustle up, dude!” The guy outside. The one he’d called Frankie. High voice, California accent. “We got company!”
The guy facing Lauren moved his eyes. They dropped down to his weapon. Armed it with a slide and a click. Lauren acted without thinking. She bent down, scrambled to grab the Kimber, lined up on his groin and fired. Her aim was as terrible as usual, up and a bit to one side, but this time her last slug took off part of his skull in a spray of blood and bone. He dropped. She ran over, pried the 9mm Glock from his hands. Lauren felt giddy. Yawn. Another body, another gun.
The engine cut off and she heard a car door open and close. No voices. Nothing. A shot! Two! Three! Four! How many guys out there? The doors would burst open any second and she had to be ready. She’d seen it on TV a hundred times. She got against the front wall, took a sturdy stance, holding the Glock with both hands. Which side of the door would open?
She widened her legs and held her breath. Waited. Panted. Her arms shook. She propped her elbow on her hip and struggled to keep her trigger hand steady. Sweat ran between her breasts.
After two lifetimes, her arm dropped to her side. All dead? Doubtful. Just waiting for her head to appear.
She glanced around. Light slanted from above, gleaming on Paolo’s tan forehead. Other than the sagging roof, the barn seemed sturdy. Odd timing, but she remembered a similar barn. Darrell, unsnapping his overalls. Mmm. He was a hot treat, but being a country wife hadn’t appealed to her, stoking the wood stove and snapping beans, chasing after grubby kids with their green-snotted noses. Church on Sunday. Hell, maybe coming back was all a mistake, not just the way she’d done it. There was life in LA.
She gave the door a kick, knocking it open a few feet. Nothing. She charged through and stopped fast in front of a rusty pickup with huge muddy tires. The windows were half down, a collie whining inside. “Sweet baby,” she said.
The collie was docile enough. Even more docile was Frankie, sprawled in the late model job alongside the pickup. Frankie was a little guy who’d splattered a lot of blood onto the driver’s side window; he’d taken three hits, two in the face and one in the throat. The latter wound was gurgling a little.
Looked like the pickup truck’s driver had slid up to a stop next to the newer vehicle and just started firing away through his open window.
Somebody didn’t like intruders…
Yet no sign of the driver. And that fucking collie hadn’t shot anybody. Lauren looked all around — the day had died on her, but visibility was fine in a clear blue dusk long with shadows. She circled the barn; gun in hand, till she came back to where she started.
Nobody.
If Frankie’s killer were the occupant of that farmhouse (where a couple lights were on), she’d need to hustle. She quickly returned to the barn, opened the trunk of her car, got rid of the extra suitcase — like Paolo himself, excess baggage — and gave the brown carry-on filled with Jimmy’s money a loving little pat.
She was just about to open the barn doors and drive the hell out, hoping for room to squeeze past the two parked vehicles out there, when the rugged-looking Marlboro man with the plaid jacket and blue baseball cap and double-barrel shotgun stepped inside.
“Hold ‘er right there, missy,” he said, face blank as a hay bale.
“Oh, thank God,” Lauren said. “I never thought I’d live through it. I’m so grateful you killed him.”
“Never mind that. What’s your connection to them?”
She knew better than to tell him anything. She had a bad girl/good girl switch somewhere in her brain. Good girl was in charge now. Sobs. Tears. The stereotypical, hysterical chickenshit woman.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?”
Fucking good girl switch. It must not be feeding her full power. She had to make the good girl switch work. She went back to sobbing. Then she pretended to start to faint.
He was right there to save her and right there to listen to her after he carried her over to a hay bale and set her atop it. The story he got should have made him sympathetic-bad guys chasing her and almost killing her-but she could see that he, looming over her, remained skeptical.
Then she stood up and fell into his arms, her fingers nimbly finding his crotch. Hard already. So he had been paying attention like a good doggie. Then why did he push her away?
“I want the truth. Now.”
“All right. You’re a fucking cynic, here’s the deal,” she said. Then she told him about the big pay day he’d get if he’d move the cars so she could get out and not call the cops on her for four hours. “That’s a lot of money.”
He was obviously thinking it over. What was he going to say?
As it turned out he didn’t have to say anything. The nasty smile and hungry look he flashed her answered her as well as words. Lauren started to unbutton her blouse, but Marlboro man turned her around and shoved her against the hay bale. There was a moment where he must’ve been fumbling with his pants, then her skirt was pushed up and her panties yanked down. He was rough as he entered her, his fingers digging into her thighs. Once again she was being used. Just like all those men at the club where she danced before she met Jimmy, and then Jimmy in those early days. How he’d trick her out so he could bust in and rob the sap while they were screwing. And later what Jimmy used to make her do with his business associates.