I'd met him in a parking lot across the street, and he laid out the whole sad, sick story of what these animals had done to his little girl.
“Cops do nothing. Sunny's friend too scared to press charges.”
Sunny's friend had managed to escape with only ten missing teeth, six stab wounds, and a torn rectum. Sunny hadn't been as lucky.
Ti agreed to my price without question. Not too many people haggled with paid killers.
“You finish job today?” Ti asked, reaching into his glass display counter for a pastry.
“Yeah.”
“In the way we talk about?”
“In the way we talked about.”
Ti bowed and thanked me. Then he stuffed two pastries into a bag and held them out.
“Duck egg moon cake, and red bean ball with sesame. Please take.”
I took.
“Tell me when you find them.”
“I'll be back later today. Keep an eye on the news. You might see something you'll like.”
I left the bakery and headed for the bus. Ti had paid me enough to afford a cab, or even a limo, but cabs and limos kept records. Besides, I preferred to save my money for more important things, like drugs and hookers. I try to live every day as if it's my last.
After all, it very well might be.
The bus arrived, and again everyone took great pains not to stare. The trip was short, only about two miles, taking me to a neighborhood known as Pilsen, on Racine and 18th.
I left my duck egg moon cake and my red bean ball on the bus for some other lucky passenger to enjoy, and then stepped out into Little Mexico.
It smelled like a combination of salsa and garbage.
There weren't many people out—too early for shoppers and commuters. The stores here had Spanish signs, not bothering with English translations: zapatos, ropa, restuarante, tiendas de comestibles, bancos, teléfonos de la célula. I passed the alley where I'd gotten the shit kicked out of me, kept heading north, and located the apartment building where my three amigos were staying. I tried the front door.
They hadn't left it open for me.
Though the gray paint was faded and peeling, the door was heavy aluminum, and the lock solid. But the jamb, as I'd remembered from yesterday's visit, was old wood. I removed the crowbar from my jacket lining, gave a discreet look in either direction, and pried open the door in less time than it took to open it with a key, the frame splintering and cracking.
The Kings occupied the basement apartment to the left of the entrance, facing the street. Last night I'd counted seven—five men and two women—including my three targets. Of course, there may be other people inside that I'd missed.
This was going to be interesting.
Unlike the front door, their apartment door was a joke. They apparently thought being gang members meant they didn't need decent security.
They thought wrong.
I took out my Glock and tried to stop hyperventilating. Breaking into someone's place is scary as hell. It always is.
One hard kick and the door burst inward.
A guy on the couch, sleeping in front of the TV. Not one of my marks. He woke up and stared at me. It took a millisecond to register the gang tattoo, a five pointed crown, on the back of his hand.
I shot him in his forehead.
If the busted door didn't wake everyone up, the .45 did, sounding like thunder in the small room.
Movement to my right. A woman in the kitchen, in panties and a Dago-T, too much make-up and baby fat.
“Te vayas!” I hissed at her.
She took the message and ran out the door.
A man stumbled into the hall, tripping and falling to the thin carpet. One of mine, the guy who held my right arm while I'd been worked over. He clutched a stiletto. I was on him in two quick steps, putting one in his elbow and one through the back of his knee when he fell.
He screamed falsetto.
I walked down the hall in a crouch, and a bullet zinged over my head and buried itself in the ceiling. I kissed the floor, looked left, and saw the shooter in the bathroom; the guy who held my other arm and laughed every time I got smacked.
I stuck the Glock in my jeans and reached behind me, unslinging the Mossberg.
He fired again, missed, and I aimed the shotgun and peppered his face.
Unlike lead shot, the gray granules didn't have deep penetrating power. Instead of blowing his head off, they peeled off his lips, cheeks, and eyes.
He ate linoleum, blind and choking on blood.
Movement behind me. I fell sideways and rolled onto my back. A kid, about thirteen, stood in the hall a few feet away. He wore Latin Kings colors; black to represent death, gold to represent life.
His hand ended in a pistol.
I racked the shotgun, aimed low.
If the kid were old enough to be sexually active, he wasn't anymore.
He dropped to his knees, still holding the gun.
I was on him in two steps, driving a knee into his nose. He went down and out.
Three more guys burst out of the bedroom.
Apparently I'd counted wrong.
Two were young, muscular, brandishing knives. The third was the guy who'd worked me over the night before. The one who called me a bald son of a bitch.
They were on me before I could rack the shotgun again.
The first one slashed at me with his pig-sticker, and I parried with the barrel of the Mossberg. He jabbed again, slicing me across the knuckles of my right hand.
I threw the shotgun at his face and went for my Glock.
He was fast.
I was faster.
Bang bang and he was a paycheck for the coroner. I spun left, aimed at the second guy. He was already in mid-jump, launching himself at me with a battle cry and switchblades in both hands.
One gun beats two knives.
He took three in the chest and two in the neck before he dropped.
The last guy, the guy who broke my nose, grabbed my shotgun and dove behind the couch.
Chck chck. He ejected the shell and racked another into the chamber. I pulled the Glock's magazine and slammed a fresh one home.
“Hijo calvo de una perra!”
Again with the bald son of a bitch taunt. I worked through my hurt feelings and crawled to an end table, tipping it over and getting behind it.
The shotgun boomed. Had it been loaded with shot, it would have torn through the cheap particle board and turned me into ground beef. Or ground hijo calvo de una perra. But at that distance, the granules didn't do much more than make a loud noise.
The banger apparently didn't learn from experience, because he tried twice more with similar results, and then the shotgun was empty.
I stood up from behind the table, my heart a lump in my throat and my hands shaking with adrenalin.
The King turned and ran.
His back was an easy target.
I took a quick look around, making sure everyone was down or out, and then went to retrieve my shotgun. I loaded five more shells and approached the downed leader, who was sucking carpet and whimpering. The wounds in his back were ugly, but he still made a feeble effort to crawl away.
I bent down, turned him over, and shoved the barrel of the Mossburg between his bloody lips.
“You remember Sunny Lung,” I said, and fired.
It wasn't pretty. It also wasn't fatal. The granules blew out his cheeks, and tore into his throat, but somehow the guy managed to keep breathing.
I gave him one more, jamming the gun further down the wreck of his face.
That did the trick.
The second perp, the one I'd blinded, had passed out on the bathroom floor. His face didn't look like a face anymore, and blood bubbles were coming out of the hole where his mouth would have been.
“Sunny Lung sends her regards,” I said.
This time I pushed the gun in deep, and the first shot did the trick, blowing through his throat.
The last guy, the one who made like Pavarotti when I took out his knee, left a blood smear from the hall into the kitchen. He cowered in the corner, a dishrag pressed to his leg.