Blue Shirt and Striped Shirt had wedding rings. Yellow Shirt had a wedding ring and one of those bulky class rings. I had a feeling it wasn't from the Citadel.
All three were wearing Rolexes.
I followed them into the living room, where all three were standing around looking lost. Everything in the room was different, right down to the window shades and pictures. I had my hands behind my back in a courtly pose that I figured would make the fact that I had a gun in my hand less apparent, not that these three had much in terms of cognitive resonance.
"What's going on here?" Blue Shirt said. "Where's Cricket?"
"New rules," I said.
"Yeah?" Blue Shirt said.
"Yeah," I said, and to prove it, I pulled out my gun. In most cases, pulling out a gun is enough to stop someone from acting stupid. They recognize that you have a gun and they decide they'll cut through their bullshit mechanisms and act rationally-which is to say, they'll cower in fear. Unfortunately, Striped Shirt thought the appearance of my gun was an invitation for him to draw his Civil War relic and attempt to shoot me.
The first problem he encountered was that he'd never shot anyone before. The second problem is that in the space of time it took him to realize he didn't know what the hell he was doing, I grabbed his gun hand and then pistol-whipped him, which is like getting hit in the face with a slab of very accurate metal. I broke his nose and took out at least five teeth, maybe more if he swallowed a couple, but five was what was left on the ground.
This didn't stop Yellow Shirt from trying to come at me from behind, which would have been a problem if Striped Shirt didn't squeeze off a round at the same moment (I doubted it was intentional, but involuntary things happen when you're writhing in pain), hitting his partner in the leg. It was all over in about five seconds and I didn't even need to personally shoot anyone.
I gently removed the gun from Striped Shirt's hand and emptied the bullets into my pocket while Blue Shirt just sort of stared at me.
"Here," I said, and handed the gun to Blue Shirt, who shoved it wordlessly into his cargo shorts. I decided to let Blue Shirt be the one to make sense of it all, since one of them had to be alert. "I'd hate for your friend to lose such a priceless heirloom."
If you get shot in the leg, here's what happens: The bullet enters your leg, which hurts, and then, if it hits the bone, the odds are the bone will shatter, which also hurts. The shattered fragments of bone will scatter around inside your leg or out the back, if the bullet doesn't get lodged in the muscle.
What does hurt feel like?
It feels like someone has detonated a bomb inside of you. It feels like someone has replaced your blood with hot gravel. It feels like you're about to die. Because you'll actually be suffering from three wounds: the entry wound, the percussion wounds from the bullet pinging around your bone, and the exit wound. You'll probably flop on your back and then black out. When you awake, which could be just a few seconds later, you'll probably cry. People who get shot tend to cry.
If you think you're going to get shot, tell your two buddies who think they're tough guys-but who really haven't had any experience with this kind of conflict, who have only seen people shot on television and in video games, because if you run around with two buddies, the odds are you play video games-to eat a light lunch, too. Get shot in the leg in front of your two buddies, and as soon as they are showered by bits of bone, skin, muscle, and maybe a little bit of your orthopedic sandals, the odds are they're going to dry heave.
If you want to go into a field of business where people will get shot around you, or where you might get shot, it's a nice idea to strengthen your gag reflex.
After Blue Shirt and Striped Shirt stopped gagging, Striped Shirt on the perfect mixture of his own blood and a nice sum of his own teeth, I gave a whistle to get their attention. "Gentlemen," I said, "unless you want your friend to bleed to death, you might want to apply a tourniquet to his leg." Blue Shirt looked at me blankly. Striped Shirt was still trying to catch his breath, which was hard because his face was broken in half. Yellow Shirt? He was moaning and crying and trying to crawl away, which wasn't working too well because he had a shattered shinbone. The truth was that he was unlikely to bleed to death anytime soon, but it wouldn't hurt to stanch the bleeding lest he slip into shock from blood loss and go into cardiac arrest. "What's your name?" I said to Blue Shirt. I had the gun on him, which I think got him to focus.
"Stan," he said. His voice was weak and scared, which was the point, after all.
"Stan, I want you to take off that rope belt you have holding up your shorts, and I want you to bind it tight across your friend's shin."
Stan yanked his belt off and did just that. Striped Shirt, at this point, was a useless mess. He was curled against the wall beneath the mirror and was sort of mumbling and whimpering. He'd need plastic surgery if he ever wanted to model. He was sputtering now, coughing, gagging some more.
"Tell your friend over there to lean forward, or else he's going to choke on his own blood," I said to Stan. "If he leans forward, it will drain."
Stan repeated what I'd just said, which actually got Striped Shirt to move. "You killed my brother-in-law," Striped Shirt managed to say once he was able to cough out some blood. He meant, I presumed, the guy he actually shot.
"I didn't kill anyone yet," I said. "If he's still bleeding, that means he's still alive. That's how that works." I leaned down and looked at Yellow Shirt's wound. It was a good one, but he'd live. He'd limp for the rest of his life, but he'd have a good story to tell, replete with a moral and everything.
"Stan," I said, "you'll note I haven't hurt you yet. So let's get something straight."
"Anything," he said.
"As you can see," I said, "Cricket is no longer with us. Whatever debt you think she owed you? That's gone."
"We just collect," Stan said. He was looking back and forth at his two friends, like he couldn't believe what he was seeing, like he'd never imagined a situation in his life where he'd be surrounded by that much blood. Faces and legs tend to gush.
"Of course you do," I said. "Now let's be straight here, gentlemen, before I have to shoot someone else. Would I be correct in saying you work for Dixon Woods?"
"I don't even know who Dixon Woods is, man," the shot guy spit out. He was rather lucid now, despite the gunshot wound, the pain, the tourniquet, the likely realization he was having that he'd have to explain to his wife how he get shot. "I've been shot for some motherfucker I don't even know. I'm having trouble seeing. Jesus. I'm going fucking blind over here."
"You should know your clients better," I said. "What kind of organization sends three men to collect from a woman? You need to talk to your boss, gentlemen, get a better idea of the dangers involved. Maybe see if he'll spring for some shooting lessons. A lesson would be a good thing to have had right now, wouldn't it, Stan?"
"No, sir," Stan said.
"We can be honest with each other, Stan," I said. "Let me guess, you just like to slap women around. Is that right, Stan?"
"No, sir," he said again.
"What about you?" I said to Yellow Shirt, whose yellow shirt was now covered completely in sweat. It did look like he was suffering.
"I'm going blind," Yellow Shirt said again.
"That's from pain and blood loss," I said. I turned to Stan. "What exactly do you do for a living, Stan?"
"What?" He was starting to get glassy-eyed, too. Slipping into shock and nothing had even happened to him. That can happen when you're in combat: You see someone get shot in front of you, it has a life-affirming effect or it has a life-stunting effect. On Stan, it seemed the latter. The one with the broken face had fallen oddly silent, too, apart from the crying and this weird sucking sound he was making through his missing teeth.