Right before he thanked me for not killing him and I locked him in his trunk-remember?
I shoved my nine millimeter in my waistband. But that didn’t seem to make DeWayne feel any better- in fact, he seemed unnerved, perhaps because I appeared so calm.
And I was in fact calm, entirely matter-of-fact and unemotional. Which he should have been thankful for. If I hadn’t slipped into my battle zone, he’d have been dead now.
I asked, in a purely conversational tone, “What the fuck was that about back there, DeWayne?”
DeWayne blinked.
I raised my eyebrows. “The car, DeWayne? The one you rigged that blew up this morning? Oh, but maybe you didn’t hang around to watch.”
His mouth twitched, like it couldn’t decide whether to smile or frown or scream.
“In which case,” I continued affably, “you’ll be pleased to know it did go off and blow Janet Wright’s car to hell and gone-driver and all.”
His expression tightened into defensiveness. “Well, somebody had to do it! After you’ve been farting around for days!”
“…How long have you been watching me, DeWayne?”
He shook his head. “I told you-I followed Mr. Green’s slutty little princess here. She wasn’t supposed to be part of the mix, you know.”
My hands were on my hips. “But, then, neither were you, DeWayne. Was that the plan? Let me do the job, then get rid of the loose end?”
“No! Hell, no! I told you-”
My eyes slitted. “I told you, last night. This is my job.”
DeWayne risked getting in my face, just a little: “Which included fucking her, I suppose? Where is that in your job description, old man? You ain’t exactly a stealth missile.”
I drew in a breath, let it out. “Car bomb,” I said.
“Huh?”
“Car bomb. Yeah. That’ll play as an accident.”
My remark took the boldness out of him, replacing it with chagrin. “Yeah, well…things were…out of control. I made a…a pre-emptive strike. But you don’t need to worry.”
My eyebrows went up again. “I don’t?”
He smirked humorlessly. “No-you’ll get your money.”
“…Well, isn’t that thoughtful. And then there’s all the credit-I’ll get that, too.” Finally I frowned at him. “Jesus, DeWayne-I’ve been seen all over town with that woman!”
Now his eyebrows went up. “Is that my fault?”
“No,” I admitted. “That’s my fault. Blowing her up in her car, that would be yours.”
He backed away, hands half-up, saying, “Listen, I’m sorry I stepped on your fuckin’ toes…but I had orders to follow…and now I got a plane to catch.”
Cautiously DeWayne returned to the duffel bag he was packing; his gun was over there on the floor, somewhere. Part of me wished he would go for it, please go for it, right now, go for it…
“I need to finish packing,” he said, doing his best to sound casual, gesturing to the bag. “You got a problem with that?”
I shook my head. “Not at all-but why don’t you pack after your shower?”
“My what?”
“When’s your plane, DeWayne?”
Various vague gestures accompanied his reply: “Two hours from now, but I got to drive over to-”
“You got plenty of time for a quick shower.”
He stared at me like I was a raving madman, even though I was not raving. “What the fuck…?”
Slowly but steadily, I removed the nine from my waistband and pointed it at him. “Take your clothes off, DeWayne.”
His eyes and nostrils flared, the short blond hair damn near bristling. “The hell! ”
I gestured a little with the gun, not vaguely. “Go on and strip…I’m locking you in the bathroom so you don’t follow me.”
He shook his head, wild-eyed, blurting, “I’m not gonna fucking follow your ass!”
“That’s right,” I said. “Because I’m locking your ass in the can, and taking your clothes. That’ll give me the lead I need, to get out of this podunk.”
DeWayne sighed. Shook his head. Opened his palms placatingly. “ Please, buddy. Come on, will ya? What the hell’d I ever do to-”
“Skivvies and all, DeWayne. All the way.”
“…Christ.” His eyes popped with alarm. “Oh, Christ, you fell for her!”
“ Now, DeWayne…”
Frantic, pawing the air, he said, “Look, you can’t blame me for this. It was Mr. Green. Once a guy like Mr. Green decides you’re dead, you’re fucking dead! You know that! She was a dead man walkin’-I was just the means to an end, and if it wasn’t me, it coulda been any-”
“Spare me the horseshit, DeWayne, and strip the fuck down.”
DeWayne slumped in defeat.
Moving in slow motion, he began unbuttoning the pale yellow shirt, then-and this was admirable, he didn’t telegraph it all-swept a curving martial-arts kick around that popped the nine millimeter right out of my grasp.
The gun slid across the carpet and hid under a chest of drawers, as if wanting nothing to do with any of what was about to come.
Shaking my head and smiling, I said, “This isn’t really necessary, DeWayne.”
He went into a karate-school stance that I wish I could say looked hokey, but it didn’t-he was a muscular young ex-Marine who clearly knew his shit, and it hadn’t all come out of Black Belt magazine, either.
“That’s my call, Pops!”
It was my turn to sigh.
“Go ahead, kid. Take your best shot.”
And he did, kicking high and out, aiming at my head. If it had connected, I’d likely have been dead, my neck broken.
So I ducked it.
DeWayne reared back, confusion coloring his face, and paused for a moment.
“Couldn’t we just skip this, son?”
Teeth bared, he tried again, rushing me with a flurry of blows, bladed hands here, fists there, and I ducked and slipped and dodged.
He followed me as I circled away, and when he high-kicked, I got out of the way, and his running-shod foot broke a mirror over the dresser, shards raining noisily. I circled back and he charged me and I stepped aside and he busted off the top half of a chair, making a stool out of it.
Finally he began to lose his cool, which isn’t a part of any martial arts program I know of; but you couldn’t blame the poor bastard-I was frustrating the hell out of him, avoiding his every blow, never raising my hands. I didn’t even bother taunting him, ignoring anything he said to me (“Stand still, gramps!”) and, with the mini-suite half demolished, he went for broke with a flying kick that I stepped aside for, and he crashed to the floor with a whump.
I just stood there, arms folded causually, not having broken a sweat, while he got to his feet, then bent over, exhausted, panting, pausing with his hands on his thighs.
“ Je — sus,” he said, trying hard to catch his breath, still hunkered over, “ Je — sus…why don’t you…you… fuckin’…fuckin’ do something?”
I slammed a fist into the side of his head, connecting with his ear and temple, and the big guy went down, in a pile.
He wasn’t out, but he was out of it, and when he finally looked back up at me, pitifully-his face red and fully sweat-beaded, his ear bleeding from the side of his head where I’d hit him-the nine millimeter was back in my hand, its dark eye staring him down.
“See, DeWayne? You do need a shower.”
That made him slump some more, as if all the remaining energy just drained out of him, but he was still breathing hard. He sat there, kind of sideways, his legs sprawled, like a cripple whose faith-healing hadn’t taken.
“Just,” he said, and heaved a couple breaths, and then tried again: “Just do it. Awright? Just…fucking… kill me.”
I shook my head and my expression was fairly pleasant. “I’m not gonna kill you, kid. Strip.”
Allowing himself the luxury of being reassured, DeWayne somehow got to his feet-it was kind of like watching one of those demolition-of-a-building film clips played backward, a structure reassembling itself-and once again, back to slow motion, he began to unbutton his shirt.