Blood & Tacos #2 (3 page)

Cruz returned to the landing just as the front doors opened and the girls rushed
into the hall, shouting and screaming. The music jumped in volume as one of
the mercs came out to investigate and caught six bullets from four different
guns. Cruz moved to the next flight of stairs. He heard Rita’s light step
as she raced up to meet him. She was breathing heavily. "It worked, señor!
They didn’t stand a chance!"

"There’s another in the bathroom," said Cruz. "I’ll
be back. I need to deal with Glenister."

"I’ll take you."

"No. It’s okay."

"You don’t know the way."

He put a hand on her shoulder. It was bare. "Secure the downstairs, Rita."

She opened her mouth to say something, the spit clicking against her tongue,
but he turned away before she could speak. He took the stairs that led to the
top floor and Captain Troy Glenister’s suite. He followed the smell of
sex and the sound of a television tuned to static and opened double doors.

There was movement, but only slight. The sound of silk sheets and a water bed.
The hedonist at rest.

"Cruz?" He sounded groggy.

"Fort Johnson, named for Andrew?"

That throaty laugh again. "This is a country for white men and by God,
as long as I am President, it shall be a government for white men …"

"Where are my things, Glenister?"

The water bed made a sickening noise as Glenister moved on it. "He was
an idealist who never went to school, and he became the leader of the free world."

"It wasn’t free then."

"And it isn’t now. Who the hell do you think you are, Cruz? You
know I could call for a guard—"

"Your men are dead. The whores are in charge. And you have a choice.
You can try to squeeze your ass through the bedroom window, pray you don’t
break anything when you hit the ground and then run for your life, or you can
die right here and now."

Glenister laughed again. It was strained. He moved quickly, or tried to, and
Cruz knew the Colt was within reach. He lunged forward, felt the air crack with
the first bullet, ring with the second, but the third stayed exactly where it
was as Cruz kicked the gun from Glenister’s grip and sent it bouncing
across the floor. He grabbed Glenister by what felt like a robe and hauled him
across the room. He swung the fat man into the hissing television set, smashing
it and raining hot sparks against his skin. Glenister dropped to the carpet
and Cruz lost him for a moment.

He straightened up and stood stock still. Listened. Heard the fat man scrabbling
on the floor. He was making a noise like a truffle pig. Then Cruz heard him
stand and then the squeak of a cabinet door. He pictured another gun, but didn’t
move. Glenister was breathing heavily, but he was doing it through a smile.

Cruz heard the click of his shikomizue. Of course he’d kept it. And of
course he meant to kill him with his own sword. It was the kind of cheap irony
that appealed to men with dull minds. Glenister tried to creep to one side,
but his breathing made locating him easy. "You’re a dead man, Cruz.
You might have the whores on your side, but I have the whole US Army. I spoke
to General Jackson himself, did you know that? Stonewall himself. We’re
old friends. Anything happens to me, you’re a marked man. So now you have
a choice. You can take those whores and get a few hours’ head start on
the United States Bounty Service, or I can kill you now."

Cruz made his choice. Glenister panicked as he lunged. The fat man’s
feet shuffled for purchase. Cruz threw a jabbing kick under the fat man’s
arms and caught him in the gut. It didn’t move him, but it made him belch
air and swing wildly with the sword. Cruz stepped to the side of the swing and
the gust of wind it produced, then dipped into its arc and grabbed Glenister’s
sweaty forearm with one hand, his bicep with the other and pulled the arm down
sharply across his knee. There was a terrific snap and the smell of urine filled
the air as Glenister became liquid in Cruz’s grip. Glenister screeched
and rolled away, the sword thumping onto the carpet. Cruz dropped to a squat
and picked up the sword, following the sound of Glenister as he whimpered and
crawled back to the water bed.

"You haven’t … you haven’t won," he said, but
his voice was too high-pitched to be confident.

Cruz touched the blade of the shikomizue. It needed sharpening, but it would
do for what he had in mind. He heard Glenister scrabble on the carpet.

"You’re still a dead man. Jackson won’t stop. He’ll
send more men after you. They’ll find you."

"And they’ll die, just like the last man he sent after me, just
like every opportunistic scumbag who thinks he can make his fortune on the backs
of the poor. Just like you, Captain Troy Glenister, and all your men. We didn’t
draw first blood, but we’ll definitely draw last."

"Yes, you will," said Glenister.

Glenister let out a cackle and rolled to one side. And Cruz realised why the
fat man had crawled for the bed rather than the door. He heard the metallic
click in Glenister’s hand and prepared to bring the sword down just as
the Colt Anaconda roared its resistance.

There was a sudden rush of air, and then it was all over.

Rita was waiting on the landing when Cruz emerged from Glenister’s room.
He kicked the sheet-wrapped bundle on the floor in front of her. It made a wet
sound. He pointed in its general direction with his stick. In his other hand
he held his silver spurs.

"A present," he said. "Something to help get the new regime
started."

Her voice remained at the same height, so she must have opened the bundle with
her toe. "His head."

He’d expected her to be shocked, to act like a woman, but she hadn’t.
He was impressed. "You’ll need it to assert power."

"I didn’t do it."

He smiled. "Yes, you did."

"What about you?"

The smile faded. "There will be men from Mexico City arriving here in
a few hours. You need to be ready for them. Tell them what happened, mention
my name if they ask, but make it clear that you’re in charge now and that
you and the rest of the people here will defend this town with your lives. You
have an arsenal, you have resources, and you have a reason. They won’t
have the guts to push you. They’ll be outnumbered and outgunned."

"I don’t know."

"You can do it, Rita. You’re the strongest person in this whole
town."

She kissed him on the cheek, and he turned into a second kiss that caught him
on the mouth. She pressed herself against him. He allowed her for a moment.
The warmth and smell were comforting.

"Victor …" she whispered.

"No." He broke the embrace and gestured to the head again. "Take
it to your people."

"Thank you."

He nodded. She picked up the head. He listened to her light footsteps on the
stairs as she descended and something stumbled in his chest.

He heard a cheer from the women downstairs, then the sound of them running
out the front doors and a rising commotion from the valley. Cruz attached his
spurs and then tapped down the stairs.

Outside, he heard a mixture of male and female voices, the male outnumbering
the female, but the female clearly the ones in control. Above them all was Rita’s
voice, confident and charismatic, telling everyone what had happened, and how
they didn’t have long to get organized. Cruz listened to her for a few
seconds, then pushed his way out through the back of the big house.

Perhaps people really were capable of rebuilding what they had, given the right
kind of head start. And perhaps Yuma wouldn’t have been such a dead loss
after all, but Cruz doubted that it would be better than what Rita and her people
could manage. They’d have to change the name of the town, though. Fort
Johnson, the man Glenister had named it for, Glenister himself and the ideas
he stood for, they were all dead. They were relics to be buried and forgotten.

That was the message the boys from the Bounty Service would get when they arrived.
And if they needed it repeated, well, Victor Cruz—the Dead Eye—planned
to do so until that whole damn Wall came down. Until then, he would carry on
walking and enjoy the first warmth of dawn on his face.

THE END

Ray Banks
shares his birthday with Chuck Barris
and Curtis Mayfield and screeched into the world on the same day that Roberto
Rossellini took his leave. He has worked as a wedding singer, double-glazing
salesman, croupier, dole monkey, and various degrees of disgruntled temp. He
writes novels (like the Cal Innes series) and short stories (like this one)
and keeps a fairly clean online abode at
www.thesaturdayboy.com
.

By Sabrina Ogden

"While relaxing at his country estate of Hewesridge, Barrington Hewes-Bradford,
one of the world’s richest and most enterprising men, receives word of
the explosive situation on Tarrago, site of a number of his business ventures
and an important ally of the United States. Sensing the delicacy of the situation,
which could lead to an extended war, Hewes-Bradford uses all of his resources,
all of his courage, and all of his potency to vanquish the malignant forces!"

While reading The Xander Pursuit, book three in
The Peacemaker
series by Adam Hamilton, I was reminded of my childhood in the late Seventies
when I would role-play Charlie’s Angels with my friends, Stacy and Molly.
As you can probably guess, I was always assigned the role of Sabrina Duncan;
probably because my name was Sabrina, perhaps because my hair, although blonde,
was styled the same way, straight, plain, and boring.

Regardless of how much fun we probably had playing the gun-wielding threesome,
I always hated being one of the Angels. Sure, they got to fight the bad guys.
But more often than not, they ran around in bikinis and played the kidnap victim
needing to be saved by the other Angels. Boring! I was on my tenth assignment
for Charlie—my turn to play the part of the kidnapped Angel—when
my dislike for that type of role blossomed. And it was the very next day that
I started doubling-up my characters by playing the part of Charlie Townsend,
as well.

Me? Playing Charlie? Heck yeah! Charlie had it easy. Lounging about—usually
near a beach with what I can only assume was scotch on the rocks—Charlie
made important decisions and led his team of go-to girls all while receiving
the affectionate attention of numerous women. Switching the women for men and
replacing the scotch with some Coca-Cola Classic with extra ice, and you’ve
got a win-win situation for a girl like me. I mean, really … who wouldn’t
want to be Charlie?

Barrington Hughes-Bradford, that’s who!

Having inherited his father’s fortune, Barrington has managed to become
the wealthiest man in the world by creating several international companies
and serving as Chairman of the Board to pretty much all of them. All while masquerading
as a private spy and do-gooder—head of The Peacemaker Foundation, a nonprofit
organization dedicated to making the world a safer place. By dispatching his
elite crime-fighting squad throughout the world, Barrington has the ability
to track down murderers and prevent wars and economic downfalls without being
distracted from swooning the ladies and hobnobbing with the wealthy and powerful.

In The Xander Pursuit, Barrington is in the middle of a dinner party when a
mysterious caller offers to sell him information regarding a plot to topple
Tarrago, a small island that Barrington loaned twenty millions dollars to in
the hopes of preventing an economic crisis. Believing the information credible,
Barrington and his number-one man, Trask, meet the mysterious caller in the
middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, only to find him DOA.

The mysterious caller and his unfortunate death send Barrington and his crew
to Tarrago. In the story you’ll read about a murder, a drowning, another
murder, possible love, wine, cocktails, s-e-x, a couple of ladies in distress,
and an explosive ending that will leave you questioning whether or not Barrington’s
quest for peace isn’t more about protecting his own assets, and if his
team of elite crime fighters should consider retirement.