Body Guard (32 page)
Authors: Rex Burns
“Vinny … if you’re here … and if you don’t turn on that light … I’ll kill you myself!”
The lamp bulb popped with a white flash, and a moment later, Vinny found another switch that lit up the kitchen and spilled glare into the broken living room and on the tangle of two bodies still stretched tautly against each other. Kirk had Pierson’s head tightly clamped in the bend of his knee. Both hands pressed against the knife arm in a wrist lock that bent Pierson’s elbow at an unnatural angle. Pierson’s free arm was wrapped in the sogginess of Kirk’s bloody shirt, the fist clutched deep in the red wetness. Vinny, his dry mouth sour with the foretaste of vomit, grabbed the fallen table lamp and swung hard at the back of Pierson’s head. The solid thud tingled his hands, and Pierson’s arm flailed and dropped to leave Kirk gasping loudly and making some kind of wheezing, hurting noise as he slowly untangled from the limp man’s body.
I
N THE KITCHEN,
Mrs. Ottoboni had the teakettle whistling and they could hear her rattle unfamiliarly through Kirk’s counters for rags and cups and whatever it was she thought Devlin needed. Pierson, pale and still unconscious but breathing, lay half propped with his hands tied behind him and his head slightly raised to ease the effects of any concussion. Kirk was in the lounge chair panting lightly against the hurt of his ribs. Vinny walked back and forth between Kirk and Pierson and wiped nervously at the corners of his mouth.
“I saved your life, Kirk. You owe me.”
“Who saved—ouch—who?”
Vinny glanced toward the kitchen and whispered hoarsely: “Me! If it hadn’t been for me hitting that bastard over the head, you’d be fucking buzzard bait now. I saved your life!”
Somewhere in the distance, the growing wail of a siren worked its way across empty intersections toward the house and the injured men and the weapons that were out of reach on the mantel.
“You say nothing about the dope, we call it even. I mean, what’s your life worth, Kirk? The dope’s gone anyway. Arnie … . My contact’s already got rid of it, so you can’t pin a goddamn thing on me. I mean, it’s my word against yours that I switched the crap, ain’t it?”
“Pierson heard you.”
Vinny chewed his lip. “I was lying to protect you—keep you alive a little longer. I saved your goddamn life—you owe me!”
“I owe you a swat in the scrotum. You made me look goddamn bad with Dave Miller.”
The siren was closer now. Probably the ambulance. Sergeant Kiefer would ride cold through the light traffic.
“Well, it’s your fault as much as mine, damn you! I mean, you set up a deal like that and shoved it under my nose, Kirk. What the hell did you expect? Now I just saved your sorry life! You don’t want to feel grateful, that’s okay with me, man—it just tells me what kind of asshole you really are. You ungrateful son of a bitch!”
The siren shut off but was still growling as the emergency vehicle slowed in the street outside. Devlin levered himself up on one elbow and tried to breathe through the grip of pain in his side. “You hear me, Vinny: Bunch wants to put you in a blender, piece by piece. And there’s not one thing in this world that can stop him. Not you. Not me. Not God Himself. Unless …”
Vinny envisioned Bunch and didn’t like what he saw. “Unless what?”
“Unless you make a couple people happy.”
“Who?”
“Kiefer and Miller. That’ll make Bunch happy.”
“Hand Miller my ass so he’ll be kissy-face with you again? No fucking way, Jose!”
“Not yours. Arnie Minz. Miller’s been after him for a long time. In a few weeks, you tell Minz you have another shipment—you set him up for a buy and bust.” Devlin added, “Miller will pay a pretty good snitch fee, too.”
Vinny thought it over as hurrying boots thudded across the lawn and up the front steps. “What about Kiefer?”
“Tell him you saw Pierson kill Atencio.”
“Just tell the truth?”
“I know it’ll be hard.”
The clatter at the front door was followed by the bulky shapes of the ambulance attendants. One started asking questions about the still-unconscious Pierson. The other began testing his pulse and blood pressure. Vinny told them the man fell and hit his head while struggling with Kirk. Another car skidded to a halt out front and Sergeant Kiefer, coming in without knocking, stared down at the unconscious man.
“This him? Pierson?”
Devlin shifted so the EMT could get a clearer look at his sliced flesh. “Yeah. And Scotty Martin’ll turn state’s when you tell him Pierson’s caught. He’s a witness to Newman’s killing.”
Kiefer ran a palm down the red sweater that peeked from under his dark sport coat. “State’s or not, he’ll do time.”
Kirk grunted. “Fine with me.” The EMT—a young man with cropped red hair and wire-rim glasses—was saying something about avoiding infection and seeing a doctor first thing in the morning. A pair of uniformed policemen, jingling and creaking with equipment, came from their cruiser and crowded into the room to talk with Kiefer.
“Kirk.” Vinny leaned down as the EMT turned to help load Pierson onto a gurney. “It’s a deal—about Miller and Kiefer, I mean. And you won’t—ah—I mean, you’ll forget all about that little thing with Atencio and me, right?”
“If you get Minz. But if you cross us, Vinny, there’s nowhere on God’s green earth you can hide.”
“Hey, trust me!” Vinny held out a hand. “Shake.”
Mrs. Ottoboni, a tray of hot tea balanced on thin wrists and the evening’s excitement still in the sprigs of wiry gray hair escaping from her kerchief, edged past the standing officers toward Kirk. “My! The victors shake hands!”
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1991 by Rex Raoul Stephen Sehler Burns
cover design by Michel Vrana
978-1-4532-4799-0
This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media
180 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
FROM FROM MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
AND OPEN ROAD MEDIA
