Drawing Dead (39 page)

A CANDY-ORANGE
Cadillac Escalade with ridiculously oversized wheels slid to the curb.

Percy hit the backseat first, Ace close behind. As the car pulled away, the war machine looked over at his for-now partner.

“This your idea of camouflage?”

“You ever been on the West Side? This one looks the way it's
supposed
to look. And nobody
be
looking at it twice.”

Before Percy could reply, Ace said, “Good call,” to the driver. Turning to Percy, he said, “Run it down. I don't know what they look like, except what I got off tape. You was locked up with the two of them for—what?—weeks?”

“White male, blond and blue, just under six feet, scrawny, small birthmark on his left hand, right near the web. Asian female, cream-in-coffee, dark eyes. Maybe five two, max. Smells like cocoa butter; gets her nails done every day, it looks like. She'll have to be near someplace where she can plug her computer into the Internet.”

The front-seat passenger looked over his left shoulder. One quick glance was enough to convince him he didn't want another one.

“You working with partners, now, Ace?”

“I ask
you
any questions, boy?”

“I was just—”

“Shut up, fool,” the driver said, trying to derail a conversation he knew had no possibility of ending well. But he'd reacted too late.

“I don't know you,” Ace said, very softly. “I wanted to call you by your name, how could I do that?”

“I was just saying—”

“Don't be ‘just saying' things. I couldn't call your name 'cause I don't
know
your name. You can't add that up? The man who sent you, you and the man behind the wheel—you know, the one who knows how to act—that man who sent you,
he
knows me. What
you
know is you gonna get paid for doing what I tell you. That's true?”

“Yeah.”

“That's getting paid for
doing,
not for
saying,
we clear?”

“Yeah.”

“Our two, they won't be walking,” the assassin said to Percy. “Gotta hope they get to one of the Main Originals and pay rent before they get rolled on. Either one of them a shooter?”

“THEY NOT
gonna
be
on the street,” Ace told the driver. “So we play it like they already found a spot. Got me?”

“Only ones who could let them—”

“Sure. So, first step, we find one of the shot-callers.”

“Alone? That's not—”

“Hey! You a driver, not some private eye. They still got that spot in Englewood?”

“The Green Lantern?”

“That's the one.”

“Sure. But it's never empty.”

“Not supposed to be. That spotlight above the door, the green one? It sweeps, right? And they got a couple of their boys in front, either side of the door?”

“Yep. Same as always.”

“Okay, how it plays is like this: you pull up like you carrying a couple of men who gonna party.”

“Can't park—”

“You not
gonna
park. You the driver, right? So you pull up, and the people in the back, they get out. That's your job.”

“I got a job, too?” the front-seat passenger asked.

“Oh, you got a job, all right,” Ace assured him. “An
acting
job. Like this is a movie, okay? Far as those doorposts know, whoever's in the back of this thing, they're major players. We pull up,
your
window goes down, so they can see you. You're the bodyguard—that's why you wearing that nice suit your boss had made for you.

“All heavyweight players, they got drivers, bodyguards, fancy rides. So you get out, open the back door toward you, and
stay
where it takes you. That's
behind
that door. Remember, you make sure you never take your eyes off the boys below that spotlight. That'll keep their eyes on
you
.”

“Okay, so we drop you off, and…”

“And
take
off,” Ace told the driver. “You got that pager your boss gave you? Okay. You take off, but you don't go far. You hear the beep, you get back
quick.
Soon as we load back in, you get us over the border. You stop; we jump off; you go back and pick up your money.”

The driver made a leisurely left turn and headed west.

“You got something that don't make noise?” Ace asked Percy, his tone making it more of a statement than a question.

“Step two?” was the war machine's only response.

“You take out the door guards. We walk in. It's a small joint. Most of the people there, they just people, understand? Soon as they catch on, they're booking for the exit. The ones
we
want, they'll all be in this one spot on the far right, a couple of steps up from the floor. Got a brass rail all around it, little chain across the opening. Probably a man just standing there, holds up the chain if any of the Main Originals give him the word. You know, let some girl come up there and sit with them. Now, the second any of
them
see me, they gonna be plunging for steel—they know I don't party. Thing is, we need one of them alive.”

“You move left,” Percy said, as he affixed a flash suppressor to the front of a heavy-barreled pistol, working by touch. “I'll put down a spray to the right, then switch to three-beats. Inside, it'll be panic. You herd them out the door. Then get over to that brass rail. Ask whoever's alive whatever you want, but be fast—not gonna be quiet once I start sweeping.”

“That works,” Ace said, implicitly transferring authority to Percy. Cross had told him Percy could be expected to improvise as situations developed. He wouldn't make ego-moves, but he'd see Ace as a means to the end of his mission, so getting in his way wouldn't occur to him.

“You carrying anything besides that scattergun?”

“No,” Ace lied. “I never dial long-distance.”

“You want…?”

“I'm good with this, bro. You the one doin' all the heavy lifting.”

THE ESCALADE
stopped outside the club.

The driver's-side window zipped down. As the two men standing on either side of the green double doors swiveled their heads into a practiced stare-down, the front-seat passenger exited, then opened the back door ostentatiously, as if presenting a royal gift. That move shielded Percy long enough to get off two hardball rounds, each hitting a guard just above the bridge of the nose. Both were dead before they hit pavement.

The war machine shoulder-rolled and came up with a heavy pistol in his right hand. Ace was already at the door, stepping inside the club just ahead of Percy, his sawed-off wordlessly sending a “Don't move!” message to the small crowd.

The first blast from Percy's full-auto was enough to change that message to “Run!” Ace used his scattergun the way a teenager would use her forefinger to sweep through stacked-up messages on her iPhone, herding the terrified cattle into their escape chute. No role players reached for anything except better position in the herd—Ace's black Zorro hat and matching leather duster were a message on their own.

The assassin whirled and quick-stepped to the right side of the club, which now resembled a Jackson Pollock canvas. Percy had already reloaded, but only two men were still alive, and no reinforcements had entered the slaughterhouse. Both of the living were sprawled on the green plush fabric of the horseshoe sofa, bleeding but breathing.

Ace put his face very close to one of them, said, “Where are they?”

“Huh? Who? Man, I—”

Ace used one barrel to interrupt by blowing the man's face off. He whipped the weapon around to face the lone survivor. “You gonna pull that stutter act, too?”

“Upstairs,” the man gasped. “We didn't know nothing. They paid for—”

Ace ended the man's desperate plea with the second barrel, snapped open the weapon, and popped out the spent shells. He grasped two fresh loads between the fingers of one hand, re-chambered, and flicked the scattergun closed as he sprinted for the circular staircase.

Percy swept the entire room in one long burst, then followed right behind.

Three doors. Percy wrenched one open, Ace another. Both empty.

The third door was locked. Percy kicked it open, spinning onto the floor in the same movement.
No prisoners!
blasted through his brain as Ace moved past him, his mind screaming,
Hate them all!

“Gone,” the dark assassin said, pointing at an open window. “Can't be far.”

“Blondie would have a plan,” Percy said, grunting. “They ain't running down no blind alley. Got to be a—”

Ace spotted a pair of tablets and stuffed them inside his duster as Percy disappeared out the window.
Fool thinks I'm gonna hold the door for him?
he thought, working the beeper. When the man whose name made professional life-takers shiver stepped out the club's front door, the Escalade was just pulling in.

Seconds later, the Cadillac rolled off, its driver as unperturbed by the sound of approaching sirens as people on the next corner had been by the sounds of what they assumed was just another gunfight.