Merlot (16 page)

Dim emergency lights flashed on inside. The
upper portion of the glass had shattered, but the lower three feet
looked like a series of jagged glass fingers clawing up toward the
center.

“Knock it out! Knock that shit outta there!”
screamed Mendel, limping back and forth in an attempt to get his
legs functioning, pointing wildly at the damaged door.

Lucerne began to swing the broken wooden
shaft into the glass, three, four, five swings to clear the right
side of the door.

“Come on, hurry up, man! You’re taking too
long,” Mendel screamed.

“Damn it, will you just shut the fuck up!”
Lucerne yelled, facing Mendel, bringing his swinging to a complete
stop.

“Just once, I want you to quit telling me
what in the hell to do and let me think for myself. Lord save me,
but sometimes I don’t think ya got the patience to save your soul.
Hell, the way…”

Mendel roughly pushed him aside, cleared most
of the glass from the left side of the door with his boot, reached
in and turned the dead-bolt lock, opening the door.

“Now come on, and for God’s sake, shut
up.”

Lucerne’s eyes went wide, and he suddenly
froze, covering his ears.

“Come on, you big baby,” Mendel screamed, as
he grabbed Lucerne.

Lucerne shook himself free of Mendel’s
grip.

Unable to wait, Mendel stepped alone into the
dimly lit store. He saw the rack from the day before, holding the
AKs. What he had not seen the day before was the chain draped
through each trigger housing with the heavy brass padlock at the
end.

He yanked viciously at the chain and knew in
an instant they were royally screwed. He struggled to lift the rack
only to discover it was bolted to the floor.

“Lucerne, find the damn head from that maul,”
he screamed out the door where Lucerne had taken root, still wide
eyed with his mouth gaping open. “Come on boy, move!”

Lucerne gingerly stepped through the
door.

“Come on, damn it, help me find the head for
that maul!” Mendel yelled over the alarm, frantically searching
around in the dim light, moving shards of glass aside with the toe
of his boot.

“Got it, there it is!” Lucerne yelled after a
long moment, spotting the maul head beneath a rack of Eastern block
uniforms. He grabbed it off the floor and handed it to Mendel.

Mendel began to hammer the brass padlock. The
play in the chain provided just enough slack to neutralize his
blows. He tightened the chain with his right hand, hammered with
his left until the lock eventually sprung.

“Pull that damn chain from the end,” he
shouted, just as the first shot shattered one of the emergency
lights on the wall above his head.

* * *

As was his custom, T.J. was monitoring the
police frequency while driving to check on the OK Corral. The
female dispatcher contacting squad 112 was professional as she
dispatched the squad car to the bank to investigate an alarm.

Probably just a mouse. He rounded the corner,
even with the windows up, the AC on and all the static from his
police scanner he could hear the distinctive submarine “A-ooo-ga”
of the alarm. A moment latter he spotted a blue cloud hanging
suspiciously across the front of his building, and he floored
it.

There was only one way in and out of the
parking lot and T.J. fish tailed his GTO to effectively seal it
off. He was shaking badly and lost his glasses as he tumbled out of
the car. By pulling the corners of his eyes back he could detect a
large blurry shadow that he guessed was the actual building and a
hazy light that had to be the entryway. He rested the Sig Sauer on
the hood of the GTO, pointed in the general direction of the light
and squeezed the trigger.

“What the hell!” Lucerne screamed as the
light above him exploded. “Jesus, come on, let’s boogey, man!”

Just then the remaining glass in the right
side of the doorframe erupted and something zipped past Mendel
slapping into the cinder-block wall.

“Grab them boxes of ammunition behind the
counter and fill this damn thing up.” Mendel screamed. He tossed a
30 round banana clip over the counter as Lucerne desperately pulled
boxes of ammunition off a shelf.

“You crazy? We ain’t got that kinda time!”
Lucerne screamed as another round struck the outside of the
building.

“We ain’t getting oughta here lessen we shoot
our way out so if you got a better idea you can just sing out with
it anytime.”

“Shit!” Lucerne screamed, shoving rounds into
the banana clip.

“All right now, we’re gonna get our asses
outta here. You get behind the wheel while I keep ‘em down.” Mendel
didn’t wait for an answer but limped straight out the door firing.
Lucerne followed close behind, carrying an AK and boxes of
ammunition.

“Get in the damn car,” Mendel screamed,
letting loose with another burst in the general direction of the
GTO blocking their escape.

Lucerne tossed his weapon and the ammunition
in the rear, then slid behind the steering wheel just as a
fist-sized hole erupted in the rear window. He threw the Fleetwood
in reverse and sped off, the open passenger door swung wildly. He
raced around and screeched to a stop at the rear of the
building.

“Get back here, you worthless
son-of-a-bitch!” Mendel yelled. Another round pinged off the
building and he quickly retreated inside.

Lucerne hit the accelerator and screeched
around the building, accelerating just as Mendel stepped out from
the entryway and let go with a long burst in the direction of the
GTO. Lucerne skidded to a stop. A pungent blue cloud engulfed the
front of the building as Mendel jumped through the open passenger
window.

“Go, go, go damn it!”

Mendel pointed the AK out the window and
fired blindly as Lucerne raced back around the corner and screeched
to a stop. He backed up slowly, keeping the building between them
and the GTO. He carefully crossed a raised patch of grass, then
quietly rolled into the parking lot next door.

T.J. crouched behind the GTO with the Sig
Sauer balanced on the hood, blinking from one side of the blurry
building to the other, desperately trying to focus. He waited what
seemed an eternity, then caught a blurry movement out of the corner
of his left eye. A large car suddenly jumped to life, raced out of
the lot and down the road behind him. He fired once just before he
heard the unmistakable eruption of automatic fire.

Mendel hung out the passenger window aiming
across the roof of the Fleetwood. A “phhhut” sound streaked past
his head at about the same time he saw the muzzle flash. He pointed
his AK in that general direction and sprayed.

T.J. dove to the ground covering his head
with his arms, unaware his bladder had emptied. Rounds zinged
through the air, pinging and tearing through twenty-two coats of
lacquer and the diamond blue finish of his prized GTO. The two side
windows exploded almost simultaneously, raining chunks of safety
glass and still the rounds kept flying. The tires exploded, hissing
as the car lurched heavily to one side. Rounds stitched their way
across the length of the vehicle shattered his taillights and
exploded the rear window.

Then just as suddenly it all stopped. He lay
still in a warm puddle, arms covering his head.

* * *

Otto had digressed from a foul mood to a very
foul mood, right now he was homicidal. He’d had it with people
pointing, snickering and holding their noses around him all day,
and those had been the polite ones.

A guy and his three buddies came up to him
earlier in the evening. Otto had been minding his own business in
the handicapped lot, about to climb into his truck when they
cornered him.

“Hey, buddy. No offense, but you smell like
shit, man.” He had some design tattooed on his arm, wore a white
strappy t-shirt, and baggy jean shorts about eight sizes too large
hanging down to his mid-calves. A small silver ball pierced his
lower lip and a larger silver ball pierced his tongue so that when
he spoke they clacked back and forth.

“What?” Otto asked.

“Oh, come on, we picked up on it from ten
feet away. Look, I’m not trying to be a hard-ass or anything, but
if you’ve noticed people staying clear of you all day, it might be
‘cause you smell like shit. Maybe you got some sort of problem that
should be checked out, man.” laughing, looking at his three pals,
all of them thinking four against a pudgy, pink short guy.

Come to think of it, Otto had noticed
something. He remembered the two little kids in the bank this
morning, that obnoxious woman when he walked past later in the
afternoon, and a handful of others throughout the long day. He
thought, maybe they were on to something. Then again, maybe they
just didn’t have any manners.

“Perhaps this is the problem,” Otto said,
lifting his sweaty, salt encrusted T-shirt to display the
crossed-hatch grips on the forty-five.

“It kind of lets off a warning scent whenever
I get too close to jerks. You know, like you idiots.”

One of the three back-ups took a step
closer.

“Cool dude, chill,” pierced tongue clicked
and clacked rapidly.

“Look, sir, I think we made an awful mistake.
I mean we apologize,” he said taking two steps backward, wide eyes
focused on the pistol grip.

“Get out of here,” Otto hissed through
clenched teeth, enjoying himself for the first time today.

They hurriedly began to walk in the direction
of the fair lights.

“Not that way. This way,” he said pointing to
an exit gate.

“But we just paid to get in. We just got
here,” pierced tongue pleaded.

“Good, now you can just leave,” he angled his
head toward the exit gate, and the four quickly turned and walked
in that direction.

He wished Cindy had been here. He’d stroll
up, maybe smile, “Evening ma’am, problem?”

They’d challenge Otto, she’d attempt to calm
them, frightened for his safety, the odds four to one.

“No, Otto, there’s too many,” she’d whisper,
somehow exposing a soft, succulent thigh, maybe a little tear
running down her cheek.

One of the punks would try and grab her,
forcing him to pull his forty-five and crack him over the head with
the barrel. Stick the pistol back in his camouflaged shorts, stare
at the other three and ask something like, “Who’s next?”

Ready to draw the forty-five if they tried
anything, wait while they dragged their knocked-out pal off to
wherever it was you dragged knocked-out pals. Then he’d turn, give
her his two finger wave, nod and say, “sorry you had to see that,
Ma’am.”

“Oh, Otto, why don’t you come up for
dinner.”

He’d go to her place. Otto could tell her how
he built his deep fat fried empire and then she would want to cook
for him, wearing just her apron and a smile.

A very large woman blared her horn, eyes
bulging out of a neckless head. She honked again slowly moving her
car into the space next to his truck.

He left Cindy at the stove, climbed into his
truck and roared off to make a night deposit.

* * *

Merlot and Cindy had a pleasant enough meal
chatting about everything and anything. Merlot had the distinct
impression that whenever he was about to broach a more personal
subject with her, the waitress seemed to be hovering. Merlot
finally told her he’d call if they needed anything.

He was signing his receipt and had just
placed the credit card back in his wallet when she returned with
two other staff members in tow.

“Sir, I’m really sorry, but we just know
you’re someone,” she smiled, handing them an unordered glass of
wine.

He reflexively looked the other way
attempting to shield his face.

“Hey, wait a minute, I got it, you’re one of
those guys.”

Her two compatriots looked at her, wondering
which guys?

“Those guys, you know from the Vikings game,
the fat guy that mooned everyone. You’re, you’re one of them,” she
said.

Disappointed recognition seemed to wash over
the other two.

“Sorry, ladies, too late,” he put the wine
glass to his lips and drained most of it, pulled Cindy’s chair out,
and made a hasty exit. Cindy left her glass untouched.

“My God, I don’t believe that. You’re one of
the famous butt guys from the Vikings game.”

“Infamous is more like it,” he groaned.

“Well, I think you’re very nice, all the
same,” she said and kissed him fully, lingering there for a good
moment. A passing car honked and she backed off.

“Thanks,” he said.

“The pleasure was all mine. Hey, my car is
right over there so sorry to be a party pooper but I’ve got another
early day tomorrow. Can I call you? Or even better, you could call
me.”

“Yeah, I’d like that,” he said, walking her
to her car.

“Hey look, sorry you had to leave your glass
of wine back there. You know, I don’t live too far from here, just
down the street actually. You want to stop over for a glass of
wine? I’ve got an early day tomorrow, too. You don’t have to, I
just thought maybe…”

“Sure, I’ll follow you,” she said.

Over the course of the three block drive he
ran down a mental checklist of everything he’d need to make the
night complete. He’d learned long ago to be ready. Clean kitchen,
clean glasses, clean bathroom, clean towels, clean sheets and clean
toothbrush.

Following his car, Cindy was reminding
herself this was not a good idea since she had to be at work early
in the morning. But, she was good at lying when she had to be,
telling herself she would only stay for one glass.

Merlot knew from experience that one of the
most difficult items of clothing to take off a woman was her shoes.
Removing shoes signaled the start of other things to come. If she
dropped her shoes they clomped to the floor, and the potential
noise seemed to inhibit taking that next step. He eliminated the
problem by simply slipping out of his at the front door, Cindy did
the same, not giving the matter a second thought.