Shot of Tequila (16 page)

Marty took in his surroundings and noticed for the first time that it was smokier than usual. That asshole Leman. How many lousy wet blankets did he throw into the damn furnace?

“Kiss my hairy dago ass, fire boy. I ain’t going nowhere. Everything’s under control.”

The fireman, a husky and very determined young man who’d dealt with dozens of disoriented victims, approached Marty with his hands in front of him, trying to appear non-threatening.

“I’m sorry, sir, but you’ll have to leave the building.”

Marty withdrew the .38 from the back of his waistband and pointed it at the fireman’s head.

“I said go play with your hose someplace else, pole jockey. Or I’ll ventilate your head.”

The fireman backed off. Some people just didn’t want to be rescued.

Terco appeared through the door behind Marty, rubbing his eyes and looking bewildered.

“Is there a fire?” Terco asked.

Marty slapped him hard enough to be heard in Indiana, and then went back up to his office to wait this little fiasco out. Never in his life did he want somebody as badly as he wanted Tequila. Every nerve in his body screamed for a chance to have that little shit in his hands. What should have been the celebration of the year had turned into the biggest failure of Marty’s entire life.

Slake re-entered the office, disappointment inherent in his eyes.

“Leman’s not on the fire escape. He probably wasn’t hurt too badly.”

Marty barely heard him. His entire being was focused on Tequila, and all the things he’d do to him when he had him in his grasp. He tried Matisse again, but the phone was still busy.

“You want me to go over there?” Slake asked again.

“How much do you know about Tequila?”

“Not too much. He never talks about himself. I didn’t even know he had a sister until tonight. She’s a retard, if you can believe it.”

Marty’s eyes flickered.

“She lives with him?”

“Yeah. Matisse is probably humping her Mongoloid ass right now.”

“Go, as fast as you can. Bring her back here. If he lets the bitch live with him, she’s probably important to him. Don’t kill her, for God’s sake.”

Slake nodded and went off.

The sister.

Maybe this colossal ratty-assed clusterfuck would work out after all.

T
equila parked on the street and came in through the lobby. At first, Frank the doorman didn’t know who the bloody, filthy figure was, and almost went for the security phone. The familiar tattoo of a butterfly on the figure’s hand stopped him.

“Mr. Abernathy? What happened? Should I call a doctor?”

“No. Has anyone come to see me, Frank?”

“No, sir. Are you sure…?”

“No one came here at all? Or asked about me?”

“Well, Mitch in the garage called me to say you left your headlights on. Were you mugged?”

Tequila ignored the question.

“Did any men show up that you didn’t know? A tall thin guy who looks really mean?”

“Mr. Abernathy, what’s going on?”

“Frank, goddammit, has anyone been here that you haven’t recognized?”

“Yeah, a tall guy. Well, two guys, a tall one and a big one. Tall one said his name was Collins, just moved into 1212 this morning.”

“Are they still here?”

“The tall guy left. The other guy, big and muscular looking, he’s still here.”

Tequila picked up the house phone, setting on a stand to his left, and dialed his phone number. Busy. He headed for the elevator, trying not to imagine what he’d find in his apartment. He imagined it anyway.

“Mr. Abernathy?”

Tequila pulled out his wallet and extracted five hundred dollars of the money he’d taken from that old man at the liquor store. He handed it to Frank.

“You never saw me, Frank. I haven’t been in all day.”

Frank’s eyes bugged out comically at the cash he now held.

“Yes sir, Mr. Abernathy sir.”

The elevator doors opened and Tequila hit 30. The ride, which normally seemed so quick, took an eternity. Tequila had no way of knowing who was waiting for him. Big muscular guy? Probably Matisse, since he’d just seen Terco back at
Spill
. But were there others? How many? What kind of weapons?

All Tequila had in the way of weapons was an empty revolver and his Swiss Army Knife. He idly wondered how many people he could drop with the corkscrew before they nailed him. The thought failed to amuse him. His hands were aching and his energy used up. If there was a big party waiting for him, Tequila knew he might not live another five minutes.

There was only one certainty he had, and he embraced it like a shield.

They wouldn’t take him alive.

The thirtieth floor dinged, and Tequila stepped out, wary. He moved slowly down the hallway, staying close to the wall, listening for anything unusual. As he approached the corner, his eyes fixed onto the Drexel table with the flower arrangement. The silk and dried flowers were in a good-sized iron vase. Tequila hefted it and dumped the flowers out. The vase weighed close to ten pounds, and gripped by the base made a much better weapon than his corkscrew. He took it, limping silently to his doorway.

Sweat had broken out on Tequila’s body again, covering him like ants. He held his breath, pressing it up to his apartment door, straining to hear.

There was a hum coming from inside. It took a moment for Tequila to place it.

A vacuum cleaner?

He placed his hand on the doorknob, checking to see if it was locked.

The knob turned. That meant big trouble. China never left it unlocked.

Tequila decided to go in slow, hoping the sound of the vacuum would mask his entrance. He gently opened the door, just wide enough to slip inside, locking the door behind him.

The living room was empty, the vacuuming sounds coming from one of the bedrooms. Tequila gripped the vase and moved towards the kitchen. He was going to trade the vase for a knife before exploring the rest of his place.

Tequila saw the blood before he saw the body.

China.

She was rolled onto her stomach, lying in a thick pool of red. Next to her head was a black, rubbery thing that defied identification until Tequila noticed the eyebrows on it.

It was China’s face.

The vacuum cleaner shut off, and a moment later Matisse hurried past the kitchen through the hall entrance. He saw Tequila standing there and did a double-take.

The vase was in the air before Matisse could even see what it was. It hit him in the face, crushing his left cheekbone and spinning him around like a pinwheel, a swirl of blood streaking across the walls.

Tequila leapt China’s dead body and sprung at the collapsing giant. He jumped onto his back, clamping an arm across Matisse’s thick neck, trying to cut off the bodybuilder’s air.

Matisse reached behind him, grabbing Tequila by the shirt. Without much effort, he displaced the small man and threw him down the hallway. Then he brought his hands to his face and moaned at all the blood. It was dripping everywhere.

“I’ll never finish cleaning!” Matisse shrieked.

Tequila rolled with the throw and bumped up against something on the floor. At first he wasn’t sure what it could be, but the realization came sickeningly quick.

Sally. Blood and drain cleaner streaming from her dead, open mouth. He looked lower, saw her ripped panties, the blood between her legs.

Time stopped. The image seared into his brain and he knew that no matter how long he lived, it would always be there when he closed his eyes.

His entire life changed in the space of a heartbeat.

Tequila roared. His roar drowned out Matisse’s hysterics. It was a war cry, anger and agony and hate and sorrow, and it screamed for vengeance.

Matisse stopped his own wailing and looked over at Tequila, wondering how a human being could make such a sound. It was truly horrible, and it went on and on without pause.

Then it stopped.

The silence was even more horrible.

Tequila got to his feet, staring at Matisse like a malevolent demon. His eyes were filled with thirsting rage.

“You,” Tequila whispered, pointing at the big man’s chest. Something had changed inside Tequila. Or maybe something had awakened. His whole life had been spent denying emotion. Staying in control. He’d lived by responding logically to different stimuli, without offering anything of himself.

Now, finally, he had something to offer. Finally, Tequila felt an emotion, and the emotion burned in his heart like coal.

Hate. Tequila felt hate. It pumped through his veins and screeched in his ears and beckoned him to use his muscles to smash and punch and kill.

Matisse wet his pants. He fumbled for his gun as Tequila advanced. Drawing it from the holster, he barely had time to aim before it was abruptly kicked away, sailing across the room.

Tequila, supercharged with anger, hit Matisse with such a devastating right-cross that he broke the big man’s jaw. He followed it up with rapid, rib-crushing hits to the body, working the killer like a heavy punching bag, driving him back against the wall and pinning him there with his flying fists.

Matisse couldn’t defend himself. It was as if Tequila had five hands. And the man didn’t tire, he just kept hitting and hitting and hitting.

When the tenth rib snapped, Matisse stopped trying to cover up and instead embraced Tequila with his powerful arms.

Tequila was crazed, and that scared the shit out of Matisse. But he was also half of Matisse’s size, and if the bodybuilder had any sort of chance, it would be by using his strength and his weight.

Tequila struggled like a mad bull, but Matisse had spent thousands of hours in the gym, plus thousands of dollars on muscle enhancers. He got a good grip on Tequila and squeezed like hell, even though his broken ribs cried out in agony.

Tequila felt himself lifted off the ground. He was being crushed. The smaller man struggled and squirmed and kicked, but Matisse had a death hold on him.

Tequila’s left shoulder popped out of its socket, and his mind registered the fact but he felt no pain. The hate in him was all encompassing, and didn’t let any pain in.

Air, however, was another matter. Tequila was being so strongly constricted that he couldn’t take a breath. Matisse’s arms were stronger than Tequila’s diaphragm, and Tequila was slowly suffocating. He kicked and twisted but Matisse still held him, and planned to until the tiny dangerous man was dead.

Tequila tried to butt his head against Matisse’s chin but Matisse held his face away. Stars began to float around in Tequila’s vision. He tried to blink them back, and his head filled with the image of Sally, the bloody gore dripping grotesquely from her mouth.

Tequila turned his head and sunk his teeth deep into Matisse’s biceps. He bit as hard as he could, feeling his mouth well up with metallic blood, and then stringy muscle.

Matisse howled like a hurt puppy and tried to push Tequila away. He did, but Tequila took a chunk of Matisse’s arm with him. He spit it out at the big man’s feet and it lay between them like a skinned mouse.

The color drained from Matisse’s face. He stared numbly at the large lump of flesh on the carpet, and then looked at the wound gushing blood between his fingers. The pain was amazing. A hundred times worse than a charley horse. His arm twitched spasmodically as his tendons contracted and pulled at the surrounding muscle tissue, unaware that the muscle was missing.

Tequila grinned at Matisse. His grin showed bloody teeth, and his eyes were so evil that Matisse swore he was staring at the face of the devil.

The devil spun around and reverse-kicked him in the head, sending him sprawling over a couch.

Matisse was face-down on the floor and trying desperately to crawl away when Tequila kicked him in his broken jaw, crunching his teeth together and cracking several. The big man twitched on the floor, and Tequila leapt up over him and came down knee-first on the back of Matisse’s neck, snapping it like Matisse had snapped Sally’s.

He knelt there on top of Matisse for almost a minute, breath ragged, blood dripping from his lips. Finally he noticed the pain in his shoulder. He glanced at it, judged it to be dislocated.

Tequila got off of Matisse’s body and sat on the couch, feeling oddly detached from reality. Holding his wrist tightly between his knees, Tequila jerked his body backwards, trying to snap the arm back into the shoulder socket.

The shock of pain made him scream, but the arm popped back in. Suddenly, almost like being immersed in water, Tequila felt fatigue envelope him. He was tired. So very tired. He needed rest, and to get somewhere safe. He had to rest if he was to do what he wanted to do.

Moments earlier, Tequila had experienced his first real emotion in decades. With that emotion came a passionate goal.

He was going to kill everyone associated with his sister’s murder.

First Slake. Then Marty. Then Marty’s men. And then he was going to find out who started it all. He was going to find out who stole Marty’s Super Bowl money. And he would kill them too.

Tequila got off the couch and went to his bedroom, careful not to look at Sally. He didn’t see the point of funerals, or burying the dead. Whatever had made Sally special to him had left her body when she died, and he didn’t regard the empty shell on the floor as his sister so he felt no need to venerate it. But that didn’t stop it from being heart-wrenching to look at.