Shot of Tequila (33 page)

Then he was still.

Tequila went over to the computer and popped out the disk. He put it in his pocket.

Jack felt for a pulse on Slake that she knew wasn’t there. She turned to Tequila, her gun raised.

“Tequila Abernathy, you’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say—hold it!”

Tequila walked past Jack and into the kitchen. Daniels grabbed the short man by the shoulder and spun him around.

“I’ve got to take you in,” Jack said.

“Later. I’ve got one thing left to do.”

“You killed a man in front of me. I can’t cover that up. You’re under arrest.”

“You said that already.”

Tequila broke Jack’s grip and walked through the kitchen, over to the garage.

“Freeze!” Jack yelled. “Hands in the air, turn around, now! “

Tequila froze, but didn’t turn around.

“You were right,” Tequila said.

“Turn around!”

Tequila turned, his face wet with tears.

“About the hurt,” Tequila whispered. “You were right. It didn’t go away. Slake’s dead, but it didn’t go away.”

Tequila smiled sadly, a short, broken, bleeding man, looking more alone than anyone Jack had ever seen.

“And now there’s nothing left.”

“Hands on your head!” Jack commanded.

Tequila shook his head slowly and drew one of his .45s, pointing it at Daniels.

“I’m going to count to three,” Tequila said. “When I reach three, I’m going to shoot you. Shoot me first, Jack.”

“Tequila, don’t…”

“One…”

“Tequila, don’t make me…”

“Two…”

“Tequila!”

“Three!”

T
he videotape of the robbery, the gun barrels from the Dumpster, the computer disk, and the severed hand of Slake’s partner, all went into a cardboard box.

Then came the phone call.

“Put Fonti on.”

“Who shall I say is calling?”

“Tequila.”

“Hold on a minute.”

Tequila sat on Marty’s desk, waiting.

“A lot of people are looking for you,” Fonti’s low voice came on the line.

“I know. I want that to stop.”

“Are you giving yourself up?”

“No. Because I didn’t do it. A man in Marty’s employ named Hector Slake did the honors.”

“He did, did he?”

“He set me up. Had a partner with a tattoo on his hand to match mine. Used a voice synthesizer program on his computer to give himself an alibi and send me off on a wild goose chase. Then he killed his partner and tried to grind him up to feed his dogs. I saved the guy’s hand for you. I also saved the Voice Generator program, and I’ve got his entire confession recorded as well. Incidentally, he’s the one who killed Marty. If that isn’t enough to clear me, I’m also leaving you two .45s—mine, registered in my name, used to kill Billy Chico in the Binkowski Liquor Store the night I was supposed to be robbing Marty. You’ve got friends in the Department. Have Ballistics match the slugs at the scene with my guns. I couldn’t have been robbing him while I was killing Chico.”

“Assuming I believe you, where’s Slake?”

“While I was getting his confession, he had some sort of heart attack. It’s on the recording. When the cops find the body, an autopsy will back that up.”

“Where’s the money?”

“He died before he could tell me.”

“So why are you bothering me, Tequila, if you can’t bargain from a position of power?”

“I’m going to jail, Fonti. I know you can get to me in jail. I don’t want you after me, because we aren’t enemies. I didn’t do anything, other than try to stay alive. I know you’re a man of honor and respect, and you wouldn’t kill a person loyal to the Outfit. I know your men look upon you as a fair boss, which is why I’m calling. Slake’s dead, Marty’s dead, the money is gone, it’s over.”

“It isn’t over until I say it is.”

“Which is why I’m leaving you all of this, in a box in Marty’s office at
Spill
. To prove to you I’m telling the truth, and to prove to you it is over. You’ve even come out ahead in the game.”

“How do you figure? You killed Royce. He was my best man. “

“Consider it a trade. Royce, for a lucrative bookmaking enterprise, already established. Plus a dance club to boot. Marty’s gone, so they’re yours now.”

Tequila listened to the silence, knowing Fonti was thinking it over.

“Supposing everything you said is true,” Fonti finally said, “all you want is my guarantee I won’t try to kill you?”

“Yeah.”

“Something isn’t right here. I think that something is the stolen Super Bowl money.”

“Forget the money, Fonti. Forget everything.”

“That’s sounds vaguely like a threat, Tequila.”

“Look at it this way. I go to jail for a while, and when I get out I go work for you. Or you try to kill me, fail, and when I get out I wipe out you and your family.”

“You’re joking, threatening me.”

“Joking, Fonti? Ask your golden boy Royce how much I’m joking.”

Another stretch of silence. Tequila figured it could go either way. Might as well flip a coin.

“Fine,” Fonti finally agreed. “If I look at everything and decide you’re telling the truth, I’ll leave you alone. But if you’re lying, you’re dead.”

“I wouldn’t expect any less,” Tequila said, hanging up the phone.

Then he left Marty’s office, left
Spill
, and took a cab over to the
Blues Note
.

Bones noticed his entrance and segued into
Dead Shrimp Blues
. Tequila walked up to him and dropped eight hundred dollars into the bowl on the ancient black man’s piano.

He sat at his usual stool, staring at the stuffed catfish on the wall that looked like a boot.

“The usual?” The fat bartender asked him.

He shook his head. “I’m waiting for someone.”

“Guy came by the other day, asking after you. Big guy, muscles. Me and Bones played stupid.”

Probably Matisse or Terco. It didn’t matter now.

“Thanks… what’s your name?”

“LaLinda.”

“Thanks, LaLinda. All these years I’ve been coming in, I never knew you had such a pretty name.”

Tequila dug into his pocket and gave her all the cash he had left on him, almost a thousand dollars.

He didn’t see LaLainda’s eyes bug out, because he had turned to see Homicide Detective Jack Daniels walk into the bar.

Jack sat down next to Tequila while LaLinda ran to the phone to tell her husband of her recent windfall.

“You made good on your word,” Daniels said. “You said you’d be here, and here you are.”

“I always keep my word.”

“Then why didn’t you shoot me when you counted to three?”

“The same reason you didn’t shoot me, I guess.”

After that tense moment passed and neither killed the other, Tequila had walked into the garage and out the door. Jack followed, and Tequila told her he’d be at the
Blues Note
later that night, if Daniels wanted to arrest him.

And here they were.

“Technically, you never finished reading me my rights,” Tequila said. “You’d better finish, or I’ll get off on a Miranda violation.”

Daniels didn’t respond for almost a whole minute. When she finally did, her voice was pitched quietly.

“After you left Slake’s, I got to thinking. I’m sworn to uphold the law. But sometimes the law, and justice, aren’t the same thing. They should be. But they’re not. And maybe that’s not right.”

Tequila blinked. “You’re not arresting me.”

“I don’t even know you.” Jack winked. “Besides, I’m on vacation.”

“Have a pleasant vacation, Detective.”

“I will. But I do have a favor to ask.”

“Name it.”

“When you have a chance, I would like to talk to you about those dirty cops.”

Tequila dug into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. He handed it to Daniels.

“That’s everyone I know of on Marty’s payroll. I’m sure the Feds can figure out the rest.”

Jack gave the list a quick glance, recognizing the names of an alderman, a captain, the assistant super, and several cops she knew. Herb wasn’t on there, but she wasn’t surprised. That guy was naturally honest.

She tucked the paper into her back pocket and followed Tequila’s gaze. He was looking at something behind the bar.

“What the hell is that?” Jack asked.

“Catfish.”

“It looks like a boot.”

Tequila stared at it, memorizing every detail, because he knew he’d be seeing it for the last time.

Since he wasn’t being arrested, Tequila decided to leave Chicago. After all, he had money to do whatever he wanted. And Tequila knew what he wanted.

He was going to buy a lighthouse, somewhere out on some ocean. The only catfish he’d see were the ones he caught to eat. No more Outfit. No more killing. Just endless days of staring out over the infinite sea, like he did when he was young.

“This is yours.”

Jack handed Tequila the paper shopping bag she’d brought in with her. Tequila opened it and saw pictures.

All the pictures Sally had made for him, dating back to when they were children.

“Thanks,” Tequila said, feeling a knot in his throat.

“Say, what does a girl have to do to get a drink in this place?” Daniels asked. “I’ve been sitting here so long my ass is flat.”

Tequila signaled to LaLinda on the phone, and she came running over.

“Yes sir, the usual?”

Tequila shook his head. “Not today, LaLinda. Give me two fingers of whiskey.”

“Yes sir, and this is on me. Any preference today?”

“Jack Daniels,” Tequila said. “Straight up.”

“And for you, Miss?”

Jack was feeling pretty good, about herself, and the state of the world in general. And she still had another eight days vacation coming. Hell, she might even be able to work things out with her husband.

“I don’t have a choice,” said Homicide Detective Jack Daniels. She turned to Tequila and grinned. He grinned back, knowing what was coming.

“I’ll have a shot of tequila.”

T
he book you just read has never been conventionally published.

Let me backtrack a little.

In 1999 I landed a literary agent with a technothriller novel called
Origin
, about the United States government keeping Satan in an underground research facility in New Mexico.

Origin
was my seventh novel, and arguably the first I’d written that was any good. The other six never got published, though they did garner me more than 400 rejections. Apparently
Origin
wasn’t good enough either, because it was rejected by damn near every editor in New York.

Undaunted, I wrote another technothriller, blending in elements of science, mystery, and humor.
The List
, in my opinion, was better than
Origin.
Not only was it trendy, tying in closely to the work being done on the Human Genome Project, but it had more heart than its predecessor.

It didn’t sell either.

I decided my problem was mixing genres. Since there’s no
Thriller-Humor-Horror-Sci-Fi
section in bookstores, I needed to write something that fit easily within an established genre.

I chose a medical thriller, in the style of Robin Cook and Michael Palmer. No humor this time. Just a by-the-numbers, straightforward, homogenous thriller, with an everyman hero trapped in a terrible situation that quickly spirals out of control.

The book was called
Disturb.
My agent hated it, probably because it had no humor in it, and she never sent it out. So
Disturb
remains my only book that has never been rejected.

After
Disturb
, I wisely chose to put the humor back into my narratives, and wrote
Whiskey Sour in 2002
. I’ve been writing Jack Daniels thrillers ever since.

When I started having some success with the Jack books, I looked back on my earlier novels and decided to offer
Disturb
,
Origin
and
The List
, and some of my short story compilations, as free downloads on JAKonrath.com and Amazon Kindle.

The reader response took me by surprise. The books have been downloaded several thousand times each as of this writing. I’m humbled and flattered by the attention my failures have gotten, and have answered quite a bit of email about them. The question people most often ask is, “When will these be published?”