Guns Will Keep Us Together (10 page)

"It's probably nothing," Paris said. "We've got more important shit to worry about."

He was right. I was pretty certain the Council would take us up on eliminating out the competition.

"How many guys are in that operation?" I asked.

"No one knows." He turned and looked up at the resort. "Okay, maybe they know. It'll be tough. We'll have to work together."

Suddenly, my Ralph Lauren preppy look became the soggy, Ralph Lauren preppy look as Louis cannon-balled into the pool. Missi and Mom sat down to join us.

"He's yours, all right." Missi winked at me.

"Well, of course he is!" Mom snapped. "I never doubted it for a minute." Good old Mom— she always had my back.

"So, you guys going to come see me later for some stuff?" Missi asked with a giggle.

"You bet I will," I said. "I still have that tricked-out Chia Pet you gave Gin last year."

Monty and Jack, both 16, came flying past and dove into the pool. Monty lifted Louis and threw him through the air until he splash-landed. My son popped above the water, giggling hysterically as Jack tossed him back to Monty. They played with Louis as if he were their own brother. I got a little choked up.

"So, what's next?" Mom asked me but didn't take her eyes off Louis.

"We meet with Dela in an hour. Looks like we'll get the lowdown on the competition," Paris responded.

Mom nodded. "Great. Then I'm going to take Louis to meet Mother."

I shivered a little, in spite of the heat. "And the tests are, you know, conclusive?"

Missi rolled her eyes. "Well, duh."

 

 

 

 

 

An hour later, Paris and I found ourselves in Dela's apartment. I have to admit, I'd never been in here before. And I was a little nervous that this was where the witch hunt started against me six months ago.

"We've had our suspicions about National Resources, although your testimony confirmed it today," Dela began. "There are five assassins in the group." She handed us folders. "Each one masquerades as a professional in one industry or another. We don't have photos of them, just some basic info. You will have two weeks to hunt them down."

I opened the folder carefully. Ugh. These National Resource guys were real scum. According to the file, they took on any contract—regardless of who the Vic was. There was a vague reference to the U.S. government—but nothing concrete. A list of their hits told me that they were corporate-motivated. Like, Erin Brockovich and Karen Silkwood-type hits. I hated them already. As my blood pressure rose, I wondered if they knew who they were taking out. At least with the Bombays—we had dossiers on our hits, which were mostly terrorists, criminals and people who hired amateurs like National Resources. Apparently, they each have a tattoo on the inside of their forearm of Woody Woodpecker. Weird.

"You'll have to track them down, one by one. You can work together. Personally, I'd prefer you take them out quickly so word doesn't get out to their colleagues."

"You don't make that easy for us," I said, flipping through the pages. "The only information here seems to be the zip code where these guys were last seen." Talk about a needle in a haystack.

"Let me look at that." Paris snatched the files from me. He frowned, as he read. "I think I can figure this out. Maybe with some help from Missi."

I threw my hands up in the air. Leave it to him to find the silver lining in a cloud of sludge.

Dela nodded as if she knew what Paris was going to say that. "I'll keep in touch by cell phone, and I'll expect updates regularly. You two are lucky. Troy wanted to be the handler on this one."

I rolled my eyes. "Great. He hates me."

Dela patted my shoulder. "Don't take it personally, Dakota. He hates everyone."

We thanked Dela and left her apartment, heading for the pool bar. I got a double scotch, and Paris helped himself to a glass of beer. That was another cool perk. Free booze. How many companies with high-pressure work offer that? Of course, you wouldn't want cranky assassins when you can placate them with alcohol. Think of any of your family gatherings…Thanksgiving, Christmas, you know what I'm talking about. The booze helps.

"You really think we can do this?" I asked after downing my scotch in one swoop. "'Cuz I think we're setting ourselves up for failure."

Paris made a face. "And you used to be such an optimist."

"Well, I'm seriously considering pessimism." I poured myself another glass of scotch. "Optimism is definitely overrated."

"We have everything we need here. The zip codes will narrow things down considerably. Look here." He pointed at the zip code for somewhere in Ohio, then pointed to his laptop. I didn't even realize he'd brought the computer with us. What a geek.

"Tinker, Ohio, only has 5,000 people." He pointed to the next one. "And this one's in our own backyard. We can do it."

"How's that? Do you know how long that will take? We don't even know if these are men or women!"

"Why does that matter?" Paris cocked his head at me. "We take them out no matter what."

"I don't know about you, my friend, but I've never taken out a woman before." It's true. And it has nothing to do with scruples. I've just never been assigned a woman. In fact, I don't know if anyone in my family has. Why was that? "Huh." Paris sat back in his chair. "I haven't either. I wonder why?"

I was getting drunk. "I dunno. Women make lousy terrorists?"

"No. I think they're smarter than that. The only thing women are guilty of is promoting peace." And I could see that he meant it too.

"You've gone soft on me." I scowled. "Women can be just as evil as men."

"Oh yeah? Name the worst dictators, serial killers, and murderers. They're all men." Paris folded his arms.

I struggled to think. "What about Charlotte Corday? Squeaky Fromme? Sarah Jane Moore?"

Paris shook his head. "Those are assassins. They targeted men who they thought were screwing up the world. That doesn't count. I'm looking for women who, just because they were evil, did terrible things on their own."

My brain was getting a little fried. "Oh screw it. I'm sure they're out there."

Paris looked at me in silence for a moment. "You don't really think much of women, do you?"

Whoa! Where did that come from? "Dude. You're way off. I respect Gin and Liv."

He shook his head. "I'm not talking about family. I'm talking about women in general."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Well, for starters you only date empty-headed blondes. Secondly, you've never had a serious relationship in your life. And third, you have extreme commitment issues."

I think my draw jopped. I mean jaw dropped. Man, I was drunk. How many drinks did I have? I stared at four wavy highball glasses in front of me—all empty. "That's not true! What about Leonie?"

Paris folded his arms, the smug bastard. He only had one wavy glass in front of him. "What about Leonie? Are you trying to tell me you respect her?"

"Of course I do!" I sputtered. Paris was now wiggling in front of me like Jell-O. Or at least, that's what I thought I was seeing. If he'd just sit still I could strangle him.

Paris stood up, gathering his things. "Let's face it, Dak. You don't know what respecting a woman means." With that, he stood up and walked away.

I was pissed off. But I was too drunk to do anything about it. So, I headed up to my room. Mom was watching Louis sleep. When she saw my state of mind, she decided to stay with us. I can't blame her. I shouldn't have gotten drunk with my son here. Too late for that. I watched her curl up next to him in his bed before I passed out on mine.

I woke up at 3:30 a.m., hung over and mad about something without any idea what that was. Paris had something to do with it. I was pretty sure about that. I took off the clothes I'd been sleeping in and after brushing my teeth and checking on Louis and Mom, crawled back into bed.

"You look like hell." Missi grinned into the monitor as she buzzed me into the workshop. I didn't know the password. In all honesty, I'd never really visited my cousin here before. Paris pushed past me into the room, and I followed. I wasn't talking to him. He just didn't know that yet.

"I've felt better." I ran my fingers through my hair. "Do you know about our assignment?"

"Yeah. What can I do to help?"

Paris and I looked at each other. "Well, we were hoping you had a few ideas," Paris said finally.

She cocked her head to the right and said nothing. She was like that sometimes. Kind of kooky. Missi would just disappear inside her head for a little while, then emerge with something crazy but perfect.

The workshop was bizarre. I didn't know if she collected this weird shit or was a regular at church bazaars frequented by the mentally ill. I mean, who has a collection of B-list bobble head dolls? Erik Estrada, Charo, and Alan Alda bobbed and nodded in agreement. Yeesh. In the corner was a blast shield. This chick really liked explosives. I remember this one time when she made a toothbrush that blew up when it came into contact with molars—not front teeth or you may not get the whole head. That kind of work takes a creative thinker. Or a madwoman.

"Well," Missi finally emerged from her thought coma. "I do have a couple of things I can show you." She stood up and we followed her through rows of test tubes, headless kewpie dolls, remote-controlled lizards, and a poster with a kitten dangling from a branch that said, "Hang in There!"

She stopped in front of a table with a small, silver tube. "I did a little research and found out that one of your hits is a zookeeper."

Paris and I exchanged looks before I said, "How did you know that?"

Missi rolled her eyes at us, as if to say
Hello! Genius here!
"It's the guy in Tinker, Ohio." She tossed us a sheet of paper that did, indeed, have more info on the guy than Dela had given us.

She continued, "The zoo Vic works at has a bear exhibit. I love bears. So unpredictable."

Paris and I looked at each other again. Missi tended to get sidetracked sometimes.

"Anyway," she pulled herself out of a glazed, faraway look and continued, "like I said, bears are very unpredictable. Especially the smaller, black bears. Most people take them for granted because they are smaller and cute. But use this puppy." She lifted the tube and depressed a button. Clear liquid shot about fifty feet, hitting a stuffed bear (the taxidermied kind) in the face. It didn't look like much, but I thought I detected the strong scent of barbecue sauce.

Paris examined the glass-eyed creature. "What does it do?"

Missi rolled her eyes. "This is a highly concentrated mixture of meat essence and bear pheromones. Squirt this on the guy, and the bears will charge and tear him limb from limb. Cool huh?" She lifted the tube to her eye, "And I have it in beef, pork, and chicken flavors. The coroner will just think the zookeeper hit a ribs house hard before climbing into the bear pen."

"And we don't have to lay a finger on him. That
is
cool," Paris said as he took the tube from her.

Missi warned, "Don't let it go off here. I got some on my clothes once, and a jaguar stalked me for a week." She patted the head of a taxidermied panther. I wondered if she did the work herself.

"Great," I replied, wondering how she fought and killed the animal. "What else do you have?"

She loaded one of those shopping baskets with two tubes and four vials of the clear liquid. "Okay, this is really cool." We followed her to another part of the room.

She stopped in front of what appeared to be a collection of little porcelain Santa figurines. Is this chick wacky or what?

Missi pulled a Glock .45 with silencer out of a drawer. "This is a gun," she said.

"Wow. Never seen one of those before," I teased. Maybe she was crazier than we all thought.

Missi shook her head. "It's not the gun that's special. It's the ammo." Paris and I watched as she ejected the magazine and slid one of the rounds out. "It's made of gelatin." The bullet was clear, like plastic, with a clear shell casing that looked like glass. She handed us each a bullet. The end was rubbery and the casing was glass. Huh?

"I got the idea when I made pineapple Jell-O for the boys. I thought there had to be a way to make a bullet that would cause enough shock trauma to kill a man, but that could also be absorbed by the body so that no bullet would be found."

"Jesus, Missi!" I shouted, "That would revolutionize our industry!"

Paris, more cautious than I was—as usual—agreed, "Yes it would. But how does it work?"

"It works like a dream." Missi grinned. "Speaking of which, I had the weirdest dream last night. In it, I invented a see-through yarn and knitted a sweater out of it, then I flew to California and ate at the Brown Derby. Everyone thought I was half-naked, which of course, I wasn't…"

"Um, Missi? The ammo?" I interrupted.

"Oh yeah." She giggled as if she remembered some joke. "It operates on a similar principle as the icicle maker I did a few years back. Now, you can't really shoot bullets made of ice, because when the gunpowder ignites the gun gets hot, and you'd just have a really expensive water gun." She took a deep breath. "And I didn't want to use real Jell-O and have it melt before it entered the body. So I came up with my own mixture that will initially tear into human flesh. Once inside, when it heats up to 98.6 degrees, the bullet dissolves—like Jell-O."

"And the casing?" Paris asked as he inspected it.

Missi took the shell from him and popped it into her mouth and chewed. Before I had a moment to react, she stuck out her tongue, showing what appeared to be shards of broken glass.

"Rock candy. Like they make fake glass out of for the movies." Missi grinned and swallowed.

I picked up the pistol. "And this doesn't produce a temperature as high as 98 degrees?"

"Oh, I forgot that part." Missi laughed. "The gelatin takes a couple of minutes to dissolve. It's not in the gun long enough. And I tricked out the silencer with a little cooling system. Kind of like an air conditioner."

I looked at Paris, then turned back to her, "We'll take two and as much ammo as you have."