Too Wylde (16 page)

Jimmy John Wylde

Hank...oh God, Hank...

There was nothing there but a round white
scar, slit for a mouth, two holes for a nose and those eyes... that
was Hank, darker and fiercer and hurt, but it was Hank...and he
shot like Hank, locked out in Isosocles, head tilted to the right
to better line up his eye, and tracked like the turret of an
Abrams.

"Service your target, motherfucker!" the
scarred man snarled, and that was Hank...

I locked back on and emptied my magazine at
the remaining shooter, dimly seen, in the shattered wreck of a van.
I dropped my magazine and slapped another into place, scanned,
listened. So did Hank.

Sirens inbound.

Screams from somewhere inside the
building.

No movement from the van.

The tinkle of falling glass, the low rumble
and occasional hitch of the van's motor, still idling.

Hank's breathing, labored in the chest,
wheezing through the upper lungs...

"Burn scars in the lungs," Hank said. "That's
what causes it."

I stared into his eyes, the deep blue wounded
wells of his eyes.

"You gotta get outta here, Hank," I said.
"The cops are inbound...can you do it?"

An unmarked vehicle squealed to a stop. Nina
Capushek jumped out, pistol in her capable hands, while some
long-haired plain clothes guy scuttled around to the trunk and
appeared a second later with a M-4, chambered a round, then tucked
it into his shoulder socket like an appendage that had been there
all his life...

"Jimmy? Anybody hurt?" Nina called. "You and
your buddy, put your guns up. Now! Just put 'em away."

The other cop tracked on both of us.

"Tell you guy to ease up, Nina," I said.
"We're putting 'em away."

Red liquid ran from Hank's eyes. He tucked
his pistol back into a dangling MIC holster and slipped it into his
waistband.

"Officer?" Hank said. "I have medical
conditions. I need to sit down, and I need to put some drops in my
eyes. May I do so?"

Nina looked at him, and to her credit, she
was way fast on the uptake. She read the situation and him faster
than even I, who'd lived and breathed with this guy, could do.

"Sir," she said. "Please sit down. Do you
need medical assistance?"

"No," he said. "I got it."

He settled himself down gingerly on the curb,
and took out an inhaler. He took a long hit, put the inhaler away,
popped two pills, his hands shaking, and then took an eye drop
bottle out and dropped liquid into his eyes till red streams ran
down his face.

The young guy scanned the area, dropped his
carbine to a low ready, looked at Hank.

"Where'd you catch it, dude?" the young guy
said.

"The 'stan," Hank said.

"You need anything? Want some water?"

"Yeah," he said. "I'd like some water."

The young guy went back to the squad, came
back with a bottle, handed it to him.

Nina stayed behind the vehicles and covered
the van, and then the uniforms began stacking up on the street,
followed by EMS. Covered by the squads, Nina and her partner
approached the van, followed by two cautious uniformed pairs.

I sat on the curb next to Hank, who handed me
the half empty bottle of water.

"Just like old-timey times, huh?" Hank
said.

I drank some water. "Yeah. It is."

"It's a fine mess you've landed us in,
Ollie."

We both laughed.

"Guns?" I said.

"I'm a medically retired federal law
enforcement officer," Hank said. "Got me a fancy laminated card
that says so. I can carry a weapon anywhere. No worries."

"Backstop?"

"To the nines, my friend. To the nines."

"Well, then. Here we are. Is this your idea
of a near miss?"

"No. Not mine. You know better."

"So?"

He laughed, a wheezing, frightening sound. "I
know you don't believe in coincidence, Jimmy John. So let's just
say the Finger of God pointed me this way this afternoon. And we'll
just have to leave it at that."

"Thank you."

Hank turned and looked straight ahead. "You'd
have done the same for me. If you were able."

I couldn't say anything.

Dee Dee Kozak

Oh, well, fuck me silly,
Dee Dee
thought. She peeked out around the girls crowded in the front and
saw the bouncer from Moby Dick's sitting on the curb next to some
seriously fucked up guy, and two plain clothes cops, one of them
the woman that Lizzy had waved to, moving in on the van.
That is
*so* not who I want to see right now...

"Lizzy? We got to get out of here...is there
any other way out of the lot?" Dee said.

Lizzy said, "Yes. I'll ask Kai. There's a
chain on the 2d Avenue side that he can unlock and you can drive
out that way."

"Honey, if this is how you gals party, I
don't know if we can hang! Let's go!" Dee followed Lizzy with Kiki
in her wake.

Kiki Warren

Oh My God! This was too cool! In the course
of 24 hours, she'd stolen a million dollars, been in a strip club
AND seen a real gunfight...and she hadn't even really gotten warmed
up yet!

I love my life. What's next?

"What's next, boss?" she said.

Dee Dee looked at her and grinned. "I'm
thinking a quiet cocktail somewhere, how about you? What do you
like?"

"Margaritas."

"Had a lot of those, have you?"

Kiki had to blush, look down. "No."

"Hey, you girls!" someone called.

Kiki looked over and saw the most creepy
looking old Chinese man in a wheelchair, grinning at her and waving
her over. "Come here, girl! You! Come here?"

"Me? You don't want to talk to me!" Kiki
said.

"Sure! You don't need to be afraid of me!
Come here now!" the old man insisted.

Curiosity killed the cat, or the Kitten, but
it had also taken her far in her career, so Kiki stepped up to the
old Chinese man.

"What do you want?" she said.

"You want to make some money?"

"Shut up! Perv! No F-ing way!"

"Not that, stupid girl! Are you stupid? You
don't look stupid. You look very smart. Are you smart or are you
stupid?"

"I'm smart," Kiki said.

"Here," the old man said. He held up a flash
drive. "You know what this is?"

"Yes."

"You take it. You know how to e-mail?"

"What am I, retarded?"

"E-mail address on the drive. You see?"

Kiki looked at it. "Yes, I see."

"Easy job. You take this, you upload to that
e-mail address. Drive wipe itself. I give you $100."

"What is it?"

"You don't need to know."

"Hah," Kiki said. "You don't know what I need
and don't need." She tossed the flash drive back into his lap.
"Keep it."

"Okay, $500."

"No." She turned away and saw Dee glaring at
her. She looked over her shoulder at the old man, still grinning,
waving good bye to her. He called over one of the waitresses, buff
body like a weight lifter or a Crossfit queen, and started his rap
with her.

"What was that all about?" Dee said.

"Am I wearing a sign that says 'hacker' on
it?" Kiki said. "Guy wanted me to load a virus or something for
him."

"Really?"

"For real."

Dee gave the old man a hard look, then back
to Kiki. "Well, you do look like that hacker chick in the
movie."

Kiki laughed. "Cool!"

Tony Po

This is not so good
, Tony thought.
Those killers had come for him. Why else would they be here? And he
was still holding the data. He needed to get rid of it. Lance was
not an option; he would tell, and his minder would be back from the
door soon and prevent it.

So who?

The tall red-haired woman, the dancer, she
came by, holding a big bag with a rolled up pad on it. He clutched
at her for a moment.

"Beautiful girl?" he said.

She looked at him, and she was beautiful --
brilliant blue eyes and red hair, tall and lean with huge breasts
over a flat belly. She stopped and leaned over him, and the
kindness in her face took him off guard; she didn't look like a
dancer, she looked like... a goddess.

"What can I help you with?" she said.

Tony shifted gears; this was unlooked for.
"I...I need some help." He held up the flash drive. "I need this
e-mailed to the address on it, please. Right away. Or there might
be trouble."

She took it in her hand without hesitation,
smiled. "I'll do it for you. What's your name?"

"Tony."

"Okay, Tony," she said. "I'm Lizzy. I'll do
it in just a little bit."

"Thank you, Lizzy, very much." He paused.
"I'm sorry, you don't seem like a dancer."

She touched his cheek. "Oh, I'm a dancer all
right. I'll see you later..."

He watched her go, and his usual
licentiousness was held in check. "I hope so," he murmured. "Be
careful, beautiful girl..."

Mr. Smith, aka Hank

This was a fine mess. Mr. Smith hunkered into
himself, accentuating his weak and injured appearance, while police
and EMS and fire fighters bustled around, taping off the scene,
detectives tapping and pointing uniforms to work, the press
arriving along with a crowd, and he just sat and tried to think
through his next steps.

Which would require a whole lot more than a
two-step, that's for sure. He'd broken cover, procedures,
tradecraft and more than a few traffic regulations right here. It
was going to take some undoing.

Jimmy John was deep in a heated negotiation
with that woman cop. Powerful energy around that woman; her broken
nose drew his attention. Why didn't she get that fixed? Wasn't
quite the same as his issue, but in the same genre. Hers was the
easy fix.

But then, maybe she didn't want to get it
fixed. And that was a statement in and of itself, wasn't it? Women
were funny that way.

She led Jimmy over to where he sat on the
curb. "Mr. Smith?" she said.

"Yes, officer."

"This isn't the kind of thing I can just cut
you loose from. I apologize for that. But Jimmy knows you, we've
got your ID, and I can see that you have some medical things you
need to tend to. Do you need transport from EMS or can someone
drive you down there?"

"I'm fine. Really. I've got all I need in my
motel room. I've been living with this a long time."

She nodded. She never let her eyes turn from
his. "Okay. Your call. I'm going to have one of the uniforms drive
you by your motel. You take all the time you need. He'll bring you
down, and you can give your statement. Do you have a local attorney
you want to use?"

"I have an attorney, but he's not local."

"Fine, whatever you need."

"I can set up a phone link with him. Would
that be okay?"

"Sure. We have conference phones down there.
I can put you in one of those rooms for the interview."

"I'll drive him," Jimmy said.

"Rather you didn't, Jimmy," she said.
"Stretching things here. Just do it my way, 'kay?"

"I'm good, Jimmy," Mr. Smith said. "It's
fine."

"Off the record?" she said. "We should be
able to get your gun back to you pretty quick. Nobody but the
baddies hurt, and I don't think the strays hit anything but some
cars in the lot, and those might not have been yours anyway. We'll
need test fire samples, a spectograph and image of the barrel and
chamber, we'll get it back to you."

"I can still carry, right?" Smith said.

The cop tapped her toes together, grinned.
"Won't be me pulling your claws, tiger. You go right ahead. You can
back me up anytime."

And for the first time, in a very long time,
Mr. Smith felt the flush of something like true warmth wash over
him.

Nicholas Le Fronte, aka Nico

"Why'd you let him go?" Nico said. "I could
have taken him down, knocked this out."

"Respect. Something I think you'd understand,
but then, I've been known to overestimate you," Nina said.

"Fuck you, Nina. Really. Fuck you. I'm not
judging you, I'm asking you so I can figure out what your rules
are. I'm trying to play this the way you want, and you don't
exactly go out of your way to inform me, do you?"

He shook his head in disgust.

"Ease up, cowboy," Nina said. "Yours not to
question why..."

"Yeah, yeah, mine just to ride and die. I
remember that one."

"Sometimes you actually impress me."

"Fuck you."

"He's Old School, that guy. And he's a friend
of Jimmy's, and I got his ID, so he's not going anywhere. He was in
some pain and instead of tying up EMS, he can deal with it himself.
Guy like that, who handle himself like that? He won't take kindly
to anyone trying to coddle him."

"True, that," Nico said. "Caught him some
shit, that one."

"What causes those kind of burns?" Nina
said.

"Probably an IED. Caught in a troop carrier
or a helo, or just in the blast. Or a truck. I knew a driver for
KBR, got knocked out by the concussion when his truck caught on
fire after getting hit by a roadside IED, he got cooked, most of
his face looked like that."

"You'd think they'd have plastic surgery to
deal with that."

Nico looked at her nose, started to say
something, reined himself in just in time.

"When it covers that much territory, there's
only so much they can do," he said. "Hard to build, and it takes
time between surgeries to recover."

Nina stared off into space. "Yeah. All right.
Let's get back on the job we set out to do. We got bigger fish to
fry."

"You're the boss."

"Now you're learning."

Lance T

"Are you telling me those guys came for him?"
Lance said. He was squared up on the mostly silent Hmong bodyguard
slash wheelchair pusher.

The bodyguard shrugged. "Probably."