“All right. Turn around. Let’s see what you look like.”
When the guy turned, Matt reached up and pulled off the pumpkin headed ski mask. He saw an average looking guy about ten years older than he and his boys – mid thirties, maybe – with dark brown hair. Nothing special. Matt shoved the mask back on the top of the guy’s head where it perched at a stupid looking angle.
“What’s your name, asshole?
“Jack.”
“Jack what?”
“O’Lantern. It’s an old Irish–”
Suddenly Cheeks was at Matt’s shoulder, brandishing the special services knife they kept in the car.
“He’s mine!” he screeched. “Lemme make his face into a permanent jack o lantern!”
“Cool it, man.”
“Look what he did to me! Look at my fuckin’ hand! And look at this!” He pointed the knife at the bloody “X” on his forehead. “Look what he did to my face! He’s mine, man!”
“You get firsts, okay? But not here, man. We’re gonna take Mr. Jack here for a ride, and then we’re all gonna get a turn with him.” He held the shotgun out to Cheeks. “Here. Trade ya.”
Matt took the heavy, slotted blade and placed the point against one of the guy’s lower eyelids. He wanted to see him squirm.
“Some knife, huh? Just like the one Rambo uses. Even cuts through bone!”
The guy winced. His tough guy act was gone. He was almost whining now.
“Wha...what are you going to do?”
“Not sure yet, Mr. Jack. But I’m sure Cheeks and me can think up a thousand ways to make you wish you’d never been born.”
The guy slid along the wall a little, pressing back like he was trying to seep into it. His right hand crept up and covered his mouth.
“You’re not gonna t torture me, are you?”
Behind him, Cheeks laughed. Matt had to smile. Yeah, this was more like it. This was going to be fun.
“Who? Us? Torture? Nah! Just a little sport. ‘Creative playtime,’ as my teachers used to call it. I’ve got this great imagination. I can think of all sorts of–”
Matt saw the guy twist his arm funny. He heard a snikt! and suddenly this tiny pistol was in the guy’s hand and the big bore of the stubby barrel was staring into his left eye from about an inch away. And the guy wasn’t whining anymore.
“Imagine this, Matt!” he said through his teeth. “You do a lousy frisk.”
Matt heard his boys crowding in behind him, heard somebody work the slide on an automatic.
“You got no way out of this,” he told the guy.
“Neither do you,” the guy said. “You want to play Rambo? Fine. You’ve got your oversized fishing knife? I’ve got this Semmerling LM 4, the world’s smallest .45. It holds five three hundred-grain hollowpoints. You know about hollowpoints, Matt? Imagine one of those going into your skull. It makes a little hole going in but then it starts to break up into thousands of tiny pieces that fan out as they go through your brain. When those pieces leave your head they’ll take most of your brain – not a heavy load in your case – and the back half of your skull with them, spraying the whole alley behind you.”
Without turning, Matt could sense his boys moving away from directly behind him.
He dropped the knife. “Okay. We call this one a draw.”
The guy grabbed the front of his shirt and dragged him deeper into the alley, to an empty doorway. Then he shoved Matt back and dove inside.
Matt didn’t have to tell the others what to do. They charged up and began blasting away into the doorway. Jerry, one of the new arrivals, stood right in front of the opening and emptied his Tec 9’s 36 round clip in one long, wild, jittery burst. He stopped and was grinning at Matt when a single shot came from inside. Jerry flew back like someone had jerked a wire. His assault pistol went flying as he spun and landed on his face. This big wet red hole gaped where the middle of his back used to be.
“Shit!” Matt said. He turned to Cheeks. “Go around the other side and make sure he doesn’t sneak out.”
Reece nudged him, making climbing motions as he pointed up at the rusty fire escape. Matt nodded and boosted him up. It creaked and groaned as Reece, his scattergun clamped under his arm, headed for the second floor like a ghost in white fringed leather. Matt hoped he got real close to the bastard before firing – close enough to make hamburger out of his head with the first shot.
Everybody waited. Even Rafe and Tony had come around enough to get their pieces out and ready. Tony was in bad shape, though. His nose was all squished in and he made weird noises when he breathed. His face looked awful, man.
They waited some more. Reece should have found him by now.
Then a shotgun boomed inside.
“Awright Reece!” Rafe shouted.
Matt listened a moment to the quiet inside. “Reece! Y’get him?”
Suddenly someone came flying out the door, dark blue jacket and jack o lantern ski mask, stumbling like he was wounded.
“Shit, it’s him!”
Matt opened up and so did everyone else. They pumped that bastard so full of holes a whole goddamn medical center couldn’t patch him up even if they got the chance. And then they kept on blasting as he fell to the rubble strewn ground and twisted and writhed and jolted with the slugs. Finally he lay still.
Cheeks came running back from the other side of the building.
“Y’get ‘im?” he said. “Y’get ‘im?”
“Got him, Cheeks!” Rafe said. “Got him good!”
Matt pointed the guy’s own .45 at him as he approached the body. No way he could be alive, but no sense in taking chances. That was when he noticed that the guy’s hands were tied behind his back. Matt suddenly had a sick feeling that he’d been had again. He pulled off the ski mask, knowing he’d see Reece’s face.
He was right. And he had a sock shoved in his mouth.
Behind Matt, Cheeks howled with rage.
*
Abe ran his fingers through the shoulder fringe of the white leather jacket.
“So, Jack. Who’s your new tailor? Now that Liberace’s gone, you’re thinking maybe of filling his sartorial niche? Or is this Elvis you’re trying to look like?”
Jack couldn’t help smiling. “Could be either. But since I don’t play piano, it’ll have to be Elvis. You can open for me, seeing as you’ve got the Jackie Mason patter down perfect. You write for him?”
“What can I say?” Abe said with an elaborate shrug. “He comes to me, I give him material.”
Jack pulled off the jacket. He’d known he’d get heat from Abe for it, but it was a little too cold out tonight for just a sweater. But he was glad Abe was still in his store. He kept much the same hours as Jack.
Jack rolled up the right sleeve of his sweater and set the little Semmerling back into the spring holster strapped to his forearm. Not the most comfortable rig, but after tonight he ranked it as one of the best investments he’d ever made.
“You had to use that tonight?”
“Yeah. Not one of my better nights.”
“Nu? You’re not going to tell me how such a beautiful and stylish leather coat fits in?”
“Sure. I’ll tell you downstairs. I need some supplies.”
“Ah! So this is a for buying visit and not just a social call. Good! I’m having a special on Claymores this week.”
Abe stepped to the front door of the Isher Sports Shop, locked it, making sure the “SORRY, WE ARE CLOSED” sign faced toward the street. Jack waited as he unlocked the heavy steel door that led to the basement. Below, light from overhead lamps gleamed off the rows and stacks of pistols, rifles, machine guns, bazookas, grenades, knives, mines, and other miscellaneous tools of destruction.