screamed, fell. Bucks charged past a wall of boxes and gave out a bloodcurdling yell. More gunfire erupted to Whit’s right, from two different guns. A moment of quiet. Then bullets shot by his head and Whit dove down, skidding on the concrete floor, crabbing for cover behind a set of crates near the door, Spanish scrawled along their sides. Bullets ripping into the wood.
He heard his mother scream his name.
46
‘Whit!’ Eve screamed. ‘Get out!’
Whit stayed down on the floor, his gun close to his head. She must have seen him come through the door; he hadn’t seen her. He heard sobbing. Then he heard a soft cussing. Bucks, in pain, angrily moaning.
But no more shooting. Over in thirty seconds that felt like thirty hours. He closed his eyes, forced himself to breathe quietly.
‘Whit,’ a voice called. Jose Peron’s. ‘Come out now. Or I shoot her.’
‘He’ll shoot me anyway,’ Eve said. Her voice calmer now, ordering him. ‘Get out!’
Whit risked a look past the crating. The warehouse space was huge, but most of the shooting had taken place in an open area within thirty feet of the door. Wooden crates stood stacked, haphazardly, and Jose and his group had quickly retreated behind the boxes. A forklift sat idle in a corner. A small space had been cleared behind a tower of boxes, and worn chairs and a desk were grouped there.
Heavy lay in a heap by a desk, half his face gone, two men Whit had not seen before dead near him, heads and chests bloodied messes. Heavy had kept shooting after he went down, probably taking the two men with him, and the concrete floor was scarred and chipped with bullet hits. Whit could not see Trevor, but Trevor wasn’t shooting and he hoped the man had found cover. Tasha Strong stood over Bucks, a gun locked at his temple, relieving him of his pistol. Bucks bled from a leg wound, had his palms open in surrender. And Jose stood, looking to Whit’s right, listening like a wolf for the scrabble of the rabbit in the grass.
Whit aimed at Jose, who didn’t see him but stepped behind the forklift. No clear shot. Whit ducked back behind the crate.
‘I’m counting to three, then I’m shooting your mother if you don’t come out, toss the gun out, arms up,’ Jose said. ‘One. Two.’ Counting fast.
‘I’m counting to three,’ Whit shouted, ‘and if you don’t release Bucks and my mother, I’m calling the rest of our team outside and telling them to start your office fire for you.’
‘Excellence!’ Bucks yelled, then groaned. ‘That’s real excellence!’
‘Shut up,’ Tasha said. ‘Shut your ever-running mouth.’
‘Where’s my movie?’ Bucks said. ‘Jose, you bastard…’ A shot rang out and Bucks shut up.
‘Do you not know what be quiet means?’ Tasha said.
But Jose had stopped his countdown. ‘Let’s all be cool. Where’s the money, Whit?’ he called. ‘You tell me and I’ll let you and your mother go.’
Whit said nothing. He thinks we still have the money. But that’s crazy, he has it. No, clearly he didn’t, and the realization froze Whit’s blood.
Frank, running from the fence once Bucks changed the plans. Frank being more than a coward. Maybe Frank hadn’t gotten any tip from the street; maybe Frank cut a deal with Jose to deliver Whit and Bucks. He could hear Frank’s voice, smooth, into a phone: Yeah, say you know about Montana, that’ll prove to him you really have his mom. Jose wanted Eve to help him, get the rest of the Bellini money for them, and she wouldn’t do it. So give them Whit because Eve would help them if they had a gun to his head, give them Bucks to tidy up the last of the loose ends, and Frank was set. That’s why he objected to the extra men Bucks brought. Frank thought tonight would be a walk-in and exchange for all intents and purposes, some separate deal cut between him and Jose.
Whit had thought Jose knew about Montana because he killed Harry. But whoever killed Harry could have coached Jose. Frank never knew about Montana until he saw Harry Chyme’s notes.
Frank’s left us with guns pointing at each other’s throats while he has the money.
Whit eased back from the crates. The stack stood five feet high, next to a long wall of shelving, and he abandoned his original position, ducked down, tried to move silently under the shelving, his pistol in front of him.
‘Whit!’ Eve yelled.
‘You. Shut it down,’ Tasha said. A hard slap. ‘Scout,’ Tasha called. The little nickname she’d given him back at the club, a thousand years ago. ‘Come on now. Make it easy on her and you, okay?’
Then silence.
Whit knew that in the sudden quiet, Jose was hunting him. Moving into the maze of crates, not waiting for him to show himself. He moved further back along the wall, heading south, and in a bit of open space he spotted Trevor. Dead on the floor, eyes glassed, a puddle of brainy gunk underneath his head. He’d come around in a swath through the boxes, caught the two guys shooting at Heavy, killing them, before catching a head shot.
An assault rifle lay by his side.
Whit inched over, knowing he was putting himself into the open. But he didn’t see Tasha, didn’t see Jose. He carefully picked up the rifle, pulled it close to him, crabbed back behind a crate. It was wicked, an AR-15 he guessed, the kind popular in law enforcement and the military, a sixteen-inch barrel. Maybe thirty rounds in a magazine, he thought Claudia had told him once. No idea how many Trevor had used, the rifle could be empty. He checked the selector lever; it was set on auto.
Near him was a set of metal stairs that led to a catwalk that cut straight over the warehouse space. At the level of the catwalk an array of fluorescent lights, dimmed but active, gleamed.
Climb up there and he would be a dove in the sky, an easy target. But he was getting backed into a corner. He could dash across the remaining open space of the warehouse that he could reach, pray they couldn’t see him in time… and then what?
He heard footsteps. A soft tread. Coming his way.
In the dim light he backed into the stairway, trying not to clang the rifle barrel against the steel. Looking back he spotted red metal behind him, beyond the stairs. More canisters of gasoline, stacked near another set of crates. Weird, why gas where they had their drugs? Why weren’t they getting the cocaine out of here and onto the street as fast as they could? Perhaps the coke was gone. But no, these were the pottery crates that Kiko had smuggled the goods in. Eve had said the dope was in pottery. But hardly a crate opened, the drugs staying put.
Tasha and Jose didn’t want to deal the cocaine. They were going to burn it. Hence the gasoline and flammables in the front office.
Or he could. They were going to kill him and Eve. He could not hide longer than perhaps another two minutes.
He made his choice. He was going to kill people now, including himself, and he fought down the sharp throb of fear and regret in his chest. Because there was no other route, no other way. At the least Jose wouldn’t get away.
Whit closed his eyes, thought of his father, his brothers, Claudia, Gooch. Eve. Said his good-byes.
He opened a canister, gently tipped it over, let the fuel glug out onto the floor.
‘Whit. Come out, now.’ Twenty feet away from him. ‘You give us the money, we’ll let you go. We’re really not the bad guys here.’
Whit upended another container of gasoline, then a third and a fourth, scurried back from the spreading puddle. The smell rose like swamp gas; Jose had to know what he was doing. He backed up into stairs that led to the catwalk that crossed the space. Looked up, saw the fluorescents, still dimmed.
‘We’re not the bad guys,’ Jose repeated. ‘We’re doing good. We’re all about stopping the drug dealing, man.’
Whit stopped, counted the lights, wondered how much they would spark. Either from the electricity being shorted or bullets hitting metal.
Jose’s voice drew closer. ‘We call ourselves Public Service, Whit. We rid the world of this scourge of drugs. Your mother’s joined us. Willingly. Isn’t that right, Eve? She’s nodding, Whit. We could use a resourceful guy like you
