“Sam said you damn near set the house on fire.”
“That’s a lie. I was trying to cook-”
“She told you she
“I just thought-”
“She said you were drunk.”
The mask dissolved. She turned away. “I’m not listening to-”
The husband lurched forward, grabbed her arm. “Don’t you turn your back on me.”
Lourdes, suddenly light-headed, reached out for the nearest chair at the same moment her phone rang again- only then did she realize it was still in her hand-the sound startling her so badly she nearly dropped it.
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The phone went dead. In a daze she backed toward the door. She swallowed another clot of air then called out, or thought she called out, that she would come back some other time to look for her watch.
HAPPY FLIPPED HIS CELL PHONE CLOSED AND TURNED TO THE OTHERS.
He considered calling it off, but till when-tomorrow? Next week? Lourdes couldn’t handle it, they couldn’t handle her, she’d bolt, she’d crumble, she’d beg them nonstop, crazy, infuriating: Let me go… And her girls, they’d call the law, all that.
He met the others on the street. “Change in plans. This guy Chuck, he’s in the house, so is one of the kids. The girl. We gotta take them down all at once, not one at a time. It’s gonna be okay. Look, everybody but Godo, you go to the same positions we practiced. Efraim, you got the upstairs bedrooms, you take the girl, make sure she don’t call 911. Godo, you look for this Chuck guy, you handle him, right?” His words met stares, each one with its own distinctive fear or surprise or numb resolve. “Okay then. Be smart, stay sharp.”
As they reached the porch they pulled down their balaclavas, dragged the weapons out of the duffel bags, slammed the magazines home, flipped off the safeties. Happy gave the ready signal just as Lourdes opened the door and backed out, saying, “I call before I come back…”
FOR THE PAST HOUR, CROUCHED IN THE BACK OF THE TRUCK, GODO HAD tried to convince himself there was a right way to do this thing, reminding himself this wasn’t Joe Citizen they were taking down but filth, one of
As the front door swung open, he rushed in at the lead, using the AK to track the space left to right, ground floor to the stair, feeling the eerie deja vu he’d expected but luckily not haunted by it, the ghosts present but silent-Gunny Benedict, Salgado, Mobley, the Iraqi family in the Cressida-as though he were split in two, the old Godo, the guy standing here. Then he spotted him, the contractor, Chuck, frozen in place, halfway up the stairs, gripping his wife’s dress with one hand, the other clenched into a fist. He stood there fright-eyed, hunched over the woman, then survival kicked in, he dropped her like a bag of sand and charged up the stairs but Godo was already closing, adrenalin purging all weakness from his bum leg as he moved to contact, taking the steps two at a time, forging past the wife who covered her head and rolled out of his way to keep from being trampled.
The contractor reached the first doorway, the master bedroom, before Godo gun-butted him from behind, knocked him to his knees. He heard Efraim in the hall behind him, running to the other bedrooms to secure them, take care of the girl, while downstairs Happy hooked his arm around Lourdes’s throat, shouting, “Stay calm! Nobody gets hurt, you do as you’re told.”
Chuck the contractor scrambled to his knees, wobbly but clawing at his pant cuff. Godo moved in, planting his foot down hard on the man’s calf, feeling the ankle rig beneath his boot. “Leave it!” He prodded with the tip of the AK’s barrel, a poke in the small of the other man’s back, then reached down, felt for the holster, unhitched the strap, pulled the chrome-plated.25 free and shoved it into the pocket of his coveralls.
“Take us down to the safe, open it up.”
Chuck tried to drag his leg out from under Godo’s weight. “What are you talking about? There is no safe.”
Godo studied his face. It was him, he thought, the guy in the back, passenger side, the Blazer at the checkpoint. Him or someone just like him. Applying a little more pressure on the leg, he said, “Don’t be stupid.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “I know who you are.”
Godo’s mouth went dry. Knows me how, People’s Fried Chicken or the checkpoint? Maybe it was the weapon, the AK, he’d sold it to Puchi after all. Lifting his boot, “Get up.”
“Or what, you’re going to kill me? Then what, genius?”
Godo made an instant read and figured two things: One, threatening the wife would go nowhere, the guy was thumping her when they busted in, he could care less. Christ, might even be grateful. Two, that left the girl or Thumper here himself and he wasn’t gonna be impressed with mere displays, it was gonna take pain, which meant a change in the ROE. Nobody Gets Hurt had to downgrade to Nobody Gets Hurt Too Bad.
He took out the.25 and fired into the man’s calf. The burned tang of cordite, a strangled scream, floret of blood on the trouser leg.
Godo shouted down to Happy, “It’s okay. It’s me.” Then, turning back, a soft voice: “Infield hit, Chuckles. Man on base.”
Face white with pain, that sour breath, the guy hissed, “You’re dead, I fucking swear.”
Godo fired a second round, the right bicep this time. Another gargled scream. More blood, not too much. “Sacrifice bunt, perfect execution, third-base line. Runner on first advances. We have a man in scoring position.” His face beneath the balaclava itched, damp with sweat. Somebody on the stair struggled with the wife, the screech of duct tape. “The safe downstairs, shit dick, or the girl’s next.”
“I told you-”
Greedy selfish motherfucker, Godo thought. “Bring me the girl!”
“You punk fuck.”
“The girl! Now!”
Godo felt good, in the hunt, balls in a swing, spine like a sparkler. It was Fourth of July. Proof through the night. He was alive. Then he remembered: He knows me. Which tracks back to Puchi, to Chato, to Vasco.
Efraim dragged the girl into the doorway, flannel PJs, blue socks, her hands bound behind her back with the thick silver tape, another strip spooled around her head, pinning her hair against her head, gagging her. It made her eyes pop. She was waifish like the mother and crying.
Godo grabbed her arm, jerked her close, staring down at her father. “Daddy wants you to know, whatever’s down there in that safe of his? It’s, like, way more important than you.” Chuck tried to wet his lips, tongue clicking. “Sammi?”
“You, he don’t give a shit about. He’s handed you up to me.” Godo pushed her down so she couldn’t avoid her old man’s blood, then thumbed back the hammer on the.25. “Man on second, Pops, nobody out. Fly ball, deep center, throw to the plate.” He pressed the barrel to the sobbing girl’s head. “You make the call.”
EFRAIM REMAINED UPSTAIRS WITH THE WOMEN, LOURDES AND THE wife, with Chato on the back door, Puchi the front. Couldn’t leave Chato alone with two bound and gagged women, no matter how homely they were, not without a tacit green light to use his dick for a DNA dispenser. Happy and Godo dragged Chuck downstairs, a couple makeshift bandages for his wounds, and they brought the daughter with them, eyes puffy and red, face slick with tears and gouts of snot.
The cellar room conjured bunker, not sanctuary, low-end paneling with a fake pine veneer, an oval braided rug, an office-salvage desk. Nice array of guns, though, the ones racked on the walls all legal, shotguns mostly, a civilian-issue AR-15, a Korean War vintage M1, a Winchester.30-30 deer rifle with a 3-9 scope. The pistols were
