realizing she’d led him right to me, he prepared to go on the offensive. Maybe I should have let that happen, played possum, rope-a-dope. Maybe that would’ve been better than lying on my back unarmed in an aisle of scattered paintbrushes.
He must’ve been taught somewhere how to street-fight. Before I gain my bearings, he goes right for my eyes, clawing with his fingers, trying to rake my lids with his nails, and when I move my arms up to block him, he immediately switches tactics, heads south and tries to pound my groin.
With all that time in a juvey home, I’ve learned a few dirty tricks myself, and flip my hips before he can land a sapping blow. Undaunted, he leaps up and off me. The high ground is always a good position to take, so I’m expecting him to try to stomp down on me but the blows don’t come and when I look up, he’s taking off for a different aisle.
As quickly as I can, I find my feet and sprint after him. Whatever he’s going for, whatever he has stashed in this store, a hardware store for Chris’sakes, can’t be good. The hyena is making mewing noises near the front door and if any customers with cell phones decide to come shopping right now, it won’t be long until the cops are right behind them. I’m hoping the rain will keep them at bay. Who wants to look for lightbulbs and wingnuts in this shit?
I spot Flagler halfway down an aisle, and when he turns to face me, he’s two-fisting a sledgehammer, the old fashioned kind with a steel mallet attached to the end of a hickory stick. I set my feet and prepare for the inevitable rush.
Before he makes his move, though, he wants to talk.
“What do you want?”
“Whatever you took.”
This causes a genuinely puzzled look to spring to his face. “What’re you talking about?”
“Rich Bacino. You were supposed to kill him but you didn’t.”
His eyes flit now, like he’s trying to calculate my play.
“What’s it to you?”
“I think you took something from him instead. I think he either bought you off or you stole something out from under him. That’s your play, take some shit so the cops think it’s a robbery. Only this time, you took something worth a lot. And Bacino wants it back.”
“I don’t…”
“Whose skull did you steal?”
His eyes narrow. My question landed. I can see it working out in his brain: does he try to deny it or just charge me?
The latter wins out and he raises the sledgehammer like a baseball bat, rushes in and swings in an upward arc, a homerun swing, a golf swing, aiming for my head. I duck backward and the mallet catches the shelf to my right, knocking it down and only too late do I realize this was also part of his feint. He released the tool as soon as he swung it, never really intending to catch me with it, and instead bum-rushes me while I’m still spilling backward, off-balance.
This time he crouches low and drives his shoulder into my sternum, lifting me off my feet so I can gain no traction before he pile-drives me into the cement floor.
Flagler is better than I thought, a professional hit man who is strong even without a gun in his mitts. He knows how to work over a body, knows how to get his knuckles bloody, and as I absorb the blow and try to keep air in my lungs, I start to think maybe I’m going to lose this fight, maybe he’s better than I am. Maybe after all this time, it won’t be a gun that brings me down but a brawl. I lost a few steps in my layoff and a man who never left the game is knocking more than my rust off.
He’s hammering my ribs with his fists and I can’t take much more before my wind is gone and then both of us hear the rack of a gun’s chamber, my gun, and I twist my head to see the hyena, pointing the gun our way, terrified, out of her element, about to squeeze the trigger, trying to plug me while I’m on my back and compromised.
It’s the distraction I’m looking for. I buck Flagler up as the hyena closes her eyes and squeezes the trigger and the gunshot is ear-splittingly loud as it echoes off the cement floor. The bullet catches Flagler in the upper arm, sending him sprawling. An amateur firing a Glock almost always hits a spot a couple of feet above the intended target as the pistol’s kick is much stronger than anticipated.
She opens her eyes and her face blanches as she realizes what she’s done. Before she can correct her mistake, I kick her legs out from under her, take the gun right out of her hands as she tumbles on to her back, and then drive an elbow into her nose, popping it and punching her lights out a second time. That crack should keep her down for a while.
Flagler does what I would have done… he tries to scramble away. I catch him easily and drive a fist right into the wound, and as he bites on that pain, his hand comes up in a feeble attempt to cover the bullet hole. I drive a second punch into his fingers, through his fingers, and he sprawls out on the floor, submissively throwing his hands up like a white flag.
After I do a quick search to make sure he doesn’t have any blades stashed in his clothing, I move to the front door, flip the “closed” sign around and lock it. We’re going to have a longer conversation now, and I’m reluctant to share it with any new arrivals.
Flagler lives above the hardware store. It’s a bizarre front for a professional hit man. Most killers prefer to deal with the public as little as possible, but here’s this guy, welcoming them in and selling them circular saws and ceiling fans.
“My pop owned this place for forty-two years,” he offers by way of explanation. “He left it to me when he croaked and I figured what the hell, I’ll keep it open. He was a decent dude. Never did me wrong. She does more business than you’d think. Got to where I was only taking one or two contract gigs a year after I moved back. Should’ve just quit the game entirely. I definitely thought about it.”
“Who’s the drop girl? The one who shot you downstairs?” I didn’t really care, but I liked the way he was Mr. Chatty all of a sudden.
“My aunt Elaine. Elaine McCoy. I used to call her the Real McCoy because she always kept it real with me, you know? You didn’t end her, did you?”
This guy. I shake my head once. “Hogtied on aisle six.”
“The rope aisle.”
“Yep.”
He nods, “Thanks for that. She knows what I do, and she knows she’s in it, but still, it would’ve been a shame.”
“Where’s the skull?”
“You gonna shoot me after I tell you? I don’t care much, I’d just like to know if it’s coming so I can get my mind right.”
I shake my head again. If he’s relieved, he doesn’t show it. If he doesn’t believe me, he doesn’t show it either.
“There’s a floor safe under the lamp there. Combo’s 24-34-24.”
I look over in the direction he indicated. “You open the safe, fish out the skull and give it to me. Afterward, you can call whatever doctor you use and get ’im over here. I wasn’t hired to kill you, so I’m not going to do any pro bono work. I just need the skull.”
He walks stiffly over to a straight black floor lamp near a television. Using his good hand, he rolls it along its base and exposes a recessed safe before he stoops over the lock. His face is white from the bullet wound; sweat has broken through and drips off his forehead. He forces himself to concentrate as he twists the dial on the safe’s face, and then exhales when the door pops open.
I put the barrel of my pistol up against the middle of his back as he reaches inside with both hands. In movies, guns at close range are always pointed at victim’s heads, but the head is the easiest part of the body to jerk suddenly, like I did when I heard the shotgun cock downstairs. But the middle of the back? The middle of the back is damn near impossible to spin out of the way in the time it takes for a skilled gunman to squeeze a trigger.
He doesn’t flinch as he withdraws a bone-white human cranium from the safe and hands it to me.
“You gonna ask me whose skull it is?”
“I’m gonna ask you something else.”
