Hunt felt a surge of satisfaction. They’d done it. They’d actually gone and found it. The old man wasn’t crazy after all. With all the holy smoke Abe had been blowing up Leroy’s butt, the mercenary had begun to doubt that there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But lo and behold, here it was. He held the shiny bee in the palm of his hand and studied it, captivated by its delicate design. Pretty little thing. Probably worth a fortune on account of it was so old. The thought gave him a warm glow in the pit of his stomach—like half a dozen shots of tequila.
He walked back inside and cast a furtive look around the apartment. Daniel lay huddled fast asleep under a mound of blankets on the floor. Good. No way Hunt was going to share the sleeper couch with that weirdo. He couldn’t prove it, but he had a deep suspicion the kid was batting for the other team. Probably didn’t even know it himself. Hunt chuckled and wondered what the boy’s wives thought about that. Probably nothing. Four silly gals who’d spent their whole lives shut up in that tomb of a compound. Likely too dumb to figure out anything was off with weasel face. Leroy could never understand the attraction holy rollers had with virgins. He’d take a whore who knew stuff any day of the week over ten giggling morons who were no damn good in bed.
The mercenary glanced down at the golden object in his palm once again. He slipped it into his pocket and padded barefoot to where he’d left his shoulder holster slung over a chair. He checked the clip on his pistol and attached a silencer. Pay day had finally come around.
The streetlight outside cast a yellowish glow over the lump sleeping on the floor. Easy pickings. Leroy aimed for where he guessed Daniel’s head to be. He lingered a moment, savoring the thought of finally parting ways for good. He’d be well rid of the whole lot of them with their undertaker suits and hangdog faces. He took aim, but at the last second, something stopped him from pulling the trigger. He hesitated as a new idea came flying out of nowhere and hit him smack between the eyes so hard that it gave him a headache.
Leroy lowered the gun. A troubled frown crossed his face. Generally, he avoided thinking whenever possible because it was hard work and made his skull cramp up. He preferred to shoot first and never ask questions. But this time he decided to risk burning up some grey cells over the matter. He rubbed the back of his neck distractedly as more thoughts crowded into his head. There wasn’t room for them all.
Hunt resisted these strange new notions because, in addition to disliking cogitation, he was a creature of habit. He preferred the safe, familiar routine of shooting folks and getting paid for a job well done. It was simple and straightforward, and he liked it fine the way it was. But his thoughts were rapidly haring off into uncharted territory.
“Leroy, you’re too smart for your own good.” His momma’s words jostled with the multitude that was already occupying his brain pan.
“No, ma’am, I ain’t. I’m just smart enough to make it pay.” But was he?
He ground his teeth in annoyance. He was just spoiling to shoot somebody tonight because of the way he’d been thwarted earlier in the day. He flashed back bitterly to that blond Ken doll playing hide and seek behind the boulders. He’d tried to kill Kenny once before and been interrupted, and just when he was on the point of finishing the job proper, the fool went and tripped over his own feet and slid off the side of a mountain. Leroy didn’t credit himself with an overabundance of brains, but even he wouldn’t have done something that stupid. Prancing idiot! The whole episode left him with an itchy trigger finger. He felt an urge to go back up the mountain and shoot Kenny’s corpse just for spite. Too far out of range to hit him though. Damn!
Leroy drew his attention back to the question at hand. What to do, what to do? For the moment, he put his pistol back in the holster, set the bee on the table beside it and lay down on the sleeper couch. He laced his fingers behind his head and turned the problem over some more. Ordinarily, he would have just shot his two bunk mates and taken off with the bee. Not that he had anything personal against Brother Hammy. In fact, he liked the little dung ball. The Turk had what the Frenchies called panash which meant he knew how to have a good time. It endeared him to the mercenary, but this wasn’t Brother Hammy’s lucky day. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Fortunes of war and all that. Now Daniel was a horse of a different color. Leroy would have loved to put a bullet in that pasty-faced bastard’s head just on principle. His holier-than-thou crap made Hunt like to puke. But he restrained himself. There was more at stake here.
He thought of his cowboy heroes. He’d patterned his entire life around their exploits on the silver screen. What would Ramon Navarro do in a situation like this? He scowled. Maybe that was the wrong caballero to ask. What would Eli Wallach or Lee Van Cleef do? They’d take the money and run. That’s what they’d do. After kicking the crap out of Clint Eastwood first, of course. Leroy shook the image out of his head. He didn’t think either the white hats or the black hats had an answer for him this time. Sure as shootin’, he was on his own.
He stared at the ceiling for what seemed like hours and pondered the topic some more. It all boiled down to
