Shot of Tequila (32 page)

He’d just gotten a new book through a mail order company called
Interrogation Techniques of the South Vietnamese
. Slake was anxious to try out a few things on Tequila once he had him. It was possible, according to the book, to extract any and all information from the most stubborn prisoner by simply using a hammer and a well placed pair of pliers. Slake smiled in the darkness. He’d get the money all right, and he might just keep Tequila around for a week or two, for shits and grins. There were a lot of things in that book he wanted to try, more than he could use in the few hours it would take for Tequila to give up the cash.

He shivered, partly in delight and partly because it was becoming cold in his house. Slake had shut off the heat along with everything else. He thought about playing with the breaker, seeing which switch was attached to the thermostat, but decided to stay put.

And so he waited, his mind wandering over the events of the last few days. He’d planned to rob Marty for almost six months before the event, but never in his wildest fancy did he think things would turn out this way. Tequila getting away, and stealing the money. Leman and Matisse dead. Killing Terco, and then killing Marty himself.

Slake had often fantasized about murdering his boss, but his fantasies always took place in his basement, with Marty strapped to the chair and pleading for his life. Slake had enjoyed killing that insufferable asshole, but not as much as if he could have dragged it out a little.

Well, there would be plenty of people to quench Slake’s need to hurt. In Mexico. And these would be beautiful, innocent children, not disgusting, ugly old men.

A tinkling of glass. Coming from down the hall.

Slake turned to look, his Starlight goggles illuminating the darkness with a greenish haze.

He waited, Thompson pointed at knee level, ready to cut down anything that showed itself in the hallway.

But nothing came.

More glass breaking. This time in the dining room. Slake swung the gun around in the opposite direction, wondering what the hell Tequila was doing.

Minutes passed, with nothing happening. Slake was beginning to hate this idea. Instead of feeling like a spider in a web, he was feeling like a rat in a trap. And because he could see everything so clearly, he had the absurd notion that Tequila could see as well. Slake felt exposed, out in plain sight, without room to move quickly if he needed to.

A window broke in the garage, and Slake started to sweat despite the temperature. Where the hell was Tequila? Why didn’t he show himself? What kind of game was he playing?

Silence again. The sweat crawled down Slake’s back like a prickly grasshopper. Slake looked left, then right, then left again, chewing his lower lip, hands beginning to shake.

Time slowly ticked away, falling into the past like feathers being dropped from a cliff. Every second lasted a dozen heartbeats, every minute a hundred breaths.

Then the window above the kitchen sink shattered, showering the linoleum floor with glass.

Slake couldn’t help himself. The anticipation had been too much. He fired twice in the direction of the breaking glass, cursing himself as he did. What if he’d killed Tequila? What if Tequila was lying out on the backyard lawn, bleeding to death?

He held his breath, listening, caught between going to check and staying put.

There was a groan.

Slake wasn’t sure he’d heard it, wasn’t sure it was simply his imagination, or some sound caused by the wind.

Another groan. Soft, but definitely a groan.

Slake’s fear had been realized. He’d shot the little bastard and there was a good chance he was dying.

He had to go check.

Moving cautiously, Slake got out from under the kitchen table and crawled over to the door leading into the garage. Carefully, so carefully, he opened the door in a crouching position, gun aimed at knee level.

The garage was empty.

He went in low, seeing that the door leading into the backyard had its upper pane broken. Slake was tempted to peer through it outside, but that would simply frame his head as an easy target. He gripped the knob tight and took a breath.

Then he swung it open and ran out fast…

…tripping over Tequila and falling flat onto his face.

Tequila was on him in a heartbeat, knee in the small of his back, gun to Slake’s exposed neck.

“Hi there, asshole,” Tequila whispered.

“Fuck you, Tequila,” Slake mumbled into the frozen ground.

“No Slake, that’s where you’re wrong. Fuck you.”

Tequila hit him in the temple with the butt of his gun, knocking Slake out. Then he dragged him back into the house by his feet.

Slake would die, but not by a gunshot to the head. That wasn’t fitting for the man who raped his sister.

The punishment had to fit the crime.

Tequila got to work.

T
equila found the circuit breaker in the kitchen, and after switching the power back on he went to Slake’s bedroom and took some rope out of one of his drawers.

When Slake was suitably trussed up in the living room, expertly bound to a kitchen chair, Tequila poured lighter fluid in the man’s lap and lit a match. Like most sadists, Slake was terrified of pain, and no pain matched the pain of being burned.

“You’re going to speak into the mike and answer my questions,” Tequila said, pointing to the microphone on Slake’s computer. “Or I’m going to light your little dick up like a candle. Got it?”

Slake nodded, staring at the flickering match with eyes as big as golf balls.

Tequila selected the Record option on Slake’s
Voice Generator
Program, and the computer took down everything the two men said. When Tequila was finished, he hit
Pause
and gave Slake a piece of paper to read. Unpausing, he asked, “So where is the money you stole?”

“In a safe deposit box,” Slake read. “Only I can get it out. You have to keep me alive, if you want the money.”

“I don’t want the money,” Tequila answered. “It’s Outfit money. I’m going to let them take care of you. I’m sure they’ll be more persuasive than I am.”

Tequila paused the recording again. Slake’s entire confession was on the floppy disk, including his admission to killing Marty. There was only one thing left to do, and with some simple direction from Slake, Tequila figured it out without difficulty.

Tequila played what he’d just synthesized, adding it on to the tail end of what he’d recorded.

“You bastard Tequila!” Slake’s computerized voice came from the speaker. It sounded exactly like his real voice. “I’ll kill you! I swear I’ll… uhhh… uhhhggg.”

Synthesized Slake began to pant and gurgle, and then he let out one last, droning breath and was silent.

Tequila ended the recording and then played it back, to make sure everything was saved.

Not only was it saved, but it was seamless. The real Slake and the digitized Slake sounded exactly the same.

“No one even knew you had a heart condition,” Tequila said. “But here we are, listening to you have a fatal heart attack. It’s a shame, because now you’ll never be able to tell us where the money is hidden. How could I have known?”

“You lousy shit.”

Tequila took the Demerol syringe from his pocket. He drew back the plunger, sucking in air.

“I hear an embolism is one of the worst ways to die, Slake. Painful as hell. I’m going to inject ten cubic centimeters of air into your vein. That will cause your blood to foam. Your heart isn’t equipped for pumping foam—it can only pump fluid. So the air in your veins will cause your heart to skip, and then eventually fail.”

Tequila got close to Slake, pressing his face next to the man who had ripped his life apart.

“I want you to do my one favor, Slake. I want you to scream while it’s happening. I want you to scream as loud as my sister screamed when you were raping her. Do that for me.”

Tequila hadn’t needed to ask. As he brought the syringe to Slake’s arm, the man began to wail like a fog horn.

“Hold it, Tequila!”

Tequila spun around, a .45 appearing in his hand.

Standing there in the hallway, her .38 Detective Special pointed unwaveringly at Tequila’s chest, was Jack Daniels.

“Drop the gun. The syringe too.”

Tequila did neither.

“Sorry, Jack. No can do.”

Slake looked over at Jack, his eyes pleading for help.

“He’s scum, Tequila. Not worth going to jail for. Let’s put him away, in a cell with some hardcore bodybuilding lifer who will do to him what he did to Sally.”

Tequila shook his head.

“He set me up, raped my sister, and caused her death. Plus he’s killed others. China. My doorman and his wife. He has to die, Jack.”

“In cold blood?”

“That’s the only way a reptile can die.”

Tequila holstered his .45 and turned back to face Slake. Slake howled, his entire body shaking the chair in spasms.

“Do something!” Slake yelled. “You’re a cop!”

“Drop it!” Jack screamed. “I swear, I’ll shoot you, Tequila!”

“Sorry, Jack. We all have to do what we have to do.”

Tequila jammed the needle into Slake’s arm.

Jack fired.

The bullet sailed over Tequila’s head and buried itself into a wall. A warning.

Tequila didn’t flinch.

Jack didn’t have a clear shot at Tequila’s legs with Slake in the way, and she didn’t want to try a body shot because it might kill him. The only option was overpower him. Daniels burst into a sprint and dove at the small man, aiming high.

She caught him in a clothesline across the neck and they tumbled to the floor. Jack wound up on top and hit Tequila with a serious right cross.

Tequila’s head reeled back from the punch, but he was able to get a leg up onto Jack’s chest and kick her off. The cop suddenly found herself airborne for the second time that day, and she pinwheeled her arms to try and get her feet under her. As luck would have it, Jack landed ass-first on the living room couch, bouncing back to her feet.

Tequila assumed a fighting stance, feet a shoulder-width apart and hands clenched to hit. But his face was peaceful. He felt no anger towards Jack, and didn’t want to hurt her. But Slake had to die, and Tequila wasn’t about to be stopped by Daniels or anyone else.

Jack clenched her fists as well, feeling weak, sick, and wondering why she was bothering to try and save a dickhead like Slake anyway. Slake was no better than Royce, and Jack had no problem killing Royce.

In self-defense.

This wasn’t self-defense. It was execution. Jack had to try and stop it. It was her job.

Tequila advanced, pivoting on his hips and whipping around his right leg, sending a reverse kick at Jack’s shoulder.

Daniels wasn’t a stranger to the fighting arts. Raising up an arm to block a kick was a natural motion for Jack. So was stepping into the kicker and swinging at his unprotected body.

The block surprised Tequila, but even more of a shock was the pop Daniels delivered to his ribs. Tequila staggered back, hurt by the blow, and Jack followed up the punch with an opened handed slap across the face that spun Tequila to the ground.

Daniels moved on him, taking out her handcuffs. Her shoulder began to ache—the anesthetic was wearing off.

Tequila decided that enough was enough. He kipped-up to his feet, kicked the cuffs out of Jack’s hand, and whipped his foot around again and smacked her across the face. Jack twirled, and Tequila twirled, and after they’d both made a complete turn around and were facing each other once again, Tequila repeated the kick.

The Homicide Detective went down.

Tequila moved on Slake, intending to press down the plunger on the syringe, which was sticking straight out of Slake’s shoulder like a dart.

Daniels was as dizzy as she was hurt, but she opened her eyes to the spinning room and took Terco’s .38 from her belt, her own gun having been lost in the scuffle.

Squeezing one eye shut, Jack fired twice at the space between Tequila and Slake, trying to scare the gymnast off.

Tequila didn’t scare. Jack was going to have to shoot him.

“Help me!” Slake cried.

Jack took aim on Tequila’s right leg, hoping the wound wouldn’t kill from this close a range.

Slake tried to scoot away from Tequila’s advancing form. He rocked back on the chair, pushing with his toes, becoming frantic.

Tequila was two steps away when Slake, with energy brought about by sheer terror, tipped his chair over on its side.

The side with the syringe in his arm.

He balanced there for a moment on two chair legs, realizing what was happening, eyes wide and seeking some other reality.

Then he went over, landing hard on his shoulder, an entire syringe full of air being forced into his veins before the needle snapped off from his falling weight.

Jack held her fire.

Tequila looked down on Slake as the man began to convulse. The shaking became so palsied that he twisted out of his ropes, his arms flailing around like unheld fire houses, flapping through the air at invisible bugs.

He screamed a lot.

Tequila and Jack watched as the convulsions became faster and faster until Slake’s body went rigid with one spastic jerk, breaking off the back on the wooden chair.