Gun Work

She tried to roundhouse him in the balls, something the body armor was not specifically designed to prohibit. He lunged. They rolled. She went for an eye gouge and he feinted, feeling his ear tear halfway off. Then she spotted his .40 on the floor — much closer than where her Bulldog had fallen — and made a wide, swinging grab for it in spite of his chokehold. Barney’s face went right into the valley of her perfect breasts. Her porcelain skin was trying to push its scent right into his brain.

So he bit her.

It was a grotesque parody of sex: her bucking and gasping as though she was coming her brains out, skirt hiked up past her waist, knees straddling him; him red-faced and straining, thrusting against her, his face buried in her cleavage. Barney’s teeth clamped down on soft tissue and tore free a wet, crimson mouthful which he spat out. She did not scream. She was not a screamer. The sound that burst from her was closer to a growl.

Barney’s insides felt like broken fruit. Within his chest, gears ground — something was busted in there. The rounds from the Bulldog were no joke, capable of whisking away an arm or leg at close range, and Barney had been caught at less than ten feet. Worse, Erica had manipulated the gun as though she knew what she was doing, not losing her sight picture to the recoil of the first round and plugging all four on target.

She had collected her gun at the bar and concealed it masterfully, or had it planted in the chair cushions the whole time, and yet had pinballed Barney through her idea of an inquisitor’s confessional. He was reminded of the way cats toy with still-living prey before sundering it to bloody strings and tatters and a hot spill of exposed organs.

Apparently people paid as little attention to gunshots in a ritzy hotel as they did everywhere else. Erica had waxed Tannenhauser with three neat from the Cobra and dealt Barney four from the Bulldog, no silencers. Cops had never truly existed in Barney’s world, and they did not swing in to make everything academic now. Both he and Erica had run out of allies.

They were like an ungainly, multi-limbed alien, spreading one tentacle toward one gun on the floor, then another, flopping about as though in dicey gravity. She did not waste a hand clutching her chest wound and expended her effort on keeping Barney contained as he fought to marshal his own strength.

She swung wildly, trying to punch him in the neck, but he had a crucial few inches of reach on her and her fist fell short. Her tongue was out as she labored to breathe. Unexpectedly he yanked her closer by the throat so he could slam the flat of his other hand into her forehead, right between the eyes. That rocked her badly but she persisted, still full-up with fight. Her shoes had gone flying into a lover’s discard on the floor. One was close enough to snatch up and she tried to bury the five-inch, steel-tipped heel into his fore-brain. It came down like a hammer and skidded off his temple, excavating a fresh furrow and rebounding off his ear wound. Blistering, molten pain; the right side of his head felt afire.

Barney remembered the gear-up at the Pantera Roja, when the couple had been busily (and vocally) humping in the next room. If there were any neighbors up here on the suite floor, through the walls it probably sounded like more people making big sweaty whoopee. It’s what hotels were for: Anonymity behind numbered doors and privacy locks.

So people could kill each other in secret.

Past the green fury in her eyes was a darker taunt: Why don’t you just fuck me and get it over with?

Barney’s grip suddenly went on vacation, as though his battery for hand-strength had just petered out. Blood was leaking in rivulets down his arm, from under the glove. His traitorous hand released her and she sprawled back, gasping.

He rolled and grabbed the fallen Bulldog with his left hand just as she collected his SIG from the floor.

“Whoops.” She said it around a snarl. She pointed the gun at Barney’s head and cycled the trigger through a full double-action pull.

Click, nothing.

The ammo in Barney’s magazine had indeed come from Armand’s dies, but that magazine was in his pocket. Ever since the elevator he had been packing an empty gun. He had known what he was walking into, and had expected to be disarmed on arrival. For the first time, he had not relied upon his own weapon but counted on opportunities in the room as they would reveal themselves — something he had learned in Mexico. He had begun thinking like her, prepared to morph the plan in unexpected ways, since moving in expected ways was what had gotten Sirius and Armand killed.