Nope.
Chan’s forearm swung up like a hatchet right into O’Hara’s square face. The only sound O’Hara made was the crack of his jawbone breaking. He sunk like wet tissue paper and made some more noise when his thick head smacked the sidewalk.
I bent down and looked around his head. I grabbed one of O’Hara’s big ears and lifted his head, looked under it. Then I let go of his ear. His head thumped, like the sound of kissing bowling balls.
I looked up at Chan. “You’re in trouble now, boy. See that? You done went and cracked a city sidewalk.”
“What’s up, Clyde?”
I frowned at Chan as I picked up the shotgun O’Hara had been carrying. I tossed it to Chan. He snatched it out of the air as if it were a toothpick.
“That the funniest greeting you could think up?” I said to his grinning face.
Now I held a shotgun and so did Chan. Two guys standing on Vickery Street carrying shotguns, less than a mile from downtown Fort Worth. One man draped unconscious on the sidewalk. A little after ten in the morning. Yeah, we got a few looks from passing motorists as they sped by.
The building we were standing in front of was a warehouse that looked a hundred years old. The bricks were so faded it was hard to tell if they were originally red, pink, or white.
Chan bent over and grabbed O’Hara’s collar. He dragged him over to a door and propped him against it. By looking at the hinges I could see the door opened out. Chan had blocked the way of out of this side of the building. And the way in, too.
“I guess we’re not going in this way, huh?”
Chan just gave me a ‘oh-really’ look.
“Who was that guy?” Chan asked as we walked around to the alley-side of the warehouse. The alley was a pocked gravel drive. Our feet made puffs of dust as we walked.
“Don’t you know the man, you hired him?”
“Well, I didn’t want to admit it.” He paused a beat for his explanation. “See, he’d been hanging around the office the past two weeks. I knew he was a soldier-of-fortune type, but he kept telling everyone how he’d heard what a hot-shot I was, and how he wanted to really work for me and all that kind of stuff. I like being flattered.”
“I guess it depends on who’s doing the flattering.”
“Yeah,” Chan admitted. “Now you tell me.”
We stopped in front of a padlocked door. Chan dipped a hand into his breast pocket and pulled out a key. The long skinny kind with a twisted end that opens most any simple lock. He was holding his shotgun over his left shoulder like a good ‘ol boy out duck hunting. Even with just one free hand he had the lock open inside a minute. He slowly opened the door.
In a whisper he said, “Ready or not…?”
I rolled my eyeballs and then followed him in.
It was cool inside, which was a relief. Of course, a dog’s shadow would’ve been a relief, too. It seemed like a big warehouse, the empty kind of big that is only an illusion. Then there was the noise. At the other end of the building there was a truck and trailer rig. Two guys were taking boxes from the truck. I assumed the boxes were the reason we were here. Retrieving them, probably.
We walked slowly and quietly towards the truck. I gripped my shotgun in both hands as if I meant business. Chan still held his casually.
“This was kind of a special call,” Chan whispered like a slow leak. “Didn’t have any of my regulars around when this old client called.” It sounded as if he were still trying to explain the last minute hiring of O’Hara.
Chan runs one of the best protection agencies in Texas, and the best in the city. I don’t work for him on a regular basis, but I was a friend, and I was in when he called. Sleeping on my desk, but in. I had been up all night working two different cases. I had another to finish after noon, too. But I had made time for Chan. Of course I let him know all this as we walked towards the truck.
He laughed aloud, causing me to jump. “Well then. Let’s get it done.”
I shhsssed, giving Chan an I-don’t-need-this look. Too late.
The two guys turned and looked at us. They looked like O’Hara’s brothers, only they were dressed like truck drivers. They wore khaki pants and plaid shirts, long sleeves rolled up past the elbows. Stocky and mean-looking. Truck drivers, yep. One of the guys pulled a pistol from his pants. Now they looked like big armed truck drivers. Uh-oh.
The guy with the pistol pointed it at us. Then he fired. I brought up my shotgun and blasted back, a little high. My ears rang and gunpowder smoke made my nose flinch.
There was a loud shriek. The guy had dropped his pistol and grabbed his face. Now he sounded more like a little boy stung by a bee.
“What are you trying to do, put the guy’s eyes out?” Chan asked as he stepped in front of me. The other truck driver was running now. His buddy was wriggling and screaming on the floor. If I hadn’t been using one of Chan’s shotguns loaded with salt, the man on the floor would never have needed another hat.
Chan didn’t use his shotgun. He pulled something from his jacket. I could tell by the lift of his shoulder that it was something heavy and aimed at the running man.
Then boom.
“For crying out loud!,” I yelled, jumping. It sounded as if Chan had fired off a cannon. My ears weren’t ringing anymore. Now I was plain deaf.
Chan turned and grinned at me, showing me his pistol. An old Dragoon Colt that pre-dated the Civil War, probably.
Back by the truck the other guy was screaming louder than his buddy. I walked over. There was a pistol on the ground by the man and I kicked it away. The poor guy was holding his leg, trying to staunch the blood spurting from a big hole above the knee. The guy would’ve had to put a fist into the hole to stop it.
The way the two truck-drivers were screaming Chan and I had to get out of the building so we could hear each other talk.
Outside I said, “What’s worse, no eyes or no leg?”
Chan shrugged his shoulders. He had put his straight face back on. Police sirens were coming at us around the corner of the alley.
“See,” he said, “I owed this guy a favor.”
“A paying favor, right?”
“Yeah, don’t worry, this is a pay job. Anyway, he had gone in early this morning and done a surprise inventory, noticed a few missing television sets. I’ve done escorting work for him. Strange guy. But he has the money.”
“Why not the cops?”
Chan grinned. “Wanted to make sure his workers would see what happens to cheaters.”
“Those two in there work for him?”
“From the description, yeah. I hope I got the right address.”
Two cop cars popped around the corner and dashed down the alley at us. The sirens died with a pathetic moan. The cars skidded to a stop, but threw a half-ton of dust into the air at us. When the cloud of dust had settled, Chan’s black suit was white, the four cops were pointing guns at us behind their car doors, and Chan was holding out a badge.
***
“What time is it?”
Chan looked at his gold Rolex. I had a watch, but I enjoyed looking at Chan’s thousand-dollar one. Mine was a Timex.
“Ten ‘til noon.”
We had been in the alley for more than an hour since we had shot the truckers. The cops had made us wait for the detectives,