Conspiracy of Angels Read online

  Behind him, Geneva finally got the Cougar in gear. The engine roared. He turned to see the Cougar backing up toward him, little white back-up lights on. He couldn’t see Geneva, which told him she had ducked down low. Good. But he didn’t want her to get close to him. Not until he’d taken care of the sniper.

  Or the sniper had taken care of him.

  At least she was moving. That made her a harder target.

  Mitch ran around the building and peeked into the alley where the guy had come from. Empty, except for weeds, some garbage, a telephone pole.

  Mitch pulled his .45 out of his jacket. Still breathing hard, he jogged down the alley, gun aimed into the parking lot beyond it, where the sniper was. He felt light, as if gravity had somehow faded.

  The rusted blue Monte Carlo swung into view, rattled over a speed bump and came down the alley at him, tires hissing on the wet asphalt. Through the windshield, he saw a young guy with the sniper rifle in the passenger seat, mouth moving like he was talking. Saw the crazy look in the eyes of the red-bearded driver.

  Mitch planted his feet and aimed into the driver’s side of the windshield. He squeezed off shots, one after another, spreading spiderweb cracks across the glass. The gun clicked empty, the slide stuck back.

  He jammed his hand into his pocket for a reload. Nothing.

  The Monte Carlo’s engine revved up, the big ugly grille coming at him, and Mitch realized he had nowhere to go. He flattened himself against the wall of the alley, behind the telephone pole. The Monte Carlo swerved toward him as the red-bearded guy slumped over the steering wheel. It veered into the wall, skidded along it and plowed into the telephone pole. A metallic whump shook the alley. The front end of the car caved in. Pieces of the chrome grille rained past him.

  The young guy reached over and pulled the red-bearded driver back from the steering wheel. The guy’s chest was soaked with blood.

  Mitch released the slide on the .45 so it snapped closed, making it look like he still had ammo. He came around to the driver’s side and aimed at the young guy’s face. “Hand over the rifle.”

  The guy looked Mitch right in the eyes. Calm. Didn’t even glance at Mitch’s gun.

  “Hand it over!” Mitch tried the driver’s door handle. It was locked. Or jammed shut. He didn’t want to reach inside, over the dead guy. Too confined.

  The sniper narrowed his eyes. Calculating.

  Mitch put two and two together. “You’re Michael,” he realized out loud.

  Michael perked up one eyebrow. “And you’re bluffing.”

  “You wanna find out?” Mitch brought up his left hand, braced the gun. “Hand over the rifle. I’m not gonna tell you again.”

  Michael tilted his head to the side, looked at Mitch’s gun. “Cheap Colt knockoff.” Michael worked the bolt on the rifle, ejecting a brass casing. “Forty-five caliber. Only seven rounds. You might carry an extra one in the chamber. You look like that sort. But if you did, you’d have shot me by now, wouldn’t you?” He lifted the rifle up over the dead guy, brought it to his shoulder and sighted at Mitch.

  Mitch dropped the .45 and reached into the car. He grabbed the barrel of the rifle, shoving it against the inside of the windshield. Michael fought back, grunting, trying to get the gun down.

  Mitch yanked hard, breaking Michael’s grip, and then pushed back, smacking him in the face with the butt of the rifle. Michael’s head snapped back. He put a hand to his eye as Mitch pulled the rifle out of the car.

  The Cougar turned into the mouth of the alley and stopped, engine rumbling. Geneva slouched in the seat, holding her arm, blood covering her fingers. Mitch watched her face change from scared to betrayed, her mouth forming a little “O” of shock.

  Mitch turned back to Michael and noticed the butt of a pistol sticking out of the dead driver’s waistband. It was a strange black plastic grip, just like Geneva’s pulser.

  He traded looks with Michael. They both dove for the pulser. Mitch got it first and yanked it out of the car. He aimed it at Michael and pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened.

  “You have to charge it up first,” Michael said. “Like me to show you how?”

  Mitch hefted the rifle. “You get out of the car, you’re dead.” He turned and ran to the Cougar.

  Michael’s voice followed him. “You can’t run forever! If I don’t find you, they will!”

  He got to the Cougar and said to Geneva, “Move over.” She clambered into the passenger seat, holding onto her wounded arm. He put the rifle in the back seat and held up the pulser. “Present for you.” He tossed it on the floorboard and got in.

  “Are Gabe and Raph …”

  “Red-beard is dead. Other guy’s out cold. Michael’s fine.”

  “I can’t feel my arm.”

  She looked pale. Paler than usual. He felt her cool forehead, and right away he didn’t know why. What the hell was feeling her forehead going to do?

  “Relax. Keep pressure on it.” He felt around in the back seat for a rag or scrap of clothing, but it was clean. All their stuff was in the trunk. “Just use your hand. Keep pressing on it.”

  “Mitch? He’s moving.”

  Down the alley, the Monte Carlo’s door swung open. Raph’s body keeled over to the side, flopped to the ground. Michael climbed out of the car, a pistol in his hand.

  Mitch put the Cougar in reverse. “Hang on.” He spun the wheel and gunned it, backing out fast. He straightened it out and roared out onto the road. “Stay with me. Okay? Just relax.”

  “Okay.” She leaned her head back.

  “Don’t you fall asleep on me or anything.”

  “Okay.”

  Mitch weaved in and out of traffic. Where the hell had all these people come from? A little voice in the back of his head told him he needed to slow down, watch for cops. If he picked up a radar trap right now, they were both finished.

  “Mitch?”

  “Yeah?” Where could he take them? Not the hospital. If he carried her into the emergency room with a gunshot wound, he’d be in cuffs inside a minute.

  “Was it quick?”

  He glanced at her. She didn’t look scared so much as sad.

  “What?”

  “For Raph. Was it quick?”

  “Look, I didn’t have any choice. He was gonna run me over. I had to shoot. I didn’t want to.”

  A car horn blared in his left blind spot. He swore, braked to keep from rear-ending the Coors truck in front of him, swerved into the right lane and gunned it. The Coors truck disappeared behind his left shoulder, leaving an opening. They might make it, he realized. They just might. Back to the motel, patch up that wound, she’d be all right.

  “Keep pressure on that shoulder. Okay?”

  “Mitch? I’m really cold.”

  He tore his gaze off the road and looked at her. Her eyes were closed. Her hands had fallen into her lap. Blood ran freely out of the cuff of her sleeve.

  “Hey, Geneva?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Geneva!”

  NINETEEN

  Lanny stood on the street corner outside Raylene’s apartment, smoking a cigarette and wishing he were back inside. He could smell Raylene’s perfume all around him, as if she were standing right behind him, waiting to put her hands all over him. But the only thing behind him was a walkway lined with weeds and a steel door that he knew Raylene wouldn’t open. Not now. Not after he got the call and told her he had to go, do business, and she got that hurt look in her eyes. Again.

  Lanny dropped his cigarette butt onto the sidewalk, stepped on it and lit another.

  Headlights swept past him: Mercedes, Ford, Dodge. No Lincoln. Where the hell was Clean, anyway? What was he paying the man for, not to be there to drive him around? Last thing he needed was to be standing on the street corner like some trick, thinking too much.

  He should go back inside, ring the intercom and tell her he was sorry, baby, those smelly Ukrainians and their flat green could wait. Tell her that she was what
was important, not the bread. Tell her, what’s money, baby, when you got love?

  He could imagine the money in his hands. He could feel the thick wad of bills between his thumb and his fingers, the way the bills slid against each other, the way they snapped when you pulled them out. The weight of the paper. The smell of it.

  The things he could do with it. Buy out the restaurant. Fly him and Raylene to the Bahamas. Gloss her with some bling. Maybe then she’d think twice before she locked the door on him.

  The white Navigator pulled up in front of him, wide chrome wheels flashing, windows thumping with some kind of yee-haw country tune.

  What he should do with the money, he figured, was hire a driver who had some taste in music.

  Lanny got in and slammed the door. “Man, turn that noise off. You think this is Kansas? Where the hell you been, anyway?”

  “Getting laid.” Clean grinned at Lanny for a couple seconds too long before he shut off the stereo. With it gone, all that was left was the hum of the engine winding up and the green clicking of the turn signal. Clean still had his sunglasses on, even though the sun had gone down. “Where we going?”

  “See the Ukrainians. They finally got their side of the deal together. You get their truck, or you forget that too?”

  “Relax, it’s at the restaurant. So what’s your problem? Raylene put you on hold again?”

  Lanny gave him the look of death, but Clean was watching the traffic and didn’t see it, probably couldn’t see anything through those shades. Lanny blew out a long breath. “Everything was sweet, man. Perfect. Had Indian food in the living room, sitting on pillows. Couple glasses of wine. The music was on, the lights was low. About to get my freak on. You know what I’m saying? And then goddamn Kutuzov calls me up, ‘Vee huv Meester Franklins for you, yes?’”

  Clean shook his head. “See, your problem is, you spend too much time on the setup. Not enough on the delivery. Like an old Johnny Carson routine.”

  “Man, just shut and drive.” Lanny caught a whiff of something, and sniffed. It smelled like French fries. He looked around in the dark interior, sniffing again. “Man, you been eating in my whip?”

  “No.”

  “Fried chicken and fries. I can smell it. Damn, dog, how many times I got to tell you, don’t eat in my whip? Huh? When I get in, I want the pimpin’ Lincoln, not the stinkin’ Lincoln. I don’t want to be riding around smelling like no finger-lickin’, Popeye-fried-chicken-eating la-la.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Clean started to break up laughing and tried to keep talking through it. “I got … I got no idea.”

  “What is so goddamn funny?”

  “Nothing.” Clean put on a straight face. He bit his lip.

  Lanny punched him in the shoulder.

  A gray car swerved in front of the Lincoln and stopped dead in the street, blocking the lane. The Lincoln’s windshield lit up with red taillights.

  Clean slammed on the brakes, swearing, pitching them forward. They bumped the gray car. The impact jolted the Navigator.

  The moment they were stopped, two dudes in suits and ties got out of the back of the car with guns up. Lanny zoomed in on the guns, the long black tubes of the silencers. A flash of cold whipped through his body. “Clean, back it up, man, back it up back it the hell up—”

  Clean shoved the shifter into Reverse. They zoomed away from the gray car, the dudes in suits chasing after them.

  A truck horn blasted, way too close, and Lanny caught a glimpse of headlights. Then something slammed into the back of the Lincoln, hard enough to make Lanny feel like the fillings had been knocked out of his teeth. Broken glass poured through the air. The world spun past the windshield, neon signs and lights streaking past.

  Lanny saw a weird image of the whole world turning sideways and everything falling off, tumbling away into space.

  They stopped. Clean swore and bailed out the door. Lanny opened up his door and staggered out, dizzy, expecting the street to still be spinning beneath him. It wasn’t, but it felt like it.

  The Lincoln was stopped dead in the middle of the street, surrounded by broken glass. The driver’s side front corner was crushed in, the headlight a hollow silver mess. The back end was gone, completely gone, all twisted and mashed to the side, like it was made out of putty and someone had thrown it against a wall.

  A big eighteen-wheeler rumbled in the middle of the street a little ways down. Half its fender was missing, exposing the whole tire beneath a fringe of jagged fiberglass.

  “Hold it right there!”

  Lanny didn’t look to see who yelled it. He just took off after Clean, saw the man disappear around a corner and followed him.

  Clean had long legs, but Lanny was faster, and he caught up with him halfway through the back-alley parking lot. Lanny looked up at him and Clean jerked his head to the right. They ducked right down a tighter alley and came up against a Dumpster, breathing hard.

  Clean had his Desert Eagle out. “We lose ‘em?”

  “Man, you almost lost me.”

  “Who the hell was that?”

  “I don’t know. Feds?”

  Clean nodded. “Looked like Feds.”

  “Didn’t look like no Ukrainians, that’s for damn sure.”

  Bright stars of light lit up at either end of the alley, and flashlight beams found Clean’s face.

  Someone yelled, “Hold it! Don’t move! Don’t move!”

  Lanny hunkered down and squeezed behind the Dumpster. “Come on, man!” he whispered, but he knew it was too late. They’d already spotted Clean.

  Lanny got his gun out of his jacket pocket. From here, he couldn’t see anything, but damned if he was going to stand out in the open.

  Clean glared into one flashlight beam, then the other, looking more pissed off than anything. The lights washed his face out, made him look pale. Showed the stubble on his shaved head.

  “Put the weapon on the ground! Do it!”

  Clean sneered down the alley. “Says who?” Using his big pro-wrestler voice.

  “Put it down now!”

  Lanny could see him make up his mind. “Fuck it,” he said. He set down the Desert Eagle and straightened up, hands in the air. The white circles of the flashlight beams lit up his face, his chest. A red laser dot landed on his forehead.

  He sneered at them. “All right, you want to arrest me? Huh? You bunch of pansies.” Puffing his chest out as they came up to him. “Come on, cuff me. Go ahead. Come on.”

  The two guys with crew cuts didn’t move a muscle. They just kept the flashlights trained on him, and the pistols with their long silencers held out.

  “Well? Come on! Cuff me! I’m under arrest, right?”

  “Where’s your friend Lanny?”

  At the sound of his name, Lanny felt a rush of cold in his veins. He wanted to jump up and run around the other side of the Dumpster, hightail it out of there. But he couldn’t get his feet to move. He knew if he took one step, moved one muscle, they’d get him. He wanted to yell to Clean to hit the deck, and he’d come out shooting. But he’d never hit anything he’d ever shot at, not even empty bottles, and that’s why he kept Clean around. Somebody who knew how to use the heat.

  What did Clean think he was doing, standing there talking smack? He should grab his goddamn Desert Eagle and dive for cover, come back into the darkness between the flaking metal and the brick wall. Let them suckers come at them one at a time, one on one, see how long they last. There was only two of them.

  Clean grinned. “Till I get my lawyer? You bitches ain’t getting a damn word out of me.”

  The guy glanced around the alley again and then touched the radio bud in his ear. “Sir? We have the bodyguard.” He waited. “He’s not talking. Do you want him brought in?” He listened some more, and his expression turned cold. He nodded to himself. “Understood.”

  Lanny knew what was coming. Two dudes in suits with silenced pistols, the look on the one guy’s face as he signaled something to the ot
her guy. They backed up, both aiming at Clean.

  Lanny saw it coming a mile away, could practically see their fingers tightening on the trigger. They were going to kill Clean.

  A yell rose up inside Lanny, something he couldn’t control. Couldn’t stop. It was a rush of cold fire burning through his body. It sent him rocketing out from behind the Dumpster, his wordless shout filling the alley, firing his little snub-nosed pistol as he charged.

  The two guys swung around, long barrels of their silenced pistols aiming at him. Clean kicked the closer one in the knee, loudly snapping the guy’s leg the wrong way and sending him slamming into the other one just as he fired.

  The bullet plucked at Lanny’s collar, but it didn’t even register. Still yelling, Lanny charged into the guy full-tilt, taking him down hard.

  They tumbled, over and over, until the guy punched Lanny in the face. Lanny rolled free, dizzy. He lost his grip on his gun, and it skittered away into the darkness. He sat up just as the guy got up on one knee, aimed his pistol with both hands. A red laser dot dazzled Lanny’s left eye.

  Clean leaped into the air, silhouetted for a second in the light from the far end of the alley, his thick arms spread wide. He body-slammed the guy flat onto the pavement, crushing him.

  Lanny struggled to his feet. Clean pinned both of the guy’s arms behind his back. The guy’s shoulder gave with a wet pop, and he howled.

  A snap carried through the air, like a big rubber band letting go. Clean jerked as if he’d been stung. A red stain blossomed on the back of his shirt.

  Lanny froze.

  The first guy, with the broken leg, sat propped up against the alley wall, his gun still aimed at Clean.

  Grunting, Clean twisted the guy’s gun arm that he’d just dislocated, brought it around backward, his big hand engulfing the guy’s. The gun went off twice, three times, and the other guy at the far end of the alley jerked and sprawled on the ground.