Hollywood Dead. Richard Kadrey

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      I spin around to find the other door shooter with his pistol a few inches from my face. I move my head just as he fires. My ear goes deaf, but I get my hands around him so when he tries to fire at me, he ends up spraying the back of the van. The moment he stops shooting, I roll, pull his arm across me, and break it. His pistol falls and slides away. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the goon who was sitting on my right try to get a shot at me. I can’t reach the fallen gun, but the shooter I wrapped around myself has a knife in his belt. I pull it and use him as a battering ram, stunning him and pinning the other shooter against the wall. He tries sneaking an arm around his pal to get a shot at me. I grab the hand. Lean in and jam the knife into his throat, twisting the blade. When I pull it out, arterial spray jets onto the wall and he twitches like a dying bug. My human shield has been working on my back and sides with his one good fist and elbow. I slit his throat and push him at the other shooter on my left. But he’s flat on his back with a bullet in his head. Someone got lucky. Hope it was me.

      I grab the pistol that slid into the back of the van. Dive on the floor as the passenger up front fires at me. One of his shots grazes my side and I empty the pistol into the back of his seat. When he falls, he bounces off the dashboard and lands on the driver. The van swerves and slam into something. In the back it’s a water park of blood. The crash sends me Jet Skiing up front. I crash into the passenger seat as the van comes to a stop.

      The airbag explodes in the driver’s face, knocking his head back. I hurt like I just climbed out of a cement mixer, and the shot that grazed my side burns like hell. But I don’t have time to whine right now.

      I slap the driver until he wakes up. When he sees me, he lurches back against the door. I let him get a good look at the bloody mess in the back before putting the knife to his throat.

      “Take me to the warehouse.”

      The van is resting against a stop sign on a service road. He doesn’t say a word but hits the ignition. The engine grinds. I press the knife harder.

      “You better hope it starts or I’m going to carve off your face and make you eat it.”

      He tries it a couple more times before the engine catches and holds. In a few seconds, we’ve turned around and are running back the way we came.

      While he drives I take the pistol from his shoulder holster and put it in my waistband. The rifles are tangled up in the meat market in the rear of the van and it takes a few seconds to pull one free. I check it to make sure it’s loaded, then jam it into the back of the driver’s head.

      “How much farther?”

      He points with his free hand.

      “Around that corner up ahead.”

      “Don’t go all the way to the warehouse. Stop where I tell you.”

      When we’re about thirty yards from the warehouse driveway I tell him to pull over.

      I move around the seat and put the rifle in his face.

      “Did you shoot the limo driver?”

      He shakes his head. Hooks a thumb at the mess in back.

      “It was Bill.”

      “Bill a friend of yours?”

      He shakes his head again. “No. He was a real asshole.”

      “When we run into each other in Hell, tell me how it feels to die for an asshole.”

      I pull the trigger once and toss him in the back with the others.

      As I step out of the van, blood flows out the door in a mini-waterfall—think an elevator–in–The Shining level of blood. I look at myself in the van’s side mirror. In my bloody suit, I look like the maître d’ at a Texas Chainsaw cookout. My shoes squish with each step as I limp to the warehouse. For a second I think about going back to the van and digging around for someone’s cigarettes, but they’re probably as soaked through as my suit.

      At the end of the driveway I hunker down, trying to stay out of sight of any security cameras. Every part of me hurts. If I could be anywhere else right now, my first choice would be in bed with Candy. My second choice would be in the closest ER that has hot tubs in the rooms. They have those, right? Hot-tub hospitals? I should Google that. I might just have a million-dollar idea. Maybe Sandoval will back me if I don’t kill her. Scratch that. I’d rather shoot her and Sinclair. I’m just not gentry material and killing them sounds like more fun than a mansion.

      I’m still mourning my hot-tub millions when the warehouse door slides open and a Mercedes coupe drives out. I can’t see who’s behind the wheel, but the car has to slow when it reaches the gravel at the end of the driveway. That’s when I step in front of it and open up with the rifle.

      I blast a few rounds through the windshield—but only on the passenger side. I have a feeling whoever was interrogating me isn’t the chauffeur type. Closing on the Mercedes, I spray more rounds into the side windows, keeping the driver off balance until I can get there.

      I’m at the driver’s door when the rifle goes dry. I ditch it and smash the window with the butt of the pistol. There’s a woman inside with her hand in her coat.

      I put my gun to her head.

      “Take out your hand slowly and put them both on the steering wheel.”

      She does what I say. She has short blond hair and even sitting down, I can tell she’s built long, just like my interrogator. Plus my briefcase is sitting on the seat next to her.

      I say, “Pop the trunk and get out of the car. Slow and easy.”

      I hear the trunk unlock and pull the door open for her. She gets out and looks me over.

      “I don’t suppose any of my men are still alive?” she says.

      “We can go look. They’re just down the road. Pieces of them, anyway.”

      “I’ll pass.”

      When I frisk her I find a very nice Glock 17 in her jacket and a punch dagger in her pocket. I keep the pistol and knife and toss her phone into the weeds. She smiles at me.

      “You had a perfect opportunity to cop a feel and you didn’t do it. What a gentleman.”

      “If I put a couple of rounds through your knees would it change your opinion?”

      “See?” she says. “You asked before doing it. You weren’t an altar boy, but I bet you were a Boy Scout.”

      “Troop Six-Six-Six in Hell. You should have seen our jamborees.”

      She nods toward the trunk.

      “I’m supposed to get in there?”

      “That’s the idea.”

      “I guess a bribe isn’t in the cards.”

      “Unless you have a pair of men’s shoes not full of blood, there’s nothing you have that interests me.”

      She starts for the rear of the car. As she steps into the trunk she says, “You ruined СКАЧАТЬ