Ebb Tide Ch. 03

"I'm having an early lunch with friends," she replied. "Unlike you, I have a social life."

Whoa Nelly. Why was Reagan getting pissy? Why did Reagan have the impression Jo wouldn't flip and end her life ... and mine and G's and Dabney's?

"Chill, Reagan," I intervened. "This is an ugly fu..." damn kids, "fuggly situation. This is four coincidences too many for me in one week." Hell, three was enemy action.

"Hello Reagan," G spoke up. Dabney remained silent. I got the feeling she was under the misconception I wouldn't keep Reagan at bay if the shit got bad. Of course G and Reagan knew each other. Back in the day, she hung out with Ford, her stepson, and me. Dabney's relationship with Reagan was a more recent situation.

In hindsight, when Reagan had spared Dabney's life a year ago, she hadn't made my life any easier. But it was good sex, plus a feeling of belonging I hadn't had since I was a teen. I stood up so Reagan could slide in, leaving me the immediate exit if needed.

"Hello Ms. Norquist," Reagan was downright disrespectful. She slid in so I could resume my seat.

"Dabney, Vance tells me you are behaving yourself," Reagan turned her mob boss persona on my younger lover. She wanted to remind Dabney who had the power at our table.

"So, you wanted to see me," I began. "I want..."

"Let's not discuss business now," Reagan interrupted. That could only mean ...

"Oh shit," I mumbled.

"I heard that," Leigh giggled. At that point a lesser man would have banged his head against the table in frustration and maligned the very nature of the universe until he was unconscious, or babbling like a madman. Me and my fucked up existence.

"Who is she with?" I looked at Reagan.

"What makes you ..." Reagan began to lie to me. "Do you really want to know?"

"As opposed to the possible psycho sitting behind me with two hand cannons remaining one of life's Great Unknown? Yeah, I'd like to know."

Reagan looked over her shoulder at Jo. Jo was playing the cipher.

"She's the chief assassin for the Lord of Wrath, Thulsa Doom," Reagan whispered in my ear. Too many people were getting in my physical space. It was an irritant I didn't need.

Only three words of those words were critical to my survival. Assassin and Thulsa Doom. In my time, I'd know three people who deserved the title of 'assassin' and I'd help kill two of them. The third ... I'd tried and failed. I was sure one of these days that Scandinavian witch was going to show back up in my life ... or put a bullet through my heart at 500 meters. She was an exceptional shot.

Thulsa Doom was Las Vegas' own Merchant of Death. If you sold anything that ended up killing people, wielded the lethal blade, or pulled the trigger, you paid tribute to that black-hearted soul ... or so the legends said. I hadn't wanted to believe in that fairy tale - until that moment.

It was time to work on removing my ignorance. Jo wore two shoulder holsters while my sole gun was on my hip. It allowed me to do this ~ draw my gun and point it against the back rest so I could put a hole in Leigh. I am that guy who would shoot kids to get the job done.

"Jo, I think it would be wise if we cleared some things up," I stared at Jo's chest.

Eye contact was pointless since the danger lay with her arm/hand movements.

"What's going on?" Leigh asked.

"I'm inviting your Aunt Jo to have a little private chat over there," I indicated the restroom's recessed area while keeping my eyes on Jo's chest.

"Why do you want to do that when I'm right here?" Leigh teased me. Jo slowly complied with my wishes.

"Leigh, do you make a habit of walking around armed?" I kept my aim steady.

"Jo does because she's ..." Leigh stopped herself from blabbing family secrets to a near-total stranger.

Jo slid slowly out of her seat then took two steps away from the table, her hands clear from her weapons. I slid out, holstered my .45 and motioned her toward the bathrooms. Oh, she could probably whip out some fancy martial art's move. I might not get my gun out. If I did, I was also the type of man who wouldn't hesitated to kill people no matter what their age out of a sense of revenge.

We migrated toward the privacy of the bathroom antechamber. Jo put her back against the wall.

"Okay," I met her gaze. She was still being a cipher. I had experience with this type of situation. Jo wasn't someone you fucked with without a God damn good reason. I moved to the wall on her left. Odds were if she wasn't born ambidextrous, she'd trained herself to be.

I put my back to the wall about a foot away from her. Jo kept staring forward.

"I find myself needing Reagan right now. You are causing her concern and it would be nice if someone clued me in on what's going on between you two," I said. Jo kept quiet.

"Fine," I shrugged. "Let's go sit back down." Very slowly Jo's head turned to look at me.

"You are the one who drew down on me," she pointed out.

"That is correct," I confirmed. "I've got a basic understanding with Ms. Cho. I can't say the same thing about you. That means you are a complication and my life has too many already."

Jo mulled that over.

"You speak your mind," she stated. "I'm not sure I like that."

"Making you like me isn't one of my immediate goals."

"What is going on between you and Ms. Cho?"

"Not something I can talk about."

"That's not helpful," she looked forward again.

"Would you rather me be the kind of person who would break my agreement with Reagan?"

"The Lord of Wrath controls the arms trade in the region in the same way Circe controls the sex industry," she volunteered. "Do you work for Circe?"

"No, but I owe her for not killing my younger friend."

"Very well. Just so you know what you are getting into, The Lady of Lust is not someone you want to be indebted to."

"Thank you for that piece of advice. I appreciate it," I replied honestly.

"We both know you are the type of man who kills anyone who gets in your way," Jo meant she knew my threat wasn't totally empty, "and that you had your safety on. That was a serious risk you took. I'd kill anyone without hesitation who threatened those kids. As it is, I feel you owe me now as well."

"That's Peachy. Still, I'm good with owing you now that I have some idea who you are. Besides, you weren't likely to murder someone in front of the children," I added.

Jo conceded the point with a nod.

"I think we've kept our associate dependents waiting long enough," I suggested. Jo nodded.

I was of the opinion Jo grudgingly gave up every word she spoke. We walked back to our respective tables.

"Did you ask Aunt Jo out on a date?" Mark asked. I hated kids.

"I did, but she only dates men of high moral character," I replied deadpan.

"Jo doesn't date at all," Leigh point out while not so subtly hinting she did. What could possibly possess that teenager to think I wanted to commit suicide by underage pussy?

"Having high standards isn't a character flaw, Leigh," I related.

"But you are a hero?" Benji piped up. "She'd like to date a hero."

Why? Why would Jo want to date me and why would I want to date her? I was barely adjusting to the two women I liked, had a history with and even their constant proximity was wearing on my patience.

"Vance asked me out and I said 'yes'," Jo enlightened us all. I hid my horror well.

Dabney and G were not so gifted, or restrained.

"Why would you date her?" Dabney grumbled. "She's not even pretty." That's right Dabney. Go out of your way to irritate someone I was cautious around ... you know, lethal.

"I'm attracted to her constant silence, Dabney. Her ability to keep her mouth shut before saying something rude, uncalled for and possibly personally unfortunate," I grimaced.

"She looks like a boy," Dabney muttered.

"Dabney, there is clearly something going on here that we don't understand yet," G warned the younger woman. No one was corralling Leigh.

"Dabney," Leigh turned in her seat, knees on the cushions, "how old are you?" Ugh.

"Twenty-six," Dabney replied. "Vance looked after me when I was just a kid. I've loved him for a long, long time," which was aimed at me. Fuck, was I being sized up for a nose ring?

"Do you love Dabney?" Leigh kept coming. I came here for a meal and a chat with Reagan so we could delineate Dabney's future, not satisfy a teenager's curiosity.

"Six hours in the past two days," I responded. Leigh didn't get it right off the bat. Dabney sighed happily while G blushed.

"Enough," Jo quietly compelled Leigh to turn around and attend to her lunch. Our own meals arrived. The Lagoon Bar and Grill was filling up which didn't make my job easier.

While I was eating my steak (I don't really like steak, but with steak comes a steak knife), I saw another historical landmark reappearing in my life. I recognized him. He may not have remembered me. I had been a lot younger when we last crossed paths. His look remained unperturbed and his reactions, if any, were guarded ~ which was normal for him.

Another worrisome couple arrived ten minutes later. I saw the bulge that strongly suggested a concealed firearm. He gave Jo, me and the other newcomer a scan I would have missed if I as a more trusting soul. The depth of our companionship must have put him at ease. The hot young lady with a dark complexion and long, luxurious black hair with him certainly helped. He held her chair while she chatted amicably. There were too many distractions for my comfort.

"Let's go poolside," G suggested. "Vance reserved a room as well."

"Good idea," Reagan nodded. It was a good idea, just ten seconds too late. Out by the pool, eight men (Group A) who didn't belong there were coming our way. Their two duffels were out of place and menacing.

Two more groups inside the restaurant - the first six (Group B) in the middle of the room (one duffel held by the fifth man) the other seven (Group C) closer to the bar (no duffel) -were winding their way through the tables toward me, as well. All the duffels were big enough for combat shotguns and carbines.

Instead of going for the serious hardware, they had out pistols mainly, pointed down and pretending they weren't obviously here to bungle an attempt on someone's life. It hadn't escaped me they could be coming for Jo. Both assassins and rambunctious paramedics could accumulate their fair share of enemies. A quick analysis indicated they weren't brain surgeons, or even good hitmen.

They were blocking themselves in and were ignoring the solidity of the booths we reclined in. The inner wall of the booths was against the restaurant dividing wall. Between the thickness of the booth structure and the depth of a wall meant to support the hotel above us (filled with heat resistant insulation) we had a miniature, pistol-proof, fortress.

"Everyone down," I hissed.

"Get under the table," Jo quietly commanded her wards. As for our attackers, it was their fatal, final exam time with a steep grading curve and they clearly hadn't studied ... or even attended classes. They were staring right at us. Their attentiveness indicated my table was the target.

I wasn't sure if it was Reagan, or me, but legality meant I had to wait until they went from stupid to stupid-killable. 'Me' moving to the very edge of the booth was all the 'provocation' they needed. I wasn't absolutely sure yet, but I suspected Jo was mirroring my move. Drawing first was the smart thing to do. It was what my military training had honed my instincts to do.

It was also the reaction that would land you in jail for multiple counts of Manslaughter (if you were lucky) or 2nd degree Murder (if you weren't). Reagan was already sliding under the table. Dabney and G weren't as fast. The first guy, a medium sized black man with a white dew rag in group B, revealed his S&W Model 629 .44 Magnum - good at intimidation - a bit too heavy for waving around.

It was the 'Hunter' type with the nifty little scope on top. I counted off the milliseconds until civilian 'Rules of Engagement' turned me from aggressor to victim. His intent was to shoot with his right hand while he was shifting to a side-facing position. Since I was between Jo and the attackers, I was obliged to quick-draw while going to a kneeling stance.

I felt constrained to let him get first crack. He was adding to his list of insults to shootists everywhere by make his first pull of the trigger while he was still holding his Magnum sideways. That bullet passed through the spot Reagan's head had just vacated. The gun kicked and he'd be almost two seconds drawing a bead on me. I didn't have to wait any longer. Bang!

I caught him in the Manubrium ~ that's the top of the sternum. The bullet shattered his fifth cervical vertebrae. The second and third people in group B had been shielded by the lead man's body.

The fourth person, an overly-bulked out woman with a pink Mohawk, was raising up a mini-Uzi from under her short leather jacket where she'd been (theoretically) concealing it. She was slow and too bunched up with her teammates between two tables to get a clear shot. I didn't have her problems. My .45 hit her in the jugular notch and exited her trapezius, blowing off a third of her neck.

I planned on the arterial spray from Mohawk woman to have a demoralizing effect. Even as the recoils was passing up my arm, Jo fired twice with remarkably rapidity - not a single action. Before that moment, I'd only seen people fire two guns in the movies. Jo was behind me, but my ears were keeping me abreast of her movements.

The physics of a 5' 8" woman roughly 115 lbs. (she was wiry, tight with dense muscles) absorbing the recoil of TWO alternate-firing .50 caliber custom-made handguns was a technique my mind would analyze later. All I knew was I felt more comfortable using a two hand grip with my sole HK45 Compact Tactical.

By unspoken plan, we were taking out the leaders in the two (B&C) groups inside first. I was kneeling and by the sound of her fire, she was moving to the left toward the bar. She was also mowing down seven men approaching us from that way. Seriously, they should have had body armor. Jo and I didn't because we had come here to get a bite to eat with people we cared for.

It was reasonable to assume they had come here expecting a firefight. In a peripheral manner, I was aware that Jo's first two shots were lethal. The lead player in C, a forty-something, greying white guy, was raising up a .38. He had spent too much of his life smoking, drinking and poor living. Jo's .50 caliber slug took him left of center chest - heart shot.

That bullet, having passed through him between the ribs, proceeded to fatally wound the man behind him, a big, white dufus whose vacuous stare spoke to borderline retardation. A third man in the line-up, a white guy, painfully over-weight with thinning, slick-backed hair - was partially shielded by his companions. Jo's other gun caught him just above the left elbow, severing the flabby limb.

Jo and I shared a problem. The dying men in front of us weren't falling down fast enough. Seamlessly, I pivoted and shot the sixth and seventh men in Group C's line-up; two black men who looked closely related and strung out on meth. The sixth man's sawed off shotgun, triggered by his body spasm, blasted the fifth man, a short, wiry Hispanic, in the back.

She killed the fifth and sixth shooters in my group; a stocky, older Hispanic male and a tall, thin, Amerindian looking fucker. Jo's movement allowed her to flank my group. Her group (C) had been trying to catch us in a crossfire with group (A) by moving along the bar. It should be noted there were six civilians in the kill zone. None of them had started to react yet.

"Moving forward," I called out as I went into a slightly crouched stance and closed the distance. I was quick-stepping it in their direction. Three tables back and straight ahead, I saw that older gentleman I'd recognized earlier drawing a Colt 1911 .45 ACP. In that split second, three tragic accidents were avoided - Jo didn't shoot him and he didn't shoot her.

The second, unexpected ally, the guy in the far corner of the room, drew down on the moron hit squad instead of deciding to shoot any of us. I was moving toward the remnants of group B, so that when the four of us turned on Group A, I wouldn't be in her line of fire. The four surviving enemy combatants in the dining area were finally getting into the fight.

By shifting to get clean shots at Jo and I, they were unmasked by their dead companions. The last two on my group (B) broke left and right. The guy to the right tried to use an older (spectator) woman as a shield. I put a slug through his right eye with the accompanying brain and skull splatter to the tables behind him. I continued moving forward.

The last guy in 'B' - the one going left - pitched forward as the elder ex-serviceman shot the bastard in the back. In the left corner, another 'hero' was coming into play. He'd been pushing his date to the ground as he drew his Sigma series S&W40. He had run out of immediate targets as Jo cut through the last two in her group. He didn't even bother tracking me, Jo, or the third man.

He pointed his pistol poolside, pulled the trigger and began shattering glass and bodies. That was the cue for the rest of us to unleash hell in that direction. Eight men meant we all got two would-be killers in our target zone. The new guy took the far left, the third shooter took the center-left, Jo aimed for the right center duo and I took down the remaining two on the right.

It was common knowledge that shooting though glass can really screw with your bullet's trajectory. Manifestly, none of us heeded that principle of physics. We got off eleven shots, re-categorizing seven bodies to their new, deceased status. The eighth? He was already running for his life by the time we began shooting and barely edged out of our fourth (our second ally) irate citizen's view.

Due to tactical considerations, I shot the big, black man who had the look of a prize-fighter-muscular, but clearly having taken a great deal of fists to the face over his career. He was acting in a leadership role without exhibiting any real talent for it. His S&W MP40 barked twice. The first shot whizzed past my left ear. The second spun past closer to the old man.

Our temporary allies put multiple rounds into the women holding the duffels. Both targets went down in quick succession before they could access any of their heavy weapons. Both had been pulling out AR-14's.They had been two hillbilly-looking fuckers. In this city, despite their superior sizes, they were probably degenerate gamblers, not killers.

The remaining four sheep - I couldn't consider them true combatants -began to scramble for cover. The fifth one was turning out to be a rabbit. The furniture outside was designed for easy rearrangement, not a gunfight. All of our firearms could easily penetrate the light aluminum circular tables.

The chairs were even worse - hollow aluminum frames with cotton straps providing the seats for the occupant. Of the two non-combatants out there, one, a boy in his late teens, was already diving back into the pool. The older woman, maybe his mother, rolled off her fully-reclined lounger onto the cement surface.

A huge Hispanic man, was distracted by her scantily clad movement. That was the last mistake of his life. I put a bullet in his right ear. An overly tanned woman in her later thirties / early forties crouched down and got off two quick shots. Her 9 mm impacted the dividing wall without enough force to punch through.

She realized that and began raising her aim. Inside the restaurant, a bullet passed by my right ear, outward bound. Joe's guns had thundered twice more. The woman aiming at me pitched over backwards; the first .50 caliber slug hit her in the chest, showering body-bits into the pool. Two of the remaining four scrambled for the duffels; a heavy-set black woman and a smartass, a black man who was attempting to look slick.