All the Lucky Ones Are Dead (29 page)

Gunner went back to his office and closed the door he almost always kept open behind him, seeking some shelter from all the racket out front he knew a beaded curtain alone would never grant him. He walked through the suddenly pitch black room to his desk, turned on his desk lamp …

… and nothing happened.

Thinking the bulb was out, he went to get a fresh one from the bottom drawer of his desk, caught some movement just behind him as he pulled the drawer open. He tried to turn, but too late: something that felt more like a medieval battering ram than a human fist hit him on the right side of his face, sent him crashing to the floor with breakneck speed. He remained conscious for several seconds, just long enough to see that the back door to Mickey's shop was letting more light into the room than any locked door had a right to.

Then he let the pain and darkness take him where they would.

“Where are we, Jolly?” Gunner asked.

“Somebody's house. I don't know who.”

Gunner had awakened to find himself lying on the carpeted floor of what looked like a dark, empty bedroom, his hands bound behind his back, Jolly sitting on an aluminum folding chair before him. They appeared to be alone.

“Somebody's house where?”

“I ain't supposed to tell you. I ain't even supposed to be talkin' to you.”

“The silver Chrysler with the fucked-up bumper. That was yours?”

Jolly nodded after a long pause.

“Where's Ms. Johnson?”

“Hey, man, I told you—”

“It's okay to talk to me, Jolly. Your friends have their way, I'm not gonna be around to repeat what you tell me later. You understand that, don't you?”

“They ain't my friends. They ain't nothin' but instruments of the Devil, every one of 'em.”

“You're not a Defender yourself?”

“No. Hell no!”

“Then what is
this
?”

Jolly didn't say anything.

“Where's Ms. Johnson?” Gunner asked again.

“In the other room. Same as you.”

“You haven't hurt her?”

The big man shook his head. “No.”

“Good. How'd you get her here?”

“Why you wanna know that?”

“Just tell me, Jolly.”

After another pause, Jolly said, “She tried to sneak off this mornin', but I followed her. She went somewheres down by the beach, I think she was gonna go shoppin'. Anyway, I caught her gettin' outa her car in the parkin' lot, used this stuff they give me to put her to sleep. Then I brung her over here, like I done you.”

“The stuff you used on her. You talking about chloroform?”

“I think that was it, yeah. They said put it on a rag and cover her mouth with it, and that's what I did.”

“Who's ‘they,' Jolly? These Defenders have names?”

“I don't know nobody's name. I don't
wanna
know nobody's name. Only reason I even know what they look like's 'cause I owe somebody a favor.”

“Yeah? Who's that?”

“Man what saved my life back in the joint once. Couple Aryan Nation boys was beatin' on me pretty good, prob'ly woulda killed me if he hadn't jumped in to help. I told 'im I could ever do somethin' for
him
, all he had to do was ask.” He shrugged. “So just ‘fore they sprung me, he did.”

“He told you to keep an eye on me.”

“Yeah. That was all I was supposed to do. He said you was messin' in Defenders bus'ness again, and they needed somebody to watch you.”

“Then all that talk about you being born again …”

“Was the truth. I wouldn't lie about nothin' like that, man. Thing is … I owed the brother, like I said. And he wasn't askin' me to do nothin' to hurt nobody. Least—”

“Not at first.”

Jolly nodded. “But then you went and put me to work watchin' Ms. Johnson, and everything got all messed up. My man's friends started tellin' me I had to help 'em to kill her, or else they was gonna tell you I was workin' with 'em, get me locked down again.”

Gunner strained to glance about, asked, “So where are these brothers now? Are any of them here?”

“No. Ain't nobody here right now but us.” Jolly stood up. “I was supposed to kill both of you today, but I couldn't. I done killed somebody once, not countin' all the gooks I done in ‘Nam, and I ain't never gonna do it again. So I just brung you here. I didn't know what else to do. They give me this address and told me where they keep the key out front, said I should hang in here if I ever needed somewhere to hide.”

“Do they know we're here, Jolly?” Gunner asked, hoping to God the big man would say no.

But Jolly nodded again, said, “I called 'em and told 'em. They're on the way now.”

“How long ago did you call?”

“I don't know. ‘Bout fifteen, twenty minutes ago, maybe.”

Gunner felt his stomach begin to churn. Twenty minutes was probably ten more than they would need.

“Cut me loose, Jolly. We don't have much time,” the investigator said.

Jolly shook his head. “I can't, Gunner. I wish I could.”

“You
can
. Get your ass over here and cut me loose before they make you an accessory to a goddamn multiple homicide!”

“I ain't gettin' locked down again. I
can't
. I'd rather be dead than go back inside.”

“Jolly, for Chrissake—you've already got the blood of one innocent woman on your hands! You wanna be responsible for
two
now?”

Jolly just stared at him.

“You can't do this. You're a different man than you used to be. You have God on your side now. Your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, remember?”

Still, Jolly remained silent. Gunner watched his face, saw it slowly soften. The big man started to step forward…

And then they both heard the sound of a key being jiggled in a lock out in another room.

Jolly froze as an unseen door opened, closed behind a series of footsteps announcing the arrival of visitors. Gunner listened intently as they approached, guessed it was two people at least, maybe as many as four.

It turned out to be three.

They were all men, black, two in their twenties and one at least thirty. The older man was fair-skinned and wore a beard; his companions were darker-complexioned and clean-shaven. Gunner knew all this because the trio's only form of disguise was gloved hands, which was the most clear-cut indication yet that the investigator's fate was sealed. Jolly's and Sparkle Johnson's, as well. The Defenders occasionally showed someone their faces without killing them afterward, but it wasn't something they made a habit of.

The bearded man, who had led the others into the room, looked Jolly and Gunner over for a long time before he spoke, the very picture of parental disapproval. “What's going on here, Jolly?” he asked.

And Gunner immediately knew he'd heard his voice before, while sitting in a chair secured to the floor of an unidentified room, a strip of duct tape covering his eyes.

“I ain't gonna kill 'em,” Jolly said with admirable backbone. “So I brung 'em here. What you wanna do with 'em now is your bus'ness.”

The Defender glanced around, said, “Ms. Johnson is here too?”

“In the other room.”

The bearded man turned his head, nodded over his shoulder at one of the men standing behind him, who slipped quietly out of the room. Gunner could only pray he was leaving simply to see if Johnson was there, not to execute her.

Finally, the elder Defender turned his attention to Gunner and smiled; “You should have a gag in your mouth, Mr. Gunner. Please forgive your friend Jolly here for neglecting to provide you with one.”

“It's not the gag I miss as much as the chair bolted to the floor. I don't suppose you brought that along with you?”

“Ah. Recognized the voice, did you?”

“Of course. Some things you never forget.”

“Good. Then you'll also recall we gave you fair warning that something like this might happen to you, if you ever sought to impede the will of Allah again.”

“You boys don't work for Allah. Wake up and smell the coffee. You're homicidal ideologues, nothing more. Hiding behind Allah will never change that.”

The younger, darker-skinned Defender who had gone to check on Johnson reentered the room, nodded at the man who had given him the order.

“I will not debate with you the sanctity of our mission,” the bearded man said to Gunner, his smile a thing of the past. “I tried that once, and failed. I will say only that our people will be rid of the self-loathing, assimilation-promoting serpents in our midst, whether you choose to see that as Allah's command or not.”

“Oh, that's right. Allah speaks to you personally, doesn't he? Did you know that, Jolly? That the boss man here is divinely inspired?”

Jolly didn't answer him, placed in an awkward position, but his expression made it clear that he found the question troubling.

“You wanna kill
me
, kill me,” Gunner said to the elder Defender. “But let Johnson go. She's a radio talk-show host, for God's sake. Only thing she's guilty of is voting with her tax bracket in mind, not conspiring to commit genocide.”

“She professes to be a black woman, yet she broadcasts her advocacy of all things white to millions of Americans daily. That is vile and shameless treason, Mr. Gunner, and it must not be allowed to go unpunished.” He looked at Jolly again. “I expect he had a weapon when you brought him here. Give it to me, please.” He held his right hand out toward the big man, palm up, and waited.

Jolly turned to Gunner, already grieving over what he was being forced to do, and lifted the front of his shirttail up to draw the investigator's Ruger cautiously out of his belt.

After that, his right hand was a blur.

The first shot he fired hit the man with the beard point-blank in the chest; the next four went to the men behind him, two rounds for each. It was five rounds in rapid succession, so close together they almost rang in Gunner's ears as one. One of the younger Defenders had managed to get his own nine-millimeter out before going down, but that was as close as any of them got to saving themselves. The younger men died instantly, while the oldest lay on his back and coughed up blood, struggling in vain to move something other than his spasming left leg.

“God Almighty,” Gunner said, when his heart finally decided to start beating again.

The Ruger fell from Jolly's grip without the big man ever noticing, so engrossed was he in the crimson-spattered battlefield he had just created. He stumbled more than stepped over to the aluminum chair nearby, dropped himself onto the seat like his legs wouldn't hold his weight anymore.

“Damn, Jolly. What in hell you gonna do
now
?” he asked himself.

n i n e t e e n

T
HE HOUSE
G
UNNER ALMOST DIED IN WAS IN
L
ONG
Beach. It was a single-story, two-bedroom ranch-style that had been vacant and on the market for seven weeks. The realtor to whom it was registered told the Long Beach Police Department its owners now lived somewhere in Florida, and she didn't know how or where the Defenders could have gotten a set of keys to the front door.

Up to now, Gunner had been extremely fortunate. Over the last four days, bodies had been piling up around him like snowflakes in a blizzard, yet none of the law enforcement officers he'd had to deal with regarding them had given him much in the way of a hard time. But a man could only tempt fate so long. You kept showing up in places where fresh corpses lay about, sooner or later one cop or another was going to shake your cries of innocence off and press his thumbs into your neck until you copped a plea of some kind. And that was how it was with the boys of the Long Beach PD. As far as they were concerned, Gunner and Jolly were part of a five-man ring which had kidnapped Sparkle Johnson, and the three brothers on the bedroom floor were simply the result of an argument they'd all had as to how many ways the ransom money they were soon to demand for her return should be divided: five or only two.

Still, Gunner was lucky. Had Johnson not been found safe and sound, the LBPD might have really gotten ugly, actually tried to force a confession out of him and Jolly, rather than merely insist upon one. But Johnson
was
alive and cognizant, an able witness to their investigation, so no physical force was ever exerted by them on anyone. In this way, the cops were lucky too, because the call Gunner had asked them to make to one Carroll Smith of the FBI actually bore fruit, and soon Big Brother himself was on the scene to further observe their actions.

“You're one lucky sonofabitch, Gunner,” Smith said, shaking his baby face from side to side. He'd brought his partner, Irv Leffman, along tonight, and the three of them were huddled in the kitchen alone, away from the madding crowd of the LBPD's still-ongoing investigation. “Your pal Mokes doesn't have a last-minute change of heart …”