Green Ice: A Deadly High (16 page)

Mancini took a slow, backward pace a fraction of a second before the old guy’s eyes snapped open, revealing glassy, ebony eyeballs and his face merged into a frenzied scowl, baring his teeth and emitting a wheezy rasp. He raised his arms, stretching his hands towards Mancini, the fingers like crooked talons as he moved forward.

Mancini brought up his handgun and fired one shot. The round hit the old guy in the center of his chest, sending him reeling backward but didn’t put him down. Blood poured from the gunshot wound as the old guy’s internal organs were shredded inside his torso. He rocked sideways into the vintage barrel, knocking it off its axis as he attempted to resume his attack on Mancini. The barrel crashed to the floor and rolled towards the three jabbering truckers, sending them scattering in different directions.  Mancini aimed at the old guy’s forehead and fired another round.
Blood erupted in a spiraling plume as the old guy’s head rocked back and he silently collapsed onto his back on the floor. The back of his head crunched onto the wooden floorboards, amid a combination of shattered skull bone and pulped brain matter. 

“Holy shit, man,” Trey hissed. “That bastard kept coming, even though you shot him right in the chest.”

“It looks as though you have to shoot them in the head to kill them,” Mancini muttered, studying the dead body at his feet. He bent and picked up the two spent brass casings, blew on them to cool them down then slipped them into his pocket.

The three truckers shared a brief, apprehensive conversation, crossing themselves and glancing repeatedly at the old guy’s corpse.

“Let’s get moving,” Mancini growled, nodding towards the internal door.

“They are scared,” Jorge said, gesturing to the three petrified looking truckers.

Mancini glanced at the three men, huddled together beside the bar counter, then back at Jorge. “We’re all fucking scared, Jorge. Tell them to follow behind me but don’t start shooting unless I’m out of the god damn way of those pop guns they’re carrying.”

Trey, Jorge and the three truckers followed Mancini through the internal doorway, leading to the main body of the motel.

Chapter Twenty

The sound of an object crashing to the ground caused Mancini to stop moving and he ushered the others following to do the same.
The light provided by wall mounted lamps in the rest of the motel was dimmer than the overhead strip lighting in the bar. Mancini turned and saw the guys behind him masked in gloomy shadow. He pointed to a closed door along the opposite side of the corridor to his right.

“Trey, you open the door and I’ll enter first,” he hissed. He turned to Jorge and the truckers. “You guys hang back and follow me into the room if I need you. But I repeat, do not start firing unless absolutely necessary.” Mancini was wary of being struck by a stray bullet from one of the nervous trucker guys. They looked as though they’d already shit their pants and would start blatting away at anything that moved.

Trey nodded and moved slowly towards the door. Jorge and the truckers shuffled backwards and Mancini edged into position beside the door frame, holding his firearm at the ready. Trey crouched, gripping the door handle and glanced up at Mancini, who counted to three in his head before briefly nodding. Trey briskly dunked the handle down and pushed open the door. Mancini steeled himself and raised his handgun.

The room beyond
was illuminated by a lamp lying on its side on top of a wooden desk in the center of the floor space. Two rickety looking chairs stood either side of the desk and a large glass panel viewed the reception area to the left of the room. Mancini aimed his handgun around the empty spaces in sweeping arcs. He heard collected sighs of relief from Jorge and the truckers behind him.

“Nobody home,” Trey whispered, gazing into the room.

“I’m not so sure,” Mancini muttered, slowly edging through the doorway. He checked behind the door then on the blindside between the desk and the back wall. Nobody occupied the spaces.

Trey cautiously trod into the room, holding the shotgun by the barrels and raising the butt like a club. Mancini aimed his handgun upwards at an open hatch in the ceiling, positioned above the desk. The crawl space
was nothing more than a square shaped black hole above them.

Jorge and the three truckers huddled in the doorway, glancing nervously around the room. They watched Mancini slowly prowl around the crawl space, covering all angles with his handgun.

They heard a slight snivel, echoing from somewhere in the roof space above. Mancini briefly glanced at Trey.

“Sounded like a female,” he hissed. “Call out to her up there. She might get spooked if she hears anybody else.”

Trey nodded and looked up the open hatch. His licked his lips, trying to add some moisture to his dry mouth.

“Leticia…Leticia, is that you, up there?” he hissed.

They heard an incoherent, muffled response.

“It’s me, Trey, remember from the bar? I’m the guy from
LA”

Mancini flashed him an admonishing glare but decided to let it pass.

“You can come on down now, Leticia. We won’t let anybody hurt you. There’s like, six of us here and we’re all armed. Well…kind of.”

They heard a clunk followed by light scuffling footsteps above them.

“Check she’s not bit,” Mancini hissed at Trey.

A pair of small feet, wearing flat black shoes dangled from the open hatch,
followed by long shapely legs, clad in tight fitting denims. Trey inwardly reprimanded himself for finding time to still admire the girl’s curvy ass, even in the midst of their dangerous situation.

Leticia thudded feet first on top of the desk and glanced apprehensively around the room with tear stained eyes. Her mascara had run down her face, spreading black smears over her cheeks. Mancini lowered his handgun but kept it in a firm grip, ready to bring up again in a firing stance. Leticia’s gaze rested on Trey and her face crumpled in despair. He beckoned
for her to climb down from the desk top.

“It’s okay, honey,” Trey whispered, trying to sound reassuring.

She stumbled onto the floor boards and moved towards Trey but Mancini stepped between them. 

“Have you been attacked or bit, Miss?” he asked.

She stopped and shook her head. “No but my grandfather has. He fought with some big man who had these horrible eyes,” she wailed.

Mancini checked her over for injuries and was satisfied she was clean. He didn’t mention the fate of the old guy he presumed was the girl’s grandfather.

“Where is this man who attacked you now?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I was in the bar when he came in. I was waiting for you to come back, Trey.”

She glanced in Trey’s direction and he looked away with a rising feeling of shame.

“The man chased me through the bar and that was when my grandfather heard all the noise and came out to try and make him leave. He didn’t listen and the two of them fought. I came in here to hide,
then it all went quiet. I heard two gunshots, that’s when I decided to hide in the attic.”

Mancini figured the two gunshots she’d heard were the rounds he’d fired outside when eliminating the two gang guys.
“So you don’t know where this guy is, right now?” he asked.

Leticia shook her head again. “Sorry, I don’t know.”

“Well, he can’t be far away,” Trey said. “Don’t worry, we’ll stop him.”

Mancini felt a little irritated by Trey’s attempts at sounding like a hero. He wanted to get as far away from the motel as possible. They were leaving too much of a trail of dead bodies and devastation
in their wake.

“Okay, you stay here with her and Jorge, Trey,” he instructed. “I’ll leave you with one of the truckers and I’ll take the other two with me to find this guy and deal with him.”

Trey nodded and sat Leticia down on one of the rickety chairs. He pulled a puffer jacket from a coat hook on the wall and wrapped the garment around her shoulders. Mancini moved towards the doorway to explain what was going to happen to Jorge and the other three guys. But he stopped in his tracks when he saw blue and red flashing beacons, dancing across the wall to the right of the desk.

“Shit, it’s the cops,” he hissed. He turned to Leticia. “Did you call them?”

“No,” she insisted. “They sometimes pass by here and stop for a late night drink or a cup of coffee but they don’t usually turn on their emergency lights.” Her face broke into a relieved smile. “We are saved.”

Mancini’s mind raced. How the hell were they going to try and explain this situation? Dead bodies all over the place and possession of firearms with no serial numbers were going to raise some awkward questions.

Chapter Twenty-One

They
all remained still inside the room when they heard the front door bang and two bulky shadows loomed by the glass wall panel a few seconds later.

“
Hola…hola
?” a deep voice called from the reception area.

Mancini tucked his handgun away inside the back of his waistband. He didn’t want any involvement with the cops and hoped they’d take care of the big guy but he knew they would still ask some serious questions once they saw the old
man’s corpse plus the gang member’s bodies outside.

“We have to get out of here,” he whispered to Trey.

The truckers didn’t understand the full extent of the situation and looked relieved when they heard the cops inside the building. The three of them called out in reply and moved through the corridor towards the motel reception. Mancini glanced up at the crawl space opening and briefly considered hiding up there for a while but he knew the cops would thoroughly search the place looking for the big guy. He decided they had to get out of the place and quickly.

“Out the back way, through the bar,” Mancini hissed to Trey. He hoped the cops would engage in a lengthy conversation with the truckers before they moved through the rest of the motel.

Leticia looked confused and rose to her feet. “What is happening, Trey?” she asked. “Surely, we should explain what happened to the police?”

“Ah…yeah, about that…” Trey mumbled.

Mancini took the shotgun from Trey and placed it on the desk. He turned Trey around and hurried him to the door. Jorge stood in the shadows by the door frame, not knowing what to do next.

“Jorge, you shout to the cops and I’ll make sure you go to prison for life, understand?” Mancini growled. “Now, move quickly to the back entrance through the bar. We get our things from our rooms and we’re out of here,
comprende
?”

Jorge nodded and turned back towards the lounge. Leticia followed Trey and Mancini into the corridor.

“Wait,” she said. “The police will want to talk with you.”

Mancini turned and motioned for her to keep quiet but he was too late. A large framed cop, wearing a gray and black
uniform emerged from the shadows behind Leticia. He had his handgun drawn and shouted something at Mancini. Leticia turned slightly and ducked back inside the room when she saw the cop approaching from behind her.

“He says we must stop,” Jorge said.

Mancini realized they had little choice in such a small proximity. He stopped moving, sighed and turned around. Jorge and Trey followed suit. The cop slowly drew closer, barking out another order.

“He wants us to raise our hands,” Jorge translated. The three of them reluctantly complied. 

“Ah, crap. Are we being arrested?” Trey whined.

The cop cautiously moved closer, with his handgun
aim pivoting between Mancini, Jorge and Trey. The light from the office glinted across his face. He was a big, solid guy with broad shoulders, close cropped black hair and a day’s worth of dark stubble around his chin. His eyes remained fixed on the trio when he said something to Leticia, who stood in the office doorway.

Another, younger cop herded the three truckers down the corridor towards the others. The truckers looked slightly bemused and none of them carried their firearms. The bigger cop waved Mancini, Trey and Jorge towards the bar area behind them.

“Now the shit is seriously going to hit the fan,” Mancini groaned, referring to the old guy’s corpse.

They trudged into the lounge bar, closely followed by the big cop. He noticed the blood spatters and old guy’s dead body, immediately relaying the information to his colleague. The truckers stumbled through the doorway into the bar, the younger cop shoving them forward. The big cop waved with his handgun, gesturing for all of them to stand in front of the counter.