The Laughing Corpse - Laurell K. Hamilton [73]
“What do you want, man, what do you want?” His voice was high and squeaky with fear.
“Who hired you to come after us?”
He shook his head. “No, man, he’ll kill us.”
“Three-fifty-seven Magnum makes a fucking big hole, Seymour.”
“Don’t tell her shit,” Pete said.
“If he says anything else, Ronnie, shoot his kneecap off,” I said.
“My pleasure,” Ronnie said. I wondered if she would really do it. I wondered if I’d tell her to do it. Better not to find out.
“Talk to me, Seymour, now, or I pull the trigger.” I shoved the gun a little deeper. That must have hurt all on its own. He sort of tried to tippy-toe.
“God, please don’t.”
“Who hired you?”
“Bruno.”
“You asshole, Seymour,” Pete said. “He’ll kill us.”
“Ronnie, please shoot him,” I said.
“You said the kneecap, right?”
“Yeah.”
“How about an elbow instead?” she asked.
“Your choice,” I said.
“You’re crazy,” Seymour said.
“Yeah,” I said, “you remember that. What exactly did Bruno tell you?”
“He said to take you to a building off Grand, on Washington. He said to bring you both, but we could hurt the blonde to get you to come along.”
“Give me the address,” I said.
Seymour did. I think he would have told me the secret ingredient in the magic sauce if I had asked.
“If you go down there, Bruno will know we told ya,” Pete said.
“Ronnie,” I said.
“Shoot me now, chickie, it don’t matter. You go down there or send the police down there, we are dead.”
I glanced at Pete. He seemed very sincere. They were bad guys but . . . “Okay, we won’t bust in on him.”
“We aren’t going to the police,” Ronnie asked.
“No, if we did that, we might as well kill them now. But we don’t have to do that, do we, Seymour?”
“No, man, no.”
“How much ol’ Bruno pay you?”
“Four hundred apiece.”
“It wasn’t enough,” I said.
“You’re telling me.”
“I’m going to get up now, Seymour, and leave your balls where they are. Don’t come near me or Ronnie again, or I’ll tell Bruno you sold him out.”
“He’d kill us, man. He’d kill us slow.”
“That’s right, Seymour. We’ll just all pretend this never happened, right?” He was nodding vigorously.
“That okay with you, Pete?” I asked.
“I ain’t stupid. Bruno’d rip out our hearts and feed them to us. We won’t talk.” He sounded disgusted.
I got up and stepped carefully away from Seymour. Ronnie covered Pete nice and steady with the Beretta. The .22 was tucked into the waistband of her jogging shorts. “Get out of here,” I said.
Seymour’s skin was pasty, and a sick sweat beaded his face. “Can I have my gun?” He wasn’t very bright.
“Don’t get cute,” I said.
Pete stood. The blood under his nose had started to dry. “Come on, Seymour. We gotta go now.”
They moved on down the street side by side. Seymour looked hunched in upon himself as if he were fighting an urge to clutch his equipment.
Ronnie let out a great whoosh of air and leaned back against the wall. The gun was still clutched in her right hand. “My God,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said.
She touched my face where Seymour had hit me. It hurt. I winced. “Are you all right?” Ronnie asked.
“Sure,” I said. Actually, it felt like the side of my face was one great big ache, but it wouldn’t make it hurt any less to say it out loud.
“Are we going down to the building where they were to drop us?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I know who Bruno is and who gives him orders. I know why they tried to kidnap me. What could I possibly learn that would be worth two lives?”
Ronnie thought about that for a moment. “You’re right, I guess. But you aren’t going to report the attack to the police?”
“Why should I? I’m okay, you’re okay. Seymour and Pete won’t be back.”
She shrugged. “You didn’t really want me to shoot his kneecap off, did you? I mean we were playing good cop, bad cop, right?” She looked at me very steadily as she asked, her solid grey eyes earnest and true.
I looked away. “Let’s walk back home. I don’t feel much like jogging.”
“Me either.”
We set off walking down the street. Ronnie untucked her T-shirt and stuck the Beretta in the waistband. The .22 she sort of cupped in her hand. It wasn’t very noticeable that