Chapter Twenty-Two

 

RYAN

 

I swallow hard. I don't like anything about this plan, but my least favorite parts are all coming right at the beginning. Part of me would rather go back with her, get the prison time and be done with it.

At least in that case, I know the Feds won't just kill me right off. There's a certain amount of respect between criminals. A knowledge that the other guy is doing the same shit you're doing.

That tends to go out the window when you kill a half-dozen guys and blow up their truck.

But if two days is the cutoff, you don't take your time with risk assessment. It's just a reality. The plan is a non-starter if I can't get a meeting with whoever's leading the Crazy Horses. If it's not McCallister, that's news in itself, but I can accept it. I swallow hard and walk into the bar.

It looks the same as it did yesterday. In fact, it looks downright quiet. I shouldn't be surprised, but then again, it won't be quiet for very long. I walk up to the bartender.

"Call your boss."

He looks up from the counter. "I own the place."

"Perfect," I tell him. I don't like being lied to, and it makes the next part easier. I grab a bottle and smash it on the wooden bar top. It leaves a perfectly convincing dent in the thick polyurethane finish.

"Hey—what the fuck are you—"

The gun that comes out and into his face convinces him to be a more forgiving citizen.

"You'd like me to stop? Call your boys. I'll wait."

He doesn't turn his back on me, even as it takes three or four steps to make it to the phone hanging on the wall. As he moves I set the gun down in easy reach.

"Hey, I got a guy here causing trouble—"

"Tell him it's Ryan Beauchamp!"

"He says it's Ryan Beauchamp. Yeah. He's got a gun."

"I just want to talk!"

I push the gun across the counter. It's still near me, and we both know it. But now it's out of easy reach, unless I want to race the bartender for it.

He looks quick, for some nobody. He certainly doesn't look strong, so he'd better be quick, or he's just totally incapable. Well, I can't blame him if he is. It's not as if he has some kind of responsibility to be a tough son of a bitch.

He watches me, his eyes wide. I let him watch me, then toss the bottle onto his side of the bar as well. I flatten my hands against the bar, and get real still. If I move too much or too fast at the wrong moment, then no amount of honor among thieves is going to count for much.

I don't have to wait long. I can hear them coming from a ways off. Please don't let them notice the Indian out back, I think. Between the cops trying to fuck with me and the rush I'm under, I don't know that I could handle having them trash my bike, too.

They come through hot, guns already drawn. Smart of them. But I don't move. I don't even blink if I can help it. They grab my arms and get me in a lock. I let them. I might be able to slip it, maybe. But with four of them there, and three of them with guns drawn, it wouldn't be smart.

"What the fuck are you doing here, Beauchamp?"

I can hear one of the other guys, slipped behind the counter, talking to the bartender in a hushed voice. Calming him down, I figure.

"I thought, well, you know who I haven't seen lately?"

He cuts off the answer with a heavy fist. The guy's built less like a bodybuilder and more like a beer keg, but he doesn't let that get him down. He still hits harder than a son of a bitch.

"We know you did that job at the Franklin street warehouse."

"You know about that, huh?" Another fist finds my floating ribs. I feel them start to protest, threatening to break. Maybe they already have broken, and the next hit will just make it worse.

"I don't need your fucking sass, Beauchamp. What the fuck are you here for?"

"Same reason I did the warehouse job. I'm looking to get your attention, shit-for-brains."

The next hit doesn't have as much fire in it, but he makes up for it by hitting the same spot again. I feel a rib go for sure that time, but the guy behind me holds me pretty firm, so I can't exactly do anything about it.

"How you liking that attention so far, bird-boy?"

"You've taught me so much about boxing, I think it's already paying off."

He takes the compliment reasonably well. Doesn't even hit the same spot this time. I think the guy's starting to like me. Davis doesn't even remotely realize how much she's going to owe me for this.

"So you're not hiring, then?"

The guy doesn't bother hitting me this time. It's as if I'm watching evolution occur in front of me. The man can think, all of a sudden. It's as if he's just crawled out of the primordial ooze.

I can see from his face that he's not great at it, though. They didn't send their smartest guys, they sent the guys who hit the hardest.

"What the fuck do you mean, hiring? No, we're not looking for help from some two-bit outfit—"

"Better than those guys you had watching that warehouse. Honestly, if my guys had the kind of kit your boys had—"

That hits a sore spot. He doesn't hold back much, and he catches me under the arm, where my ribs aren't really supposed to get hit. It feels like I would expect it to, which makes my vision more than a little blurry.

"What are we gonna do with him?"

I can barely keep my eyes open, but I don't need to be able to see to know that he's not talking to me. The big son of a bitch behind me shrugs. I can feel it in the way that it makes my own arms shift.

"We can't kill him here, can we?"

No, they obviously can't. Anyone could see that. First of all because it's just a fucking bar. Which is why I came here in the first place.

It's their territory, and they're not going to have a problem coming out here to get me. But they're not going to kill me, because it'll bring the wrong sort of attention down on the place where they make their money.

That's what I'm hoping for anyways. A third voice, probably the guy who went behind the bar right away, chimes in.

"You fuckin' stupid? No, you can't kill him here. Poor Mark's suffered enough already, you dumb bastards. Get this fucker out of here. We'll ask the boss what to do with him."

There's the magic words. I need to get inside the organization, and fast. I need a face to go with the name. And I can't do that if I don't get noticed and picked up.

If I can piss them off enough, McCallister will come out. Has to come out. Because there's no way in hell that he's going to let this stand.

Once the connection's been made, I can work my ass off to stop him from killing me dead right, right there on the spot. But first I need to meet the guy, and I need to meet him now.