Fatal Justice (Jack Lamburt #1)(4)

That’s a few more bodies that I could take credit for, but at least I only killed bad guys.

I was off duty and planned on coming out to relax and spend some time with Debbie while she worked the bar, but once I was alerted to Ostrich Boy’s proximity, everything changed. I did a quick mental inventory of my hardware to make sure that I didn’t forget anything.

Glock 17? Check, in my right hip holster under my untucked flannel shirt.

Spare magazines? Check, one in each cargo pocket of my Vertx tactical pants. A total of fifty-one nine-millimeter rounds. Wait a second. Fifty-one divided by three is seventeen. I love math. I could shoot each one of them exactly seventeen times. With my Glock 17. Hmm. Coincidence? I didn’t believe in them.

Enough. Back to work on my mental checklist.

Osprey silencer? Check, left cargo pocket.

Cable tie handcuffs? Check, coiled up in my back pocket.

Swiss Army knife? Check, right cargo pocket.

Blackjack? Check, right next to my Swiss Army knife.

It might seem like I was sporting a lot of hardware, but when you’re six foot six, you can get away with carrying an arsenal and folks won’t notice. Even if they did, they wouldn’t dare ask.

Attitude? Oh, um, not so good. I needed to work on that. The mental health experts say that the first step in solving a problem is admitting that you had one. I had one. I shook away the vision of shooting all three of them in the parking lot and stuffing their bodies in their trunk in a compromising sexual position before taking a photo, posting it on their Facebook pages, and driving their car into the woods and setting it on fire.

I grimaced and chastised myself for thinking such crazy shit. Jeez, what the hell was freakin’ wrong with me? I could start a forest fire, for God’s sake.

I blamed my temporary lapse of judgment on the warm beer in my hand, looked down at it, and drained it before it could do any more damage.

The three of them finished their colored drinks, threw some cash on the table, and headed over to the bar. Ostrich Boy tried to make eye contact with Mary Sue, but she ignored him. Good girl. Fatty grabbed the check and reached for his wallet. Skinny Guy stayed behind, dug into his pocket, pulled out another bill and dropped it on the table before falling in behind them. He must have felt guilty for his friend’s behavior and wanted to make it up to Mary Sue.

They paid their bill at the bar and stood there while Ostrich Boy talked to Debbie, his hands moving a mile a minute. In the mirror behind the bar, I couldn’t help but notice his bleached thousand-watt smile as he tried to woo my lady. I smiled at the thought of his expensive pearly whites being shattered by the heel of my boot as he lay unconscious in the parking lot.

My fantasy was interrupted when it dawned on me that during his entire conversation with Debbie, his two friends had stood with their backs to the bar, overlooking the crowd. They stood out like the Secret Service agents you see at political gatherings, except they didn’t have those coily earpieces and weren’t dressed as nice. I realized that they were as much his bodyguards as they were his friends, which made sense since he was a bigshot in the underworld. I made a mental note that if it came down to it, I would drop the wingmen first.

After a few more minutes of bantering with my woman, Ostrich Boy turned and signaled the two hammerheads that he was finished and it was time to leave. They sauntered over toward the main entrance, bought a pack of smokes from the old-style pull-knob cigarette machine, and left.

I had no idea why they were in our little out-of-the-way town. My experience had taught me that men like them never just stopped in out of the blue. They were here to meet somebody or conduct some type of illegal business. Maybe it was a drug deal, or maybe they were here to kill somebody who’d wronged them, but I was just happy to see them leave. Good riddance, hopefully forever. They were somebody else’s problem now.

Except that I couldn’t let it go. I was torn between letting them leave and forgetting about them, or being more proactive. I hadn’t planned on doing my third job tonight, but I couldn’t help but think that I shouldn’t be looking a gift horse in the mouth.

I was still unsure how I was going to handle this, so for future reference, just in case, I decided to see what kind of car they were driving and jot down their license plate number. Probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to follow them and see where they were headed either…

“Back in a second, boys,” I told my pool cue whiffers. “Hold my place in line.” I glanced at the table and saw that there were still a full set of balls spread across it. Looked like their ratio of seven missed shots to one made had grown a little worse. Must be the beer. I figured I had an hour or two before my turn came up.

I made my way towards the back door, keeping a wary eye out for a sneak attack from Frances, and slipped out unmolested. The clear cold air was a nice change from the stuffy smoke-filled bar, and it felt refreshing to take a deep breath and not cough out someone else’s exhaled smoke.

Since I’d arrived a few hours ago, the temps had dropped and a coating of snow had covered the ground. Not an uncommon occurrence for this time of year in upstate New York. By now it had stopped snowing, and I could see the moon and a few stars through the parting clouds. The effect of the full moon on the fresh snow had an eerie fake-looking brightness to it. But fake-looking or not, it was bright outside, and I had to be careful not to be spotted by my prey.

I stayed in the moon’s shadow on the backside of the Red Barn to keep out of sight, and as I made my way towards the front corner of the building, I could hear the three of them laughing and cursing. They reminded me of my drunken frat brothers in my freshmen year at Notre Dame, except they were twenty five plus years older, less mature, and dumbed down by a couple of hundred IQ points.