Have Gun, Will Travel (The Bare Bones MC #5)(34)
Sax should explain to his associates. “The Flagstaff sweetbutts were desperate to get Tormenta, so in addition to hiring me—for free, you know we’re not getting a fee—they got ahold of Slayer. The more the merrier, I say. I’m not threatened by honest competition. Let me go pay him a visit, make sure he doesn’t f*ck up our scenario. Meanwhile, you’re on radio, right, Wolf?”
Wolf tapped his little earpiece. “Ten four. I’m ready to roll. If you’re over there, you roll from that side. I’ll roll from here.”
Sax gave him a thumbs up and walked uphill, skirting the driveway, making sure he couldn’t be seen from the house.
Santiago Fucking Slayer. Actually, Sax was impressed the former soap actor had gotten this far without their Facebook knowledge. How had Slayer done it? He obviously had other sources, and Sax found himself actually curious about how the guy had gotten this far.
However, nothing stopped him from surprising the hell out of the guy. That was an opportunity Sax couldn’t pass up. He came around the blind side of the shed, literally tip-toeing in the fresh pine needles. Slayer was too occupied with hugging the shed’s wall and remaining as flat as possible. When Sax reached an arm out and touched Slayer’s polyester sleeve, he hadn’t calculated how far the dandy would jump. About three feet, as it turned out.
Actually, Slayer drew his piece in the blinking of an eye. Sax hadn’t calculated that, so he drew his piece, too. It was a Mexican stand-off with the actor’s perfectly coiffed hair gleaming in the soft rays of the sunrise. He looked ripped from the frames of a telenovela about a guy hiding in the wilderness from his evil twin brother. But you never knew how itchy a man’s trigger finger was, so Sax played it safe.
“Slayer,” he acknowledged.
Slayer nodded tightly. “Saxonberg.”
“Let’s lower our pieces. We’re not the f*cking enemy here.”
“Agreed.”
Simultaneously they lowered their pieces. When Sax holstered his in the back waistband of his jeans, Slayer holstered his in a hidden shoulder holster.
Sax tossed his head. “How’d you find this place?”
Slayer tossed his head, too. “None of your business. I have many fingers in many pies all across this great state. How’d you find it?”
“Facebook. One of the women who’s paying you was murdered by Tormenta yesterday.”
Slayer’s deeply tanned face blanched. “Which woman? Not Rhetta! Don’t tell me it’s Rhetta! We’ve been close friends since the chanting, swaying, meditating days!” He referred to their relationship up at the ashram, the ashram The Bare Bones had taken down to the ground.
“Not Rhetta. The older woman, Brenda Ridings.”
“No! Not Brenda!” Placing the back of his hand on his forehead and looking to the heavens, Slayer pirouetted about in seeming agony. He couldn’t have known Brenda well, since Rhetta was his sole contact with the sweetbutts, the one who’d hired him. But he’d met her at least once at the bar where Sax had run into him again, and his pain seemed real. “Those bastards!” he hissed, his nostrils flaring. “I am even gladder than ever that I am here to avenge the maiming of poor Hassie Casselbeck—”
“Cassie Hasselbeck.”
“—and to right a grievous wrong from ever happening to any other woman!”
Although overly dramatic, Slayer did seem sincere, and Sax felt a kinship with him. “Okay, then. I’m not taking a fee for this, so if you happen to pick off Tormenta—he is in the house, isn’t he?”
Just then Sax’s earpiece beeped. A small, tinny Wolf said into his ear, “Confirmed guy in shower is Tormenta. He’s gotten out, getting dressed.”
“Copy that,” Sax told Wolf. To Slayer, he said, “Listen. Some men are about to come out of that front door any minute now. I’m going strictly for Tormenta. I’ve got a man down the hill who’s going to come running up—”
Slayer wasn’t listening. Fire was in his eyes. “I will shoot anyone related to Tony Tormenta! Anyone who ever knew, loved, or sat next to Tony Tormenta will go down by my knife! His sicario killed the only person I have ever loved, and for that I hung the pendejo from the Rio Magdalena bridge! I tell you, Saxonberg, this is more personal for me than it is for you.” He poked Sax in the chest, right in his bulletproof vest. Sax didn’t appreciate it, but he needed to keep his eye on the prize, not get all carried away with drama. “There is much more at stake for me regarding amore, honor, pride!”
That was probably true, but it also gave Sax the uneasy sense that Slayer was a loose cannon, unpredictable and liable to go off on a tangent at any moment. Wolf’s tinny voice came again in Sax’s ear. “Door’s open. Get into position.”
Shoving past Slayer without giving him any intel, Sax again drew his piece and, using the two-handed teacup grip with the barrel pointed at the ground, peered around the edge of the shed. Sure enough, two men in shades emerged from the front door, leaving it open. One of them clicked a remote control and the detached garage door went up, revealing another couple vehicles, one an armored SUV.
“Not Tormenta,” Sax told Wolf.
“Yeah, I see,” said Wolf, obviously much closer now.
But this was good enough for Slayer. All riled up with emotion and barely-suppressed rage, Slayer burst forth into the clearing bordering the driveway. Sax’s jaw dropped. The guy was hardly stealthy—more of a kamikaze pilot uttering a piercing, siren-like wail of agony.