AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Two men in long black leather coats and wraparound sunglasses appeared on the landing. They took barely visible flanking positions at the top of the metal stairs, just as they had the previous evening at approximately the same time, which meant the target was in-house.
At home, so to speak.
“Do you come here often?” Princess asked, coming still closer, about three inches too close. He scooted back on his stool slightly.
“Never.” He looked up again. Too many people had seen The Matrix, he decided as he took in the bodyguards’ long jackets and shades.
The Matrix probably hadn’t even played in Keyes yet.
Princess came in closer, her breasts definitely inside his personal space. “What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a painter.”
That’s what Joey used to tell people. I’m a painter. Enough with Joey.
Shane glanced across the room. Carpenter was in place, his tall, solid figure near the emergency exit, the flashing lights reflecting off his shaved ebony skull. I paint them, Carpenter cleans them. Shane nodded toward the guards ever so slightly. Carpenter nodded back.
“That’s cool.” Princess began to scan past Shane, probably looking for somebody who’d play with her. She must have found him, because she smiled at Shane blankly and backed off. “Have a good one,” she said, and was gone into the crowd.
The phone buzzed once more, and Shane glanced at the screen: go. He secured the phone in his pocket, nodding once more at Carpenter, who reached into one of his deep pockets. Princess was over by the bar now, dialing on her phone with a blank look on her lace as she tossed her head to get the hair out of her eyes. Then she frowned and pulled the phone away, staring at it. Shane knew no one’s cell phone within two hundred feet would work now, as long as Carpenter kept the transmitter in his pocket working, jamming all frequencies.
Shane wove his way through the sweaty dancers to the bottom of the staircase and walked up, Carpenter falling in behind him. Both bodyguards stepped out, forming a human wall that he estimated weighed over 480 pounds combined with another ten pounds or so of leather coat thrown in. Which meant they trumped him by over 270.
Fortunately 210 pounds with brains could usually beat 480 pounds of dumb.
“Private office,” the one on the right growled.
Shane jabbed his right hand, middle three fingers extended, into the man’s voice box, then grabbed the face of the man on the left and applied pressure at just the right places with the fingertips of his left hand, thumb on one side, four fingers on the other. The man froze in the middle of reaching under his jacket, unable to move, while Carpenter caught the man to the right.
“Tell me the truth and live,” Shane whispered as he leaned close, ignoring the other guard’s desperate wheezing attempts to get air down his damaged windpipe. “Lie and die. Is Casey Dean here?”
“Uggh.” There was the slightest twitch of the head in the affirmative.
“Alone?”
“Uggh.” A twitch side to side.
Shit “Left foot,” Shane said. “How many are in there? Tap your foot for the number.”
The foot hit the ground twice, then halted.
“Good boy.” Shane shifted his fingers slightly and pressed. The man dropped unconscious to the floor. Carpenter already had the other man down, sleeping with the leather. At least they’d be warm.
Shane reached inside their coats and retrieved their pistols. He placed one in his waistband in his back and kept the other one out, safety off. He stepped over them as Carpenter reached down and grabbed the back of each man’s jacket and dragged them to a small janitor’s closet and tumbled them in, then turned and faced the stairway to make sure no one else came up. He wasn’t wearing leather.
Shane walked down the hallway to the bright red doorway with a prominent no trespassing sign hung on it. He kicked right at the lock, the wood splintered, and he stepped in and to one side, eyes taking in the dimly lit scene, pistol up, sweeping the room, gun in concert with his eyes.
Movement. Two people. A man. Seated behind a desk. A redhead standing on the other side, leaning forward, palms down on the desktop, her skimpy halter top hanging loose, exposing her breasts. Great, Shane thought. I had to hit at playtime.
He strode across the room as the man jumped up and the woman turned, looking surprised. The man was reaching for a jacket when Shane hit him with a cat-paw fist strike to the solar plexus, making him thump back into his chair, gasping in pain and floundering, out of commission for a couple of minutes at least.
The redhead lunged at Shane, who sidestepped her claws, grabbed her from behind, and used her momentum to slam her against the desk, pinning her to it. He got one arm in a half nelson around her neck and pressed the barrel of the gun against the back of her head. He could feel her tight ass pushing back against his groin, and she began to grind as she struggled against him, putting her arms flat out on the desktop and looking over her shoulder angrily. He shoved her shoulders down on the desk and saw a small tattoo of a compass on the small of her back, just above her jeans. Like somebody needs directions there, he thought.
She pressed back harder against him.
“Stop it,” he said.
“Oh, come on,” she whispered. “You like it. We can work this out, you and me. I can?—”
