Bits & Pieces (Benny Imura 5)

“No?” asked Marty. “Nothing? This is like talking to the screenwriter’s union. Suddenly nobody has words.”

One of the gang said, “Hey, Tony, it’s bad luck to kill a crazy person, you know that, right?”

Tony sneered. “He ain’t crazy. He’s trying to tap-dance his way out of it, that’s all.” To Marty, Tony said, “What were you before First Night? Some kind of con man?”

“I was a producer, so . . . pretty much, yes. But here’s my point, you fellas need to make a real career decision right here, right now. We could use some local talent, you dig? Someone who knows the ropes and knows the roads.”

“How ’bout we just have some fun kicking your ass up and down the road?”

“Feel free to try, and I mean that sincerely, guys,” said Marty. “But this is a one-time offer that expires . . . well, now, actually.”

Tony abruptly looked up to see another man in black clothes and red tassels climb up on the hood of a wrecked car.

“Oh, please,” he said with a gruff laugh. “It’s gonna take a lot more than . . .”

His voice trailed off. There was sudden movement all around t

hem. A second figure climbed onto a car, a third stepped out from between two SUVs. A third, a fourth. Ten more. Twenty.

Too many.

In front and behind and on both sides. They weren’t there and then they were, the figures moving as silently as ghosts. They all carried weapons.

The closest ones were bigger, more muscular and more dangerous-looking than the others, and they had red handprint tattoos over their faces. Their eyes burned with bloodlust.

The gang member with the shotgun raised it to point at the nearest figure.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa now,” said Marty quickly. “Think it through. That there is a Remington model 870 pump shotgun, am I right? You probably have a six-shot magazine and maybe one in the pipe. I’m using that word right? Pipe? So you got seven shots. Your friend there has a Glock 23 with a thirteen-shot capacity, and again one in the pipe. At best—at best I’m saying—if you guys are Deadeye Dicks, you can take out twenty, twenty-two of us. The rest of you have knives and swords, and I’m here to tell you that we like our odds in an edged-weapon tussle. Not bragging, just saying. So, you take out a coupla dozen of us, and the rest of us spend the whole afternoon and evening teaching you guys all sorts of songs. Hymns, if you catch where I’m going with this. It’s a religious thing. Hymns to Thanatos—praise be to his darkness.”

All around them dozens upon dozens of voices echoed the chant.

“So,” said Marty, still being reasonable, “the math isn’t good. I like you boys, you have some pluck, and central casting could’ve put you in anything by Tarantino or the Coen brothers. Seriously, you’re great. But there’s so many of us my head hurts to do the tallies.”

Tony licked his lips but said nothing.

“Okay, I have your attention,” said Marty. “Now, the whole reason I’m here and we’re taking this meeting instead of just walking away from your bleeding corpses is that we need what’s in your head more than we need what’s in your veins. Okay, that’s a bad line. I’m a producer, not a scriptwriter. Follow me, though. It was a threat, but it was couched so as to present an offer. You got that, right?”

“O-offer . . . ?” said Tony, so thrown off his game that he seemed to have forgotten the sword in his hands.

“Right. Like I said, we need someone who knows the area. Someone who can help us get around this part of California and up into the Sierra Nevadas. We need that more than we need to send all five of you into the darkness.”

“I—I—”

“And, just to remove any confusion . . . we only need one of you. Whoever knows the area best. The rest . . . well, sorry, kids, but that’s how the Oreo crumbles.”

“Just one?” echoed Tony.

“Just one.”

“He’s messing with your head, Tony,” said the guy with the shotgun. “Don’t let him—”

“Shut up, Ralphie,” barked Tony. “I’m trying to think.”

Marty nodded encouragingly. “Listen, Tony, you look like an enterprising fellow. You’re a leader, you’re a trusted man? These guys are here working for you, am I right?”

“Screw that,” said another of the gang. “We work for Boss Keffler.”

Marty glanced at him, said nothing, then addressed Tony. “Correct me if I’m totally wrong, but Boss Keffler isn’t actually here. You are, Tony. And we are.”