Iron River Read Free Page B

He heard a sharp crack, and another bullet took a chip off a paver and whined off into the darkness.
    Then there was silence, and Hood looked through the succulents and saw the empty street ahead. He drew his sidearm and came up running.
    Bly and Holdstock merged from the side street. Ozburn caught up with the other three, muttering curses, a big automatic in his hand. They followed the gunrunners through an outdoor marketplace that was shutting down, dodging stalls of Coachella Valley dates and Imperial Valley grapefruit. The shoppers were gone by now, but the vendors ducked quickly and efficiently because they had seen this kind of thing before. Up ahead, one of the bad guys upturned a table of cantaloupe, which rolled toward Hood, but he long-jumped them and saw that he was catching up. The gunrunners took to the sidewalk that ran behind a colonnade of rounded arches facing the street. Hood heard music. Near the top of the gentle hill that Buenavista was built upon, the road ended in a large open square ringed by restaurants and bars. There were tables with white linen set up in the patios of the restaurants and there were horses tethered to hitching posts amidst the gleaming sports cars and SUVs and luxury sedans.
    As Hood entered the square the music was louder, a disco tune throbbing from Club Fandango at the far end. Ahead of him he watched Tilley and Black Suit shove through the small crowd waiting to get into the club. The revelers hustled away under the protective archway columns of the colonnade and the gunrunners disappeared inside.
    Hood figured they were headed out the back into an alley, so he ran left around the building. He saw Ozburn split off the other way, and Bly and Holdstock heading straight in.
    Behind the building was another dining patio, quieter here, tables lit by candlelight, and a fountain gurgling. Hood leaped the short adobe wall and waved his hand for the young couple to get up and out. They scrambled over the wall and headed off into the darkness.
    Then Hood was aware of two new things at once: Black Suit and Tilley heaving toward him through the open back doors of the building, and a young teenaged couple rising from their table in the private far corner of the patio. The boy held the girl’s hand in an elevated, courtly way. The girl looked frightened, but the boy looked cool. Hood waved them to his left and the boy nodded to him, steadying his date toward the short wall.
    Ozburn rounded the building just as Black Suit and Tilley burst onto the patio from inside, and Ozburn yelled, Drop the guns! Tilley dropped his weapon. Hood set Black Suit’s chest atop his front sight and waited for him to drop his pistol. Black Suit was deciding when three shots roared from inside and the young dealer collapsed in a dark heap.
    Tilley was jumping up and down, hands up: Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!
    Bly and Holdstock stumbled through the open doors and fell into shooter stances.
    In the abrupt silence, a girl screamed from the darkness beyond the wall.

3
     
     
     
     
    S o I’m sitting at my desk on the third floor of Pace Arms and studying the guy across from me. He says his name is Bradley Smith. He’s even younger than me, which pleases me because I think the young should grab what’s left of this world before the old piss away every last bit of it.
    “Your company is French?” I ask.
    “The management is French. I already told your secretary that.”
    “With how many armed employees?”
    “Two thousand.”
    “That’s a lot of armed guards.”
    “We’re international. I told your secretary that, too.”
    “Sharon relayed everything to me with perfect accuracy, Mr. Smith.”
    “She has nice paint, as the Mexicans like to say.”
    I smile at this. “No kidding. And she composes letters, figures out my calendar, and keeps the assholes out of here.”
    “Quite a woman.”
    “She’s engaged,” I say, wishing it were to me.
    “I am, too.”
    “Really? I wouldn’t mind that