Chapter 58 Louise
LOUISE
I gazed at the house, astonished. “I knew dealers had money,” I mumbled. “But….”
The place was huge. Seven or eight bedrooms, a pool, and there were three cars outside: a big old Lincoln town car, a Porsche and an SUV.
“This whole business is soaked in money,” Sean told me. “And Lennie’s only a dealer. Think how much Malone makes. But the money falls off fast after the top few rungs.” He opened the trunk of my car and took out his sledge hammer.
I looked up at the iron gates. The place wasn’t just big, it was tasteless.
Everything was fake: reproduction stone columns that were vaguely Roman mixed with lion statues straight out of Japan.
It was as if Lennie had browsed a catalog and stabbed his finger at anything he thought represented wealth.
But none of that made the gates any less solid. “How do we get in?” I asked.
Sean raised the hammer. “We knock,” he said. “Stay behind me.”
And he swung the hammer at the center of the gates as hard as he could.
They probably would have stood up to a car trying to ram through them.
..but they couldn’t cope with all that energy concentrated in exactly the right place.
The lock shattered and the gates creaked inward.
Sean was marching forward before they were fully open and I scuttled after him.
An alarm started to sound. The first guy, a blond heavy in a suit, ran out to meet us as we got to the front door.
Sean swung the hammer low, catching him in the ankles with the shaft and knocking him face-first to the ground, then giving him a good whack on the back of the head with the handle to keep him there.
As we reached the hallway, two more guards appeared. Sean swung the hammer’s handle up, catching one of them under the chin, then punched the other one right in the face. They dropped to the floor almost at the same time, landing in one crumpled heap.
A shot rang out, and a chip of wood flew from the door frame a foot away from Sean. I screamed.
Lennie, a thin guy with long, greasy dark hair, was standing in the living room, a handgun gripped in his shaking hands. “Stay there!” he yelled.
Sean marched forward.
“I’ve got a fucking gun!” yelled Lennie, going pale.
“I’ve got a fuckin’ hammer,” said Sean. And swung it right at the gun.
There was a crack of breaking bones, a scream and the gun clattered against the far wall.
Then Sean pushed Lennie into a reclining armchair and tipped it all the way back, until he could rest a booted foot next to Lennie’s head to keep the chair in place.
“Where’re our fuckin’ drugs?” he roared.
Lennie shrank back in the chair...but didn’t speak.
I came closer and looked around. Like the outside of the house, the inside was all about showing off.
There were exotic plants in pots, but all of them were sickly and dying because Lennie didn’t have any idea how to look after them properly.
There were vases and statues from around the world, but I had a feeling he’d never been to any of those places.
There was even a glossy black grand piano in the corner, but there was no music on the music stand.
“Answer him,” I said, trying to make my voice hard.
“I’m not telling you shit,” said Lennie.
Sean nodded as if he’d expected this. He stepped away from the chair and looked around, rubbing his stubble—what should I break first?
Then he seemed to decide: all of it.
The vases were first. He shattered them two at a time, sending shards flying across the room. The bigger ones smashed where they were. The smaller ones flew across the room like baseballs, staying almost in one piece until they hit the far wall. Lennie winced at each crash, but didn’t weaken.
Next were the statues. They lost heads, then legs, then crumbled completely under the heavy iron head of the sledge hammer. Then, finally, Sean stepped up to the piano.
“Shit.” said Lennie suddenly. “Wait! That costs more than my fucking car!”
Sean brought the hammer back. “Where are the drugs?”
“Where are the drugs?” I repeated.
“Malone’ll kill me if I talk!” yelled Lennie.
Sean brought the hammer down in the exact center of the piano and it crumpled into splinters of wood and ivory with a discordant crash.
Then he stepped up onto the chair again, his boot next to Lennie’s head, and placed the cold iron head of the sledge hammer on the man’s forehead. “Talk,” he said warningly.
“You two are fucking nuts,” Lennie blustered. “You think you’re going to get them back from Malone? You got a private army?”
“No harm in telling us, then,” said Sean.
Lennie looked around at the devastation, looked up at Sean’s face, and gulped.
But his mouth stayed shut. This could take hours.
And we might not have hours. Once Malone split the drugs up and sold them, we were screwed.
Kayley was going to die because this asshole was too scared, too proud, too arrogant to tell us what we needed to know.
I was suddenly tired of being the good girl. Malone didn’t play by the rules. Well, neither would I.
“Give me the hammer,” I said.
Sean and Lennie both turned to look at me. “What?” asked Sean.
“Give me. The hammer.” The blood was pounding in my ears.
He slowly handed it over. I nearly staggered under the weight. Jesus, how does he swing this thing? Lennie laughed.
“Duct tape his legs apart,” I said. I’d started to pant, fear and adrenaline sloshing together through my veins.
Sean gave me a long, steady look...then nodded. He pulled the duct tape from his pocket and grabbed one of Lennie’s legs.
“Wait…” said Lennie slowly.
Sean shook his head. “You had your chance with me,” he told him. And wrapped duct tape behind Lennie’s knee, pulled it to the arm of the armchair and secured it there. He did the same with the other knee, so that Lennie was sitting with his legs wide apart.
I stepped in front of Lennie and heaved the sledge hammer back over my head, like Sean did. For the first time, I really understood the power of it. My heart was thumping like I’d never known it. “Lennie,” I said warningly. “Where are our drugs?” I focused on the crotch of his suit pants.
Lennie started to pant with fear. “You wouldn’t,” he said, struggling against the duct tape. “You’re the brains. You’re a fucking science nerd.”
“You’d be surprised what I’m capable of when someone threatens my family,” I said coldly. I shifted my weight from foot to foot, preparing to swing. “I’ll count to three.”
Lennie shook his head.
“One.”
Lennie’s breathing hitched.
“Two.”
His eyes were locked on mine, now, trying to reassure himself that I was just some scared civilian. He tried to find that person I used to be. But he couldn’t. Because she’d stepped out for a minute.
“Thr—”
“They’re at the jazz club! Malone’s auctioning them off tonight!” The words came out so fast, it was like he was being sick. “He wants everyone there at ten. I’m going—everyone’s going. That’s all I know!”
I stepped back a step and let the hammer slide from my fingers.
Sean caught it before it hit the ground.
Then I watched as he duct-taped Lennie’s arms, wrists and head to the chair so he couldn’t move, then finally stuck tape over his mouth so he couldn’t yell for help.
He dragged the three heavies into the room and I helped him duct-tape them, as well.
I was still nervous and shaky, amazed at what I’d nearly done.
“You weren’t faking, were you?” Sean muttered to me as we duct-taped one guy’s wrists.
I slowly shook my head.
Sean stared at me in amazement...then grinned. “Good for you.”
We finished taping and looked at the four bound men, three of them unconscious and one of them glaring at us in rage. “So we know where they are,” I said. “What the hell do we do now?”
Sean turned to me. “I’ve got a plan,” he said. He reached out and stroked my head. “But I need your big brain to make it work. And it means getting nasty. You ready to get nasty?”
I thought of Kayley.
“You’re goddamn right I am,” I told him.