22. Gauge
GAUGE
The second Dallas whipped open the door, the scowl on his face told me everything I needed to know. Guess he didn’t get laid like he thought he would.
Sucks to suck.
He slammed the door behind him before he barreled down the wrought iron steps. “Say hello to Doc for me.”
I looked between him and the door. “Make sure to get the next reno scheduled before they leave.”
“Just leave it to me.”
“Yep.”
I stood there, waiting for a sound from beyond the threshold. Why didn’t I hear Char? I had half a mind to bang on the door again just to make sure she was still alive, because the look on Dallas’s face was nothing short of furious.
The hell had she done to him?
“You ready, Gauge?” Mace asked.
I forced myself away from the door and jumped down the steps. “Let’s ride.”
With Mace in the driver’s seat of our desert-colored van, I kicked my leg over my bike.
I was ready to make some fucking money. We soared through the desert, racing beneath a light blue sky without a cloud spared for our tanned hides.
My leather jacket protected me from the dust and dirt as it kicked up and swirled in little tornadoes off in the distance.
Lizards skittered to safety and vultures circled what was most certainly a carcass out in the middle of nowhere.
This place was home, and I loved tasting its grit between my teeth.
Layborn fell away from us as the multitude of side roads gave way to one road out in the middle of fucking nowhere.
With nothing but cacti and tumbleweed for our viewing pleasure, I careened off the road by taking a hard right.
The sand dune mountains off in the distance called to us.
Mount Dust, we called it. A massive natural structure out in the middle of nowhere whose sandy particles had somehow formed a dark, dank underpass.
A great place to do business, if I did say so myself.
“You see him!?” Mace asked as we came to a grinding halt just outside of the pitch dark underpass.
“Not a damn thing,” I murmured as I cut the engine to my bike. “So, start the clock. If he’s not here in five minutes, we’re out.”
Mace didn’t even get his fucking timer on his cell set, though, before a plumb of dust kicked up in the distance. It caught my eye, and I watched it grow as small black dots headed straight for us. Three of them, in fact.
Today is a great day to get paid.
I kicked my leg from around my bike and stood.
Mace quickly followed suit as he climbed out of the van and wrapped around to the back so that he could guard the metal double doors that held Doc’s purchases.
I folded my arms across my chest, drawing in deep breaths as the miniature dust storm from Doc’s luxury vehicles careened through the desert.
I had half a mind to tell him not to bring such loud fucking cars to our meet-ups.
But, even I knew no one would find us out there.
It’s why we did all of our transactions beneath the base of Mount Dust.
“Look alive, Mace,” I said as the cars came to a stop just beyond the van, “keep your wits about you.”
And that’s when Doc stepped out of the back of one of his blacked-out sports cars.
In all-black suit, of course.
“You got the goods?” he asked as he held out his arms.
I still didn’t appreciate the scene he had caused getting to us. For all we knew, they had attracted attention for miles. Fucking skinny ass white boys and their idiotic toys.
Stupid fucks.
“Well?” Doc asked as he approached me. “You going to speak, or what?”
I clocked his body with my stare as I slid it down his sparkling suit.
Never been my thing, suits. Too tight. They never fit right.
Much too expensive for my tastes, too. But, his suit was damn near painted on, which meant it was easy to see that he wasn’t armed.
However, when I didn’t immediately answer his beckoning call, four men quickly piled out of the other two cars that came with him.
Men we were familiar with, sure.
That didn’t mean I had to like their presence, though.
“Go ahead,” I said as I looked over at Mace. “Show him the merch.”
He opened the van’s back doors before one of the lumbering meatcases that worked with Doc handed him a crowbar.
He tossed it into the air, catching it against his palm as he walked over to the wooden crates we had stowed away for the trip out.
I followed him, watching him carefully as my men kept their sights trained on the four Lurches he had brought with him.
And when he popped open his first crate, his eyes widened.
“Well, well, well,” he said as he pulled out one of the seven federally issued firearms he requested, “what do we have here?”
“The perfect gun for a frame job,” I said plainly.
He plucked a magazine from the bottom of the crate and slammed it into the underside of the gun. “That question was rhetorical.”
“Lead with that next time.”
He chuckled as he tossed me a look. He grinned that little lopsided grin of his before he leveled the gun at my chest, and immediately all of my men withdrew theirs. My head tilted. My hands slid into my pockets. That man wasn’t going to shoot me. He didn’t have the balls.
Men in tailored suits never had the balls to get their hands dirty.
“Move,” was all he said.
And when I did, he fired off every single round in that fucking magazine against the side of Mount Dust.
“Well?” I asked after the last bullet was fired.
He ejected the magazine, studied it, then held the empty magazine as well as the gun over his shoulders. His men jumped at the ready, taking it from him before he walked back over to the van. He picked up the crowbar, slid another box toward him, and pried it open.
Before plucking another gun from its confines and firing an entire magazine right at the side of the mountain.
Even though we were miles away from any sort of civilization, I grew worried that someone might hear us.
He had ten crates in the back of that van.
Ten of them. And it seemed as if he was going for all of them.
My stomach turned over onto itself. My toes curled to keep me rooted.
Magazine after magazine emptied as bullets whizzed by our bodies, peppering the side of Mount Dust with lead.
Doc smiled and laughed with every gun he tried.
Before he snapped his fingers. “Gentlemen, that’ll be it for today. Let’s load up!”
“Gauge?” Mace muttered.
“I know, so can it.”
I watched his every move. I memorized his every word. The way he acted. The way he smiled. The way he pranced around as if putting on a show. He’d always been a bit eccentric, but never on this level.
Which was how I knew it was genuine.
“Pleasure doing business,” Doc said as he held out his hand.
I clapped my hand against his before I pulled him toward me. “Confirm payment. Now.”
He snickered as he ripped away from my grasp. “I know the drill, don’t be so jumpy.”
“Don’t change your routine, and I won’t feel the need to repeat myself.”
“Doc?” Lurch #1 asked.
He held up his free hand. “It’s fine, it’s fine. Look in the passenger’s seat of the vehicle I rode in. Bring me the laptop that’s sitting there.”
But, when he tried turning away from me, I stopped him. “Face me.”
He scoffed. “Seriously? All I do is fire off a few more guns than usual and you’re freaking out on me?”
“This isn’t me freaking out.”
He reached for the laptop that had been handed off to him. “Could’ve fooled me.”
He flipped open the screen and handed it back to one of his goonies before he started typing away. A portable human desk. I wondered how much that man got paid to be shat on by a man less than half his size.
“There, transferred,” he said as he plucked the laptop from the man’s hands.
I quickly took it from him and spun the screen around for me to see.
“Hey!” Doc said.
All four of his men leveled their guns at me, but I knew they wouldn’t shoot.
With Mace and his double-hipped guns trained on them and their guns, what they didn’t know is that he’d drop those assholes to the cracked earth before they ever got that laptop back.
He was our best shooter, by far. And they’d get a first-hand example if they weren’t fucking careful.
But, when I saw the confirmation number on the screen with our agreed upon amount dumped into our account, I couldn’t help but grin.
“Just one more thing,” I said as I pulled out my cell phone.
I snapped a picture of the confirmation screen on his laptop before I tossed it back to Doc.
He fumbled it, damn near dropping it on top of his feet.
I snapped my fingers, and my men holstered their guns.
We stared Doc and his men down as they continued training their weapons on us.
And as we all stood there, practically holding our breath, Doc smiled.
“Until next time, boys!” he chirped as he slapped his laptop against his portable desk’s chest.
I stayed rooted in place, though. Even after they climbed into their vehicles and blazed a trail back to whatever hole they had crawled out of.
Dust floated around our heads, causing some of my men to sputter as I chomped on the grit in between my teeth.
It grounded me. The taste. The sound. The feeling as it ricocheted through my bones.
I waited until those three vehicles had completely disappeared. Then…
“He threw the signal,” I said as I whipped around.
“We need to get back and tell Deac,” Mace said.
I lunged toward my bike. “Come on, we don’t have time to waste. Let’s go. As fast as you can!”
Because apparently, we were being watched.
Again.