Inside Out

103

Winter found Johnny Russo standing in front of the wet bar with his back to the archway, holding his cell phone up to his ear. The L-shaped bar, on Winter's left was eight feet long, four deep, and its closed end faced the archway wall. The front was made of stacked cypress beams, identical to those used in the archway, and topped with a two-inch-thick slab of granite.

To Winter's right was a wide gun cabinet filled with shotguns. In front of him, living room furniture faced the stone fireplace, which was centered in a wall of glass.

“Spiro, you bonehead prick. Turn on your damned phone,” Russo muttered.

“He can't get a signal in hell,” Winter said.

Russo spun around to the sight of Winter, standing in the archway aiming two guns at him.

Winter was primed with anger. Russo was responsible for what had happened to Hank and him in the boat shed. He wouldn't hesitate to make this strutting silver-haired prick doornail dead.

“Just a minute!” Russo put his phone on the bar, keeping his hand there.

“Step away from the bar,” Winter commanded. He already knew that Russo wasn't armed. Sam had told Winter that Johnny's. 357 was behind the bar, where he'd set it down when he came in earlier that afternoon.

Slowly Russo smiled. “You're no deputy marshal. Why didn't you just say you was with Lewis? Sam and Sean are in that first bedroom, and you can clip 'em easy-Sam's not packing.”

Who is Lewis? What others? Winter couldn't imagine who he was talking about. He didn't get a chance to ask.

“You're dead!” Sam's voice boomed from the hallway behind Winter.

Johnny Russo's face seemed to sag as Sam Manelli passed Winter and stepped into the room. The fact that his wrists were handcuffed in front of him didn't seem to make Russo feel any safer.

Sean stood at Winter's right side.

“Stop right there, Manelli!” Winter ordered.

“You ain't getting away with this,” Manelli growled at Russo. “You been trying to get Sean clipped! You just told this bird to kill us. I don't know how you got Herman to double-cross me and try to kill my kid, but I am gonna find out. You better talk quick or I'm gonna kill you.”

“It was Herman's idea. He set it all up for the three million.” Russo's face was pale and sweat glistened on his forehead.

“And you knew about it? Why was he going to kill Sean?”

“Sam… you… you were gonna leave her everything legit and I wouldn't have any way to hide my street money. It was just business.” Russo stepped back, hands outstretched in supplication. “We're talking millions of dollars. You'd have done the same thing.”

“She's my kid! I decide what to do with what's mine. You supposed to make your own legitimate businesses-”

“I don't need any more of your money,” Sean told Sam.

“You gonna get it, though,” Sam snapped at Sean. “And that's that.”

“Johnny, I gave you and Rose the cab company as a wedding present, for Christ's sakes, and it's a solid business. My legits was always supposed be Sean's. I never gave you reason to think my niece was gonna get any more of what's mine. I gave you the whole other side of the business.”

“If Herman's men had done it right, there wouldn't be any question about that.” Russo was regaining his composure, knowing that Winter wouldn't let Sam touch him. “You're finished Sam. It's all mine now.”

“I'm gon' kill you, Johnny. By God…”

“Why don't you call your men, Sam? You'll see they won't come unless I call them.”

Sam moved forward. “I'll show you who's done-”

“Not one more step, Sam!” Winter warned. “Who is Lewis?” Winter demanded.

Winter was alerted to activity downstairs by sounds rising up from the stairwell behind him-something shattered, and there were sounds like kitchen furniture being moved. Thinking the downstairs guards were on their way up, he aimed the Hi-Power back at the stairwell behind him while keeping the SIG on Russo and Manelli. “I don't give a damn who they answer to. If those men come up, I'll kill them,” Winter reminded Sam. He didn't trust Sam any more than he did Russo. He didn't believe, as Sean did, that Sam was interested only in protecting her. He had allowed Sean to overhear Sam confronting Russo, but that was the only concession he was willing to make-and that was because he wanted her to hear the truth.

“Who is Lewis?” Winter repeated.

“You can ask him yourself.”

Winter turned just as a pair of armor-clad figures stepped out from the stairwell. He fired the Hi-Power at them before they could bring their machine guns to bear, and he shouldered Sean toward the wall where the gun cabinet stood. He took cover behind the left vertical beam.

Even without their yelling out “police,” Winter knew their weapons and the full-body armor marked them as the enemy. Had he hesitated a fraction of a second before firing on the figures, the cutouts would certainly have killed him and Sean.

While Winter fired down the hall, Sam scrambled after Sean.

Russo took cover behind the bar. “Come get these sons of bitches!” he shouted gleefully. As he got his magnum from behind the bar. Winter knew the wet bar was as bulletproof as the beam he was depending on to keep him alive, which meant he was going to be fighting a war on two fronts. Unless Chet's men arrived soon, it would be a short skirmish.

The cutouts recovered and fired up the hallway into the great room. The sounds of the bullets striking objects was louder than the MP5 muzzle blasts. The fusillade filled the air. The thick glass windows beside the fireplace exploded and sheets of heavy glass crashed to the floor.

Sam kicked the glass out of the gun cabinet and pulled out a long-barreled, side-by-side ten-gauge L.C. Smith goose gun. Sean, understanding that her father couldn't use the shotgun with his hands cuffed, took it from him as he opened the drawer for shells.

Winter set down Yul's handgun long enough to reach into his pocket and toss his handcuff keys to Sean. He knew that a shotgun in Sam's hands would at least keep Russo from shooting him in the back.

Winter picked up Hi-Power again, leaning out just far enough to keep his exposed flesh to a minimum, and fired both weapons, the bullets hitting the figures like sledgehammer blows knocking them back against the wall, but the killers defiantly remained on their feet. The butts of Winter's bullets, embedded in their Kevlar armor, looked like copper buttons. Between the ceramic plates inside the thick seamless armor and helmets with Lexan face shields, the pair would be almost impossible to kill with just handguns. Before they again opened fire with the MP5s, Winter was safely back behind the beam. The Hi-Power was dry and Winter reloaded using the magazine with the eleven bullets left in it after he had tagged Spiro. That done, he ejected the SIG's empty magazine and slammed in a new one. A dragon is vulnerable to an arrow fired under her scales.

Sean pressed the breech lever aside and broke open the shotgun.

Russo came up from behind the bar and aimed the revolver at Sean, who was waiting for Sam to hand her shells.

Seeing Russo with the magnum, Sam lunged in front of his daughter, took the bullet, and, as he fell to his knees, a half dozen shells poured from the box in his hand and scattered on the floor. He slumped heavily between Sean and Russo's gun.

Winter turned at the sound of the magnum, but Russo was already back down.

Shell casings rained in the hall as the MP5s chewed up the front of the beam Winter was using for cover. When the pair stopped to reload, Winter placed both guns' barrels on the vertical flat of the beam so only his forehead was exposed to the cutouts' guns. Holding the SIG in his left hand, six inches higher up the beam than the Browning in his right, Winter fired rhythmically.

The pair was advancing slowly. The smaller figure had a long dark tail of hair dangling below the back of the assault helmet. A woman? He hit her helmet with a Hi-Power round, knocking her off balance, then put a round from the SIG in her pelvis, seating her on the floor. His next two rounds pierced the upturned soles of the woman's boots. She screamed out as the bullets hit their marks. Winter was back behind the beam before rounds from the man's freshly reloaded machine gun chewed mercilessly at it.

Russo fired again, that bullet slamming into the beam inches from Winter's face. Before Winter could turn and get a shot off, Russo had ducked again. He yelled, “I got Sam in the gut!”

Blood seeped out from under Sam. His skin had turned cigarette-ash gray.

Kneeling beside him, Sean took up two of the ten-gauge shells, pressed them into the chambers, snapped the breech closed, and aimed it at the bar.

Seated on the floor, Sam picked up the handcuff key and opened the lock on his left wrist, letting the open cuff dangle from his right.

“You can't shoot for shit, Johnny,” Sam called hoarsely.

Woman or not, the seated figure in the hallway was just a target. Five seconds after he had shot through her boots while her partner was trying to help her up, Winter fell to the floor. When he leaned out, aiming down the hallway, he was four feet lower than the man had anticipated. Winter shot at the woman's helmet, just above the visor. The impact levered her head back so his second shot drilled in under her exposed chin. She flew straight back, dead. When Winter turned his attention to her partner, he took immediate cover in the stairwell. Less confident in that armor now?

Winter ejected the empty magazine and sat up fast, reaching into his jacket to get the last full SIG magazine from his holder. He heard, behind him, the crunching and snapping of someone putting weight on broken window glass and the phit-phit-phit, of a silenced three-shot-burst. Like blows from a baseball bat, two of the rounds hit him in his armored lower back and one his thigh. A full magazine in one hand and the SIG in the other, Winter looked back in time to see a third figure outside on the porch, aiming into the room at him through the window.

A blast from Sean's shotgun made vapor of the left half of the man's neck and the gun's enormous recoil rocked her back. The cutout was dead on his feet, but with his gun's barrel rising as he fell back, the bullets harmlessly peppered the cypress ceiling.

Winter fought to catch his breath. He felt the warm blood, the dull ache, and knew that the third bullet had done serious damage to his thigh. He didn't have time to check on it.

“You're hit!” Sean cried out.

When the assailant in the stairwell fired again, Johnny pointed his gun over the bar and fired blind at Sam and Sean. He missed. Sam reached for the shotgun, but Sean wouldn't give it to him.

Winter popped the cutout as soon as he stepped back into the hallway and reached for his dead partner, perhaps to recover her unused magazines. Winter hit him in the side of his knee and in his left glove as he leaned over. Judging by the way he twisted out of sight, Winter knew he'd made an impression on the man.

Winter pantomimed the motion of tipping up a bottle to Sean, pointed to the bar, and opened his hand to imitate an explosion. Sean fired at the liquor bottles behind the bar, raining liquor and glass down on Johnny. “Stand up, Johnny!” she called out. “I got a bone to pick with you.”

“Woo-wee,” Sam said, coughing. “I believe she 'bout to shoot you good.”

The cutout in the hallway fired three-shot bursts to keep Winter pinned, and when he paused, Winter leaned out and emptied the SIG's last magazine. He was out of time, but he was going to try and sneak a round from his Walther PP under this cutout's visor when he came. The air was thick with cordite as Winter lay there with the gun aimed up, waiting. But the cutout didn't pass through the arch and appear above him. Winter heard the cutout's boots on the stairs, going down them fast, making no effort to be quiet.

Winter looked at Sean, aimed at the bar, and called out, “Sean, slide me your shotgun!”

Winter slid the empty Hi-Power across the floor.

Primed, now thinking the sound was the shotgun on its way across the floor to Winter, Russo stood anticipating a shot at an unarmed and wounded deputy. When Russo went down, it was because Winter's bullet had struck his shoulder. Winter could have killed him, but he only shattered his shoulder so he couldn't shoot at them. Winter wanted to ask him some questions.

Sean fired after Russo was down, breaking more of the bottles. When the alcohol hit the wound, Russo cried out in pain.

“Hooray, you, Dep'ty. You a bright one, boy, you!” Sam howled. “You a damn idiot, Johnny!” He laughed, then began coughing.

Russo screamed. “You fucking shot me! You're all gonna die!”

“I think your friend, Lewis, went home, Russo,” Winter said.

“Bullshit!” Russo croaked. “He wouldn't do that.”

Sean called out, “Hey, Johnny?”

“What?”

“Crybaby.”

It was remarkably quiet for a long second-air coming in from the broken windows caused the hanging cordite cloud to swirl and ebb.

Winter knew why the man had run when he heard a familiar thumping sound and the Blackhawk's brilliant halogen spotlight lit up the windows.

“Looks like the war's over,” Winter called to Russo. “Why don't you resist when they come in? They'd like nothing better than to blow your head off.”

“I give up.” Russo tossed his revolver over the bar. It smacked the floor and slid under the couch. He stood up slowly with his right hand holding a bar towel against his shoulder wound.

Sean laid the shotgun down and hurried over to check on Winter's leg. Winter held the Walther on Russo, who stood inside the bar looking down at Sean, a sour expression on his face. “Think I'm done? This is no biggie. I'll turn state's evidence and walk away from this. The feds want Sam, not me. I can put him away for keeps and they'll give me anything I want to do it. Sam gave me the money I passed to Herman Hoff-”

The sound of the ten-gauge's blast caught Winter off guard.

Russo still stood there. His eyes were still fixed on Winter and Sean but were now bulging, froglike, from their sockets. His jaw and his tongue were gone, and the cypress wall beside him looked like someone had hurled a bowl of spaghetti against it.

Winter swung the Walther's barrel toward Sam, who dropped the shotgun down by his side. He had reached down, lifted up the weapon and fired at his criminal protege's mouth.

“Tell 'em about me now, you rat bastard!” Sam yelled.

Russo tried to talk, but all he could manage was a series of gurgling noises.

Sean grimaced and turned away.

Despite the coughing fit it brought on, Sam laughed.