Burn Zone

28

WILLIAM "IKE" FLOYD WATCHED AS MR. ORTÍZ KEPT HIS GUN barrel on the girl's head. She had shown no interest in the gun since he had placed it there. She reminded Ike of a hound dog who didn't know what a gun could do.

Craig said, "You wanna know what happened?"

He looked from Ortíz to Pelly, not knowing who should hear the story.

Ike's heart started to beat harder, and his grip tightened on the pistol in his hand. He was about to get smacked in the face by the truth, and he had to do something quick. He couldn't let Craig tell them how he had tricked Ike.

Without thinking, he raised his pistol and said, "Where's the crate, Craig?"

When the young man hesitated, Ike started to jerk the trigger of the slim SIG-Sauer.380. Three of the first five rounds caught Craig square in the chest.

Ortíz instinctively stepped back, away from the gunfire.

Craig dropped onto the couch without another sound, snatching silently at his chest for a moment until he went still.

Once Ortíz had backed away, the girl stood up. The seventh shot from Ike's gun had caught her in the throat and she tumbled next to her boyfriend, her big eyes staring at Ike.

When the small pistol was empty and the slide locked back, he stepped up to the couch. He looked down at the lifeless Craig, satisfied he had gotten his revenge. The girl squirmed next to him on the couch, using her small hand to try to stop the blood pouring from the wound in her neck. A gurgling sound escaped from her that turned Ike's stomach. After a few seconds, she lay still, too.

Ike heard the door burst open and saw the man from the porch. Pelly raised his gun to the man's head and said, "Where's the crate from the truck?"

The man's eyes popped when they fell on the dead couple in the living room. He stammered, "The satellite?"

Pelly said, "What satellite?"

"The one in the crate."

Pelly looked over to Ortíz. Then back at the man. "Yes, the satellite."

"It's in the garage in the back."

Ortíz said, "I'll stay with our friend. You two check the garage."

Ike followed Pelly out the door and through the house. He still held the empty pistol. He couldn't believe he had just shot a man up close. He'd shot a girl, too, but that was an accident. He was becoming a killer.

They didn't encounter anyone else in the house as they searched for the back door to the one-car garage. Going in through the kitchen, they found the bomb in the middle of the clean garage with only the top of the crate torn off.

Pelly stood on his toes and looked out of one of the windows built into the wooden garage door. He turned back to Ike. "The man working on the car has headphones on. He's still there."

Ike, still shaky from the adventure, said, "How're we gonna move this thing?"

"We'll get another rental truck. The fat mechanic earned his stolen one."

Duarte casually walked up to the duplex and waited for the man standing by the front door to look up. There was no need to be rude. Yet.

The man's eyes came up to meet Duarte's. He said, "We're not buying."

"I'm not selling anything."

"Then get lost."

Duarte tried not to smile. "I'm looking for Ike Floyd."

"Who're you?" The man's angular face made him look angry even though he didn't sound like it.

"I'm the guy looking for Ike."

"Oh, a smart-ass. You look like you might be an Italian or Spanish smart-ass."

"I'm from Florida, and I need to talk to Ike. Where is he?"

"Look, Mr. Florida." Now he sounded pissed off. "I don't care who you are or what you are. This is a private club, and by lookin' at ya, I doubt you could join."

Duarte kept a calm expression. Something like this made him realize how little his heritage mattered to most people, but when he found an idiot like this, it was all he could do not to take his head off. Instead he simply started to step around the wiry man.

The man tried to grab Duarte's arm as he said, "Wait a minute. I said…"

That was all he got out once Duarte had bent the man's wrist in the most unnatural downward position.

In a quiet voice, he said, "No loud noises or you won't write any letters for more than a year. Understand?"

The man nodded furiously as he hunched his whole body, hoping for the slightest relief he could get.

Inside it looked like a comfortable museum, with couches along the walls and shelves of knickknacks. On the walls, vintage posters of the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis hung in an orderly fashion.

Duarte said, "You guys love your memorabilia, don't you?"

The man just said, "Let up, let up."

Duarte did slightly and said, "Where're your buddies? I need to talk to someone about Ike."

The man nodded forward, and Duarte could see two men inside a small room off the hallway. He thrust the man with the sore wrist inside the room, then stood in the doorway until they were done bouncing off one another.

A wide man, who resembled a pro lineman, stood up from a chair that looked like a kid's prop next to him. "Who in the hell are you?"

Duarte kept it short. "Look, guys, I just need to talk to Ike Floyd. You know where he is?"

The man Duarte had seen at the door massaged his wrist and said, "I think he broke my fucking arm."

The lineman and the third man, a real young guy about Duarte's size, stepped toward him.

It was on.