Money Shot

19.

My first instinct was pure and unequivocal. Kill the son of a bitch. I knew in my gut that he had been the one who put the two bullets in the back of Sam’s head.

But he and Malloy were close as lovers, moving erratically in every direction. I’m not a bad shot. I can hit pretty close to the middle of the paper guy more than half the time at the calm, empty shooting range. But in a situation like this, with my hands shaking, an unfamiliar gun and Malloy right there... well, I just didn’t want to take any chances.

I put my hand inside the duffel bag and unzipped the inner pocket, closing my fingers around the cold weight of the pistol’s nubby, ergonomic grip. I fumbled along the length of the barrel, hunting for the safety and feeling like my heart was going to burst inside my chest.

I wanted to shout something tough and manly like Freeze, motherfucker, or I’ll blow your balls off! In the end I just pointed the gun and yelled, “Hey!”

The rhino and Malloy both turned toward my voice. There was no recognition in the rhino’s eyes as he sized up this fey blond boy holding a gun. Then, almost before I could register what was happening, Malloy took advantage of the unexpected distraction to let the guy have it hard, right on the button. The rhino spun and crumpled to the concrete.

I rushed to Malloy’s side, looking up into his bloody face.

“You okay?” I asked.

“You should see the other guy,” he replied with that stingy rind of a smile on his bruised lips. He opened the driver’s side door. “Let’s get the hell out of here before any more of them show up.”

I was about to go around to the passenger side and get in the car when I looked down at the rhino. He was unconscious, face down on the concrete and making a sort of snoring sound, arms and legs twitching like a dog chasing dream rabbits. Without even realizing I was doing it, I raised the gun and aimed it directly at the back of his head. My whole body felt cold and numb.

“Angel,” Malloy said, putting a hand on my shoulder.

I shook him off and centered my aim again. I thought of Sam, of Georgie and all the shoots we did together. The fresh potato salad she always made and the time Sam put that strap-on dildo around his forehead and ran around the set claiming to be a unicorn looking to put his head in a virgin’s lap. I dropped down on one knee beside the man who’d killed him and pressed the snout of the gun against the curve of the fucker’s skull.

“Think for a second, Angel,” Malloy asked quietly. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

I could hear the sound of Malloy’s voice, but somehow it didn’t seem to relate to me. All I could hear was that scream, that horrible high-pitched, almost child-like scream that had torn up out of Sam’s throat when the rhino shot him in the knee. The only thing I was sure of was this kind of delirious, narcotic fury that gripped me and wouldn’t let me go. I pulled the trigger.

The rhino was dead before I could put a second hole alongside the first, but I felt I needed to do it anyway, for Sam. The pistol’s kick resonated endlessly along the long bones of my arm and my unprotected ears rang and then Malloy was grabbing me, hustling me roughly into the car and peeling out.

“Give me the gun,” he said as he hung a sharp turn onto Moorpark.

I let him pry my fingers gently off the pistol’s grip and then stash the gun under his seat.

I felt cold and muffled, as if I were underwater. The familiar, franchise-laden Valley landscape seemed hyper-detailed and implausible, like something drawn by a comic book artist on speed, but my own inner landscape was blurry and unclear.

If I’d been unsure how to feel about Malloy after witnessing what he had done to that thug in Vegas, how was I supposed to feel about myself now? That guy in Vegas had been trying to kill Malloy. Malloy was simply defending himself, even if he ultimately went too far. Me, I had shot and killed an unconscious man. Sure, he was trying to hurt Malloy, maybe kill him. He had shot Sam in the knee right in front of me, if not killed him, too. But the guy had been out like a baby when I’d shot him. What sort of person did that make me?

As if reading my mind, Malloy arched a silver eyebrow at me.

“Guess I was wrong about you,” he said.

I remembered Malloy saying that he thought I wasn’t the cold-blooded execution type. Tabby had said basically the same thing. Were they wrong? Had the events of the last few crazy days changed who I was or just allowed me to finally become who I had been all along?

There was something different in Malloy’s guarded eyes when he looked at me now. I couldn’t tell if it was admiration or wariness.

“Pull over,” I hissed, breaking eye contact and clutching the dashboard as I was broadsided by a brutal wave of nausea.

I barely shouldered open the door in time to puke violently into the leafy gutter just before the corner of Riverside and Van Noord.