The Viking Funeral

Chapter 42

TREMAINE SAID, "THEY'RE plannin' something. We need t'break hard on these assholes before it gets outta hand."

They were standing on the curb outside the cantina. The San Andresitos were clustered over by their cars.

"How'd ya figure to do that, Inky Dink?" Jody said. "There's four of us in a town of fifty-five thousand gun-toting pendejos"

Paco broke away from the others, approached, and slapped Jody on the back as he rattled some Spanish. Jody frowned and glanced over at Lester Wood.

"He says we gotta get going before Cortez returns."

"So, let's do it," Jody said. All five of them jammed into Paco's Toyota. He turned his bubble around and headed back toward his warehouse on Calle 16, leaving the three other San Andresitos standing in front of the cantina, staring down at designer-name watches as if their futures were ticking away on each dial.

"Where's he going?" Shane asked. "We should be heading west. That's the only way out of town."

Paco answered in Spanish, and Sawdust turned to Jody. "He says we need to pick up some celadores at his business, for our safety. He says Santander won't attack us if we have enough protection."

"Now he's worried about our safety?" Shane asked. "Five minutes ago this prick was trying to hold us for ransom."

"Good point," Jody said, then pulled the P-7 out of his side pocket and put it against Paco's rib cage.

"Que es?" Paco said, glancing at Jody, then down at the gun.

"So you don't go stupid on us, amigo."

They made a right onto Calle 16 but had to stop as soon as they turned because they were stuck behind a strange column of armed men and vehicles. A sole man pushing a wheelbarrow was leading the parade. Walking on each side of him, guarding the wheelbarrow, were four celadores, their machine guns aimed in all directions. An empty flatbed truck rumbled along behind.

"What is this?" Jody snapped.

"Por comercio… How you say? Dinero por trade, Hernandez no tiene dishwashers, de modo que va a comprarlos en mi tienda."

Sawdust said, "If one of them doesn't have what he needs for his market in Colombia, he buys it from one of the others."

"Si," Paco said.

"They going to your place?" Jody asked.

"Si, a mi tienda… "

"What's in the wheelbarrow?"

"Dinero Colombiano. "

Paco managed to pull around the column, and as they drove past, Shane looked out the window. Sure enough, the wheelbarrow was half full of stacks of Colombian pesos.

Paco stopped the Toyota in front of his warehouse. A moment later the wheelbarrow full of cash and the empty truck arrived. Two yellow forklifts zipped out of Paco's warehouse with pallet-loaded boxes of Maytag washing machines stacked three high. A dozen celadores stood out front, facing Hernandez's celadores over glistening new auto-mags. The man with the wheelbarrow upended it unceremoniously onto the Spanish-tile sidewalk in front of Paco's showroom.

"Cha-ching," Jody said softly.

Three of the women whom Shane had seen in the office upstairs now rushed out of the building and bent over the bundles of cash, rifling through them, their nimble fingers counting. Calculators hummed and LCD screens printed out figures. Once again, Shane noticed that the calculators were the big twelve-digit Texas Instrument computers. He finally realized that when tabulating these huge sums in pesos, the regular ten-digit calculators ran out of decimal points.

Suddenly, from the end of the street, they heard the sound of big truck engines growling loudly. Shane looked over and saw two old army trucks with at least twenty men in them, rolling over the garbage-strewn street.

"Adentro! Adentro! Andeles!" Paco said as he began to move toward the warehouse.

"Not so fast, asshole," Jody said, grabbing Paco by the collar, now putting the P-7 to his head. "You're not quite through here yet."

All of the celadores swung and pointed their weapons at the Vikings, but Jody ignored them and pointed up the street at the approaching trucks. "Whose guys are those? Is that Santa?"

"Si, Santander viene" Paco said. Unreasoning fear was in his eyes and spreading over his face.

"Let's go," Jody said, jamming his gun barrel hard against Paco's temple, freezing the army of celadores on the sidewalk.

Paco shouted at them, "No disparar! No disparar!"

The women on their knees kept gathering and tabulating. They never looked up.

"Somebody get a piece on this guy," Jody commanded, and Sawdust put his pistol to the back of Paco's head.

Jody jumped out of the Toyota SUV. Then he ran around and got behind the wheel, pushing the fat San Andresito over into the passenger seat beside him. Tremaine broke out the glass of the two fixed windows in the rear of the Toyota, using the barrel of his pistol. Gym-bag zippers ripped open in the car, followed by a chorus of forty-round mags slamming home and sliders being tromboned.

"Only one way out and that's past those guys up there," Jody said. "It's gonna be reckless, so hold on." He backed up, turned, then headed up the street directly toward the approaching vehicles and twenty armed men.

"No! No, es loco… Somos muertos!" Paco said, sweat pouring down his round face, drenching his shirt collar.

A happy madness distorted Jody's features: "We may die, but we're gonna take a few motherfuckers with us."

In seconds, the first bullets rocked the Toyota. Fired from a half a block away, they thudded into the grille and shattered a side mirror.

"Get busy!" Jody shouted.

Shane leaned out one of the broken side windows and aimed his Polish MP-63 up the street at the column of army vehicles. The badly rocking SUV distorted his aim as its tires spun, looking for purchase on a street covered with decaying garbage. He started blasting, aiming blindly with one hand, the bolt clattering maniacally as the machine pistol fired, spewing hot brass out into the street.

It was hard to assess what happened next because it was a blur of spinning tires, rotating landscapes, and chattering gunfire. Jody was heading right at the lead truck, then yanked the wheel to the left at the last second. The radial tires spun garbage out behind them, slushing badly in the rotting muck as the SUV hit a curb and bounced up then, somehow, they were on the sidewalk in front of Sococo's showroom.

Ten automatic weapons broke out simultaneously, shattering the remaining windows in the Toyota. Jody kept his head low while the entire front windshield starred and then rained chunks of glass in on them.

Shane dropped the first clip and jammed his last one home. Tremaine was firing out the window on the far side of the SUV. With the windshield gone, Sawdust was aiming straight out the front, his MP-63 barking loudly inside the car, throwing a stream of spent casings at Paco in the front passenger seat. The sweaty San Andresito screamed in panic as Sawdust's hot brass hit him, the bullets whizzing past his ear. They were now opposite Cortez's two army trucks.

Santander's men had taken cover behind the vehicles and let loose as the Toyota roared past on the sidewalk. The Vikings fired until the weapons were empty and the slides locked open. Heavy 9-millimeter bullet hits rocked the SUV but, miraculously, it didn't stall.

Shane grabbed his Astra and emptied his last clip until he was pulling the trigger maniacally, dry-firing, unaware that he was empty because of the booming retort of the Colt Commander that Sawdust was using right next to his ear. The chattering racket of ten incoming machine guns set up a deadly cacophony only twelve feet away.

"I'm dry!" Shane yelled. They were now past the column of men and trucks. Almost immediately, Jody's P-7 flew over the seat and hit him on the shoulder. Shane scooped it up, turned, and kept firing out the back window.

Somehow they got through the violent maelstrom and bounced back onto the street.

"Anybody hit?" Jody yelled.

"Yeah, I'm leakin' some," Lester Wood drawled.

"How bad?"

"Well, it's… It's… I think I'm okay…"

Jody was making a right turn, back onto Calle 16, heading out of town. The Toyota engine sounded as if it had been hit-running rough and getting worse by the minute.

Sawdust's face was drained of color, but his denim shirt was drenched in red. "This ain't good back here," Shane said. "Sawdust looks bad."

The SUV was losing speed, coughing and bucking.

"We gotta get to that garrison at the end of town," Jody said. "We'll deal with it then."

"No!" Paco said. "No militia."

"I'm through listening to you!" Jody shouted, spinning the wheel to avoid another wandering Hereford grazing on garbage in the middle of the street.

They headed back through town. The Toyota was barely moving when the garrison finally came into view.

Shane could see out the back window that Santander's jeeps had gotten turned around and were now behind them, closing fast. "They're four blocks back," he announced.

The SUV was lurching badly as it bucked and coughed down the street. Shane pried the Colt out of Lester Wood's hand and emptied it out of the broken back window.

"No! No militia!" Paco shouted again. Jody ignored him and lurched the Toyota onto the paved road leading into the military base. The two gate guards swung their weapons down on polished shoulder straps, aiming them at the Toyota as it pulled to a stop at the main gate.

"Police," Jody said, yanking out his LAPD badge and holding it out the window. "American policia. "

"Necesitamos socorro," Lester Wood rasped.

Santander's trucks pulled into the driveway behind them but slowed down fifty yards away and inched forward like jackals at the edge of firelight.

"Fuck this," Jody said, watching them in the one remaining side mirror. Then he hit the gas. The Toyota bucked forward, smashing the wooden bar arm across the base road, shattering it.

"No!" Paco screamed.

An alarm started ringing, and almost immediately fifteen soldiers ran out of a wooden building slamming banana clips into a variety of automatic weapons, clicking off safeties as they approached. In seconds, they had the Toyota surrounded.

Jody got out of the vehicle with his hands up and his LAPD badge held high. "American policiahe repeated to the soldiers, who were staring in disbelief at the bullet-riddled vehicle. Shane looked back at Santander's trucks parked just a few feet outside the garrison. At first it seemed they were afraid to come closer. Then Shane began to wonder if perhaps they were parked there to block a possible retreat.

"Sawdust, tell this guy we demand political asylum," Jody said. "Tell 'em. Tell these guys we're American cops on a U. S. government mission. Go on, do it!"

Shane was studying the dusty look in Lester Wood's vacant eyes. "We're gonna have to find a way to tell 'em ourselves. Sawdust didn't make it."