Little Miss Mute, Page 2

didn’t get hold of my gun right quick.

  Who, and why? I was just a small-time hitter in the big game, more of a clean-up goon than a straight enforcer. I picked up after people, finished what needed finishing. They didn’t trust me enough yet to do jobs that were all-or-nothing deals, but I did have a rep as a guy that kept things tidy and tied up the loose ends. I hadn’t seen any work in awhile, but my last job had been pretty big and nasty; the cops had called in the FBI months ago to figure out what happened to Tommy Benito, and so far the only thing they’d found for his family to bury were a couple chunks of his skull that I’d missed after Big Bertha had given him two sloppy kisses goodnight. If this was John Lazia’s idea, why were they bothering with the elaborate setup? If someone had fingered me and Michael LaCapra had given me up, for whatever reason, it would have made more sense for someone to pay me a visit at home and greet me with a twelve-gauge in the face.

  Before I could bring myself to really put my foot down and say something, I realized that she was leading me straight to my car. That battered old black sedan had seen duty as a taxi for years before I’d gotten my hands on it, and everyone that saw the thing never ceased to give me hell about what a jalopy it was. It was the first set of wheels that I’d ever bought, and even though I had a newer, nicer deluxe model tucked away downtown for special occasions, this old beast was still my favorite.

  Now, I was looking at the thing like a giant steel coffin on four wheels. My eyes were all over the area as she led me to the passenger’s side of the car, scanning the muddy lot of cars parked amongst the maple trees for any sign of human movement. Nothing but raindrops and the occasional falling leaf to be seen, here. My head was practically spinning as I dug my keys out of my pocket and opened the side door for her. Manners would have told me to seat her in the back, but common sense told me that I needed to keep this woman up front with me where I could keep an eye on her. Knowing my luck, she would dig a derringer out of her dress and put it behind my ear while I was driving, painting my brains on the windshield.

  “After you,” I said with a forced smirk, trying to hide my anxiety as I gestured into the worn interior of the sedan.

  She finally released my wrist, but surprised me by grasping my waist with both hands and nailing me with a firm kiss out of nowhere. Reflexively, I tucked my left arm in front of Bertha, just in case Miss Mute decided to make a grab for her, but the rest of me gave in to the kiss like a sucker. There wasn’t even a hint of smoke in the taste of her, which told me the fancy cigarette holder had strictly been a fashion accessory for her, and the only liquor I smelled between us was that on my own breath. She pressed her warm, slender body against mine and ground her hips into me, like she wanted to merge our bodies together right through the fabric. Putting my arm around her, I could feel the rigidity of a corset under her dress – like I’d said, straight out of Victorian times. Either she was the best lure that money could buy, or I was simply being far too paranoid for my own good.

  I broke the kiss and gave a couple of glances around us. “Let’s hope you don’t cool off between now and home, huh?”

  She smiled and nodded, releasing me as she accepted my invitation into the sedan. I kept an eye on her as I went around the back of the car, watching through the rain-streaked windows as she touched up her lipstick. I wiped my lips as best I could, figuring she had smeared me up pretty good, and I slipped Big Bertha out of her cozy spot and into a front outer pocket of my trench coat. If this dame suddenly tried to turn the tables while I drove and I needed to make a play for my gat, I didn’t want to take the time to reach across my own chest, draw her, and pull it back across to draw a bead on Miss Mute; in my front pocket, all I’d have needed to do was jam my hand down there, turn my wrist her way, and shoot right through the fabric of my coat. I’d never shot a woman before, but I wasn’t going to hesitate to make this a first occasion if my crazy paranoia turned out to have some kind of basis in reality.

  I gave one last look around the lot for anyone that might be walking our way, then opened the driver’s door, and hopped in. I took off my old black fedora and shook it out just a bit outside before shutting the door. It wasn’t until I was reaching a hand up to comb back my hair with my fingers that I caught a glimpse of something in the rearview mirror, and by then it was too late. The garrote snagged me with a soft zippy sound, but it caught my hand between the wire and my throat.

  I don’t know where these guys learned their trade, but they weren’t half bad. They struck both of us with an almost mechanical sort of simultaneousness, one guy jerking open the passenger-side door and nabbing Miss Mute while the first one tried to saw my hand in half to get at my neck. That gasp of surprise and yelp of alarm was the first sound I’d heard out of her thus far, and if the dope behind me had been smart enough to use piano wire instead of a guitar string for a garrote, it might’ve been the last thing I’d ever heard.

  He had been smart enough to keep himself ducked down far enough behind the seat that I hadn’t seen him until that final split second. He was also wise enough to keep himself down and tucked in against the back of my seat so that I couldn’t even aim my pistol at him. He was pulling back on that string with everything he had, and as low as the back of the front seat was, I was bent over backwards in such a way that I had to kick a foot against the dashboard to keep him from dragging me back there with him. However, even though he had my left hand pretty well secured against my throat and was starting to draw blood as he pulled and sawed that string back and forth, my right was free to do some good. With a good full-body twist to the left, I managed to reach over my left shoulder and grab one of his wrists. With another hard twist to the right, I dragged his left arm over toward my right side, cranking his arm around and taking the tension off of the wire he was using on me. He must’ve felt what I was about to do and fell into panic before I even went through with the act. He was wailing like a girl when I turned his left wrist upside-down until it crunched a little, and then that wailing turned into a piercing scream as I folded his elbow backwards under my bicep with a wicked, wet crunch.

  I was out of that car and dragging his sorry ass out of the back seat in a blink. I had his face jammed down in the mud with my foot and I had Big Bertha jammed against his ribs when I first pulled the trigger. In all of that excitement, I hadn’t thought to click off the safety. I thumbed it off, gave his head one good stomp, and drew a bead on his skull with the .45 that was about to earn another notch on its grip. His arm was folded over in a totally unnatural position that would have given me the willies, had he been anyone else.

  “Tough break,” I said as I began to squeeze the trigger with my index finger.

  I had been aware of a screaming just before that, but I’d been mistaking it for his own. However, it wasn’t until that very instant that I suddenly realized that girly shrieking hadn’t been him, after all, but Miss Mute. Deciding against the idea of wasting good lead on him for the moment, I put my heel down as hard as I could into the base of his skull. He went still and silent, and I went around the back of the car again. I had the forty-five up and aimed with both hands before I rounded the back bumper, but I quickly realized that I didn’t have a clear shot at anything. Some sorry rodent was sprawled on top of Miss Mute in the muddy grass, thrashing about in one hell of a struggle with the little lady and screaming at the top of his lungs. He had a big, fancy knife of some kind held high overhead, and he was fighting like hell to bring it down into her. Even though he was on top, he had his head thrown back and was hollering in pain like she was in the middle of tearing his man parts off with a fork. I could see both of her hands, though; one grasped the wrist of the hand bearing that expensive-looking, brightly polished and elaborately engraved dagger, and the other was on the back of his neck, actually looking to be pulling his face towards her own.

  My first impulse was to stand right over him and let Big Bertha whisper something mind-blowing into his ear, but I didn’t want to risk hitting Miss Mute at the same time wi
th her being so close. My second idea was to yank that fancy blade out of his hand and shove it up his ass, and I don’t just mean figuratively. I knew that would just lead to a lot more screaming and hollering, though, before I had time to lay his throat open and shut him up. Instead, I thumbed Bertha’s safety back on and jammed her back into her home, straddled the unhappy couple, and grabbed a fistful of the goon’s rather short, black hair with my left to pull him up a bit away from Miss Mute.

  “That’s my date you’re laying on,” I informed him as I grabbed his chin with my right hand. I pushed forward with my left and yanked back with my right. The sound of his vertebrae cracking was like someone biting into a fresh raw carrot. Instantly, he went as limp as a rag doll in my hands, and I tossed him aside just the same.

  Poor Little Miss Mute was a mess. Her hat was on the ground in a ruin, her pretty black hair was soaked in wet, stringy strands, and her dress was smeared beyond hope with mud and grass. More importantly, her pretty mouth was practically drooling with blood from whatever that bastard had done to her. Her eyes were almost