The case of drugs lay open on the paisley print motel bedspread. Neither Butch nor Sundance knew whether it was cocaine or heroin, but it still tantalized them with its misleading purity.
Mac, for the first time in many hours, was not polishing a weapon. It took a few minutes for Butch to figure out that Mac was asleep. He was sitting upright in the only chair in the room. His eyes were closed and his head was angled back.
“What are we gonna do with this shit?” Sundance asked Butch.
“Sell it. To…someone.”
“Who’s not gonna send us a hailstorm of bullets when they find out whose drugs they are?”
“Were. They're our drugs now. And it doesn’t matter whose drugs they were. Anyone will buy it from us if we sell it for a million. They won’t care.”
“I somehow know that you’re wrong and we’ll both regret your stupidity.”
“Hey, fuck you. We’re gonna be sittin’ pretty for years… And if we get killed, blame him,” Butch pointed at Mac, who was still asleep, “He stole it.”
“Yeah, he stole it, but you were ready to suck his dick when he did.”
“Sundance, you jackass-curmudgeon…listen very closely to me. Another… million… dollars. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Yes it does, of course it does. Now saddle up, shut the fuck up and take it like a man. We’re fuckin’ rich. I’m going to kill anyone who tries to kill us and so are you. Not only that, we can send Mac ahead of us and just sit back and drink martinis.”
Mac cleared his throat, but didn’t move.
Butch turned to Mac,“I was just kiddin’, all I was saying is that you’re invincible…You’re still a creepy motherfucker, though.”
Mac smiled with his eyes shut. Sundance smiled at that.
“Okay, then,” Sundance said. “We’re gonna do this because you’re a dumbshit, got it. But, we’ve been standing here, looking at this case for an hour and we don’t know what we’re looking at,”
Butch looked at Mac, “Do you know?”
Mac, still with his eyes comfortably seamed, shook his head.
“Hmm…what about Joe?” Butch said. “There’s not a drug dealing scumbag that he don’t know.”
Sundance paused to consider it. “That’s not a bad idea.”
“Good. Now we can get some sleep.”Mac opened up one of his eyes, closed it, and shook his head. He shifted, situating himself in a somewhat more comfortable position, then tried to sleep again.
“We’ll go to Joe’s first thing in the morning,” Butch said as he put the drugs on the floor and got into bed.
Sundance locked the door, turned off the light and took off his boots and shirt. He lied down on the floor and did the best to make himself comfortable, but was still uneasy.
“We’re gonna die,” he said.
“hmpf,” came from the bed.
The next morning was bright. Sunlight pushed its way through the flimsy, sixties orange drapes that hung over the window and hid the desolate parking lot of the motel. Sundance just about crawled under the bed. Butch groaned on the bed.
Sundance heard a wet scraping sound and realized that Mac was already awake and brushing his teeth. It wasn’t really surprising after Sundance thought about it for a moment.
He stood up and twisted his back, which let off a series of loud pops. With one hand on either side of his head, Sundance twisted his neck and sounded off another series of pops. The faucet was running and Mac was gargling and spitting. His holster was already on and his .45 in it. Sundance suspected his gun was already cleaned earlier this morning. Butch couldn’t take any more noise and sat up. He stared around the room with bloodshot eyes. The wallpaper was uglier in the daylight, he thought. Groaning, he stood up, pushed past Mac to go to the bathroom and shut the door behind him.
Sundance’s shirt was on the only table in the room, neatly folded. And clean. And ironed. He looked at Mac who shrugged, spit one last time into the sink and turned off the faucet.
The shower was now running and Sundance got sick of waiting for the bathroom, so he just went outside. While standing in the little garden in between motel room doors, he thought about smoking a cigarette. He hadn’t had one in probably a year. He thought about smoking too much for the job he was in. There was no way to count the times he and Butch had to run for their lives. They had to run a long fucking way too. He decided not to think about it for a while and walked back inside.
The shower faucet was off when he came back in. Butch emerged from the bathroom, steam rising around him, with a towel around his head and one around his waist.
“Hurry up, we gotta go,” Butch said, walking over to his bag.
“You are a god damn woman, Butch. I’m ready. I’m going brush my teeth, then I’m still gonna be sittin’ here with Mac waiting on your feminine ass to do your hair.”
“Jealous," Butch said.
“Hurry.”
“Y’know, I haven’t taken a shower in two days. The least you could let me do is enjoy it.”
“Hurry.”
About an hour later, they finally left the Motel. Sundance was laughing while he tried to fuck up Butch’s immaculate spiked hair. Butch kept dodging.
* * * * *
A bar in the middle of the desert was peculiar, so Nick expected something appropriately odd inside. He found a far stranger scenario than any he’d conjured up. The bar was typical in design. Dust hung in the sunlight just like every other similar establishment, but the customers were irregular. Fourteen men were scattered out across the tables in groups of three or four. Unfortunately, every one of them knew Nick, or of him.
Nick whacked a guy name Victor Piccoli two and a half years before. It was really a work of art; disemboweled him at his sixty-fifth birthday party. Victor was beloved father and uncle to four of the men at the table twenty feet immediately in front of him. The Piccolis convinced an informant to sell out Nick’s information. It was the only man who’d ever snitched on him. The Piccolis sent one of the nephews after Nick with ten soldiers. After killing the first five, Nick took a bullet in the chest. He still managed to take out everyone else before he got to the nephew. For two weeks, every day, Nick mailed a piece of the nephew back to the Piccolis. The last package was his heart. He hadn’t heard anything from the Piccolis since.
To the left of the Piccolis and a few tables away, two mercs were talking to a contact. Nick had gone head to head with the mercs over a contract bounty. They’re no longer a three-man team.
Two more tables of men stared down Nick in similar fashion, but Nick couldn’t place their faces. It made them unknown threats, probably and hopefully minimal threats. The bartender was the only person in sight who wasn’t staring down Nick. He cleaned a mug behind the counter and carefully surveyed his seated patrons.
It was quite a tight predicament for Nick. All the outcomes, maneuvers and countermoves unfolded in Nick’s head. He wasn’t sure why no one was shooting at him yet, but it gave him more time to think. Who to shoot first, who would draw fastest, who was the best shot? Nick was still calculating when all the men began to push their chairs away from the tables to stand up. Nick pushed his jacket away from his holster.
“Boys,” the bartender said, “You know the rules.”
The bartender never stopped cleaning the mug. The men at the tables finally peeled their eyes off Nick and looked at the bartender. The men scooted back to their tables. It surprised Nick that a bartender’s authority outweighed these men’s hatred for him.
“Come over here a minute, Nick,” the bartender called to him. It caused him a second of pause.
“Yeah, I know who you are,” the bartender continued, “C’mere, we gotta talk.”
Nick walked alongside the bar stools, keeping an eye on the seated men. He sat in one of the stools, facing the bartender. He didn’t like having his back to fourteen people that wanted him dead, but this bartender seemed to have weight with them.
“Now listen carefully, Son,” the bartender began, “This is a neutral establishment, so no one’s gonna do a thing while I’m here. Not them, not you. Understand?
Nick just raised his eyebrows in muted shock.
“Okay, good. I know you’re good but don’t make the mistake athinkin’ you’re better or faster than me.”
The bartender looked hard at Nick, enough to make Nick give him his undivided attention. What the guy said wasn’t a threat; it was a warning. His tone of voice was that of concern more than intimidation. The bartender believed he was faster than Nick…and he knew Nick. The guy might be bluffing but Nick didn’t know anything about him or what he might be capable of. Nick forgot about everyone else in the room for a moment.
“Anyway, now that all that bullshit’s over with, I’m Joe.”
The bartender changed to a friendly demeanor, snapping Nick’s attention in two again. The men behind him, and the danger they represented, were again apparent.
“What can I getcha?” Joe asked.
“You have any good wine?”
“Hah! You fuckin’ kiddin’ me? What kind?”
“Um…Pinot?”
“Just a sec,” Joe smiled and walked into a back room.
Nick turned back to the furious faces behind him. The men were grimacing and popping knuckles. They dragged their nails down the sides of their drinks and stared at him. Nick did what came naturally to him and smiled. It would have been a sure tension breaker, but before anyone could react, Joe returned to the room with a bottle of pinot noir in one hand and a shotgun in the other.
Joe stared at his customers as he walked to Nick, making sure he dedicated at least a glance to each man. He laid the shotgun on the bar top with the barrel toward Nick. Joe pulled a wine glass off the shelf and popped the cork.
“Won’t find a finer pinot anywhere. Don’t rush it, let it breath a minute. Guy I know makes it himself. Got it twelve years ago in California. Got a couple left,” Joe decided to pour himself a glass.
Joe pulled another wineglass down and filled it. He swirled it around and started speaking again, “People don’t breeze in here, Nick. Whaddaya want?”
The wine had even color. It didn’t thin out when the glass tipped. Nick was impressed. He tilted it back and sipped it.
“It’s good. Who’d you get it from?
“That’s my little secret. But you didn’t come here to talk wine.”
Nick liked directness. He had to deal with Mike, his boss’s lieutenant most of the time…and Mike was full of seven shades of shit. Even Nick found himself being talked into things by the silver-tongued snake. It was too bad Joe had to die. Nick kind of liked him.
“I have a couple of questions and I heard you’re the man to talk to.”
Joe let a few seconds pass before saying anything. “You can ask me anything you want, doesn’t mean I’ll tell…but shoot.”
Nick grinned at the comment. “Know anything about a guy named Jimmy Ellis?”
Joe didn’t budge. “Should I?”
“Maybe. He spilled his guts to someone I think was one of your informants…do you know what I’m talking about?” Nick paused and waited.
Joe squinted, as if trying to piece things together. “Funny thing I saw on National News. Guy I know got caught up in a fucked up police massacre. Pretty close to here. Caused me a load of trouble. News has scarce details, but I’m pretty sure there’s only a few people on this planet capable and willing to do some crazy shit like that.”
“So…you did know the late Detective George. That man made some very expensive decisions lately. Was he you’re informant or someone else’s?”
“He was mine, Psycho. Why’s he dead?” Joe leaned toward Nick. It was the only thing Joe gave away. Joe was usually impassive, but now, he was very obviously pissed off. Joe’s fingers lined up nearer his shotgun.
Nick was confused. Joe was tough to figure out, but Nick was great at reading people. The things that Joe said didn’t add up. Joe knew Det. George, but not Ellis. He didn’t even seem to know who Ellis was. If Joe were in on this deal, he’d know about Ellis. If George was Joe’s informant and Joe didn’t know about the deal, then George bypassed him and sold out the deal to someone else. If George bypassed his main organizer, then he did it to cut out the middleman. He must’ve wanted a bigger cut…so…he must have dealt with some gunmen directly.
“Did George know any gunmen?” Nick asked.
Joe paused. He didn’t like where this was going, “…Why?”
“I think he informed some people he knew about the deal, instead of going through you.”
“I think that could very well be some bullshit.”
“Hey man, I did you a favor for capping the motherfucker who cheated you out of a deal. Although to be fair, I would’ve killed you if you had anything to do with it.”
“You’re pretty confident, pipsqueak…I’m not that easy to kill.”
Nick took another sip of his wine. He rolled it around on his tongue before swallowing it. Jesus, it was good wine. “Joe… Did Detective George know anyone capable of ripping off big deals? This is where you say, ‘Of course, Nick’ and then I say ‘Who-Are-They?’”
Butch and Sundance were the only gunmen that the Detective George knew. Joe wasn’t about to give them up. But he was going to slap the shit out of them for talking to his informant.
“He was a cop in my area. Chances are, he probably knew a few. I wouldn’t know which ones.”
“Lies, Joe. You’re telling me lies. And even if you weren’t…which you are…you could find out. Why don’t you fill me in right now. I’m trying to spare you a lot of pain.” Nick drank the rest of his wine.
“Listen up, Squirt, the only reason you’re not breathing your last breath through nine millimeter holes in your chest is because I say so. So don’t go throwin’ threats around my bar. You try that bullshit again, I’ll likely get upset.”
“I just want the names of some guys that took a job from you. Why in the hell do you think they're worth protecting? You know I’m going to have those names, so come on and just give them up, Joe.”
Joe didn’t want to escalate the situation, but he couldn’t back down and he couldn’t give up the boys either. A few of the guys behind Nick stood up. Nick noticed but didn’t break eye contact with Joe.
Joe looked over Nick’s shoulder for a second. “Sit the fuck down and don’t do a goddamn thing.”
No matter what, Joe couldn’t let there be bloodshed in the bar. His reputation and business depended on maintaining neutrality, maintaining the peace.
Joe turned his attention back to Nick, “You keep tryin’ to give me orders and I’m gonna have to start knockin’ teeth down your throat. You either leave now and come back when you got some sense in that fucked up head of yours or I’m gonna let the boys here bleed you out.”
Joe would never back down. The time for talk was over. Nick had to figure out how to kill everyone in the room and make sure Joe lived long enough to give up the names. This was very tricky.
Nick laid his empty glass on the bar and stood up. He made sure it was easy to unholster his gun. When he stood up, nick heard muffled laughter from outside.
Mac walked in front of Butch and Sundance to the front door of Joe’s. Butch’s hair was completely messed up and Sundance laughed about it. Mac pushed the door open and walked through.
Butch and Sundance had barely made it inside when Mac drew his gun in a blur. Sundance had never seen a gun drawn that fast. He was amazed to see another man at the bar match Mac’s speed on the draw.
Joe already had a shotgun to the other guy’s ear and yelled, “Don’t!” before any shots were fired. Everybody in the bar drew their weapons in the next second, except for Butch who calmly stood still. Sundance had his pistol aimed at the unknown man over Mac’s shoulder. It would already be a bloodbath if not for Joe. Everyone wanted to shoot the guy.
Butch looked around at all the angry faces and felt like he should be doing something. He finally decided to pull out his gun and point it at the guy.
Well, Joe wasn’t lying, Nick thought. He was that fast.
Joe was screaming, “MAC, YOU PUT THAT MOTHERFUCKIN’ THING UP! NOBODY DO A FUCKIN’ THING!”
Joe shifted his weapon off Nick’s ear and pointed it into the crowd behind Nick to reinforce the statement, then let it drift back. Joe began talking to Nick, “You get the fuck out of here, right now, if you wanna live.”
Nick ignored Joe.
“Hi Mac!” Nick said, “Been a long time.” There was a long pause. “Oh what, nothing to say to me after all these years? Sure have missed you.
Joe touched Nick’s eyelashes with the barrel of his shotgun and said, “Keep it up.” Joe tilted his head toward Mac, “Mac, not in MY BAR, GODDDAMMIT!”
“C’mon, Joe!” Nick said, “It’s just getting fun now. I didn’t know you knew Mac. We go way back, Mac and me. Don’t we, Mac? Well Joe, I got a pretty good idea who’s responsible now. Who’re the two assholes with him?”
“Hey! Fuck you!” Butch yelled.
Joe still tried to calm things down. “Holster that weapon, son, and no one dies,” he told Nick. Nick was fucked outright and would have been killed ten times over if it weren’t for Joe. Nick didn’t seem to care one way or the other; his job was done. He had all the info he needed. These were the guys. Nick holstered his weapon.
“Yeah…” Nick said, “I’ll check in on you guys later. Thanks for the wine, Joe.” Nick walked out of the way of the shotgun and toward the door. Joe kept the shotgun steady right where he had it. The gun trained on the guys at the tables behind where Nick stood.
“Easy, everyone,” Joe told them, “Just take it easy.” He swept the shotgun over the bloodthirsty Piccolis. He made a point to look over at Mac without pointing the gun at him. “Easy, Mac. Take it easy, son. Not here.”
Nick walked past Mac. Mac’s face was red; his pistol still locked on Nick’s head. Butch and Sundance hadn’t seen intense emotion from Mac before.
Nick turned his back on the front door and leaned on it. As he left, he smirked at Mac, “See you soon, buddy.” The door slowly swung closed behind him.
“Butch, bolt that door!” Joe said.
Butch put away his gun and pushed the bolt over.
Joe laid the shotgun on the bar and leaned on it. “Fuck,” he exhaled.
Everyone holstered their weapons, except Mac. He had a white-knuckle hold on the .45 at his side.
One of the Piccolis yelled at Joe, “You should have let us kill him, Joe! You know what that fucker did!”
Joe didn’t bother looking up. He tried to catch his breath. He hadn’t been that anxious for a long time. “You know the rules,” he said sounding much older than usual.
“We’re going to get him. You can’t stop us from skinning the son-of-a-bitch alive when we’re not here.”
“That’s true. I can’t stop you,” Joe said, looking up. “If you go after him, he’ll kill you all. I’m sure he’s expecting you.”
“FUCK YOU, JOE! C’mon boys, lets go.” He turned to the other guys at the bar, “You can come with us if you want.”
Everyone agreed to go. They all left and Butch re-bolted the door behind them.
“I couldn’t let you do it here, Mac,” Joe said. He knew he couldn’t comfort Mac in any way. He didn’t try. “Why don’t you go upstairs and take a load off, huh?”
Mac walked upstairs gripping his gun. Joe’s back straightened and his face hardened. He turned to Butch and Sundance.
“I gotta talk to you two assholes.”
“Hey, What’d we do,” Butch asked.
“You guys talked to my informant without telling me?”
Sundance glanced at Butch. They knew they were caught with their hands in the cookie jar.
“C’mon Joe, we were gonna tell you. He came to us, man,” Sundance said. “We were gonna give you a cut anyway. Detective George told us not to say anything to you. He wanted a bigger cut.”
Butch interrupted, “We were gonna give it to you anyway. We just didn’t want to freak him out before we did the job.”
“YOU SHOULD HAVE FREAKED HIM THE FUCK OUT AND COME TO ME FIRST!” Joe yelled, his voice quaking with fury. “If I would a'known the Saliverris were involved in any way, I wouldn’t have sent Mac. Jesus Christ, do you have any Idea how much shit you guys just fucked up?”
“Jesus, Joe, you’re gonna twist your testicles, calm down,” Butch said.
Joe stared Butch into looking down.
“What do you mean about Mac?” Sundance asked.
Joe was short with them. He was conflicted about whether he wanted to tell the story, throw the assholes out of his bar, talk to Mac or start working on fixing the fucking mess Butch and Sundance made. Whatever he finally decided to do, he figured that the boys needed to hear the story.
“Mac used to work for Saliverri. He was one of his hitmen…Along with Nick (the asshole that just caused all the ruckus in here).” Joe took a deep breath. “Saliverri thought someone was stealing from him. He thought it was Mac. Eventually his lieutenant figured out the mistake and tried to clear Mac, but not before Saliverri sicced Nick on Mac’s family.”
“Huh,” Butch grunted, “I didn’t know Mac was the family type.”
“You didn’t know him before. Nick got there when Mac was asleep, sneaky motherfucker, dangerous as they come. He tied up Mac, his wife and his daughter. He just about skinned them alive. Nick did Mac’s wife first, then his daughter. Taking his time. Right in front of Mac too…poor sunuvabitch. Saliverri’s lieutenant got there just after Nick started on Mac. He stopped him, but it took a couple of weeks before they knew if Mac would live or not. Mac ain’t said much since. Saliverri tried to make it right, but you can’t fix shit like that. Mac went on a run for Saliverri after he got a little better. Mac killed all his kids. Even the bastard ones his wife didn’t know about. Don’t get all weepy ‘bout ‘em, though. They were class-A dirtbag assholes just like their father. Mac marched through most of Saliverri’s army, took a lot of lead, too. Boss Saliverri barely got out with his life. Mac’d a been fully recovered, Saliverri’d be dead as shit. Since then, Mac’s been in hiding, waiting for the right time to go after Saliverri, pullin’ high-risk jobs here and there for money. He’s more of a legend now than a gunman. Thought he might a come to his senses and put all that other shit behind him, but you two morons had to screw that up didn’t ya?”
“How the hell do you know this?” Sundance asked.
“Ain’t nothin’ I don’t know.”
Sundance shrugged and let it be. He wasn’t sure what to think about this. What was he going to say to Mac?
Butch was astonished. How could everything go so perfectly wrong? It was going so well.
Joe continued, “Now Saliverri’s gone and sent Nick out in the wild. He killed everyone in a goddamn police station to get to you. It’s gonna take every favor I got me owed, every string I can pull, most the money I got right now and probably a whole lotta other shit in the unforeseen future to keep the heat off my place now. …And now Nick found out who you guys are and he knows where Mac is. Saliverri’s gonna send everyone he’s got after you.”
“Aw…fuck, man. We didn’t know all that shit,” Butch said. “Mac just ran off and wiped out all of Saliverri’s guys…came back with the drugs. We didn’t know all this shit.”
“Yeah, no fuckin shit! That’s why you should have come to me first!”
Butch sat down and put his head in his hands. “We’ll make it right, Joe. We’ll take care of it, I promise.”
Sundance thought back to all the events that led to this moment. He thought of all the causes and slapped Butch in the back of the head, “I fucking told you, Butch!”
“Man, haven’t you fucked up my hair enough!?”
“Shut up, both of you,” Joe said.
Butch and Sundance looked down and obliged Joe, then walked upstairs after Mac.
Joe's second floor was posh. It was a collection of ‘cool rooms’. A few rooms were like hotel rooms: bed, satellite TV, mini-bar…comfy. Sometimes the bar was used for Boss meetings on neutral ground. Some of the bosses stayed the night. If negotiations ran long, they all stayed. Joe made quite a chunk of change on those.
Mac sat on the bed in the last room of the hall. Butch and Sundance knocked on the open door and walked in. Mac raised his head just enough to acknowledge their presence, then let it hang back down. Mac stared at his chrome-plated pistol. He twisted it in the light, rolling the reflection from the light down the barrel and off the tip like a gleaming teardrop.
Butch sank down on the bed beside Mac. He didn’t say anything. Sundance stood at the entryway. No words needed to be spoken. All of them knew how this had to play out. A mutual understanding was communicated in silence.
Butch looked away from Mac to Sundance and nodded.
“Well…” Sundance said, “Let’s go kill the motherfuckers.”
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