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hole blossomed in the window with the sound of
breaking glass.
The bullet thumped into the chair just over Carter's
shoulder. Two more followed in quick succession. The
bullet holes in the living room window formed a nice,
neat, circular pattern just about the size of a man's heart.
The shooter was good.
Tony's gun didn't have a suppressor. Neither did
Carter's. The guy shooting at them did. He also had to
have night vision gear. No way could he have seen
inside the house otherwise, and that was no lucky shot.
"How many?" Carter asked.
Tony could just barely make out where Carter was
hunched on the floor, out of sight of the guy with the
gun. He didn't look like he'd been hit, and he didn't
sound like he was in pain.
"Only saw one," Tony said.
"That leaves two more."
"We start shooting up the neighborhood, people are
gonna notice."
"Then we do this quiet," Carter said. He crab-walked
over to where Tony had his back to the front wall of the
house alongside the front window, and gave Tony a
hard, fast kiss. "I still got your back. I'm gonna set up by
the back door. Anybody comes in that way, I'll take care
of 'em."
"I got the front," Tony said.
One more kiss and Carter was gone, faded into the
shadows of the house.
They'd locked the back door before Tony had gone to
bed. That wouldn't stop anyone determined to get in.
With any luck, the shooter thought he'd taken Carter out,
Wiseguys: Blast from the Past - 56
which would leave the odds three to one in the bad guys'
favor. When they busted in the house, they'd find that
the odds, with Carter still healthy, were just about even.
Waiting in the dark by himself, Tony had nothing to
listen to except the rapid beating of his own heart. He
wasn't going to kid himself. These guys were pros. They
couldn't be intimidated like the Munroe brothers, and
they weren't about to make any stupid mistakes.
Enforcers who made stupid mistakes died young. The
guys Tony had seen in the crosswalk weren't young.
He'd known all along that this day might come. The
only way they could have avoided it would have been to
stay on the road, never stopping anywhere for long,
never leaving a trail. That wasn't any way to live.
Had they been fooling themselves all along? Living
on borrowed time since Jersey? Nothing more than dead
men walking?
Not if he could fucking help it.
Tony shut his eyes just long enough to center
himself.
He couldn't risk looking out the window. That was
just asking to get the top of his head shot off. So he
stayed there, back against the wall, eyes open now, his
breathing and heart rate back to normal.
Waiting for the shooter to make the next move.
It didn't take long.
At first, the sound seeping in through the bullet holes
in the glass sounded like the rustle of wind through the
leaves in their front yard trees. Except there was no
wind, not even a light breeze. What Tony heard was the
soft tread of someone coming up their driveway and
disturbing the leaves that had blown from the trees
during the last windstorm.
The guy had probably scouted their house. He was
good, but he wasn't perfect. Even with night vision gear,
Wiseguys: Blast from the Past - 57
walking silently outside at night was harder than it
looked. Or else maybe he didn't think he had to be that
careful. Anyone who knew Tony and Carter well enough
to be sent to kill them also knew Tony wasn't the
muscle.
Tony left the wall and crawled across the floor to the
couch, which was across the room from the chair where
Carter had been sitting. Tony grabbed one of the throw
pillows off the couch and crouched down behind it. He
propped the pillow on the tip of the couch and buried the
gun in the pillow. It wouldn't absorb as much noise as a
suppressor, but it was better than nothing.
From his spot behind the couch, Tony had a clear
shot at the front door. The pillow would fuck with his
aim, but all he needed was a body shot, and the door
would frame the guy nicely. Tony didn't think the
shooter would try to come in through the window.
He was right.
In the almost non-existent light, Tony heard more
than saw the guy try to turn the doorknob. The front
porch creaked as the guy shifted his weight. Tony could
almost see him freeze, then try the handle again. The
door was locked, just like the back door, but then Tony
heard a click and a thump -- the guy had a lock gun --
and then the sound of the handle turning.
The guy did have night vision goggles on. The
goggles distorted the size and shape of his head, made
him look like some movie monster instead of just
another goon from back home.
Tony didn't move, he didn't even breathe. He held the
pillow steady so that it would look like it had been [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]