Bayou Pirates Page 19

Buddy threw his arms and hands over his already-wounded head and curled up into a ball as best he could to resist the incoming attack.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” he wailed. “He seemed like a good customer, said he’d done this before. I looked him up to confirm and figured we were good. It was supposed to be a good, safe sale, honest. Honest!”

  What these guys didn’t seem to realize that Nina did in her time with them was that there was no such thing as a good, safe sale in this business. Eventually, you just ended up here.

  Bruise wrapped his giant—though admittedly not so giant as Ice’s—hands around Buddy’s neck and began to choke him in a fit of rage.

  “Hey, hey!” Marston screamed, holding up his gun and pointing it straight at Bruise’s head. “Drop him, or I shoot.”

  “You’re not the only ones with guns,” Ice said, pulling his own firearm out from under his baggy jeans and pointing it straight back at the MBLIS agents and the detectives.

  Almost as one, Agent Holm and the detectives all raised their own weapons in kind. They were at a standstill, with Nina stuck right in the middle, and the two guys who brought in Buddy standing off to the side with their hands in the air, not wanting to get caught in the fray.

  She slowly took several steps back until she was safely off to the side of the vast open floor plan again. Surveying the apartment for a second time, she realized it really wasn’t the worst place for a gunfight since there was so much space. Not that it wouldn’t be best to avoid one entirely.

  Nina was going to try to stay out of this one, too, she decided. Now that the MBLIS agents were here, there was a better chance that she could preserve her undercover status. That being said, she didn’t like the way this was going.

  “I would suggest you think very carefully before you make any further moves,” the older detective, Barrett, said quietly, staring daggers at both Ice and Bruise.

  Buddy began to spurt and thrash in Bruise’s grip. Marston took a step toward them, his firearm held high since Bruise was so tall. He was probably reluctant to shoot because Buddy was in the way.

  “I said, drop him!” he hollered, narrowing his eyes at Bruise, who just cackled in response.

  “Or what?” he asked. His tone was sickly sweet. “You’re going to shoot me? Or will you shoot him instead? How can you be sure?” He nodded in the thrashing man’s direction. Clearly, he’d worked as much out for himself just like Nina had.

  “I’ll try,” Marston challenged. “It looks like you’re killing him anyway, so you might as well take a shot.”

  Nina already knew that the MBLIS agent was bluffing. Though she’d only known him for a short time, she already knew enough about him to know that he was too much of an upstanding officer to try to pull anything like that. But he probably hoped Bruise didn’t know that.

  Apparently, he did. He just started cackling again.

  “Sure,” he chuckled, shaking his head at Marston. “Give it your best shot. I’ll be waiting.”

  He moved Buddy a bit so that Marston’s line of fire was even more obstructed now. The poor guy was starting to look a little blue, though he was still getting some air in. Nina noticed that Bruise had relaxed his grip a bit, probably because he knew that if he killed Buddy, he was done. Marston wouldn’t have any reason not to shoot then.

  Nina scanned the rest of the room again. Ice was still squaring off with Barrett and Holm, while that other detective whose name she didn’t know was focusing on the two gangbangers still off to the side, the ones who had brought in Buddy.

  They still had their hands in the air, but the detective was wise not to leave them unattended. Given a chance, Nina knew that those guys would try to protect Ice and Bruise. It would earn them points with the gang leader, and they didn’t exactly want to be arrested, either.

  Nina realized that she was in a similar position. Being a woman made the other gangbangers underestimate her, so it was possible that they didn’t expect her to intervene in the same way. But still, if she chickened out for the second day in a row, there would be questions.

  She thought through her options again as the standoff continued. She could see a bead of sweat beginning to form on Marston’s brow, even though the apartment was well air-conditioned. Someone had to do something to break this up, fast, or Buddy would run out of air, eventually.

  She could step in, pretend to go after the agents. But that could go bad fast. So could the alternative where she joined the agents. Nina bit her lower lip, trying to decide.

  She decided to take an approach that was more in the middle but even riskier.

  Finally, she stepped forward until she was in between Marston and Bruise again, though not quite so close this time. It was more of a triangle shape between them now.

  She pulled out her own gun and held it up, pointing it at Marston. She thought she detected a slight eyebrow raise in him when she did this as if he were wondering what she was up to, but he covered it up quickly.

  “Lower your weapons,” she said icily. “Lower them, or I shoot. You can’t have your guns pointed at two people at once.”

  “We have more than one weapon between us,” Barrett pointed out, but his own gun was solidly trained on Ice and didn’t show any sign of wavering. The same with Holm. The other detective seemed justifiably reluctant to ignore the other two gangbangers.

  “Do it,” Nina said, her voice hard now. She met Marston’s eyes, trying to communicate with him that this was important, and he should do as she said.

  He wavered, but finally, he got the picture, nodding to her and lowering his weapon. He gestured for his companions to do the same. They were even more reluctant but acquiesced at long last.

  Buddy was definitely looking blue by then, and Nina turned her firearm on Bruise.

  “Your turn,” she told him, hoping beyond hope that he and Ice would still admire her boldness instead of being offended by it. “Let him go. Now.”

  “You can’t seriously…” he started to scoff, but Nina cut him off.

  “You heard me,” she said. “Let him go. Like I told you before, he’s my friend, and I don’t want to see him dead. I have a better line of fire at this angle, and even if that changes, don’t think for a minute that I’m beholden to the same moral code as our friends from law enforcement over here, so I’ll shoot, regardless.”

  She met Bruise’s dark eyes, and she thought she saw another flicker of respect dug deep down in there somewhere. But it vanished quickly, replaced by the unbridled rage she was hoping to avoid.

  “Now, who do you think you are?” he roared, taking a step in her direction as he dragged a flailing Buddy along with him.

  Well, that didn’t go as planned. She did have a good line of fire, though, since Buddy was behind Bruise at this angle, so Plan B was still a go. She took aim, and shot Bruise right in the chest once, twice, then three times, because he was so large that she worried once wouldn’t be enough.

  The massive man, who, along with Ice might as well have been stars of a professional wrestling program, given the look about them, relaxed his grip on Buddy and stumbled backward, blood curdling on the edge of his lips.

  “Hey!” Ice screamed out before making as if to turn his own weapon on Nina. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  There went her undercover stint.

  Right before Ice had a chance to train his weapon on Nina and shoot her in retribution for shooting his friend, Marston shot him.

  Ice’s knees buckled, and he stumbled to the ground in turn. But right as he was falling, he decided to get a good few shots in of his own, without giving them much aim since he was hurt himself and was only holding his gun with one hand now.

  One of the bullets hit Buddy in the back, and he screamed out and fell to the ground just as he was starting to recover from the near-strangling he endured at the hands of Bruise.

  Nina’s ears rang from the blistering sound of the indoor gunfire.

  Another whisked past Holm and landed in the w
all, leaving a hole in the beige coloring, and the third and final bullet landed in the couch, drawing stuffing instead of blood like the first one. All in all, Nina thought they were pretty lucky with that outcome.

  She breathed a sigh of relief, only to realize that it came too soon. The other detective, the one she didn’t know, had abandoned the other two gangbangers when the shooting started and trained his attention on Ice and Bruise. That turned out to be a predictably fatal mistake.

  When no one was looking, one of the guys drew his gun and aimed at the detective, taking him out with a swift shot to the back. The poor man fell lifeless to the ground in an instant, as Nina stared in shock at his pale face, which was stuck in a surprised expression.

  The two gangbangers moved quickly on the remaining agents, training their guns on Marston and Holm and releasing rounds on them. Fortunately, the MBLIS agents were aware of what was happening by then and ducked behind the long couch to avoid the incoming fire.

  The gangbangers ignored Barrett and Nina, however, Nina because they still thought her on their side since they hadn’t been threatening Buddy, and the Barret because he was standing so close to her that they couldn’t safely shoot at him without hitting her.

  Realizing this, Nina leaped into action, releasing a round on the one nearest to her and meeting Barrett’s eyes as the gangbanger fell lifeless to the ground, much like the other detective.

  Barrett took her meaning immediately and trained his weapon on the other gangbanger, taking him down with a shot to the chest, but not before he got a couple of good shots in of his own.

  One of them hit the couch right above where Nina could see Holm’s ear poking out—a near miss—and the other hit Barrett in the leg. He cried out in pain and dropped to his knees.

  This left Nina the last literal person standing in the room, as the MBLIS agents were still behind the couch where they had taken cover moments before. Slowly, they poked their heads above its backboard to take stock of the scene before all of them.

  Though the gunfire had stopped, Nina’s ears continued to ring from the deafening sound.

  “Well, that was interesting,” Holm muttered, rubbing his ear where he was nearly hit by that last bullet.

  “Why is it always your ear?” Marston asked him with a low chuckle.

  Holm just rolled his eyes. Nina had to appreciate the little dynamic they had going on there.

  “Dammit, Lucas,” Barrett cursed, crawling over to where the other detective lay sprawled across the floor.

  He reached out to check the other man’s pulse and then looked away and hung his head when he didn’t get the result he wanted.

  “I’m sorry,” Nina muttered, walking over to the detective and patting him on the shoulder. “I’m sure he was a great partner.”

  Barrett just nodded and bit his lower lip.

  “Are you okay?” she asked him, nodding at his leg, which was bleeding from the gunshot wound, but not profusely.

  “I’ll be fine,” he sighed, haphazardly reaching for the wound and then giving up when he realized how far away from his present position on the floor it was. He just looked back at the other detective, Lucas, forlornly and shook his head.

  “Hold on, this one’s still alive,” Marston said, hopping over the couch in one quick motion that Nina couldn’t help but admire and pulling up the second gangbanger, the one that Barrett had shot, so he could speak to him.

  Nina quickly crossed the room again to stand beside the MBLIS agent, and Holm made his way around the couch the long way in order to do the same.

  “Where is the drug being distributed from?” Marston asked the gangbanger, shaking him slightly but not enough to hurt him. “What’s the significance of this bar and hotel?”

  “They just let us use it for meeting up,” the guy wheezed. Judging by the expression on his face, he must’ve been in a lot of pain from the bullet lodged in his thigh.

  The MBLIS agents seemed to have realized this, as well.

  “I’ll call an ambulance,” Holm said, taking a step toward the doorway so it would be easier for the operator to hear him on the call. “Again.”

  “We have had a lot of this the last couple of days, haven’t we?” Marston asked though it seemed like a rhetorical question. He set his lips in a thin line and shook his head slightly before turning his attention back to the gangbanger. Nina did the same as Holm stepped out.

  “What do you mean by ‘they?’” she asked him. “The owners of the hotel?”

  His eyes widened as he looked between her and Marston.

  “Are you…?” he asked, his voice trailing off as the realization dawned on him.

  “Not too bright, are you?” she asked, arching an eyebrow at him and pulling out her badge to flash for him. “FBI. Start talking.”

  His eyes grew even wider until they were practically golf balls.

  “We never get quite that reaction,” Marston chuckled as he watched this interaction. “Practically no one even knows what MBLIS is.”

  “And yet you still manage to get the job done,” she laughed.

  “That we do,” he agreed, meeting her eyes with that now all-too-familiar twinkle in his own.

  “Start talking,” she said, turning back to the gangbanger with her hands on her hips.

  “Okay, okay,” he relented, almost in a whine. “I don’t know why, but the owners of the hotel have some kind of deal with our guys. Something about that old pirate.”

  “Huh?” Nina asked, furrowing her brow together in confusion.

  “The hotel manager told us something similar,” Marston murmured to her. “Something about Jean Lafitte’s old treasure being in play. The gang promised it to them if they helped with the zombie drug situation.”

  “I… don’t even know what to say to that,” Nina admitted, staring blankly back at the MBLIS agent. “What is this, a Disney movie?”

  “No, but I can’t say I haven’t had that thought myself more than once or twice in the past year,” Marston said, chuckling again.

  “Year?” Nina repeated, raising her eyebrows. “Is coming across buried treasure a common occurrence in your line of work?”

  “Not usually, but lately, things have been a bit on the stranger side, especially with this case,” he explained with a shrug.

  “It can’t be real, though, right?” she asked, looking from Marston to the gangbanger, and back again. “It has to be some kind of prank to take advantage of those kooky old hotel people. Isn’t there a rumor they’ve been looking for that treasure for a while now?”

  “Years,” Barrett called from behind them, where he was still seated next to his fallen partner. “It’s practically part of New Orleans legend now. I’ll have to have a talk with him later.”

  “The only place you’re going any time soon is to get that leg looked at,” Marston said sternly, just as Holm re-entered the room whilst pocketing his phone.

  “Ambulance is on the way,” he said with a low chuckle. “The operator said he was expecting to hear from us. Said we’re keeping the hospital in business single-handedly these past couple of days.”

  The other MBLIS agent crossed over to where Buddy lay and knelt down to take his pulse.

  “Still breathing, but barely,” he murmured. “He should go out first. Is he really a friend of yours?” This last question was directed at Nina.

  “Of sorts,” she shrugged. “Or as much as one can have a friend in my situation.”

  Marston nodded before turning back to the remaining gangbanger.

  “You haven’t answered my first question,” he said, narrowing his eyes at the man. “Where is the drug distributed for sale?”

  “I don’t know,” he sobbed. “All I know is that I come here and to that voodoo shop on Bourbon Street. That’s it. I haven’t started selling it yet, so you’ll have to ask someone who has. That one was at the voodoo shop when we picked him up.”

  He jerked his chin in Buddy’s direction as much as he was able while Marston was keeping hi
m pointed forward.

  “A voodoo shop on Bourbon Street?” Marston repeated, turning to Nina again. “Do you know what he’s talking about?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” she said, furrowing her brows together as she thought this over. “I think I’ve heard some people talking about it, maybe…? I’m not sure. But I know which shop he’s talking about, just not exactly what it has to do with the drug.”

  “Everyone knows that shop,” Barrett added from across the room. “Everyone who’s local, anyway. The tourists go to the other one, but this one’s the real deal. Supposedly, anyway.”

  Marston exchanged a look with Holm.

  “Sounds familiar,” Holm muttered.

  “Very,” Marston agreed.

  Nina looked quizzically between them.

  “How do you mean?” she asked.

  “Remember that story we told you about Haiti?” Marston asked her.

  “Oh yeah,” she said as she nodded. “That. How could I forget?”

  The MBLIS agents had told her all about their rendezvous with a witch doctor and his grandson down in Haiti and how those two had concocted this zombie drug from an ancient voodoo recipe. She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten that detail.

  “Anything about a guy named Solomon?” Marston asked the gangbanger.

  “Huh?” he asked, baring a look of genuine confusion. “Like from the Bible?”

  “Nevermind,” Marston muttered.

  “Well,” Holm said, heaving a sigh and placing his hands on his hips. “It looks like we’re headed right back into the world of voodoo.”

  “Wonderful,” Marston said, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he released the gangbanger and let him relax on the floor. Sirens wailed beneath them, and they heard the clamber of footsteps on the stairwell as the paramedics made their way to the dismal scene. “I can’t wait to see what it has in store for us this time.”

  CHAPTER 22

  As the paramedics wheeled Barrett and the two wounded gangbangers away, I tried to decide what to do next. I turned away before they brought out Lucas in a body bag. I didn’t have the emotional wherewithal to deal with that right now. I also didn’t have the energy or the wherewithal to head straight to the voodoo shop. I needed a break.