Mac snorts, looking at Dave. “Can you believe this shit? It’s fucking pathetic. Why else would a fucking DEA bitch show up here, spouting shit like that, if it weren’t true?”
Mac is many things, but smart is not one of them. “Why the fuck would she show up here, spouting that shit, if it was true? God, Mac! If I were an informant, working for her to try and bring you down, she would have just blown my cover and ruined her whole operation by talking to you. She would never have done it!”
A shadow of doubt flickers over Mac’s otherwise angry features. I’ve got him thinking, but it won’t be enough. I know it won’t. Men like Mac don’t spare another man’s life on the off chance they could be wrong about them. They kill them with their own bare hands in case they’re right.
“Then you deny knowing her?” he spits. “You’ve never met her in your entire life?”
“I’ve met her. She’s blackmailing me into helping her. It has nothing to do with you, though.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s the truth. They found some dead body up in the mountains. They’re trying to pin the murder on the guys across the street.”
“On Mayfair?” Mac looks dubious. No doubt he has a fair few bodies of his own buried in the mountains that border the city. His mind is probably screaming at him, trying to recall when and where the other victims of his rage were all disposed of. “No one would be stupid enough to fuck with Mayfair. Not even the DEA,” he snaps. “If you’re gonna lie, you little fuck, you’d better come up with something slightly more believable.”
I bang the back of my head against the wall behind me, gritting my teeth. How the hell do you make a mad man see sense? Mac can be pretty reasonable when the mood takes him, but when he’s fired up and out for blood like this, sense isn’t any good to him, and therefore it’s banished from reach until later when cooler heads prevail.
“They have history,” I say. “She’s been after him for a while now. Go and ask him. Go and ask Zeth about her, for fuck’s sake. He’ll tell you it’s true.”
“Ha! No fucking way. So you’re saying he knows about this bitch trying to pinch him for murder?”
I nod.
“There is no fucking way on this earth a man like him would know about her and she would be still drawing breath. Just no way. He’s old school. He’s one of Charlie Holsan’s boys. He’s like me. You don’t leave problems like that walking around, causing trouble, creating problems for you. You take care of them immediately and have done with it.”
Out of the corner of my eye, Dave is shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. He’s hovering in the doorway, keeping an eye out for people approaching the shop from the street, while at the same time remaining close to help Mac if I become too much of a problem. Right now, he looks distinctly uncomfortable, like he has something to say but can’t quite bring himself to say it.
Mac spits onto the ground, stooping slowly to collect up another brick. He passes it from one hand to the other, coldly regarding me with distaste. “Maybe killing you isn’t enough, Reeves. After all the shit I’ve done for you, all the slack I’ve given you, you do this to me?” Shaking his head violently from side to side, he grunts, narrowing his eyes. “No. Killing you won’t be enough. Maybe Dave will go pay a visit to Millie after we’re done here. Seems like a kindness to me, in fact. Put the poor little bitch out of her misery once and for all. What do you say, Mase? You think we’d be doing her a favor?”
My body reacts without my permission. I fly at the old man, fists raised, and I hit him hard. His head kicks back, blood spattering everywhere as his nose makes a wet popping sound.
“Ho shit,” Dave whispers. “You did not just do that.”
I’m not listening to him, though. I’m deaf and I am blind to anything but the man lying on the ground before me. He can’t be allowed to hurt her. He just can’t be allowed to fucking hurt her. No matter what, I have to make sure Mac never comes within three fucking feet of Millie. Something’s in my hand, something uneven and rough against my already rough skin: a heel of shattered brick. That will do. When Mac was launching the bricks at me just now, he wasn’t really aiming properly. He was trying to scare me, to get me to admit to something that would damn me. When I throw the brick, I’m aiming right between the bastard’s eyes. He sees it coming way too late. Mac screams as the brick makes contact, holding his hands over his face. I don’t stop there, though. I pick up another brick, and another and another, throwing each one as hard as I can at his head until his hands fall away and his flesh is a bloody, messy pulp.
I can hear nothing but the loud rush of my blood hurtling through me.