Guns Will Keep Us Together by Leslie Langtry Page B

Calm down?  Are you crazy? We did all that work for nothing?" Okay, so Paris did all that work for nothing.
    The members of the Council, my family, looked at one another. I was totally pissed off. Why give us the problem to solve when they knew the answer?
    "Why don't we just have Dak and Paris remove the competition from the picture?" Dela suggested. "It seems silly to market ourselves to people we can't market ourselves to, anyway."
    "I agree. This nonsense about branding won't solve anything," piped up Aunt Florence, my French relative.
    "Actions do speak louder than words, old man," Troy agreed grudgingly as he turned to Lou.
    Grandma leveled an angry glare at him. "I want a complete marketing package! I want a website and logos and slogans!" Damn. Was she throwing a temper tantrum?
    "Okay, Veruca Salt," Lou sniped. I tried to hide my smile. "But basically, I agree that we need to get rid of them. What's to stop them from trying to take us out in the near future? They underbid us—so why wouldn't they come after us?"
    I stepped forward. "Give us all the info you have on this generic cabal, and Paris and I will take care of it. Do you want us to recruit others, like Gin or Liv?" Maybe I could earn some brownie points with my gift-bestowing grandmother in the process.
    "No," Dela answered. "Let's keep this simple. You two can take out five men, can't you? If we put too many family members on this it'll be a mess."
    Grandma folded her arms over her chest, "Fine. The two of you will meet with Dela tonight in her room. She'll give you what we have, and you can take it from there."
    I left the room totally pissed off. If the Council knew about the competition, why ask us to go around the problem with a slick promo plan?
    "We should have killed them all last time we were here," Paris muttered under his breath as we walked out.

 
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
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    "An optimist says, 'The drink is half full.' A pessimist says, 'The drink is half full, but I might have bowel cancer.'"
    ~Mr. B., The Kids in the Hall
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    We couldn't find Missi, Louis, or Mom, so we hit poolside, ordering rum from the cabana boys. After a few moments, I could feel my blood pressure cooling and remembered something.
    "Paris, you ever heard of Doc Savage?"
    He rolled his eyes at me, "Not this again! I thought we were done with that like thirty years ago."
    Bastard. "No. Not the books. Have you heard of anyone else using that name for work?" I launched into an explanation about the guy in my living room. Why hadn't I told him this sooner?
    "Huh." Paris leaned back in his chair. "That's a new one. Why was he there?"
    "He said he was checking my place out for Doc Savage." I even felt ridiculous saying it aloud.
    "You haven't been made, have you?"
    "Either that or the pulp fiction geeks of the world are after me for some reason." I thought about the last few jobs I'd had. Well, there was that one time I had to take out this drug dealer dressed as Spiderman at the NYC Comic-Con. He actually tried to shoot a web at me. What a loser. You never bring a webslinger to a gunfight. Nah. That had nothing to do with it. Besides, that was Marvel Comics, not old-fashioned Lester Dent pulp.
    "It's probably nothing," Paris said. "We've got more important shit to worry about."
    He was right. I was pretty certain the Council would take us up on eliminating out the competition.
    "How many guys are in that operation?" I asked.
    "No one knows." He turned and looked up at the resort. "Okay, maybe they know. It'll be tough. We'll have to work together."
    Suddenly, my Ralph Lauren preppy look became the soggy, Ralph Lauren preppy look as Louis cannon-balled into the pool. Missi and Mom sat down to join us.
    "He's yours, all right." Missi winked at me.
    "Well, of course he is!" Mom snapped. "I never doubted it for a minute." Good old Mom— she always had my back.
    "So, you guys going to come see me later for some stuff?" Missi asked with a giggle.
    "You bet I