Half Life (Russell's Attic Book 2) by SL Huang Page B

easy for me to lose control of my targets. Now I could relax a little.
    I crouched on the table and patted down each of the Lorenzo guys one-handed, pulling out their pieces—and their wallets and phones—to dump on the table. I popped the batteries and SIM cards out of their phones by feel, pocketing the latter, and added my own burner to the pile. Then I dropped into an empty seat that put my back to the wall, keeping my eyes and my gun on the three men.
    “Hi,” I said.
    They were silent. I took this moment to examine them more closely. The guy on the left, the one with blood trickling down his neck from his nicked ear, was slightly overweight, with greasy chin-length hair surrounding a shiny bald spot. The guy in the middle was the one who had called me. He had thinning hair too, but covered with a severe comb over above a pointed, weaselly face. The third man was a lot younger, probably in his late twenties or early thirties, with a gold chain, a popped collar, and too much gel in his hair. He reminded me a bit of Benito.
    I flipped open their wallets with my left hand and managed to extract all their driver’s licenses to stick in my pocket without looking down. “There,” I said. “I know who you are. Now tell me something valuable enough that I decide not to kill you.”
    Weaselly Man licked his lips. “What do you want to know?”
    “You know what I want to know.” Only certain types of information were valuable.
    “I’m not sayin’ nothin’,” said the young guy, sticking his nose in the air.
    I shot him in the arm. At this range, the boom and the flame bursting out of the .45 felt enormous, a thunderclap close enough to set them on fire. The young guy screeched and started hyperventilating, hunching over the injury.
    “Wuss,” I said. “It’s only a graze. Now talk.”
    The arrogance had faded from his posture, and he glanced toward his elders. When I decided they’d waited a second longer than I wanted, I pulled the trigger again and shot Weaselly Man in the side of his neck.
    He jumped a mile in his seat and slapped a hand to the wound, blood running through his fingers. His eyes were wide and unnerved. I’d only just broken the skin—okay, and some powder burns—but I was willing to bet he didn’t know that. People were precious about their necks.
    “Remember,” I said, “there’s a reason Mama Lorenzo sent you to kill me.”
    The guy whose ear I’d hit broke right then. He began babbling about a protection racket with the city sanitation workers, and from that moment on I had won.
    It was cute, really, how all three of them started pouring out information once they got started. I was kicking myself for not bringing a digital voice recorder so I could remember all the trivia they tripped over themselves to tell me. I’d have to verify it all and put some sort of coherent extortion plan in place, but things were looking up.
    Blackmail, here I come.
    Someone rapped on the front window.
    The lights from surrounding buildings were bright enough for me to recognize the woman standing outside. Cheryl Maddox was an extremely tanned, extremely buxom woman with extremely bleached hair and two full sleeves of tattoos. She was also the owner of Grealy’s, and something of a legend. I’d only met her a time or two, but she had my respect, in no small part for running the bar the way she did.
    She kept her hands raised up where I could see them. I nodded to her and gestured with the Colt.
    She unlocked the door and came in, still keeping her hands up, but her posture was locked in anger. “Cas Russell, right?” she called as she crossed the room.
    “Yeah,” I said.
    “Sister, you can’t do this shit in here,” she said. “You want to get me shut down? Take it out in the desert or something. Fuck.”
    “Hands on your head and split,” I directed the three Mob guys. I’d learned more than I could remember already; I’d have my hands full sorting out which of the info was good. With