Page 39 of A Long Con

“I want some chilaquiles,” said Barbie.

“Cállate, Barbie!” snarled Oyster.

Would they let us live? No doubt they’d shoot us, execution-style as they always said in the news. Leave us as a warning to others not to fuck with them. Maybe they’d first pull out our teeth, rip out our hearts, dissolve our bodies in acid, along with other things I’d also read in the news.

We hadn’t even reached the corner yet when the truck tore soundlessly up to my side. A gabacho wearing a baseball hat leaped out, opened his suicide door, and grabbed my arm. You can fucking believe I wasn’t really arguing, and sort of assisted him by diving into the king cab seat behind the driver.

“Get in, Sterling!” I imagined I heard.

But this strange order was shortly covered by gunfire so loud I thought my eardrum would rupture. The window glass seemed to rattle. I guess I’d never really been in the vicinity of actual gunfire before. Why would I? New York teenagers at art school don’t generally go to the shooting range. I cowered in the back seat practically shitting myself, my fingers stuck in my ears.

I can’t really tell you how many giant booms I heard. Royal later told me that during our shoving match he’d taken the opportunity to stuff his piece farther down his boxer briefs, so the Mexicans didn’t disarm him.

Good for him. Literally having no fear was good for something.

Some of the shots came from Royal, some from the baseball-hatted guy. By the time they both jumped in the truck and jammed it down the street, I had the balls to peek out the window. Two bodies lay sprawled in the driveway, absolutely no one running out of the hotel all what the fuck.

“How’d you do?” the driver asked Royal. He sped so fast around a corner I had to hold onto the chicken handle.

“I’m pretty sure I got at least one. You got one. Where’d the third one go?”

Instead of answering, the driver took a brief glance back at me. “You okay, Sterling?”

Royal shouted, “Why do you keep calling him Sterling? Who the fuck are you?”

My old friend and mentor said, “Split Waterman.”

All the blood drained from my head as he two-wheeled it around another corner, and this time I forgot to hold onto the chicken handle.