Hitman vs Hitman - L.A. Witt Page 0,14
Lance Baldwin was a handsome son of a bitch, he had one of the most punchable faces August had ever seen, and he’d spent most of his teenage years in several very prestigious prep schools.
“I don’t want to hear about your ideology or your politics,” Torralba said calmly. “I want to know who you fucked over badly enough that they want you dead, and are willing to pay millions of dollars to get it done. Ten million, to be precise.”
“Ten point five,” August muttered, but Torralba ignored him. Which was okay, because there were flashing lights coming up in the rearview mirror, and sirens. Oooh, sirens! How public! August bounced in the seat a little. “Hey, how good are the shocks in this thing?”
“Not good, August, don’t—Morrison, you fucking—”
That was the death voice. August had had dreams featuring Ricardo Torralba’s death voice, and most of them had ended with him splattered across the ground. In this case, though, he figured he was pretty safe. Torralba wouldn’t kill the guy driving them to freedom, after all.
Even if August did have to drive them off a bridge to do it.
A little bridge, hardly a bridge at all, honestly, it didn’t even have a decent guard rail, and it wasn’t like they were falling more than five feet or so, since he was aiming for the green belt between the two roads beneath them. It doubled as a berm, prettifying the roadway and keeping drunk drivers on both sides from running into each other. The van hit the rounded top of it with a brutal ka-CHUNK and almost pitched August through the windshield, but he’d already gunned it and managed to keep them from rolling.
The van careened off the green belt and into the oncoming traffic lane, but there was a nice shoulder on the far side that would just fit the van, provided the eighteen-wheeler coming their way moved over a few inches and didn’t—
SMASH! The driver’s side mirror was violently ripped off the van. “It’s fine, it was nothing but deadweight anyway,” August assured his passengers, glancing back to check on whether they were still conscious or not.
Torralba, unsurprisingly, was looking at him like he wanted to kill him. He also still had a grip on his gun and had managed to wedge himself into a corner so tightly that not even a hair was out of place. Baldwin, on the other hand, looked like he’d bounced off the ceiling, then a few of the walls on the way down. Bruises were coming up in three different places on his face, and only one of those was thanks to August. Well, August’s fist, anyway. His driving… Anyway, Baldwin was clutching his shoulder and still screaming, “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit holy shitholyshitholy—”
“Shut up!” Torralba snapped. He cast one more searing glare at August, then settled back into interrogation mode with a snap. “Let’s come at this another way. Who did you tell about the party tonight?”
“Wha…whuh…”
“Who. Did you tell. About the party tonight?” Torralba leaned in a little closer, a move he never would have made if he thought his target had any sort of hand-to-hand skills. August smirked as he took them down the on-ramp—sorry, minivan lady!—past a combination gas station/liquor store and into a nearby subdivision. The sirens were far behind them now, and August hadn’t seen a flashing light for at least thirty seconds, so it was time to blend in.
Luckily, dilapidated vehicles were a dime a dozen in this part of the city. The line between elite billionaire mansions and the rundown trailer parks where the people who worked for the billionaires lived was only a couple miles wide, at best. August slowed down to a leisurely twenty miles an hour and wondered whether that loud put-put-put noise meant he’d knocked the off muffler.
“Guest list. Now.”
Baldwin’s voice had taken on a fun little shiver, either from the stress of riding backseat during a getaway or the internal pain of trying to make himself sound placating. “Look, I’m positive that no one coming to my party tonight had it out for me. They’re all my friends! The governor thanked me just last week for my contributions to his wife’s foundation. These people like me!”
“Gangsta Boo is officially disappointed with your ability to introspect,” August said. He glanced back and got two puzzled looks in return. “Gansta Boo? ‘Where Dem Dollas At?’ Oh my God, you philistines.” He shook his head. “It’s a pay-to-play reference, but whatever, go