he's just too high on Felix to care. Jack perched on the edge of the sink while they ate and, master storyteller that he was, relayed every detail of the miracles his gunman had wrought. Carl had been outside during the fighting and the women hadn't been there at all and the three of them listened raptly to every word.
About the woman with the stakes in her, streaking and screeching about in the darkness with Felix's split-second marksmanship on her all the way.
About him, the way he seemed to levitate out of the elevator and stroll so casually toward them, about his catching the fired crossbow bolt, about his looking right at Felix and warning him about the gun.
"And Felix shot him anyway?" Carl asked.
Jack sipped from his wine and nodded. "Three shots. Hit 'im twice that I saw. Then it was just a blur until he grabbed the gun."
"And crushed it?" Annabelle wanted to know. "Really?"
Jack nodded again. "With one hand. That's when Carl here opened the door and it turned toward the light for a second. By the time he had turned back around Felix had drawn his other automatic, left-handed, and he shot him right through the center of his goddamned forehead."
Jack paused, lit a cigarette. "I think he would have killed at least a couple of us if it weren't for that. Hell, he could do that on his way past us out of the light. But not after that shot.
"Carl, our shooter is everything we could ever have wanted."
And everything Davette had wanted him to be. She sat there, in the silence that followed, with her eyes welling happy, happy tears. She could not explain her joy, her sense of hope, any more than she could explain, or even fathom, this viselike hold he had on her.
But somehow, because he was so... so wonderful at this, it made it all seem okay. Even the jagged vibrations of his presence.
"Yep," said Jack Crow, staring deep into his wineglass, "everything we could ever have wanted."
Then he looked at the smiling Davette and grinned.
"Then how come," popped Cat from amidst the others' concerned looks, "we're not all happy?"
Jack shook his head. "Aw, Cherry, give it a rest. Felix is just..."
"Where is he, Jack?" demanded Annabelle. "Why is he in his room? Even when he's here, he just... He looked at me like he hated me! Hated us all! He's not eating. He's there in his room drinking alone. He..."
"Relax, woman!" Jack snapped. He stood up and towered over them. "Let me tell you kids a thing or two. Felix is..."
Then the door came open and Felix was there, cigarette in the corner of his mouth, scotch bottle in hand. He stepped inside and stopped and looked at them, all of them, for a heavy silent moment, then turned curtly away toward the chair in the corner of the suite and planted himself there and drank some more.
Under Jack's silent directions, they tried to party anyway. Jack whispered to Annabelle to drop the debriefing for tonight, concentrate on the celebration and the booze.
"Party, babe! You know!" he muttered grinning in her ear.
And they gave it a try, starting with the music. ZZ Top, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Roy Orbison, everyone in their tape library. It helped. They danced and laughed and giggled and drank too much and it went on for hours and hours and early on somebody in the next room complained, a trucker type in a bad sleepy mood, so Jack had the women haul his ass in through the doorway and drink a little drinkie and "Don't worry about being dressed, stranger," he insisted, looking down at his bare chest and feet. "We'll find you a shirt and all the rest of us will take our shoes off! Race!"
And they all laughed and fell to the floor and Annabelle was the first to get her shoes off - in like one half a second. And Cat was the last - it took him three minutes of concentrated effort before he gave up and put his drink down and tried with both hands.
Then it only took him another minute and a half.
The trucker loved it and wanted to know if he could call his buddies who were just down the hail and Jack said, "Hell, yes! Let's go git 'em!"
And they did go "git" 'em, all five of them. Plus Doris, the blond at the front desk, and her boyfriend Eddy Duane who, Cat felt sure, should have