“Beer, whatever you have on tap,” I say gruffly without looking at her. She must have gotten the hint because she scurries away without another word.
For the next half an hour, I engage in friendly small talk with Billy, only sneaking in innocent questions here and there. I haven’t decided if I’m going to kill him yet. It all depends on how much he knows.
“I have to say, I’m surprised you called. You never just hang out, relax, or let loose, ya know?” he says with a laugh, waving his glass around, spilling half of his beer on the table.
“What can I say? I’m turning over a new leaf. Trying to be more outgoing.” The lie rolls easily off my tongue. “Especially with all these jobs, Christian has lined up for me. First, he gets into it with the Castros and now with Xander Rossi. He needs to pick his battles better; he can’t fight everybody at once.”
“Yeah, not sure what he was thinking, stealing those guns from Rossi. He should know better than to steal from him. This isn’t the first time either... he’s going to get himself killed.”
I nod my head as if I already knew about the guns. Knowing this might come in handy later, but for right now, all I care to find out is what he knows about Dove.
“Yeah, not sure what he was thinking. I think he is in over his head. He has me killing all these people, and I’m still trying to figure out how I’m going to get to this chick he wants. You know, the one working at the animal shelter.”
“Oh, yeah, Dove,” he says, and I want to smash his face against the table just for saying her name. No one should say her name, least of all him. Licking his chapped lips, I can only imagine what he’s thinking about her, “Shouldn’t be too hard. She’s completely unprotected.” He shrugs, taking another sip of his beer before burping obnoxiously loud.
What a fucking pig.
Ignoring the impulse to slug him in the face, I say, “I wonder why the hell he would want her anyway? She seems to be a nobody.”
Billy snorts. “If you only knew the half of it.”
His comment has me gripping onto my glass a little tighter. Doing my best to keep my face void of all emotion, I act like I’m not interested in the subject anymore and change it.
“Anyway, I could really go for some pussy right now. Wanna head over to Venus? Hookers are on me tonight.” I grin at him. While internally thinking about all the ways I’m about to torture him.
“Fuck yeah!” He slams the glass on the table with much more enthusiasm than necessary before getting up. Staggering over to the bar, he closes out his tab. I pay for my beer, and we both head outside.
Sucking in a lungful of fresh, crisp air, I lead Billy to my car. The idiot whistles as he gets into my SUV, completely oblivious to the fact that I’m about to torture and kill his ass.
Pulling out of the parking lot, I head toward the strip club. Billy’s eyes are cast down as he plays on his phone, not noticing when I make a turn, going off route. Only when I’ve come to a complete stop and parked at an abandoned train station does he realize something is off.
“Where the hell are we?” He looks up and around confused. When I don’t say anything, he reaches for his gun. Even without him being drunk and slow, I would have seen that move coming. It’s just funny that he thinks he’ll actually be able to shoot me in the condition he’s in. I grab the gun from his hand with ease before he even gets the chance to point it in my direction.
“Get out,” I order, pointing his own gun at him. He swallows hard and gets out slowly. As soon as I open my door, he takes off running across the parking lot. Idiot.
Sighing, I get out and raise the gun and pull the trigger. The bullet hits him in the leg, and he goes down with a pained groan.
“You’re a fucking idiot, you know that, right?” I yell as I walk over to where he’s lying. He tries to crawl away from me, but there’s no hope for him now. I’ve drawn blood now, and I’ll be the one to snuff him out.