“Take it out of the holster, slow and easy. Or the wall behind you gets to be decorated with your blood and brains. Place could do with refurbishing.”
Ma was smiling broadly at her triumph, the scattergun locked on Ryan’s face.
His right hand reached down, feeling the butt of the SIG-Sauer, taking it out slowly and beginning to lift it toward the top of the table.
“Good, good,” Ma whispered. “Real good. Keep the hardware coming.”
At the far end of the table, J.B. stood suddenly, sending three plates of food crashing to the floor, knocking over the pitcher of water.
Ma was taken by surprise at the noise and half turned, her little sunken eyes flicking toward the Armorer, the barrels of the blaster wavering from Ryan for a crucial moment.
Ryan had been ready for J.B.’s action. He had sent him their secret hand signal that meant “stage a diversion,” seconds before beginning to draw the automatic.
He brought up the SIG-Sauer and squeezed the trigger once, at the same time powering himself backward out of his chair at the end of the table.
As he rolled, the thunder of the shotgun rode over the flat crack of the 9 mm SIG-Sauer. He felt the warm blast pass over his head, the pellets smashing into an old lithograph of a mountain man’s encounter with a grizzly on a narrow mountain trail.
Ryan did a back somersault and came up with the blaster in his hand, aiming at Ma.
But he saw immediately that he wasn’t going to be needing a second round.
The bullet had struck Ma through the rolls of fat below her chins, drilling up and backward. It distorted and tumbled as it went, breaking the lower jaw away from the upper, splintering a mouthful of rotten teeth. Some of the shards of splintered bone exited through the side of the cheek, just below the staring left eye, ripping the flesh to scarlet tatters.
The full-metal-jacket round had continued its inexorable progress, tearing at the back of the right eye, forcing it out of its socket in a hideous parody of a wink.
Its power still not spent, the bullet carried on upward, scouring out the brain pan. It exploded through the top of Ma’s head, lifting off what was revealed as a wig, splattering the ceiling with blood and brains.
In death, her fingers tightened on the triggers of the shotgun, as Ryan had guessed they might, and the blaster had gone off, the twin charges roaring over the top of Ryan as he tumbled backward on the greasy floor.
Ma took two clumsy, tottering steps, then dropped the scattergun, arms hanging limp by her side, head tilted to the right. She caught her heels in a crack on the linoleum, falling full-length on the floor with a resounding crash.
Everyone around the table was on their feet, blasters ready for action.
Ryan looked down at the corpse. “Food wasn’t even worth that one bullet I gave you,” he said.
THE BAT-WING DOORS to the kitchen eased open. Seven blasters moved their aim, centering on the frightened face of a little Hispanic girl, looking no older than twelve, with a dark bruise just below her left eye.
“Ma’s Place is closed,” Ryan said. “Best go quietly on home.”
The child nodded and backed out of sight, leaving the doors to swing themselves shut.
“Jak, Dean,” Ryan said. “Take a quick look out back and see what you can pack into a couple of bags for food. Might be some meat or cheese or fresh fruit. Grab what you think might come in useful for us.”
Glenwood Springs seemed so deserted that there was a good chance that nobody would have heard the shooting. But it would be only a matter of time before someone stepped into the eatery and stumbled over the corpse. And the outlanders would instantly become public enemies number one.
Dean reappeared, carrying a hessian bag. “Mainly fruit,” he said. “Peaches and apples.”
“Anything else in there?” Ryan asked, busily reloading the spent bullet from his blaster.
“Big pan fat starting smoke,” Jak told him, carrying another sack of food. “Turn it off?”