Liberty At Last (The Liberty Series) by Leigh James Read Free Book Online Page B

said. Of course they did. “We go back with him aways. Back to when we used to come down here a lot.”
    “He has a thing for cocaine and prostitutes,” John said and smiled. “It’s always good to know someone who has a thing for cocaine and prostitutes.”
    “Yeah,” I said. “Sure.” Actually, I was pretty glad I didn’t know anyone anymore who liked cocaine or prostitutes. John baffled me sometimes; he was still an enigma. For all his white teeth, healthy skin and custom suits, he sure seemed to have one foot squarely in the slimy underbelly of the world. He was just so banal about it, like he was comfortable with his split existence; it was like it didn’t get him dirty.
    Suddenly light filled the car from behind. “We’ve got company,” Ethan said, checking his mirrors. I whipped around to look but all I could see were headlights.
    Then the back windshield exploded in gunfire. John grabbed my head and shoved it down. “Corey, Sean, come back here,” John yelled. He shoved Catherine down on top of me and I wrinkled my nose in distaste as I tried to push her off me. I wasn’t ready to get that close to her.
    “I’m coming, boss,” Matthew said, turning and climbing towards the back. Just then more shots came whizzing through and Matthew ducked back in his seat; I could hear the front windshield get hit. All four guys crouched on the seats above us and started shooting back, all at once.
    It was a lot of firepower. They must have hit them quickly, because the lights started to veer crazily from side to side and the shooting stopped. I peeked up and saw the car’s headlights beaming over towards the side of the road, the car stopped, the people most certainly dead.
    “We’ll have to dump the guns now. Pity,” John said. He turned back and sat down in the seat. He pulled me up and then Catherine, trying to settle her limp body comfortably. The other guys scrambled back to their seats. “I was kind of liking this one,” he said, inspecting the gun in his hands. Then he turned around and tossed it Corey, who threw it out the back window.
    I watched it sail out the window into the darkness. A chill went through me. Here we go again, I thought, wondering how I was ever going to extricate John from his explosive lifestyle.
     

 

     
     
    We were back near town and the Brownsville border was close. Too close. Catherine was still passed out, sweating more now that the back window was gone, and the fabric John had secured around her foot was a sticky, wet red. John seemed more calm. He was holding my hand like it belonged to him; when he reached up to absentmindedly scratch his nose, he brought my hand with his.
    “Pull over,” he told Sean, right before we got to the markets. We pulled up next to an empty lot with garbage strewn across it; there was what looked like a mostly empty cantina with wilted sombreros tacked to the wall outside next door. There were people on the street. They took one look at the Hummer and abruptly changed direction without missing a beat, heading towards the crowded streets of the market.
    Matthew hopped out and scanned the surroundings. John followed, squeezing my hand. “Be careful,” I mumbled. We’d been back together for one hour and I’d already worried about him getting killed about ten times. Which might be a new record for us.
    He went to the back of the SUV and Sean and Corey started handing him guns. He tossed two to Matthew as an older man came out to the front of the restaurant. He was thin except for the beer belly protruding under his Hawaiian shirt. He stuck his cigarette into his mouth and started waiving his hands at the large, camouflaged gringos trying to hand him assault weapons. “No,” he said, the cigarette staying in between his lips while he shook his head, his hands, his voice at them. “ De ninguna manera. ”
    “No one’s behind us,” John said, holding a rifle out to him. “Not this second, anyway.”
    “Turn ‘em in, if you want