No Rest 4 Wicked Botniks Chapter 6
Bobby Malone #4: Irish and Information
CHAPTER 6
Bobby Malone #4:
Irish and Information
"What do you want to drink?" asked Dmitry. Despite Bobby’s bulky Rothbauer still angled up at his head, the Bratva bartender remained stone-faced. But there were hints of suppressed rage surfacing in his flinty gray eyes.
Bobby shrugged disarmingly. “Whiskey," he answered. "Nothing fancy. I'll take a Blood Hound or Nickel Creek, if you haven’t got the Beam. I… don’t wanna rack up a big tab.” Bobby’s smile was a bit smug, but sometimes you just had to smirk.
Dmitry took his last comment as a joke, and one in poor taste at that. He grunted an approximation of a dry chuckle, but the cold fury in his eyes only deepened. “Well, why stop now?” Dmitry retorted, mocking Bobby’s shrug with an exaggerated roll of his shoulders. The motion twisted the grinning faces of the devils inked on the tops of his arms.
“What do you mean?” said Bobby. He flicked away his cigarette, which had burned down to a bitter nub along with his patience.
“I mean,” said Dmitry, “you’ve already destroyed some expensive security here. What’s a couple of top shelf shots added to the cost?”
Bobby jerked a dismissive thumb behind him in the general direction of the wrecked Golem Mark III. “That scrap heap?” Bobby snorted. “I did the owner a favor. It was a liability, nothing more.”
“Liability?” It was Dmitry’s turn to snort. “My employer will hold you liable, for damaging his property... and for threatening one of his employees.”
Since his drink still seemed a long time coming, Bobby took the opportunity to light up another cig. “Yeah, well, the fact that I’m still sitting here threatening you just proves my point.”
Dragging hard on his cigarette, Bobby waved the shotgun-revolver around for emphasis. “That botnik was a fossil with a shiny new coat of paint. You were scammed, tovarisch. I took a useless appliance and turned it into… Art. It’s much better now as a conversation piece, don’t you think? Adds a bit of character to the joint.”
Dmitry’s mouth contorted into a wolfish grin. “Yes, yes,” the Russian answered softly. He chuckled and said, “It will go nicely with your mutilated corpse. I can already see you now, bits of character chopped up and spread all over the bar. You will certainly spark… conversations.”
Bobby blew out a long trail of smoke and let it join the threat hanging in the air. “Well,” Bobby drawled, “anything to distract from the hideous nautical theme you got going on. I mean, this is just silly. Who builds a sailors’ dive in the middle of the fuckin’ desert?”
That got a laugh out of Dmitry, a genuine one, long and throaty. The bartender shook for several seconds, accentuating the prison tats of the Dark Madonna, the double-headed eagle, and the skulls, crosses, and stars that all vied for space on his flesh.
At last, his mirth subsided, and now the unsuppressed rage overcame his entire face. “I don’t know,” Dmitry admitted, his voice dangerously low. “I don’t work for the man who built this place. I work for the man who chopped off his legs and took them and the bar as payment for a debt.”
Bobby took that in with another nicotine inhale and the beginning of a haggard frown.
Dmitry was on a roll. He wouldn’t shut up. The bartender was practically giggling now through his speech. “And let me tell you, tovarisch! The man with no legs still knew better than to break my employer’s property and wave a gun in my face.”
Bobby put his cigarette out right on the bartop, staining the already cheap wood. “You know, Dmitry,” he said, his tone deadly quiet, “a man in your situation, staring down the wrong end of a hand cannon, usually learns the value of cooperation pretty quickly. But I guess you’re kinda slow.”
Bobby stood up from his stool and showed the still un-shot 4-Giant-Slug Rothbauer to the other man. Bobby had no time for grins now. “I told you,” began Bobby. “I’m only here for gossip and booze. I would have been out of here a hell of a lot faster without your faulty botnik bouncer and your surly fuckin’ attitude. Next time, tell your leg-choppin’ employer to pay for better software to guard his doors and a pretty girl to work behind the counter. You know, maybe a bartender with a full head of hair?”
The toothy, predatory grin returned to Dmitry’s face. “Tell him yourself, zadrota.”
“What?” Bobby’s grip on his gun tightened.
“I said tell him yourself, you idiot. He’ll be here in about thirty seconds, dead man.”
Without another word, Bobby leapt from the bar and over the counter, tackled Dmitry, and clubbed him three times over the head with the barrel of the Rothbauer. The Russian crumpled to the floor with a groan.
After a few seconds of searching, Bobby picked up a bottle of Nickel Creek, but he didn’t bother finding a glass. He took a long hard swig straight from the bottle and then broke it over Dmitry’s skull for good measure.
In that moment of unexpected calm, the crack of breaking glass and the sound of the remaining bourbon trickling onto the unconscious thug was almost as satisfying as the acrid sting of the cheap alcohol in his throat.
After grabbing a second bottle for one more healthy swig, he lit up his missing last Bigby cig and took a marksman’s stance behind the bar, aiming at the front door.
Then he just waited for trouble. If Dmitry was telling the truth, it would arrive there any second now.
END OF CHAPTER 6
READ THE NEXT CHAPTER?
→ Return to Chapter Selection ←
→ Check out the Glossary.
