“I’ll stay close,” I told him. “I’ll do what I’m told—”
“That,I fuckin’ doubt.”
“—but I’m not staying here.” I stared him down, even though it meant looking up.
He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “Alright,” he said at last. “Let’s go break stuff.”
58
LOUISE
I gazed at the house,astonished. “I knew dealers had money,” I mumbled. “But….”
The place washuge.Seven or eight bedrooms, a pool, and there were three cars outside: a big old Lincoln town car, a Porsche and an SUV.
“This whole business is soaked in money,” Sean told me. “And Lennie’s only a dealer. Think how much Malone makes. But the money falls offfastafter the top few rungs.” He opened the trunk of my car and took out his sledge hammer.
I looked up at the iron gates. The place wasn’t just big, it was tasteless. Everything was fake: reproduction stone columns that were vaguely Roman mixed with lion statues straight out of Japan. It was as if Lennie had browsed a catalog and stabbed his finger at anything he thought represented wealth. But none of that made the gates any less solid. “How do we get in?” I asked.
Sean raised the hammer. “We knock,” he said. “Stay behind me.”
And he swung the hammer at the center of the gates as hard as he could. They probably would have stood up to a car trying to ram through them...but they couldn’t cope with all that energy concentrated in exactly the right place. The lock shattered and thegates creaked inward. Sean was marching forward before they were fully open and I scuttled after him.
An alarm started to sound. The first guy, a blond heavy in a suit, ran out to meet us as we got to the front door. Sean swung the hammer low, catching him in the ankles with the shaft and knocking him face-first to the ground, then giving him a good whack on the back of the head with the handle to keep him there.
As we reached the hallway, two more guards appeared. Sean swung the hammer’s handle up, catching one of them under the chin, then punched the other one right in the face. They dropped to the floor almost at the same time, landing in one crumpled heap.
A shot rang out, and a chip of wood flew from the door frame a foot away from Sean. I screamed.
Lennie, a thin guy with long, greasy dark hair, was standing in the living room, a handgun gripped in his shaking hands. “Stay there!” he yelled.
Sean marched forward.
“I’ve got a fucking gun!” yelled Lennie, going pale.
“I’ve got a fuckin’ hammer,” said Sean. And swung it right at the gun. There was a crack of breaking bones, a scream and the gun clattered against the far wall. Then Sean pushed Lennie into a reclining armchair and tipped it all the way back, until he could rest a booted foot next to Lennie’s head to keep the chair in place. “Where’re our fuckin’ drugs?” he roared.
Lennie shrank back in the chair...but didn’t speak.
I came closer and looked around. Like the outside of the house, the inside was all about showing off. There were exotic plants in pots, but all of them were sickly and dying because Lennie didn’t have any idea how to look after them properly. There were vases and statues from around the world, but I had a feeling he’d never been to any of those places. There was even a glossy black grand piano in the corner, but there was no music on the music stand. “Answer him,” I said, trying to make my voice hard.
“I’m not telling you shit,” said Lennie.
Sean nodded as if he’d expected this. He stepped away from thechair and looked around, rubbing his stubble—what should I break first?
Then he seemed to decide:all of it.
The vases were first. He shattered them two at a time, sending shards flying across the room. The bigger ones smashed where they were. The smaller ones flew across the room like baseballs, staying almost in one piece until they hit the far wall. Lennie winced at each crash, but didn’t weaken.
Next were the statues. They lost heads, then legs, then crumbled completely under the heavy iron head of the sledge hammer. Then, finally, Sean stepped up to the piano.
“Shit.” said Lennie suddenly. “Wait! That costs more than my fucking car!”
Sean brought the hammer back. “Where are the drugs?”
“Where are the drugs?” I repeated.
“Malone’ll kill me if I talk!” yelled Lennie.
