“That wasn’t me!”
“Well it damn sure wasn’t Lolo because he was already dead,” said Reno.
“It wasn’t Lolo either. He snatched your son Dominic. That was all Lolo. But he had nothing to do with that motel shooting. And neither did I.”
“Then who was it? And don’t your ass tell me you don’t know because they only grazed you with those bullets. They were shooting to kill my wife.”
But Javon was shaking his head. “It wasn’t me. They were trying to frame me. They were gonna kill her and frame me.”
They all wanted to know the who, but they needed to ask the why first. “But how would killing her profit them?” Reno asked.
Javon was shaking his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know why they changed it. They wanted to go for the big ask first, to go for full control of the PaLargio, like me and Lolo did the first time. But then they would settle for twice as much as we did the first time. But then they changed it. They wanted me to meet her at the motel to tell her how much they wanted, but then they attacked us both.”
“Who are they?” Reno finally asked.
Javon began to shake his head. “I’ll tell you, but you gotta make a deal with me.”
“Shit,” said Reno. “Who the fuck you bit players are to come for me and my family? Who the fuck do you think you are?”
“But if I tell I’m dead. You’ll kill me or they will. You’ve got to make a deal with me.”
But just as Reno was saying those words, Javon’s body started bouncing as if bullet holes were being pumped into him.
When they looked up, they saw a drone in the sky pumping those bullet holes into Javon. All three dived for cover.
As Reno and Sal began firing at the drone, Mick hurriedly out an improvised explosive device from his tricked-out white coat. He attached it to his weapon. “Stand down!” he yelled to Reno and Sal whose bullets weren’t penetrating the guts of that drone at all. Then Mick fired. And that drone busted up and fell from the sky.
Mick ran to its landing spot to make certain it was totally destroyed, and Reno and Sal ran to Javon. But Javon was already dead.
They looked at each other. Neither still could say, even at that late date, just what the hell was going on. And it scared them.
Mick came over too. “Who the fuck using all of these drones?” he asked.
“Damn if I know,” said Sal.
“Wait a minute.” Reno remembered something. Mick and Sal looked at him. “What did Dominic say when we were talking about Lolo?”
He looked at Sal, but Sal shrugged his shoulders. “What? What did he say?”
“He said Lolo was out of touch. He didn’t believe in drones.”
“So?”
“He said he didn’t believe in drones like Rats did.”
“Rats Scorvino?”
“Yeah,” said Reno.
Sal nodded. “He did say that. I remember he said something like that.”
“And it’ll follow that Rats would be who Javon would approach next,” said Reno. “He got what he could from Lolo. Rats would have been his natural next target for a big money payout.”
“I’ll be damn,” said Sal. “You’re right, Reno.”
Mick began hurrying to the Escalade. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Where are we going?” asked Reno as he and Sal hurried behind Mick. “You know where he is?”
