Gin Palace 02 - The Bone Orchard

again.
    But he had no time to savor this moment. I watched as Frank pointed the .45 at my left eye. His finger curled around the trigger.
    A gunshot ruptured the night then. I flinched sharply. But it wasn’t Frank’s gun that had gone off.
    He dropped his gun hand to his side but held onto the piece. Then he slowly turned and faced the direction from which the gunshot had come.
    I looked and saw Tina, sixteen year old Tina, standing in a shooter’s stance, holding her father’s .45 with two hands. It looked huge in her grip. She squeezed off a second shot. It grazed Frank’s shoulder. The gun kicked high in her hand but she barely blinked. When Frank didn’t fall she squeezed off another, this one hitting him just above the collarbone. She was missing bone. Striking that would drop him instantly, it wouldn’t matter how big or strong or pissed he was. His .45 fired straight down into the ground. Tina fired again, this one hitting him in the gut and passing through. Frank staggered several feet but still didn’t look ready to fall.
    I saw then that Eddie was still running full out on his hobbled legs toward Frank, twenty feet and closing. It was a collision course. Frank raised his right arm and pointed his .45 in Tina’s direction. She fired again. Where this hit I didn’t know, but Frank still didn’t move, his arm didn’t drop. With everything he had left he took aim on Tina.
    I sat up again and pulled myself to my knees and leapt forward with my right arm outstretched. I landed hard on my stomach and hooked my hand around Frank’s ankle. He was wobbling but still had his .45 up, trying to put Tina in his sights. Just as I hooked Frank’s ankle, Eddie closed what remained of the distance sacked Frank from behind with a flying tackle. The instant Eddie hit I pulled on Frank’s ankle, sweeping his foot out from under him. Frank flew a few feet, then landed on the ground with a thud.
    Eddie crashed down into me, his momentum only slightly broken by his collision with Frank. He was a heavy rainstorm elbows and knees. He rolled off me quick and I hacked on the pain and looked for Tina.
    She was standing over Frank now, her gun hand hanging at her side. She stepped on Frank’s gun hand and looked down at his face. Eddie took my arm and helped me to my feet.
    Tina had no expression on her face. Even her body language seemed blank. I opened my mouth to say something to her but it was too late. She aimed her father’s gun at Frank’s head and pulled off three shots without flinching. Eddie and I did nothing but watch. There was nothing else we could do.
    When it was done I limped over to Tina. She seemed frozen. I looked at her, but she didn’t look back at me. I reached down and eased the .45 from her small hand. I let it drop to the ground, then touched her shoulder.
    Tina looked over at her father’s body. He was facedown on the ground. After a while she walked to him and knelt down beside him. She looked at him and touched his head with a trembling hand. I waited for her to cry but no tears came.
    Eddie took a few steps forward and looked down at Augie’s body. He shook his head from side to side.
    “We have to get out of here, Mac,” he said. “We can’t be anywhere near here when it all hits the fan.”
    I knew he was right, but I didn’t like the idea of leaving Augie there, surrounded by these kinds of men. But there is never any telling which way shit will fall in this town. I knew this.
    I went to Tina and stood beside her. She didn’t look up at me.
    “We have to go,” I said to her. “We have to leave Augie here and we have to go. This is too much trouble to explain. We have to. We have to go now.”
    I looked at Eddie and nodded toward Augie’s .45, the one Tina had used to kill Frank. He knew what I meant and picked it up by the trigger guard. Then he picked up the .380, the other .45, and the shotgun I had used. He gathered them all together and left us and headed down to the shore of the bay. Once there he threw them one at a time into the water. I was surprised by what a good arm he had, by how far out over the dark water he flung each weapon.
    I knelt down and put my arm around Tina.
    “We’re all we have now,” I said. “If they find us here, we won’t even have that. I won’t ever leave you, I promise. I will always protect you. You’ll always be with me. Do you understand?”
    She turned and looked at me. There were tears hanging in her eyes. I didn’t say