Read Apaches for Free Online Page A

“You’re supposed to say how much.”
    “The guns are important,” the man said. “Not the price.”
    “Just so you know, it’s five hundred a gun, more if you want ammo,” Dead-Eye said. “You give half now. I take the other half when you open the crate.”
    “What guarantees do my people get?”
    Dead-Eye put his cigarette out on the floor, twisting it with the tip of his work boot.
    “Delivery of the guns,” Dead-Eye said. “They’ll be here on the date and time I say.”
    “That’s it?”
    “You want more, shop at Sears. I just hand you guns. Straight up for cash. They don’t work, don’t mean shit to me. Trigger falls off in a shoot-out, bullet goes backward ’stead of forward, barrel melts before your eyes, any of that happens, don’t call me. Complain to the Better Business Bureau. Write your congressman. I don’t give a fuck what you do. Just don’t call me.”
    “I hope these guns work as well as your mouth,” the man said, eyes moving off Dead-Eye to the two behind him.
    “And I hope it’s true you got the kind of money Magoo says you do,” Dead-Eye said. “You don’t, I’m a walker.”
    “Magoo told me something about you,” the man said, his voice armed with an edge. “Something I hope is not true.”
    Dead-Eye felt the tension in the room notch up a few degrees. The fat guy behind the bar had his hands flat across the wood surface. The two behind him let their cards drop to the table. The voices in the kitchen were stifled.
    “I’m gonna hate it if you make me guess,” Dead-Eye said.
    “Magoo thinks you’re a cop,” the man said with a smile. “He thinks that’s a problem. And he wants that problem to go away. That’s why he gave me this.”
    The man reached into his jacket pocket and pulled outa thick wad of cash, $25,000 easy, cut green and fresh, white wrapper still around it. The man dropped it on the table and looked up at Dead-Eye.
    “He must be pretty serious about this problem,” the man said. “Put up money like this for one man. What do you think?”
    “I’m touched,” Dead-Eye said.
    “I get more later,” the man said. “When I bring him your heart.”
    “Magoo always was a romantic son of a bitch,” Dead-Eye said. “Too soft for this kind of work.”
    “Tell me, before you die, my friend,” the man said. “Are you what Magoo says? Are you a cop?”
    Dead-Eye looked around the room, kept the faces in their places, and turned back to the man.
    “Yes,” Dead-Eye said.
    •    •    •
    T HE FIRST GUN was in Dead-Eye’s right hand, aimed at the man’s chest. The second gun, his favorite .38 Special, took out the fat guy behind the bar. The two at the table hadn’t even had a chance to move.
    “They can live if you let them,” Dead-Eye said to the man, nodding his head toward the two behind him. He saw three men stop at the kitchen entrance, guns drawn.
    “I’m not armed,” the man said.
    “That could be a problem,” Dead-Eye said. “For you.”
    Dead-Eye was impressed. The man kept his cool, unfazed by the gun aimed several inches from his heart.
    “I know your country,” the man said. “Your ways. The police don’t kill unarmed people. You are too civilized. It’s a shame, but it’s true.”
    “I bet your fat friend behind the bar believed that too,” Dead-Eye said.
    “He was stupid,” the man said. “You won’t be.”
    “That’s right, compadre,” Dead-Eye said. “I won’t be. I just drop you and then take my chances with the rest ofyour buddies. If I make it out—and, believe me, the odds are in my favor—then I put a drop gun in your hand and walk away clean. Nobody’s gonna give a shit.”
    The man nodded, his eyes finally glancing down to the gun.
    “May I light a cigarette?” he asked.
    “It won’t kill you,” Dead-Eye said.
    The man took a cigarette from a pack on the table, put one in his mouth, and Ht it. He took a deep drag, let out the smoke through his nose, and smiled.
    “It would be an