“He killed my son. I know all I need to know except his name,” Ike said.
“Drinks! I hope you like Cuba libres,” Lunette said. She had four glasses on a plastic tray. She sat the tray on the ottoman and started handing out the rum-and-coke concoctions.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Buddy Lee said.
“My name’s Lunette, not ma’am. You can call me Sugar if you want, though.” She winked at Buddy Lee, who killed his drink in two gulps. Ike held his in an iron grip as he focused on Tangerine. Tangerine took a sip. This time she did bat her eyes at him.
“You thinking about hitting me, aren’t you? That your kink?” she asked.
“No. I’m thinking I wish my son hadn’t tried to help you, but that was the kind of man he was. He would help anybody. Even someone who didn’t give a damn about him,” Ike said.
“Trying to guilt me ain’t a good look, babyboy,” Tangerine said. Ike thought she meant for it to sound hard, but it came out flat.
“I’m not trying to guilt you. I’m stating facts.”
Tangerine opened her mouth to respond, but then the sound of a car door slamming came from the front yard. Ike stood. The skin on the back of his neck prickled like a ghost was tickling him. He locked eyes with Buddy Lee.
“I haven’t had these many guests since before your daddy left,” Lunette said. She sashayed toward the door. The ice cubes in her glass clinked like castanets.
“Ma, what are you doing? I told you we gotta be careful,” Tangerine said. She popped up and grabbed Lunette by the arm.
“I’m gonna see who it is,” she slurred. Ike wondered how much rum she’d put in her drink. He sat his glass down on the ottoman.
“Wait. Let me take a look,” Ike said. He went to the window on the left side of the doorjamb. Peering through the filthy pane of glass he saw a blue minivan. It had parked on the other side of the sedan to the far left of their truck. It was accompanied by three motorcycles. The motorcycles had parked in the gap between the van and the sedan.
Six men were walking toward the house. They all had on baseball caps pulled low and they were all holding guns.
“Get down!” Ike yelled. Lunette broke free from Tangerine’s grasp and walked toward Buddy Lee.
“What is he talking about, handsome?” she asked with a smile as she swirled her drink.
Gunfire erupted from outside. The interior of the house became a hellscape of shattered glass, wood splinters, and fragmented Sheetrock. Lunette’s body did a shuddering box step as bullets tore through her chest and belly. Her floral housedress was drenched in blood, turning the daisies on it to roses. Tangerine launched herself at her mother even as Buddy Lee reached out for her and tried to pull her down. Ike was on his stomach and pulling himself along the floor. Lunette’s body folded in on itself and crumpled. Her glass slipped from her hand and rolled along the uneven wood floor.
Footsteps pounded on the porch as Ike reached the dining room table. The front door burst open from one swift kick. just as Ike reached up and grabbed the stock of the shotgun. He pumped a round and aimed at the man in the doorway.
Cheddar paused. He hadn’t expected to be staring down the barrel of a 12-gauge. Ike aimed at the general area of his head and pulled the trigger. Half of Cheddar’s face evaporated in a red mist of flesh, bone, and brain matter. His baseball cap flew off what was left of his head and fluttered to the floor as his body fell half in, half out the front door. Ike pumped the shotgun again, expelling the spent shell and sliding another one in the chamber. The second man on the porch jumped sideways as Ike aimed at his chest. Ike pulled the trigger and the shotgun roared again even as the third scurried back to the van. The buckshot caught Gremlin where his thigh became a part of his abdomen, blasting him off the porch. When he hit the ground, his large and small intestines began to unspool like a ribbon of saltwater taffy soaked in merlot.
Ike pumped the shotgun again. The spent shell was expelled again but this time it wasn’t replaced.
“Buddy, shoot!” Ike yelled.
Buddy Lee popped his head up over the back of the sofa where he had landed with Tangerine under him. He pulled the gun from his waistband and took aim at the four men who were moving toward the house in a crouch. He was a terrible shot. He thought he winged one while the other three ran for cover.
Ike scurried across to the dead man in the doorway and grabbed the gun in his hand. It was a submachine gun. Either a MAC-10 or Uzi, he wasn’t sure. Ike aimed at the van and the sedan and unloaded.