Chapter 4 - Grease and Gunpowder
Dora did not make it to the office.
Before she could take three paces toward the swinging metal door that led to the dry storage room, the gravel in Rusty's front lot crunched under violently accelerating tires.
The black sedan across the highway did not wait for the light.
It cut hard across the asphalt median, its tires screaming against wet tarmac as it slid sideways into the diner’s private parking lot.
The headlights flared to high beam, blinding the entire front counter in a flood of stark, white glare.
“Get down!” Leonardo roared.
He didn't pull a weapon; he lunged over the counter with his uninjured arm, grabbed the front of Dora’s pink uniform, and dragged her violently over the chrome rail.
They hit the greasy rubber floor mats behind the counter just as the first wave of gunfire erupted.
The diner’s front plate-glass window did not simply shatter; it exploded inward in a million glittering shards of lethal shrapnel.
The deafening staccato of automatic submachine guns ripped through the silence of three in the morning.
The glass pie carousel disintegrated into dust.
Ceramic mugs on the overhead racks shattered, showering them in white clay fragments and boiling coffee.
The fluorescent light tubes overhead burst in rapid succession, throwing the interior into smoky, strobing darkness lit only by the blazing halogen lights of the sedan outside.
Dora pressed her face against the rubber floor mats, her hands clamped over the back of her neck as plaster, glass, and wood splinters rained down upon them.
The noise was absolute, a mechanical thunderstorm designed to obliterate everything standing higher than three feet from the floor.
Leonardo was draped entirely over her, shielding her torso with his own heavy frame.
She could feel the violent tension in his muscles and the heat radiating from his bandaged arm as the stitches tore under the sudden, violent strain.
“Stay flat!” he shouted directly into her ear over the roar of the assault.
“Do not move!”
The gunfire stopped abruptly.
The sudden silence that followed was terrifying, filled only by the hiss of punctured steam pipes and the sound of falling glass.
Footsteps crunched heavily on the gravel outside the shattered frame.
Two men were advancing through the blown-out entrance, their heavy tactical boots stepping over the twisted aluminum threshold.
“Clear the counter!” a raspy voice shouted from the dining room.
“Angelo said take his head and leave the girl!”
Dora’s breath hitched in her throat.
Angelo.
The cousin Leonardo had spoken of barely ten minutes ago.
Leonardo did not wait for them to round the chrome partition.
His right hand emerged from beneath his overcoat, gripping a customized matte-black Kimber .45 pistol.
He rolled off Dora, rose to one knee, and fired three deafening shots straight through the thin stainless steel paneling of the lower prep station.
A scream of agony echoed from the front booth.
One of the attackers collapsed backward onto the floor, clutching a shattered kneecap as his shotgun clattered across the linoleum.
The second shooter reacted instantly, spraying a burst of automatic fire along the length of the counter.
Sparks danced off the chrome taps.
Wooden splinters from the under-counter shelving bit into Leonardo’s shoulder.
He fired twice more, driving the shooter behind the structural brick pillar near the front door.
Leonardo dropped his magazine with a click, slamming a fresh one home with the heel of his hand, but his injured left arm buckled beneath him.
Fresh blood was already soaking through his dark knit sweater, pooling rapidly around the freshly torn sutures.
His breath came in ragged, wheezing gasps.
The shooter behind the pillar knew he was pinned.
“You're bleeding out, Costas!” the man yelled, his voice echoing off the broken tiles.
“Angelo runs the docks now!”
“You're yesterday's garbage!”
The surviving hitman stepped out from behind the pillar, leveling a heavy, short-barreled pump shotgun directly at the gap in the counter where Leonardo was crouched, ready to deliver a fatal point-blank blast.
Leonardo raised his pistol, but his vision blurred from the sudden drop in blood pressure, his aim wavering by two crucial inches.
Dora saw it.
She saw the black barrel of the shotgun swinging toward Leonardo’s chest.
She saw the face of the hitman, twisted in a sneer of murderous triumph.
And she saw the heavy cast-iron skillet sitting on the back burner beside her right hand.
The skillet had been simmering over a low pilot light for three hours, holding two inches of used, boiling canola grease from the evening shift’s french fries.
Dora did not think.
She did not pray.
She reached out, grabbed the scorched handle with both bare hands, ignoring the blistering heat biting into her palms, and lunged upward from behind the counter.
With a guttural scream of pure, primal rage, Dora swung the heavy iron skillet like a baseball bat.
She didn't aim for his chest.
She threw the entire contents of the boiling oil directly into the hitman’s face, following through by smashing the heavy iron base straight across his nose and jaw.
The sound of sizzling flesh and shattering bone was sickening.
The hitman dropped the shotgun, shrieking in unimaginable agony as he fell to his knees, clawing at his blinded, blistering eyes.
Leonardo did not hesitate for half a second.
He raised his Kimber and fired a single round through the man’s forehead.
The hitman collapsed face-first into the pool of oil and broken glass, motionless.
The diner fell dead still once more.
The only sound was the drip of water from the ceiling, the whistling of the fractured coffee machine, and the ragged, terrified gasps escaping Dora’s lungs.
She dropped the iron skillet.
It clattered against the floor, rolling twice before resting against the dead man’s boot.
Her hands were shaking uncontrollably, her palms red and blistering from the heat of the handle.
She looked down at the corpse.
She looked at the blood spreading across the ruined floorboards.
She had never seen a man die.
She had never smelled burnt powder mixed with human hair and scorched fat.
Her knees gave out beneath her.
Before she could hit the glass-covered floor, Leonardo caught her around the waist with his good arm, pulling her against his chest.
“Look at me,” he commanded, his voice tight, fierce, and rough with adrenaline.
“Dora. Look at my face.”
She lifted her eyes, her pupils dilated with pure shock.
Leonardo was bleeding profusely from his torn bicep, a streak of black soot marking his cheekbone, but his hazel eyes were steady as granite.
“You saved my life,” he said, his voice dropping into a solemn, ferocious whisper.
“Do you hear me?”
“You saved my life.”
Before Dora could reply, the harsh wail of high-performance sirens tore through the rainy fog out on the interstate.
Three black SUVs turned off the highway, their tires squealing as they blocked the diner’s exits.
The back doors flew open.
Dante and six heavily armed men in dark tactical gear poured out into the rain, weapons raised, sweeping the perimeter with lethal efficiency.
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The cavalry had arrived.
But Dora knew, with sickening certainty, that the ordinary world of seven-dollar-an-hour shifts and forgotten bills had just ceased to exist forever.
