Commissioner Burke went volcanic when he heard how Weecho had gone about it.
“So the whole thing rides on this boozy swamp rat.”
“I didn’t say boozy.”
“You didn’t have to,” Burke said.
“You don’t even know him.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“It was a judgement call. I wanted to come at it a different way.”
“So you pick this guy?”
“He’s right there. And there’s maybe more to him than you think. That we can use.”
“You know what I think? I think you blew it.”
They were at the pistol range in Alexey’s townhouse basement, getting Weecho started on some firearms training. Alexey himself was standing by the bar, not looking much happier than Burke.
“You should have been more upfront about the money,” Alexey said.
All Weecho had told him when he asked for the two-thousand dollars, Teddy Shongut’s retainer, was that he needed it for working cash.
Burke, who’d come by for lunch and an update, looked like he wanted to use Weecho for a target. “Stunts like this were for when you did whatever you did on your own. There’s a lot more in play now, my friend, and ignoring the chain of command is not an option.”
“I didn’t know there was a chain of command.”
“You do now.”
Burke took a deep breath like he was about to spell it out, held it when a voice spoke up from the stairs.
“Alex?”
They all turned.
“Where would you like these?”
A dark-haired young woman about Weecho’s age, maybe a little older, Mediterranean skin and eyes, was standing there with a platter of sandwiches.
“Gentlemen,” Alexey said, “my niece, Dara Jaffe.”
Dara gave them a smile that Weecho could see had the same high-voltage charm as her uncle’s (even Burke couldn’t help but smile back). Alexey had to nudge Weecho to make room for Dara to put the sandwiches on the bar. She was wearing tights and had long straight legs like a dancer, which it turned out she was.
“Dara is here from Tel Aviv,” Alexey said, “on exchange with the American School of Ballet.”
Dara left the tray of sandwiches and went over to the gun cabinet.
“She’s also an excellent shot,” Alexy said.
Dara took an automatic out of the cabinet, shoved a full clip into the butt, racked the slide like the gun was just another household appliance. She stepped over to the firing line, raised the pistol at the silhouette target that was lit on the wall, took half a second to aim with a two-handed grip, and Bam! Bam! Bam!
Emptied the gun at the target, eight shots in one burst.
Alexey retrieved the target on the cable and brought it over for Weecho and Burke to inspect. Dara had put every shot in an area the size of a lens cap dead center in the target’s face.
“Weecho,” Alexey said, “meet your instructor.”
# # #
YOU ARE READING
Weecho: First Shots
Teen FictionA hot young photographer shoots a conspiracy murder, has cops and the killer chasing after those pictures, hooks up with a fugitive punk girl to cover his back.
