[Georgia 03] Fallen

blouse.
    Will stood up. He couldn’t think of anything to do but offer his handkerchief.
    “Thank you.” She wiped her face with a steady hand. The blood smeared like clown makeup. “Thank God I have a change of clothes in the car.” She looked up at him. “Your jacket is ripped.”
    He looked at his sleeve. There was a small tear where his shoulder had met asphalt.
    “You should always keep a change of clothes in your car. You never know what’s going to happen.”
    “Yes, ma’am.” Will rested his hand on the butt of his rifle.
    “Ling-Ling’s gone.” Amanda wiped her forehead. “She came out of her office with that stupid dog under her arm. Guns blazing. I’m under no impression that she was trying to save me, but it seemed rather obvious that they were trying to kill her, too.”
    Will tried to process this new piece of information. “I assumed the shooters were working for Ling-Ling.”
    “If Julia wanted us dead, she would’ve taken both of us out in her office. Didn’t you see the sawed-off shotgun under the couch cushion?”
    Will nodded, though he hadn’t seen the gun and the thought of it now brought out a cold sweat. “The shooters worked in her shop. I recognized them from when we first went in. They were putting together cabinets. Why would they try to kill Julia? Or us, for that matter?”
    “Isn’t it obvious?” Amanda finally realized it wasn’t. “They didn’t want her talking to me. They certainly don’t want her talking to Roger. She must know something.”
    Will tried to put the pieces together. “Julia said that the young boys were getting ahead of themselves. Trying to be gangsters. I don’t imagine a bunch of twenty-something-year-old, testosterone-filled guys want to be ordered around by a middle-aged woman.”
    “And here I was thinking that men loved that.” Amanda looked down at the dead man. “He’s sweating like a pig. No doubt he was on something.”
    Something that had made him capable of taking the impact of a .223-caliber 55-grain full metal jacket to the chest and popping up seconds later like a Toaster Strudel.
    Amanda prodded the man with the toe of her shoe, pushing him over so she could check for his wallet. “These youngsters certainly don’t like to leave witnesses.” She slid out the driver’s license. “Juan Armand Castillo. Aged twenty-four. Lives on Leather Stocking Lane in Stone Mountain.” She showed Will the license. Castillo looked like a schoolteacher, not the kind of guy who would chase a GBI agent into a parking lot with a machine gun.
    She unzipped Castillo’s jacket the rest of the way. Her Glock was tucked into his pants. She took it out, saying, “Well, at least he didn’t shoot at me with my own gun.”
    Will helped her unloop the side clasps on the Kevlar vest.
    “He smells, too.” Amanda lifted up the shirt, checking his chest. “No tattoos.” She checked his arms. “Nothing.”
    “Try the hands.”
    Castillo’s fists were clenched. She uncurled the fingers with her bare hand, which was technically against every procedure in the book, but Will was an accomplice already, so it didn’t really matter.
    She said, “Nothing.”
    Will scanned the parking lot. There were only two cars now, the Bentley and the Mercedes. “Do you think someone else is inside?”
    “The Bentley is Ling-Ling’s. I imagine she keeps another car close by that she’s using right now to go as far underground as possible. The Merc belongs to Perry.” She explained, “The dead man in the front office.”
    “You certainly seem to know a lot about these people. Mandy.”
    “I’m in no mood for that, Will.”
    “Julia Ling is high up in the pecking order. She’s practically the beak.”
    “Is there a reason you’re talking like Foghorn Leghorn?”
    “I’m just saying that it takes either a large set of balls or an extreme amount of stupidity to try to take out someone with Julia Ling’s kind of juice. Her brother’s not going to just roll over. You told me yourself that he’s practically insane. Shooting at his sister is an open act of war.”
    “Finally, a salient point.” She handed back his handkerchief. “Did you get a good look at the men in the van?”
    He shook his head. “Young, I guess. Sunglasses. Hats. Jackets. Nothing else I could swear to.”
    “I’m not asking you to swear. I’m asking you to—” The air was pierced by the sound of sirens. “Took them long enough.”
    Will guessed the first gunshot had