As Lassiter turned around, he saw the bottle of scotch he had dropped on the floor coming at his face.
"Hey!"
He didn't have time to react apart from the one feeble yell.
The bottle connected with his skull, knocking him off his already unsteady feet to the floor.
He groaned, too dizzy or drunk or both to even roll over to avoid getting hit again. He stared up at the ceiling, the world quickly fading into darkness.
He could see the man who was holding the bottle standing over him, bringing it down again. He tried to put his arms up to block the second blow, but this one wasn't aimed at his head.
There was a sudden, earth-shattering pain in his knee. As if his kneecap had just exploded into a thousand tiny shards.
He groaned again, his body involuntarily coiling, wondering why the hell this guy would go after his knee...
He didn't even try to stop the third blow, which once again connected with his skull and finally sent him spiraling into unconsciousness.
He didn't know how much later he came to, but it couldn't have been too long.
A few minutes, probably.
But it was enough.
He heard the voices; two of them, both low and urgent, even before he opened his eyes.
"What the hell were you thinking?" One of them was asking.
Lassiter lay completely still, listening. Not that he could have moved even if he wanted to. His busted kneecap was throbbing, and though he couldn't see anything in the near pitch-black, he was sure it had swollen to the size of a melon.
That's why…he realized suddenly.
…To make sure I don't go anywhere…I can't even move it…
"He's a cop." The other voice answered.
But where were the voices coming from?
Lassiter tried to peer into the darkness. He was still lying on a floor of some kind, but it wasn't the cool cement of the warehouse.
It felt more like a car floor.
No…a van.
He could feel the vibration of an idling engine beneath him. If he listened past the voices, coming from what he assumed was the front seat, he could even hear its quiet purr.
But he was more interested in the voices.
"Exactly!" The first voice snapped. "Do you know what they do to cop killers?"
"We didn't kill him…yet."
The second voice was definitely in charge. He sounded cool, in control.
The first voice was nervous, almost frantic.
"You're gonna!" The first voice retorted.
"Maybe…"
"Oh, man…" The first voice groaned. "You said no one was gonna get hurt!"
"I lied."
"You can't kill a cop, too!"
"He shouldn't have been poking his nose in our business. It's his own fault. We just have to figure out where to bury him…we can't put him with the others…it won't take them long to come looking for a cop. We have to make sure they can't pin it on us."
There was a long silence.
Then, the first voice spoke again.
"He was talking to someone on the phone…"
"I know."
"Did he tell them where he was?"
"Yeah."
The van started to move. Lassiter winced as another sharp pain shot through his knee.
"Then the cops might already be on their way!"
"I doubt it. At most, a cop might be on their way. Whoever he was talking to."
"What if they are?"
Lassiter could almost hear the indifferent shrug in the second voice.
"Then, we'll kill two."
