Ch. 9
By the Chronicler
December 22 01:05 am Pacific 04:05 am Eastern
31 hrs and 25 minutes remaining
Perfect Tommy swatted the man on the back of the head. He was rewarded with a grunt and a glare from the black hooded gangster. Feeling a little revenged for having a gun shoved in his face and being harassed down in some dark and dingy nowhere where he really did not want to be, the Cavalier smirked.
Buckaroo glanced at him. "Perfect Tommy, please don't play with the bad guys." he mumbled, turning back to the man he was interrogating.
The reprimand was reinforced by a solid glare from Rawhide. Perfect Tommy quickly clasped his hands behind his back, chin dropped to his chest so as to hide his amusement.
Jake Lo shook his head. Some thing never change.
Buckaroo shook his prisoner. He growled a threat in Cantonese only to be, once again, ignored by the Chi Hung gang leader who simply stared straight ahead with a cocky grin. It had only been five minutes of this, but, with time against them, Buckaroo was quickly becoming frustrated.
Rawhide pushed his stetson back on his head. "We don't have time for this." he growled.
"Why don't you just ship them all back to China?" Perfect Tommy wondered, almost innocently taking another smack at the back of the head of another gang member.
The teenage gangsters only glared at them, for the exception of one, the smallest and apparently the youngest. His head snapped about, frantically looking from one fellow to the next. In a voice squeaking with the transition from child to man, he whimpered "They can't send me to China."
One of his comrades snapped at him to shut up.
"But... I was born in america! They can't send me back!" he continued frantically.
The lead bad guy started to threaten the kid in Cantonese, but Jake Lo stuffed a cloth in his open mouth.
Buckaroo approached the youngster. "Where's our hummer?" he asked.
**********
01:13 am Pacific
Pinky Carruthers frowned. He leaned forward in the driver's seat of the bus and peered through the windshield. "I'll be damned." he mumbled.
"Not that anyone would argue." Pecos leaned over his shoulder. "What?"
"Isn't that the Beast?" Pinky pointed out at the end of the alley in front of them.
Sure enough, the hummer was pulling out of some dark garage, out on to the street, and away from them.
"Damn." Pecos swore.
Tommy Boy began to shout from the back "It's on the move again. Where's the boys?"
"I'll get them." Pecos was already out the door and hurrying down the ally.
"Pecos, wait!" T.B. shouted after her, but it was too late. "Damn, damn, damn." She glanced at Reno. "It's getting away."
Reno could only offer her a shrug and a frown.
With a frustrated growl, Tommy Boy came to a decision. "Go after it, Pinky."
"What?" Pinky looked back at her. "But the boss..."
"Isn't here and we don't have time to argue! Go after it!" Tommy Boy snapped.
With a shrug, Pinky Carruthers closed the bus door and started the bus moving. "Anyone ever been in a high speed chase with a tour bus before?"
**********
Buckaroo, Rawhide, Perfect Tommy, and Jake Lo (having left the Chi Hungs with his white hoods) were already on their way back when Pecos ran into them.
"What..." was all Rawhide had time to say, grabbing her arm and pulling her back the way she had come.
"It's on the move." Pecos quickly informed them.
"We know. And we know where it's going." Rawhide answered. "All we have to do is get there first and..." He stopped.
Buckaroo and Perfect Tommy stopped on either side of him. They looked up the alley, then down. Then Perfect Tommy asked the obvious "Where is the bus?"
Jake Lo came up beside them. "You know, Buckaroo, this is becoming a nasty habit for you guys."
01:20 am Pacific, 04:20 am Eastern
31 hrs and 10 minutes left
