Stall
Had Greer’s exit from the bathroom stall at the back of the 10th floor restroom been one step further along he wouldn’t have been able to react to the surprise discovery of a machete-weilding assailant by stepping back and slamming the door shut to effectively prevent the rapidly descending machete from cleaving his skull.
But since he had been able to, instead of the blade being buried four inches below the crown of his head, it now sat about the same distance deep into the door, effectively preventing whoever his would-be killer from extricating the weapon, and thus allowing Jason the time he needed to retrieve the SIG Mosquito from its holstered position under his left arm and distribute the amount of rounds needed under the bottom of the door into the goon’s shins, ankles and feet until he was no longer able to stand on them and instead was writhing around the tiled floor in what could be characterized as obvious misery.
Greer opened the door and observed exactly that before warily eyeing the machete where it had been left.
“Who the hell brings a machete to work?” Greer asked his prone opponent who had brought his broken and bloody legs and feet up to his chest and hugged them whimpering. Greer stepped over him, not really expecting an answer. He set the gun on the counter and washed his hands, knowing he’d get the real information he sought. Like who this bastard worked for and why.
A lot of Greer’s colleagues scoffed that his weapon of choice was a .22 caliber pistol. They bragged reverently about the stopping power of the bad boys they probably slept with when they weren’t strapped to their bodies. But Greer wasn’t about that. Instead he liked the accuracy of the weapon and the damage it could do. Sure it wouldn’t take an arm or a head off, but a round or two to the torso did a remarkable amount of fatal internal damage. Whereas a 9mm or a .38 or a .45 bullet essentially travel straight upon entry, a .22 round will find flesh and do anyhing but. They’ll go left, right, up, down. All over. And if in their deviations they happen to ricochet off a rib or a vertebrae they might fragment, like a little grenade and double back to mess any internal organs that they missed on the way in. Indeed, without medical attention — or a lot of times even with it — death comes eventually, conveniently leaving time for an earnest Q&A, which usually ends with one last bullet to the brain.
Greer pulled a paper towel from the dispenser and dried his hands. He holstered the SIG and locked the restroom door. At the click of the deadbolt sliding home Greer’s interviewee wrenched his head around.
“Just so you and I can have a little privacy,” he said.
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