The Suppressor by Erik Carter (best free novels .txt) 📗

swear it gets less family-friendly each year. Soon, it’ll be nothing but a big drunken fest. I wouldn’t take kids there past 9 p.m., I’ll tell you that much.”

Of the many festivals Pensacola hosted each year, the Tristán Festival was one of the biggest and one of several that celebrated the city’s proud historical heritage, chiefly the fact that, in 1559, Pensacola was the first European settlement in America, courtesy of Spanish explorer Tristán de Luna.

The Tristán Festival was an annual two-day event, with a first day devoted to a Mardis Gras-style parade and a costume contest, which crowned a King and Queen Tristy. The second day was a more adult-oriented, nighttime affair. The main drag through downtown was closed off from vehicular traffic, and what began as an arts and crafts festival eventually—and sooner than later—turned into a “drunken fest,” as Mrs. Enfield had put it.

She groaned. “And those whiz-jets will be flying over, too. I appreciate their service, but at my age I just can’t take the noise.”

The “whiz-jets” were the Navy’s Blue Angels aerobatic team who performed aerial stunt shows all over the country. Pensacola was known at “The Cradle of Naval Aviation,” as Naval Air Station Pensacola was the primary training location for naval aviators. The Blue Angels and all things naval aviation were more sources of great pride for the city, and the aerobatic team performed a flyover at the beginning of each year’s Tristán Festival.

Silence noticed something in his periphery. A vehicle stopped at the far corner, in the opposite direction as downtown and the festival.

The El Camino. Engine idling. The white guy dangled out of the driver-side door, sunglasses and fedora, looking their way.

“What is it?” Mrs. Enfield said.

“Our friends.”

Bass pumped out of the car. The white guy laughed.

Silence transferred Baxter to the center of the swing and stood up. He approached the steps, thinking the punks would drive off like they did the last time.

But they didn’t.

So he stepped off the porch.

Mrs. Enfield called out. “Silence, where are you going?”

He didn’t respond.

As he moved down the quiet sidewalk—quiet but for the rumbling music pounding out of the El Camino—the white guy stared at him, grinning, laughing, watching over the top of his sunglasses. Beyond him, the younger guy was also laughing, jeering, and he seemed more emboldened than last time.

When Silence was a few feet away, the driver turned to the kid in the passenger seat, said something. The music died, and both men exited the car.

The black kid stepped around the hood and stood beside his leader. He was tall, and the white guy was short, creating a disparity of easily six inches.

Out of the car, under a streetlight, the kid looked even younger than Silence had originally thought. His mustache was scraggly, cheeks smooth.

“Whatcha want, old man? Huh?” the white guy said through his sneer. One of his teeth was gold. “Did your sugar momma send you to scare us off?”

He turned to the younger guy, snickering, received a sycophantic chuckle in return.

Silence said nothing, just stepped closer.

He looked down upon the white guy, blocking the streetlight, throwing him in shadow. The man took a half step back, a shoe shuffling on the asphalt, losing his balance. A flash of embarrassment swept over his face. A bit of his street cred had just evaporated right in front of his protégé. His face shifted a fraction to the right, checking to see if the kid had noticed.

The man forced the confident sneer back onto his lips.

“Ooooh, we got a tough guy here. Big, tall son of a bitch. Think you scare me, old man?” He reached behind his back. “I’m gonna—”

There was a flash of movement, and Silence didn’t realize that he’d done it.

Truly, he hadn’t done it. Not consciously, anyway. Instinct. A skill branded into his subconscious. Recently.

There was something cold and heavy in his hand. The white guy’s gun, a battered old Smith.

It had been so fast, Silence hadn’t even felt his arm move, let alone seen it.

Nakiri’s training, that he’d completed two weeks ago. The brutal training. Hours and days and weeks of torment.

The shit actually worked.

The white guy’s hand remained at chest level, index finger extended, lower fingers curled, aiming an invisible firearm at Silence. He looked at the hand with wide-eyed shock.

Silence considered turning the guy’s own gun on him. But then he remembered how, moments earlier, the guy had cowered away from him without Silence even having to say a word.

Which reminded him of more of Nakiri’s training, the concepts of escalation and intimidation.

He needed to contain this situation, not escalate it.

The opponent was already frightened of him. And the guy was clearly a novice—all bravado, no discipline. A tiny peacock fluffing its tail as wide as possible.

Intimidation was all Silence needed to use in this situation. He could practically see Nakiri nodding respectfully.

He shoved the revolver in his pocket and glared at the white guy.

“Name,” Silence said.

The man jumped at the destroyed quality of Silence’s voice.

And when he didn’t immediately reply, Silence repeated, louder, “Name!”

The man jumped again. “Doughty.”

Silence faced the younger guy, whose eyes were saucers, arms shaking. If there was any doubt that this kid was in over his head, it was erased now.

“L-L-Lee. Lee, sir.”

Silence patted Doughty’s revolver in his pocket and gave the man a dark stare. “Keeping this.” He pointed to the El Camino. “Leave.”

Doughty’s eyes went to Silence’s pocket, as if for a fraction of a moment he had the courage to protest, then he opened the driver-side door.

Lee moved around the car, back to the passenger side.

“Not you,” Silence said.

Lee stopped.

Silence could sense the kid’s quality, his confused decency. C.C. had always told him he was good at reading people.

So Silence was going to go out on a limb, take a chance.

Lee was on the sidewalk, at the front corner of the El Camino’s hood. He looked at Silence, the saucer-eyes even wider, then at Doughty who stood in the open driver-side door, one leg in the