Free Last Call - A Thriller (Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels Mysteries Book 10) by J.A. Konrath Page A

better idea than watching Hugo Boss for another four hours.
    Phin tucked away his notebook, and started the car.
    He’d driven a block when the steering wheel began to pull right and he heard the distinctive
THWAP-THWAP-THWAP
of a flat tire.
    Already twitchy from the caffeine, Phin went into instant paranoia mode, taking his FNS in hand and doing a three-sixty scan of the area as he pulled over to the side of the road. The street looked normal, no obvious threats.
    He parked, shut off the car, and waited, continuing to look around. At the next corner were three men sharing a cigarette. Across the street was a parked car, empty. Phin glanced back at Hugo Boss, and he was in front of the club, business as usual.
    It could have been regular old bad luck. Maybe he ran over a glass bottle, or a jagged chunk of asphalt—the streets weren’t in the best shape.
    Phin tucked the gun into the back of his jeans, located the button to pop the trunk, and got out of the car. The cholos on the corner gave him a glance, then resumed their conversation. A car cruised past, slowing down, and Phin tensed until he figured out they were headed for Hugo to buy drugs.
    Keeping alert, Phin walked to the front of the car and checked the tire. It was flat, the rubber beginning to tear from riding on the rim. He squinted down the street, but didn’t notice anything he might have run over.
    He went to the trunk, lifting up the carpet-covered board that hid the spare, and that’s when they hit him.
    It was a smart attack. Phin had the trunk open so he didn’t see them run up, and his hands were occupied with the tire the moment before he was tackled.
    They were fast. But so was Phin.
    He dropped the spare and pulled his gun just as one of the cholos plowed into him. Phin shot twice as he fell backward into the street, dead weight pinning him down, another Mexican coming at him from the right side. Phin fired four more times, center mass, and then two men sat up in the car parked across the street—they’d been hiding—and hurried over to join the fight.
    Phin managed to push the dead guy off of him, emptied his magazine at the duo, sensed movement from behind, and then something hit him in the wrist, the FNS falling from his grasp and clattering to the street. Phin dove away from his attacker, tucked and rolled to his feet, and came up surrounded by four men.
    The snipers hadn’t tried to take him down yet, but Phin suspected that was what had taken out his tire. None of the cholos he faced carried guns. That could only mean one thing; they meant to take Phin alive.
    Well…
Phin thought, slipping the brass knuckles on to his left hand and then flicking open the butterfly knife with his right,
let them try.
    Two guys rushed Phin at once. He slashed one across the chest, then did a tight spin-kick and caught the other in the jaw. Both stumbled away, and a pipe clipped Phin in the side of the head and sent him off balance and staggering into the middle of the street. He regained his footing, slipped a punch, then countered with a brass knuckle uppercut that broke bone and teeth.
    Phin whirled to face the two Mexicans still on their feet, and saw six more running his way.
    This was a coordinated attack. His odds weren’t good.
    He dared a quick glance at the street, looking for his dropped gun, and then a heavy, muscular dude rushed at Phin’s knife, the man’s shirt balled up in his hand to deflect the blade. Phin raised the weapon, thrusting at the man’s face, missing, and the other guy stepped in and popped Phin in the ear, hard enough to rock him sideways.
    Phin spun, letting centripetal force whip out his hand with the brass knuckles, catching his attacker on the temple, a stream of blood spurting out and following him like the string of a kite.
    Muscles lunged at Phin again, and Phin ducked under the man’s hands, dropped a shoulder, and pushed forward, driving the guy backwards as he stabbed at his side. The cholo fell just as the