Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Into the Viper’s Pit

When Skinner woke up he didn’t recognize his surroundings. He seemed to be in some sort of garage. He sat up and cleared the sleep from his eyes and nearly had his breath taken away. There had to be at least half a million dollars worth of cars surrounding the Escalade he sat in alone. Climbing out he recognized the Aston Martin that they had spent so much time in several days before. Aside from the performance beast there was a silver Mercedes SLK, several foreign sports cars, but the thing that stuck out the most was the black Honda Prelude that sat to the side by the tool bench. It stuck out like a sore thumb among all of the high end vehicles in the garage. “Don’t underestimate that one Skinner. It’ll leave you in the dust before you can blink. Besides if all you drive around in is top dollar cars, you’re going to stick out a bit in some neighborhoods. That’s his plain clothes car. No one notices it because everybody else has one.” It made sense to Skinner and he looked up the stairs to where Shin Lao was leaning against the steel railing chewing on an apple.

“Is this place yours?” Skinner felt kind of stupid asking the question a second after it had escaped his mouth. He knew damn well who’s place this was just by looking around at it. “No, this is what we affectionately dubbed The Viper’s Pit. This was his place.” She turned and walked through the door into the building. Skinner jogged up the stairs stiffly, his limbs still seemed to want to sleep. What he walked into was a sharp contrast to the clean, yet still rough garage.

The walls on the other side of that door were all a pale blue and decorated with all manner of fine Asian artwork. Masks, paintings, sculptures and several display cases with old weapons and such lined the hallway leading into a larger room which contained a desk and several bookshelves. This room was also lined with various masks and melee weapons of centuries past. “Wow, he certainly had an eye for art. I bet this stuff must be worth a couple million.” “Fourteen point six million to be exact. He had it appraised not too long ago. “Skinner’s jaw dropped suddenly as he gazed around the room.

Shin Lao was sitting at the desk seemingly absorbed in some file or another. “So what other amenities come with the modern hitman’s home?” Skinner tried to lighten the mood a bit but Shin Lao just point to a switch on the far side of a book case. “Could you turn that light on for me?” Skinner walked over and flipped the switch. As he was about to turn and look for what light had just come on the bookshelf slid out and to the side revealing a long dark room. He looked back at Shin Lao and he glanced up briefly and smiled. As he passed through the threshold into the room a series of lights flickered to life and revealed a long wide room full of various weapons and accompanying ammunition. “There has to be somewhere around four hundred different weapons here. Did he really use all of these?” “At one time or another yes. He preferred his pistols but sometimes a little more firepower was needed. Other times he just couldn’t bring those hand cannons in for a job so he went for something a little more concealable.” Skinner had just noticed that her voice had been getting closer and she was now leaning against the empty threshold looking in at him. “He worked on most of his guns in here.” She pointed to another door at the end of the room. “His workshop is back there. He used to do some amazing things with standard firearms. I still use the rifle that he modified after our first mission together. It’s taken a beating but it’s still in pretty decent shape.”

Skinner walked to the back of the room and opened the door which revealed a fully loaded gun smithing shop. There were several drill presses and a couple of different machines that he didn’t entirely recognize. Parts littered one bench off to the side. Skinner recognized the materials for silencers right off. “He had so many different weapons because he modified each one for a specific job.” Skinner turned off the light and shut the door feeling that she wanted to show him something. “That shotgun there was for when he knew there’d be a large group of people. The trigger spring has been slackened so that he could fire off more rounds quickly. He shortened the barrel so that he could pull it more easily and get a wider arc on the shot so he could get more people at once.” She walked further down the rows and pointed to a pair of black Glocks hanging up on a board. “These ones were silent. The capacity was increased along with easier trigger pull and he bored out the barrels so he could pack a bigger bullet to make up for the lack of stopping power those things had. Every job had a specific tool and he knew just what to make. Having the best tools is the key to doing the best job.”

“I wholeheartedly agree” came the strange voice from the doorway. It must have just been the shock but after a minute Skinner’s mind cleared and he realized that he was looking at a dead man. Shin Lao’s jaw had dropped in shock as she didn’t know what to say or do. Tears crept into her eyes shortly before he face twisted in anger. “Don’t you EVER do anything like that again!! You nearly killed me!” She rushed to the disheveled man standing in the doorway and flailed at his chest and shoulders before finally succumbing and pushing her head into his chest and sobbed loudly. The Viper’s arms wrapped around her and he buried his head in her hair whispering reassurances to her. Skinner was just shocked. He had seen this man earlier in a casket, clearly dead. Hell he had even seen them start to bury him. He leaned against a shelf and let them have their moment.

When reality settled in the Viper looked up at him and smiled. “Good to see you again detective.” Skinner didn’t know what to say so simply nodded and continued to lean against his shelf. “There’s a lot to do but first I desperately need a shower”