Hardboiled Crime Four-Pack

by Jack Bunker

  He test-fired at the concrete bridge abutment ten feet away. The spear dropped hard, but it hit with such force the fiberglass shaft broke into two pieces. Good enough.

  He reloaded the spear gun, then threw the pieces of the broken spear into the river. Then he stepped into the underbrush, lined up on the bubbles, and lay down. Not long after he settled, he heard footsteps coming down the dirt road. Slow and careful, but they were there.

  He willed himself not to turn his head and look. He was lying on his belly, and his field of fire was set. The only way this would work would be if she came into his kill zone. The fiberglass fragments from the shattered spear caused his hand to itch. He did not scratch it.

  He heard her moving by the truck. Then he heard nothing. From the left of his field of vision, she edged into view. He allowed just his eyes to move so he could see her better. It was only a slight improvement, as his nose now blocked the view from his right eye. He closed his eye.

  She was holding her gun in the classic Weaver stance all law enforcement was taught. It was a stupid way to hold a gun when you were working on your own. Too easy to get tunnel vision. And what if they were behind you? It took too long to turn. Worst of all, it was a physical advertisement, as subtle as a giant neon sign flashing, “I have a gun! I have a gun!”

  She edged up to the water and looked at the bubbles. Now she was directly in his line of fire. He saw her shoulders relax. She switched the gun to her left hand. Hobbs fired.

  The spear seemed to fly slowly, comically slowly, toward Wellsley. Hobbs knew it was just the weirdness of adrenaline. When the barbed spear hit, it slid right through her suit jacket, under her rib and out her belly. She gasped and fell forward on her knees.

  Hobbs was up and moving, forcing himself to move fast, but not to rush with excitement. Before Wellsley could turn, he hit her with the handle of the spear gun and she went out.

  EIGHT

  When Wellsley woke she was lying on her side. She tried to roll and the spear levered against the ground, wrenching into her guts. She cried out and opened her eyes.

  “Oh God!” she said, as she reached for the spear protruding from her belly.

  “I wouldn’t,” said Hobbs.

  She turned her head and was able to see Hobbs, lashing three air tanks together. She kicked at him, feebly, and winced as the pain radiated outward from her stomach. “I’m a goddamned FBI agent. And backup is coming,” she said.

  “Goddamned,” said Hobbs, agreeing. He squinted against the sunset and looked up and down the river. Empty. A car roared past on the bridge above. It was a lonely sound. Hobbs bent to pick up a line and made it fast to the tanks.

  “What are you going to do to me?” asked Wellsley.

  “I’m going to show you where the money is,” said Hobbs. And he kicked the tanks into the water. The rope snapped tight and Wellsley felt herself being dragged backward by her ankle. She clawed at the grass and the earth, trying to arrest her progress, but the weight of the tanks dragged against her. The barbs caught in her flesh and the spear wrenched her organs. She gasped in pain, ripping at the grasses and small trees growing by the side of the road. A small shrub held.

  Hobbs stepped around her and leaned up against the pickup truck to watch.

  “Fuck you. Fuck you,” said Wellsley. “I’m going to fucking kill you.”

  “You’re not going to beg for your life?”

  “Fucking kill you,” said Wellsley.

  “Not going to beg me to kill you?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “OK,” said Hobbs, pulling her pistol from his belt. He popped the clip and looked at it. He showed it to her. “Full,” he said, laying the weapon on the ground six feet in front of her. Just at the edge of her own shadow, cast by the setting sun.

  Hobbs said, “I’m going to go get the Mercedes and drive it back here. If you get to the pistol, you can try to shoot me.”

  Then Hobbs walked away without looking back. He heard scrabbling in the dirt, Wellsley grunting in pain. He didn’t like this kind of thing, but felt, somehow, that he owed it to the kid.

  He walked the half mile back to the Mercedes. By the time he got there, the sun was down and the light of day had faded to a redness in the west. He sat in the car and did not start it until well after the first stars had come out.

  He drove the Mercedes back to the bridge slowly, almost missing the turnoff in the dark. In the headlights he saw the handgun still lying in the road. He got out and picked it up.

  In the sand he could see her blood and read her struggle. She had clawed forward, maybe a foot. Who knew how many times she had gone back and forth. He saw shredded fingernails on the concrete footing of the bridge. He threw the pistol in after her.

  He rolled all the windows down in the Mercedes. Then he rolled it into the river and watched it sink.

  NINE

  Broyles was drunk. He had just come home from a dinner on an energy company’s expense account, and very expensive bourbon was percolating through his much-abused liver. His thoughts turned to Darlene, asleep upstairs, and he regretted his liquor-limp dick. But that was no impediment to a man with a bottle of little blue pills.

  He staggered through the house to the wood-paneled room that he called his study, but that was really nothing more than an office filled with books he had never read. There he concealed his Viagra from his wife. Of course, she knew, but both of them were grifters enough to know that there was no profit in destroying this pointless con of a vain old man.

  When he turned on the lights, Broyles saw Hobbs sitting in his favorite chair.

  “Jesus Christ!” he said, swaying as he tried to find a handle on the moment. “Hobbs. I had given you up for dead.” He squinted and realized how bad Hobbs looked. He muttered, “And you may yet be,” as he poured himself into an armchair that faced the desk. He asked, “Where’s the money?”

  “Where I left it. Soaking in an armored car under the east side of the bridge over the Sopchoppy River. US Route 319. I dumped a crooked FBI agent and a car on top. But it’s all there.”

  “Well?” Broyles asked, shaking his chin wattle in confusion. “When are you going to go get it?”

  “I quit.”

  “You can’t quit. There’s millions of dollars down there.”

  “Find somebody else. I’m here to tell you I quit.”

  “But what about your share? What about your crew? Don’t they expect to be paid?”

  “They’re all dead.”

  “Jesus, Hobbs! What went wrong?”

  Hobbs told him.

  “My God.”

  Hobbs got up.

  “Hobbs, when I recover it, I will save you a share.”

  “Sure,” said Hobbs. And they smiled, both knowing that it was a lie.

  TEN

  Hobbs drove the pickup into the garage and pulled the door down behind him. As he straightened to look at himself in the rearview mirror, a pain shot through his ribs. His face was pale, and pools of blood in the whites of his eyes seemed the most substantial thing about him. Sixty, going on 160.

  As he walked from the garage to the house, the quiet lapping of the lake made him uneasy.

  He entered through the side door and heard music coming from the deck. Grace would be there, enjoying the last warmth of the day, reading a novel for diversion. It wouldn’t be a thriller, though. She never read those when he was away. She worried enough, she said, without fertilizing her imagination.

  He wanted sunglasses. He knew how old and tired he must look. He wanted to spare her the shock of it. He wanted to take all the suffering for himself. For the first time, he recognized that this desire was love but could not shape this understanding into words.

  He poured himself two fingers of Scotch and carried it to the glass door. From where she lay, he could see only her large sun hat and the bottoms of her legs. Just like the rest of her, her calves and feet still looked good to him after all these years.

  He put the glass down on a sid
e table and opened the door. She looked up, pretending she was still reading her book. Then she couldn’t pretend anymore. She rushed to his arms.

  As they held each other, tears poured down his cheeks in silence. He was ashamed at his weeping, but that made him weep all the more.

  After a while, she asked, “What is it?”

  “I’m done.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Patrick E. McLean is an award-winning author and narrator who never writes anything straight down the line. His work includes the Parsec Award–winning How to Succeed in Evil series and The Merchant Adventurer.

  Among his influences, Patrick cites such irreconcilables as Richard Stark, Douglas Adams, Mark Helprin, Terry Pratchett, S. J. Perelman, H. L. Mencken, Hafez, Homer, Georges Simenon, and Jorge Luis Borges.

  KOREATOWN

  BLUES

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  © 2017 Mark Rogers All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Cover Photo © Ingfbruno – CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28714902

  ISBN: 1941298982

  ISBN-13: 9781941298985

  Published by Brash Books, LLC

  12120 State Line #253,

  Leawood, Kansas 66209

  www.brash-books.com

  For Sofia, who makes me want to be a better man.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ONE

  As usual, I was the only white guy in the place.

  I watched as the cordless microphone was passed down along the bar to Ban Gu, a pale-faced Korean with huge bags under his eyes. I looked up at the wall-mounted TV behind the bar. A Korean ballad began to play—words I couldn’t understand. Ban Gu got deep into the tune—he was a good singer.

  Once or twice, when I got really drunk, I’d try to sing in Korean. No one ever told me to shut up. No one ever grabbed the mic out of my hand. Instead they’d smile and slap me on the back as I gutted their language.

  I looked over at the front door where a tall floor fan whirred and buzzed, doing its best to cool off the bar. Cars drove past. It took some getting used to—sitting in a bar and being on public view.

  There was only an inch left in my bottle of Hite. At five bucks a pop I could only afford one or two a night. I looked up at the queue of songs running along the bottom of the video image. My song was next—I’d sing and then go home.

  Ban Gu finished up, and Min Jee, the good-looking barmaid, took the mic out of his hand. She handed it to me with a smile. Min Jee had her hair dyed an auburn color, with streaks of blond highlights. She almost always wore golden earrings of some kind. For weeks now I’d been thinking of asking her out, but I always took a step back. I liked coming to the Saja Room every night for a song and a beer—I didn’t want to do anything to fuck it up.

  The first notes of “Moon River” began to play, and I looked up at the karaoke screen. I knew the lyrics by heart, but I liked the reassurance of seeing the words crawl slowly up the TV tube. The screen showed a flurry of disconnected Korean images unrelated to the song—a bungee jumper, animated cell phones, kids bouncing a ball, cherry blossoms waving in the wind—the images made no sense at all.

  I weighed the mic in my hand. It had a lot of reverb, and it made almost every singer sound like he was in the shower, his voice bouncing off the tiles. There were a few singers the mic couldn’t save—guys who sang angry, loud, and desperate. Most patrons would stare into their drinks when a singer like that roamed the floor—they rarely sang from their seats since they were in too much pain to sit still. But karaoke Korean style was all about flushing out the jimjams. It was no American Idol fantasy. It was a balm for the psyche.

  I began to sing, enjoying the feeling. “Moon River” was my song. My grandma back in Pittsburgh used to play that tune over and over. It had gotten under my skin in an odd way, and when I first dropped into Saja and they handed me the mic, without thinking I asked for “Moon River.” The regulars all had their signature song, and this was mine.

  I glanced over at Ms. Tam, the owner of the bar. She was smiling. She liked it when I sang. The Koreans were middle class and were pleased when a white guy showed them respect—even a white guy like me, in jeans and a black T-shirt.

  Ms. Tam looked to be in her fifties, still put together well, always wearing a sheath-like dress. I think her black hair was a wig, since it never changed shape. She always had a Marlboro pasted to her lower lip. The rest of LA had won the war against smokers, but you’d never know it in Koreatown. It seemed like everyone in Saja smoked—the air was blue with it. I didn’t have the habit, but I breathed in so much secondhand smoke I’d probably have to start wearing a patch if I ever changed bars.

  There was a young Korean woman standing next to Ms. Tam. I’d never seen her before. She kept her head down and leaned in toward Ms. Tam, like a shadow. Dressed in a white shift, she looked demure next to the older woman’s flash. I’d noticed that most Korean women had a really hearty sensuality about them. This young woman looked bled out and shy.

  I dug into the lyrics—about drifters and huckleberry friends and heartbreakers.

  There was polite applause at the end of my song, and some of the patrons raised their beers in a salute. I gave a little wave of thanks and handed the mic to Min Jee.

  Min Jee said, “I like the way you sing that song. So much feeling.”

  She brought the mic down to a gray-haired Korean, and the old guy started singing an upbeat number.

  Maybe it was worth the risk, asking Min Jee out. Maybe there was a way I could approach it without feeling like a jerk if she said no. There was a fancy-looking Korean barbecue restaurant a block away. I could ask her to show me the ropes when it came to Korean cooking. I’d examined the menu on the front door a couple of times—it looked confusing as hell.

  I was imagining sitting across from Min Jee, maneuvering a pair of chopsticks, eating something gooey and strange, when I saw a Korean dude walk into the bar. Instead of finding a seat, he stood in the open doorway. The guy had presence—a sense of style. He wore a sharp-looking suit without a tie; his glowing white shirt was open at the neck. He had the fresh look of a guy straight from th
e barbershop. It was strange the way he stood there, his eyes searching the bar. There wasn’t much to see—just a long row of stools, a tiny dance floor, and a couple of restrooms off the kitchen. The guy’s eyes fastened on Ms. Tam and the young woman standing close to her.

  The man smiled—

  Then his head exploded in a burst of shotgun fire from the street.

  TWO

  My ears rang as I crouched on the floor, trying to shield myself behind my bar stool. Half the patrons were screaming; the others were shocked into silence. Through the open doorway I saw a car roar off with the shooter leaning out the passenger’s side. The well-dressed dude lay on the floor, flat on his stomach. Blood poured from what was left of his head.

  I looked at the back of my hand and saw drops of blood. I felt my forehead and face, and there was blood there, too. I wasn’t wounded—the blood had splattered over me. I started to shake. I climbed to my feet and held on to the bar with both hands. I looked around and saw what seemed to be every patron punching away at their cell phones, calling 911.

  Min Jee was huddled behind the bar. She looked up at me and said, “The door. Please close the door. Lock it.”

  I carefully stepped around the body and closed the front door, throwing the bolt. Ms. Tam was trying to light a cigarette, looking grim. The young girl in white hid behind Ms. Tam, trembling.

  A Korean guy named Kwan jerked his chin toward Ms. Tam and the girl. “It’s all because of her.”

  I didn’t understand what he was getting at, and asked, “Ms. Tam?”

  “No,” said Kwan. “The girl. Soo Jin. She’s Nang. Nang family.”

  Min Jee leaned over the bar and handed me a damp towel. “Your face.”

  I took the towel and peered into the bar mirror, dabbing away at the blood on my forehead—and something that wasn’t blood, something pulpy and white. I heard the sirens and walked over to the door and opened it. The cops would be pissed if they couldn’t breeze right in. A crowd had gathered outside. They shouted some questions at me in Korean, but I ignored them and went back to my seat.