by Gina LaManna
I flinched and made an effort not to look downward.
“Look on the upside, girl,” she said. “That yellow junk stuck to your earring is probably either mustard or guts. If it’s mustard, you got all the condom-ents to make a hot dog.”
“Condiments,” I said. “Cond-i-ments.”
“No kiddin’!” Meg laughed, much louder than was safe in our filthy hiding place. “I always thought it was condom-ents, on account of that’s what goes on wieners.”
“Not those wieners,” I said. “Now zip it and get down. I see lights.”
Meg obeyed my request for once, but it turned out to backfire. She shifted her good-sized frame and belly-flopped onto the single garbage bag that had actually been cinched shut and wasn’t leaking gucky fluids all over the place.
Splat.
Meg was a confident woman who somewhat resembled a bear, albeit a cute one: shaggy hair, a ferocious attitude, and plenty of weight around her middle for winter hibernation. She had so much confidence in that belly flop that it squished out a load of coffee grounds along with some Asian take-out.
“Would you look at that,” she said, brushing herself off. “Pad Thai. I had a craving for that this afternoon, did ya know that?”
“Don’t you dare eat it,” I said. “A homeless man has probably had his hands all over it.”
Meg eyed the food remains as if that weren’t reason enough to refrain.
“And he probably licked every single noodle.” I crossed my arms. “And then peed on it. Who knows? Maybe he had the chicken pox, or bird flu.”
Meg stared at the noodles as if they were her lifeline – her one meal per day (which wasn’t true considering we’d eaten four meals together already today, five if we counted the ice cream cake).
“Do you want to fit in that hot, red dress?” I asked.
“You’re right,” she said. “There’s probably extra calories on these noodles due to the gunk that’s in here. I think I’ll hold off for some more cake.”
“Good idea.” I hunkered down and peered over the side of the dumpster. “I see them,” I said. “We’ve got to be quiet.”
Chapter 2
Two years ago, I’d been offered a job at the Luzzi Family Laundromat. It was a legitimate venture. Sort of. I’d snapped it up because I really needed the quick cash (thank you rent, loans, a humongous appetite, and a taste for mid-level wine). Plus, working at a laundromat wasn’t dangerous. Or so I’d thought.
After two years of slaving away as the lookout, or rather, front desk attendant, now was my chance to break into the real money – the real deal. It was my chance to make the whole grocery bill and car payment thing work out in my favor, consistently.
Tonight was a test.
Carlos had been clear. I was to successfully act as the lookout for a deal going down behind the crummy YMCA parking lot in White Bear. Make sure the transaction goes smoothly, and I get another job. Fail terribly, and I’m back at the laundromat. I had no problem with the laundromat, but it’s not like I could exactly get promoted there. And if I ever wanted to fix my engine light, I needed the pay bump.
I agreed to the gig, having been told that the stakeout was supposed to be easy peazy, lemon squeezy. Also, the payout was solid.
However, the assignment didn’t turn out to be a cinch like Carlos had said. No, instead here I was, covered in plenty of squeezy things that weren’t nearly as fresh as lemons.
The entire night had started rough, and continued downhill fast. We were so far down the slope that there was a man with tape over his mouth writhing on the ground next to us. It was kind of our fault he’d gotten stuck that way. And now, we weren’t sure what to do with him. So, as a short-term solution, we’d hauled him into the dumpster where we were currently crouched, trying to disappear from the shadows arriving outside, toting guns that looked like cannons back and forth across the YMCA’s parking lot.
“What are they doing?” Meg asked. “I can’t see nothin’.”
“There are four cars. They just parked.” I hit the ground. “Crapola.”
“What?”
“They’ve got some really big guns.”
“Well, they ain’t gonna use them on us, are they?” Meg asked. “We’re just chilling here in the garbage can. If they pop their heads in, we’ll just pretend to be female cookie monsters. ‘Cept sexy, and a little less blue. Maybe even less blue if you wipe that crap off your chin.”
“You mean female Oscar the Grouches.” I wiped impatiently. “How are we going to explain him?”
I give a light kick to the man sitting on the floor. He was small and wiry, kind of like a mouse who’d been moderately overfed most of its life. He glared at me, unable to speak a word.
I turned away from his glaring eyes, pushing away the guilty feeling accompanied with kidnapping. It wasn’t like I’d kidnapped before – how was I supposed to know it didn’t make me feel very warm and cuddly inside? “We’ve got to get out of here. This isn’t how it was supposed to go down.”
“What did you expect? You’re working for the mob. But it’s okay. We’re like Die Hard over here, protecting our building. ‘Cept our building is a dumpster and we only got two teensy guns.”
“You brought two guns?” I asked. “Can I have one?”
“You’ve gotta be shitting me,” Meg said. “I only brought one gun, and it’s not that teensy, thank you very much. You don’t got a gun?”
“No,” I said. “Of course not.”
I’m not exactly Mafia material. After (almost) graduating college, I set out to be a stripper like my mother. But I wasn’t nearly as successful as her: where she was a sweet soul with soft curves and a soothing voice, I had a much sharper tongue, a bad habit of poking men in the eyes when they’d stick their fingers too close to my private places, and was not exactly the owner of the world’s largest chest-al region.
But just because I’m a feminist and watch my back on stage, doesn’t mean I can run fast, do karate, or own a gun. I’m not a scaredy cat, but I do avoid confrontation if possible. I have a few holes in my ears because I really love sparkles, but I’m afraid to get anything else pierced and I hate blood.
My hair is medium and golden (okay, brownish, but it’s kind of shiny in the sunlight). My body works for me, and it’s worked for a few of my ex-boyfriends, I guess. My stomach doesn’t hang over my jeans most days, my legs are fairly long and my mouth is much larger than average. The best academic achievement I have going for me is my spelling. I won a spelling bee once in eighth grade.
I fished deep in my pocket and pulled out a tiny, pink pepper spray canister. “I have this, at least.”
“Emphasis on least,” Meg said, her eyes taking it in. “If a dude showed me a wiener that size or color I’d turn around and leave.”
“How courteous,” I said as I shook it up a little bit. “I’ve never used this before.”
“Don’t shake it,” she said. “You spray that crap in here and we’ll be dripping snot from our eyes for days.”
“Sick.”
“I’ll peek this time.” Meg stood upwards, peered over the top, and then let her legs slide downwards very slowly, her body moving like a sinking submarine, her legs widening in the splits.
When she landed on top of the garbage pile, I gave her a nod of approval. “You’re really flexible. What are they doing out there?”
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s all the exercises I do. And by exercise, I mean sexua—”
“MEG!” I interrupted. “What did you see out there?”
“Oh,” she said. “They’re walking this way. We should probably shut up.”
Shut up we did.
I didn’t know who the deal was between (need to know basis), but from what I understood, it was Carlos’s men meeting up with men from another Agency in town. That could mean Russians, Asians, other Italians, who knew? Whatever Agency meant, I couldn’t be sure. The two groups had to hammer out the details of an agreement, but again, I wasn’t privy to t
hat information.
My sole job was to arrive hours before everyone else, find a safe place, and set up shop. I was to radio if I saw any suspicious activity beforehand, and radio in once it was over and let them know that everything had been completed successfully; AKA that nobody died.
Things had gone well during the pre-stakeout; Meg and I arrived at three p.m. for a picnic at a nearby park. We’d picnicked out front like two friends might, sipped some wine, and then meandered around. The place had been dead quiet, nobody around. The drop spot was behind the local community center, which, like my hair, had seen better days. The parking lot hadn’t seen a security camera update since I’d worn legwarmers.
We discovered an abandoned tool shed and, still giddy from the wine, broke in at a louder decibel than we probably should have.
There was a man inside waiting for us with a gun. It was a big gun, and it was pointed right at us.
When he saw it was two ladies in sundresses, clearly loopy on alcohol, he lowered the gun, winked, and said hello.
I said hi back and shook his hand.
He asked if we wanted a cigarette.
Meg said sure. Then, he’d taken a nice long stare at Meg’s breasts.
That’d been his mistake.
Meg had zapped him with a taser (she’d “forgotten” to give back some of the supplies she’d borrowed from evidence lockers before the precinct gave her the boot).
Before he came to, we’d recovered miscellaneous supplies from the dumpster, one thing had led to another, and that’s how we’d ended up with a man beside us with duct tape over his mouth, a dirty sock muting his mean words, and a rod poking him in a place I assumed was probably uncomfortable.
Another car rumbled into the parking lot, loudly joining the others. I held my breath and peered through a creaky joint in the dumpster’s lid. Four additional spiffy cars whipped into the parking lot: flashy red, pristine white, and two black vehicles. They were clearly new and very expensive.
A group of Caucasian men spilled out of the cars. Their voices wafted through the night air as they spoke in low tones.
“They speakin’ English?” Meg asked.
The man on the ground next to us grunted something through the tape, and Meg put a finger to his mouth, squishing his lips even more.
“You don’t like this?” she asked, her eyes focused on his angry expression. “Then shut up. Next time it’ll be my foot in your face. Not nearly as pleasant, despite the fact that these heels are delicious enough to eat.”
She turned to me. “I can’t understand shit.”
“Shhh!” I couldn’t hear anything either, but it was partially because Meg was yammering in my ear.
“I think they might be Russian.” I looked at my audience. “I don’t know for sure, but the blond-hair-blue-eyes thing has got me wondering. I don’t think it’s Norwegian – no one has said Sven or Lena yet.”
“Definitely not, then. Sven and Lena are the two most popular Norwegian names,” Meg said, as she bobbed her head in agreement.
I turned back to my peephole.
There was an influx of new people, these ones olive-skinned, dark haired, slightly shorter as a general rule, and relatively built in terms of muscular shoulders and tight, trim waists. They’d arrived in all black cars that ran as silently as a library at midnight.
“Hunk of burning love.” Meg pushed up against me, and I bounced against the wall. “I want to bite a piece of that ass.”
“Get in line.” I tried to wiggle my way next to her.
Meg elbowed me. I elbowed her back. She hip-checked me, and I bounced to the other side of the dumpster. The man with tape over his mouth rolled his eyes and shook his head disapprovingly. I tried to ignore him and maintain a sense of dignity, which was difficult after breaking out in a juvenile skirmish over a boy’s ass. Though, the ass in question was pretty nice.
The owner of the ass had just stepped out of a snazzy, black Lamborghini. He was clearly the “lead” Italian (one of Carlos’s men, I could only assume), and he moved like a panther, swift and sleek, his hair dark and wavy and utterly touchable-looking. He was the tallest of all the men, his shoulders broad and thick with muscles, his chest round and firm, tapering nicely into a trim waist. A waist that I was sure boasted a six pack at minimum – eighteen pack maximum – of beautiful, lickable abs. And despite his sheer mass, he moved with a grace I envied and a quiet confidence that neither Meg nor I could ever emulate.
I found a new peek hole, since Meg kept poking me away from hers, and watched as he strode up to a smaller Russian. If I were that little guy, I’d be pissing my pants, but he looked surprisingly calm and assertive. He said something in a snippy tone.
“Oh, you sock him,” Meg said, as if cheering on a MMA match. “I wanna see blood, you sexy mofo.” She turned to look at me. “I bet you wouldn’t have even charged him extra for a lap dance.”
I shook my head. “On the house.”
“Yeah, except he’d probably turn it down. I heard from Cinnabuns that last time you gave a lap dance the dude walked away with a bloody nose.”
“Yeah, yeah, shut up.”
The beautiful Italian said nothing. He merely cocked his head sideways and crossed his arms. I caught a glimpse of a small tattoo at the side of his neck, though I couldn’t make out the words.
My breath stopped in my throat as his eyes flicked towards the dumpster where we hid, and it felt like I’d swallowed a large jawbreaker. I spluttered a bit and Meg smacked me on the back. I lurched forward, feeling as if I’d been hit by a wrecking ball. “Did he see us?”
“Nah,” Meg said. “He’s probably just being attentive. You know his type.”
I knew his type only too well; Carlos’s guards were primo material. The best in the business. Hand-picked, hand-trained, more loyal than the Secret Service to the President. Smart, intelligent, and apparently sexy as hell.
To my relief, he looked back to his Russian counterpart, and I had to wonder if he’d even glanced this way, or if it’d simply been my imagination.
He said a few quiet words, which seemed to anger the Russian.
The smaller man took a few steps back and conferred with his men. One of them brought out a small bag and tossed it over to the Italian guards flanking their leader’s side. A smaller Italian guard, one I recognized since he’d moved under the streetlamp – Giuseppe – peered curiously at the bag. The main Italian stud waited patiently before murmuring a few more words to the Russians.
There was a standstill, a thick silence which spread through the chilly night air like the stench of a two-week-old bag of sports bras and tube socks.
Suddenly, Giuseppe flung the small bag as hard as he could. A flurry of staccato Italian pierced the night air.
A gunshot blasted away my eardrums. I ducked.
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