Gutshot Straight with Bonus Excerpt

by Lou Berney

  The song faded abruptly into a fuzz of static. Shake heard, behind him, a soft whump, whump, whump.

  Flat tire. He tapped the brakes and steered the Town Car onto the shoulder. Odd thing, the wheel didn’t tug like it should have, but Shake didn’t give it much thought. He cut the engine and opened his door. If the spare was full and the bolts forgiving, he’d be out and back in under ten minutes.

  Except that when he walked around to the rear of the car, he discovered that neither tire was flat. Not a scratch on either.

  “What the hell,” he had time to murmur aloud once, before the whump-whump-whump-ing started again, and he realized it was coming from inside the truck.

  Get back in the car, Shake told himself. Do not open the trunk. Get back in the car and drive to Vegas. Deliver the car, fly back to L.A., collect the rest of the money from Alexandra. Take the money, and figure out a way to start a restaurant, and never, ever, take a job like this again.

  Do not open the trunk.

  He opened the trunk.

  Inside was a young woman in her twenties, gagged with electrical tape and handcuffed. She stared up at Shake with wet, scared eyes.

  The wind had died down, and the night felt suddenly too warm, too still, as if the desert were a big sweaty palm, the fingers closing slowly over him.

  The girl started struggling again, kicking the wheel well—that was the sound he’d thought was a flat tire. Shake saw that the cord used to bind her legs had come loose.

  A second later, headlights splashed him, and he turned to see a Nevada state trooper rolling up twenty feet behind him. The girl kicked again, and the boom sounded to him like a bomb going off in the dark night.

  “Shit,” he said. But he didn’t panic. Never panic. That was the first and only rule. He reached into the trunk and pulled the cord tight around the girl’s legs, tied it off with a knot he hoped would hold. He slammed the lid of the trunk shut just as the state trooper slammed his car door.

  Shake strolled back toward the trooper and met him halfway between the two cars.

  “Almost hit a coyote,” Shake explained. “Thought I blew a tire, but I’m okay.”

  The trooper moved his chin in a way that maybe was a nod, maybe not. He was a long-timer with small eyes crowded together in the center of a big, thick face. His belly strained the buttons of his uniform shirt.

  “Where you headed?”

  “Where else?” Shake said.

  “Play them slots?”

  “Little brother’s getting married. Bachelor party tomorrow night at the Flamingo.”

  The state trooper waited, like there’d be more.

  “Stripper or two,” Shake went on. “Beer and pretzels. Nothing fancy.”

  “Thought they tore that one down coupla years ago,” the trooper said.

  “What?”

  “The Flamingo.”

  Shake laughed, tried to make it sound easy.

  “Sure hope not,” he said, “or I’m in trouble.” That was the first true thing he’d told the trooper.

  The trooper tugged thoughtfully at the skin beneath his chin. A lone semi thundered past, east to west. Shake wished he was in it.

  “Might be the Sahara I’m thinking of,” the trooper said finally. “Hell if I know. I can’t keep’ em all straight anymore.”

  “Could be.”

  “Stay away from them slots. The house always wins, even when you think you got you a system.”

  “You got that right.” Shake suspected that the trooper spoke from experience. Either way, the point was a sound one.

  “All right, then. Have a safe trip.”

  The trooper walked back to his cruiser. Shake watched him drive off. When the burn of taillights finally disappeared in the distance, Shake slowly released the breath he’d been holding for what seemed like the last ten minutes or so. A second later the trunk of the Town Car started whump-whump-whump-ing again.

  “Shit,” Shake said.

  Chapter 5

  Just before sunrise Shake reached the southern edge of Vegas. He turned onto the Strip as a thin, bloodred crack appeared on the horizon. Pyramids, Empire State Building, Eiffel Tower. Shake wondered how long before they opened a Vegas-themed hotel and casino that was an exact scale replica of the city around it, including a replica of the Vegas-themed hotel itself, and so on down to microscopic infinity.

  He shook his head and took a deep breath of cold air. He was getting a little loopy. He’d been awake for—how long? He asked for nothing more right now than a soft bed and a few hours of sleep. And no girl bound and gagged in the trunk of the car he was driving. Yeah, that, too, don’t forget.

  He didn’t know what he was going to do about the girl. He supposed this was his punishment. For not listening to the old lady on the bus who told him to stay clean and free. For taking this job because it was the easy thing to do.

  Live in the moment, Shake advised himself. He checked the dashboard clock. He still had an hour before the meet with Dick Moby’s bagman. He’d find the motel, get a room, try to sort things out.

  Traffic was light, so Shake guessed he’d missed the casino shift change. He followed the Strip north until it lost its enthusiasm and turned seedy—big new hotels giving way to big old hotels, big old hotels giving way to small old hotels, small old hotels giving way finally to liquor stores, adult bookstores, crackhead apartment complexes, and skanky by-the-hour motels.

  The Apache Motor Inn was on the corner of West Utah and South Las Vegas Boulevard, across from a strip club called the Jungle. It wasn’t the skankiest motel on this stretch of the Strip, but close enough. Shake turned in beneath a sign shaped like a wigwam and parked in back, next to an empty pool half filled with rust-streaked toilets and bathroom sinks.

  The clerk at the desk gave him a room key. The key was attached to a hard red rubber bulb scored with teeth marks. Adult teeth, unmistakably. Shake didn’t want to imagine the circumstances. He unlocked the room and propped the door open with a chair, then returned to the parking lot, which was empty except for the Town Car.

  He crouched next to a back tire, as if he were inspecting it for tread damage.

  “Can you hear me?” he said.

  No answer.

  “Kick once,” he said.

  Whump.

  “I’m gonna let you out of the trunk. But I need you to stay quiet. Okay?”

  Whump.

  Shake glanced around to make sure the parking lot was still empty, then unlocked the trunk. The girl’s face, the part not covered with electrical tape, was pale and dirty, streaked with the paler, less dirty tracks of dried tears.

  “I’m not gonna hurt you,” Shake said. He unwound the cord from around her legs. She was wearing jeans, a sweatshirt, no shoes. Her hands were cuffed in front of her, so he looped her arms around his neck, grabbed her waist, and lifted her out of the trunk. Her legs cramped up the second her bare feet touched the ground, and they both stumbled to the asphalt. Shake untangled himself and tried to help her stand, but it was like she was paralyzed from the waist down. Finally he just picked her up again. Her blond hair, pressed against his nose, smelled strongly like tire rubber and faintly like peaches.

  He carried the girl into the room, kicked the door shut behind them, and lowered her to the bed. He knelt in front of her.

  “Thirsty? You want some water?”

  She nodded.

  He found a plastic cup in the bathroom and filled it with cold water. Then he turned the tap to warm and soaked a washcloth.

  He looked at the reflection in the mirror above the sink.

  “Any bright ideas?” he asked it.

  The reflection shook its head sadly. Nope.

  Shake returned to the room with the cup of water and the washcloth. The first thing he noticed was the door: open. The second thing he noticed was the bed: empty.

  The girl was gone.

  He dropped the cup and the washcloth and sprinted outside. His heart started beating again when he saw that she hadn�
�t hobbled far—barely halfway across the empty parking lot. Even before Shake reached her, she’d crumpled to the ground. She began crying when he lifted her to her feet.

  “Come on,” he said quietly, and led her back into the room.

  He put her in a chair and tied off her ankles with pillowcases.

  “This is gonna hurt,” he said, “but it’ll probably hurt less if I just do it all at once.”

  He found an edge that had come free and pulled the electrical tape off her mouth. The girl didn’t make a peep. She just closed her eyes and bit her bottom lip.

  It was a nice lip, Shake noticed. Plump and rosy. He realized for the first time how pretty the girl was, dirty face and all. Eyes that seemed brown until you looked closer and saw the underwater green. Perfect cheekbones and an imperfect nose, a strong-minded nose, with a dusting of freckles across the bridge. The nose, the eyes, wholesome but not dull—the girl reminded Shake of a girl who could have been homecoming queen but had better things to do with her time.

  Shake guessed she was a little younger than he’d first thought, probably around twenty-three or twenty-four.

  So how did a girl like this end up in the trunk of a car, express delivery to a bad dude like Dick Moby? Shake tried not to consider the possibilities.

  She moistened her lips with her tongue.

  “If you start to yell,” he warned her, “I’ll have to put the tape back on.”

  She nodded and said something he couldn’t hear. He bent closer. Her voice was soft, hoarse.

  “Water.”

  He brought her a fresh cup of water. Her cuffed hands trembled as she lifted it to her mouth and drank. He found the warm washcloth and gently wiped some of the grime from her face.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  Her big eyes couldn’t seem to make up their mind, if they were brown or green.

  “Gina,” she said.

  “Gina,” Shake said. “Tell me why you were in the trunk of that car.”

  “Please, you have to help me.”

  “I want to help you. But first—”

  “I don’t know! I’m just a … I’m a mom! I have two little boys.”

  She made a sound that was part cough, part sob. Shake brought her another cup of water, which she gulped down.

  “Where am I?” she asked.

  “Las Vegas.”

  Surprised. “I live here!” she said.

  “But you were in L.A.?”

  “On vacation. With my husband. We left the boys with my mom, and … we were supposed to go to Catalina Island? To have a picnic? But then Ronnie went out to buy a paper and didn’t come back.” The words tumbling out faster and faster, one over the other. “And the next day this man broke in the door and—”

  “Slow down.”

  “Can I—I have to take this off.” She pointed her chin down at the baggy UNLV sweatshirt. “I’m burning up. Please.”

  Shake hesitated, then pulled the sweatshirt up over her head. Underneath she was wearing a thin white T-shirt, damp with sweat, no bra, her boobs small and perfect. Shake blinked like a man who’d just stepped out of a dark movie theater into the sunshine. Then he looked quickly away and concentrated on getting the sweatshirt over the cuffs. In the end, because he couldn’t find anything sharp, he had to bite the seam and tear the fabric in half.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He sat down on the bed across from her and tried to fit the pieces of the puzzle together.

  “Your husband. Ronnie? He went out and didn’t come back?”

  “It was like he was saying good-bye, when he said good-bye.”

  She started crying again, softly. A fat teardrop rolled down her cheek and caught for a second, trembling and translucent, in the corner of her mouth.

  “I think he left me,” she said. “I don’t know why he left me.”

  “Gina,” Shake said. “Think hard, Gina.”

  “There’s nothing, really. I just—”

  Suddenly she looked up at him.

  “What?”

  “He liked to gamble.”

  “Ronnie did,” Shake said.

  “Everyone at our church tried to help him stop. We’re Mormon? But he just kept borrowing money, and I don’t know … I don’t know why I—”

  “Gina. Stay cool for me, okay?”

  She took a deep breath. Shake glanced over at the clock radio on the table between the beds. A quarter to seven. Tick. Tock.

  “Did he ever mention anyone by name? Who he borrowed money from?”

  “No,” she said. “Maybe one time. Dick something, or something Dick? I don’t remember, but Ronnie was—”

  Shake began to understand what had happened. He felt his stomach do something unpleasant, like a dog turning a circle before it flopped to the ground.

  “Dick Moby? The Whale?”

  “The … what? Maybe. Yes. Dick Moby.”

  She watched him closely.

  “What is it?” she asked, and Shake knew that his poker face had failed him this time.

  “I think your husband split because he owed money he couldn’t pay back.”

  “But why—”

  “Dick Moby couldn’t find your husband. So he put the word out. The person I work for found you.”

  “Me? What does he—Dick Moby? What does he want with me? I don’t have any money. Ronnie always kept all the …”

  The girl’s voice trailed off. Shake watched as her eyes went slack. She was a smart girl. Shake had been right about that.

  “He’s going to kill me,” she said finally, softly, “unless I tell him where Ronnie is.”

  Shake stood and walked to the window. He spread the blinds with a finger and squinted out into the hard, dazzling light, where the black Town Car was still the only car in the lot.

  “Could be he just wants to scare you. Maybe he just—”

  “And I don’t know where Ronnie is.”

  Her voice was calm and flat. Either she wasn’t buying his bullshit or she hadn’t heard it.

  Shake turned back from the window. The girl looked a little dazed, but she was holding it together. He doubted that most people in her situation would have been able to do the same.

  Shake had a pretty good idea what Moby would do to her and wished, more than he’d wished anything in a long time, that he could help her. He wished, to the same degree, that he just had a choice in the matter.

  A former associate had once told Shake he was too nice for this business but not nice enough for any other.

  “Gina,” he said. “I’m sorry. If I let you go? It’ll be me in the trunk of that car.”

  He expected her to look away, but she held his gaze.

  “I understand,” she said.

  Shake could tell she meant it, which made him feel even worse than he already did.

  A single sharp knock on the door made the girl flinch. Shake looked at the clock radio. Seven on the dot.

  The girl lifted her chin and straightened her shoulders.

  “I had a really happy life,” she said. “My mom loves my boys, and she’ll take great care of them. She has a big, nice house and a pool and—”

  Another bang on the door. Shake reached for the strip of electrical tape he’d set aside on top of the TV.

  “Will it be over fast?” Gina asked.

  Shake hesitated, then smoothed the tape back over her mouth.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again. It came out softer than he intended, sand in his throat, and he didn’t know if the girl heard him or not. She’d closed her eyes and was taking slow, even breaths.

  Shake opened the door to the motel room. The Whale’s guy was a big one, with the bottom-heavy construction of an offensive tackle. Round face, sleepy eyes, mocha-colored skin.

  He looked Shake over in a mellow but alert way.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “You the Whale’s guy?” Shake asked.

  “He don’t like to be called that.” The statement was more conversational than t
hreatening.

  “I’m Shake.”

  “Jasper.”

  He looked past Shake, into the room, and saw Gina sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “She suppose to be in the car,” Jasper said after a few seconds, in the same conversational tone.

  “Come on in,” Shake said.

  Jasper entered the room. He placed the leather briefcase he was carrying on the dresser, then popped the locks and opened the lid. He took a polite step backward so Shake could inspect what was inside.

  Inside, set into a custom-cut foam bed designed to protect it from jolts and jounces, was another case. It was the size of a large manila envelope, not much thicker than one, and made entirely of glass. Pressed inside the glass were dozens and dozens of square, thumbnail-size pieces of what looked like dried, yellowed parchment. Shake counted: ten rows across, ten rows down.

  “A hundred,” Jasper said. “They all there.”

  “Postage stamps?” Shake asked.

  Jasper shrugged. Who knows?

  Shake picked up the glass case, which was surprisingly heavy, to take a closer look. There was no writing or marking on any of the pieces of parchment, though each one was slightly, subtly different from the next—smooth, textured, flecked with brown, bleached white at a corner.

  Shake placed the glass case back in its foam bed.

  “I didn’t even know what I’m supposed to take back,” Shake admitted.

  “This is it,” Jasper said. He closed the lid of the briefcase and pressed the snaps into place. “We all set here?”

  Shake nodded. Don’t look over at the girl, he warned himself, just before he looked over at the girl. Her eyes were still closed. Her expression was … peaceful, almost. Cheeks flushed, a curved slice of blond hair falling across her face.

  An image flashed through Shake’s mind, startling in its clarity: Gina, standing on the porch of a nice house, watching two little boys play on the lawn.

  Then the Gina in the image glanced up and smiled—right at Shake.

  “Wait a second,” Shake said as Jasper took a step toward her.

  Jasper paused. “What?”

  Shake couldn’t believe what he was about to do. It was such an unbelievable thing, he had to shake his head and chuckle. Then he pulled a deep breath in through his nostrils.