Killing Time in Vegas

by Black, Tony

  'All the way down,' said Eddie.

  'Y-yes, yes of course.'

  'Eat shit!' said Eddie, smiling, 'Eat shit, you motherfucker.'

  ###

  I Want Candy

  I'd been working homicide for twenty years, but this kind of thing, you just didn't see every day.

  'It's the pits, Jake.'

  'The pits, that's it, that's what you got for me?'

  Billy's mouth dropped, but I wasn't finished.

  'A pregnant woman, hacked to death with her child cut out of her, the strays in the alley eating her guts ... and that's all you've got to say?'

  'Jake, I ...'

  'Forget about it!' I hit out, could have taken down a wall with that one.

  Billy didn't see it coming. Fell on the asphalt and shook his head. He got up and walked, grimaced and flashed hurt blue eyes as he spat blood at me.

  Two days later they took me off the case. The next week it was my badge they took.

  Now I'm doing security in a 7-Eleven in Buffalo. Earning minimum wage and sending half of it back to my ex-wife upstate. You'd think life couldn't get any worse. But, maybe I was the guy lying in the gutter looking at the stars.

  ****

  'Jake! Jake! Get your goat-smelling ass out here.'

  I swear that bastard tries to bigfoot me one more time, I'm popping' a cap in his wide old ass. I walk through to the front counter, with the Irish in me rising like a rain cloud.

  'You want something, Mr Delago?'

  ''Course I damn well want something. Think I'm hollering for my health? Help this lady out with her groceries would you ... And put them in the trunk, too.'

  He turned that greasy head of his towards her, spat out one of those lousy piranha smirks of his: 'Always glad to help a lady,' he said, adding slyly, 'especially one so fine.'

  Delago got a smile back, but her eyes were on the roll of meat spilling over his belt. 'Much obliged to you, kind sir,' she said, turning tail and wiggling her ass at us both.

  Please. I mean, was anyone still falling for this Daisy Duke shit? I slung arms around the groceries and followed her out.

  'I'm the Caddy,' she said, smiling, 'pink one.'

  I nodded and headed off in the direction of the shiny phallus, trimmed in chrome. All the while I could feel her eyeballing me, as she rolled a cherry liquorice between her lips.

  'You look like you've been working out there, fella.'

  I'd heard all the lines, but most times, I hadn't been on the receiving end of them. As I popped the trunk I felt her hand stray onto my hip and knew I'd scored for sure. Perhaps this wasn't going to be such a hard stretch.

  ****

  I didn't tell Candy about my having been a cop.

  'This place sucks,' she said.

  'What do you expect? The sign outside says Rooms by the Hour.'

  'We should've went to the Holiday Inn, at least they've got a pool.'

  I sat up, reached for my pack of Luckies on the bed-stand. 'I didn't know you wanted more exercise.'

  She smiled at me, climbed on top and stuck her hooters out like a cowgirl at a rodeo. 'Give it to me.'

  'Honey, you're going to kill me.'

  'The smoke, wise-ass.'

  I could tell she was restless. Always that look in her eye, darting off somewhere, searching for the next big adventure. Shit, that was the last thing I needed dragged along on, I'd way too much on my mind.

  'I've got to get back to the city,' she said.

  'New York?'

  'Of course, where else?' She rolled off and parted her legs in the birthing position as she blew smoke-rings to the ceiling. 'This place hasn't got any action. And I need action.'

  I took back my smoke. 'You're not a big hometown girl, are you?'

  'Shit no, I outgrew Buffalo long ago ... I'm here because I have to be.'

  'And why's that?'

  She slit her eyes as she stared at me, changing tack again. 'You're a city boy, don't you miss the action?'

  'This suits me fine. The less action the better.'

  'Horseshit!' She sat up, shook the bed as she threw back her long blonde hair, 'You're just like me ... you're primed.'

  'Get out of here.'

  Candy got up and jumped on the bed like it was a trampoline. My Lucky went flying and I landed on my ass, staring up at her from the floor as she stomped up and down like a five-year-old. 'Jake, I'm gonna rock your world,' she yelled.

  I didn't doubt it.

  ****

  Onetime there wasn't much could butter my muffin, but these days, I'm not doing too good keeping a lid on it all. Say what you like about me, and some have said plenty, but what sets me burning is the injustice of this world.

  Delago was riding me: 'Jake, Goddamn, how many times? How many times? Get that fucking deadwood away from the dumpsters.'

  He was talking about the winos. Most were there because they couldn't help themselves. But the point was missed on Delago.

  'Have I got to get a bat and break their fucking heads myself?' he said, pointing at me with the chocolate shake he'd brought back from his second trip to Wendy's today.

  I held it together by a thread. 'Mr Delago, what you're proposing goes against the law.'

  'Against the law ... hold on, remind me when you got out of Harvard Law School, Jake ... Huh, c'mon, remind me.'

  'I'm only saying ...'

  He cut me off, waddled over and slapped a wet paw on my face, 'You ain't saying nothing, you'll do as ...'

  I tried counting to ten — by now I knew I had serious anger issues — but I only got as far as two.

  I took Delago's shake in my hand and squeezed so hard a chocolate-coloured volcano erupted all over him. His eyes turned black. He threw down the cup. There was words, loud words, but they bounced off my back as I walked.

  The sight of the winos scattering made me look around. I spotted Candy at the edge of the lot, blonde hair blowing wild as she leaned on the fire escape, sucking down a can of Sprite.

  'Now, I know you're ready for some action,' she hollered.

  ****

  Does everyone become what they despise? My father had asked me that in high school. He probably had a reason, some incident, some mistake I'd made, whatever it was I didn't remember it now.

  'Just sit tight honey-pie,' she said, 'and when you see me come running round that corner, you gun that motherfucker till she screams, y'hear?'

  I heard alright. I just didn't have the words. Dropped a vague nod.

  'Good boy.' Candy leaned over, placed her wet red lips on my cheek and smiled. 'You'll do just fine.'

  As she left, her aroma lingered in the Caddy. That French perfume she wore, the smell of her hair, her scent. She was the whole package for sure. And right to think that most men would do anything for her. She wrapped them around her little finger to get what she wanted. She was used to getting what she wanted, regardless of the consequences.

  The bank was two blocks from where we'd parked. The back way out led right onto the alley where I sat drumming my fingers on the wheel — like a teenager hot to take the family sedan for a first spin. Time was lost to me. Could have been a half-hour, could have been minutes. But I was so keyed when I heard the gunshots, I had to open the door and heave my guts on the sidewalk.

  This was serious. What the hell was I doing?

  I tried to fix my thoughts, get in line. But I was shaking so hard I couldn't make the engine bite. Then I saw Candy, running.

  'Start the fucking car!' she yelled.

  I couldn't get my hands to work.

  'Start the motherfucking car!'

  I don't know where it came from but I found a thin dime's worth of cool, suddenly the Cadillac purred to life and I made those tyres screech louder than bush pigs fucking.

  Candy dived through the nearside window and waved me to burn the road up: 'Get the fuck out of here.'

  I heard the sirens now, saw the Mars lights speeding along the highway. I turned through the alleys. There was a drill for th
ese things. I knew what the cops would be doing. I just had to hold in my guts and drive, slow and steady.

  'What the fuck was wrong with you back there?' said Candy, climbing into the front seat and checking on the loot.

  'I don't know.'

  'You don't fucking know, no shit! That's exactly right.'

  'Look, I ...'

  'Don't go saying sorry to me, you know I hate men who say sorry. Man, you're one fucking candyass bastard to be taking along on a job.' She seethed with white-hot anger.

  'I ...'

  'Enough already. I told you, didn't I tell you?'

  She was hyped, madder than hell, the adrenaline twisting her face. I hardly recognised her now. Truth told, I hated this person and what she'd got me into; even if my intentions were pure.

  She turned on me. 'Man, you are one weak bastard, Jake ... I should have known better. That was nearly a repeat of NY, I didn't have you down as a Lottie Tanner, no I didn't.'

  That name sang like a pay cheque to me. 'Who?'

  'The bitch on my last job, turned yellow on me, wanted to split before we sealed the deal ... She got hers.'

  I looked at Candy, she had a twisted smile as she counted the cash, 'How?' I said, my voice a soft plea.

  She turned to me, wiped off the smile. I swear that look in her eye came closer to evil than I'd ever seen. 'I carved her.' She made a slashing move with her arm. 'But I still delivered, I got the job done.'

  Candy looked back down at the cash, her mouth counting out the reams of bills.

  'That name, Lottie Tanner ...'

  'Yeah.'

  'Think I might have heard it before.'

  'Oh, really ...'

  'Yeah, she came from Buffalo didn't she?'

  Candy looked up, her tone rose higher. 'You knew Lottie?'

  'Only of her. And only professionally.'

  'What the hell are you saying, Jake?'

  'She was my last case.' I looked her in the eye. 'I was a cop ... some days I think I still am.'

  Candy's lip twitched. I saw her reaching into the bag for her Colt but my foot was already on the brake. Her head hit the windshield like a ten-pin strike.

  I stopped the car. Leaned over to Candy, put her hands behind her back and took off my belt to tie them.

  The words felt worth the wait, the work I'd put in. 'Time for a trip downtown, honey.'

  ###

  If you enjoyed the short stories in this collection, you may like to try more of Tony Black's original short stories in the Kindle edition, LONDON CALLING:

  LONDON CALLING

  A low-life drug-dealer has a sudden change of heart as he takes revenge on his cheating partner in London Calling, whilst a bi-polar armed robber runs foul of the law in Ten Bells at Robbie's in this collection of original short stories by Irvine Welsh's 'favourite British crime writer', Tony Black.

  See a loose-moralled lothario get his painful comeuppance in Pretty Boy and laugh at the antics of a pathetic patter-merchant in the anti-romance Jailbait Stalemate. You can also enjoy a short tour of the seedier side of Edinburgh with reluctant investigator Gus Dury in the original short-story version of Last Orders.

  These Scots-themed stories are collected here for the first time in a 15,000-word anthology. London Calling originally appeared in Esquire Magazine whilst the rest of the collection featured in the Best of British Crime, Requiems for the Departed, Protectors, and Crime Factory.

  About the Author:

  Tony Black is an award-winning journalist and the author of some of the most critically-acclaimed British crime fiction of recent times. His Gus Dury series features: Paying for It, Gutted, Loss and Long Time Dead, which is soon to be filmed for the big screen by Richard Jobson. A police series featuring DI Rob Brennan includes: Truth Lies Bleeding and Murder Mile. He is also the author of the novellas The Storm Without, R.I.P. Robbie Silva, Long Way Down, Last Orders and The Ringer.

  Visit his website at: www.tonyblack net for all his latest news.