Lucky Bang

by Deborah Coonts

  Thankfully, we were saved from embarrassment by Jimmy G barreling around the corner. He almost took us both out before he skidded to a stop.

  "Lucky, man, where they been hidin' you?" He looked like he was loaded for bear. "I've been lookin' for you all over. This guy out there," Jimmy, his face a mask of indignation, hooked his thumb over his shoulder, "he was talkin' to me like, you know, all highfalutin, like he had more degrees than a thermometer, you know? But he was tellin' me something ain't right with your head."

  Dane managed to keep a straight face. I, on the other hand, lost that battle. "Jimmy, you know I come from a long line of nutcases. If somebody knocked some sense into me, it'd be a good thing."

  Jimmy pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket and dabbed at his forehead. "True."

  I tried to scare him with a frown—I don't think I pulled it off. "You could argue a bit, just to make me feel good, you know."

  Jimmy seemed to ponder that concept as Dane and I gathered him in our wake and we hurried through the hospital to the garage. Dane's F-150 languished across two parking spaces. A crew cab with four doors and a full eight-foot bed, it also stuck out so far that cars could barely squeeze around it. But in desperate need of a ride and a knight in shining armor, I decided now wasn't the time to point out his lack of consideration for the other drivers.

  The three of us piled in, Jimmy riding shotgun while I hunkered down in the back, making sure to keep out of sight even though this game of cat and mouse with the reporters was more for show than substance. After all, being the mouthpiece of the Babylon, I was pretty easy to find. But if I could lure them to my turf, then I held the upper hand… in theory.

  Ducking as Dane pulled out of the garage, I asked Jimmy, "What's left of your place?"

  He swiveled around to look at me.

  "Look out front, Jimmy," Dane barked. "We don't want them to see Lucky in the back."

  The little man whirled around like he'd been bitten on the ass by a rattler. As he stared straight ahead, he pulled down the visor in front of him. His eyes flicked to the mirror as he talked. "It's like almost stranger than those books, you know?"

  "Books?" Sometimes Jimmy's circuitous train of thought had me making nothing but left turns. I racked my brain. "You mean fiction?"

  "Yeah, yeah. Stranger than fiction." He shook his head, "Those folks who make that stuff up. They gotta be touched, you know?"

  "Borderline personality disorder… all of them."

  Jimmy turned around to look at me. "Really?"

  "Jimmy!" Dane barked again. "Out the front. Lucky's not here."

  "Well, technically, I'm here, but I'm not all here."

  I could see the smile in Dane's eyes when he looked at me in the rearview mirror. "Jimmy, now that we've established that writers are nuts and truth is really stranger than fiction, why don't you give it to me straight?"

  "That bomb." He said the word 'bomb' with such reverence it gave me the chills. "That bomb didn't pack the punch it was meant to."

  "So I have to turn in my hero badge?" I asked, not sure how I felt about that. It was sorta fun being held up as a paragon of virtue—of course it couldn't last, but I'd ride that horse as long as I could.

  "They gave you a medal? Really?" Jimmy sounded awestruck.

  "Kidding."

  "Oh, right." He didn't sound too pleased that my sarcasm had done a flyby.

  Couldn't say I blamed him. I even irritated myself on occasion so I sympathized.

  "I was saying," Jimmy groused, "according to the ATF guys, it looked like the bomb was made with some old stuff."

  "So not as much bang for the buck?"

  Jimmy didn't laugh. "Even still, it coulda killed somebody—a lot of somebodies if it hadn't been for you."

  "So the bomb," I said. Decidedly uncomfortable when hip-deep in emotional quagmire, I redirected the conversation back to solid ground. "Was it like somebody maybe used an old blueprint?"

  "Yeah, they found pieces of an old clock that hadn't been for sale for decades. They said the bomber had to buy that thing at a flea market or somethin'."

  "Or they got it from somebody's stash…from a long time ago."

  This time, when Jimmy swiveled around and stared at me, his eyes huge and angry, Dane didn't bark.

  I nodded at Jimmy's silent question. "You wouldn't know where Boogie Fleischman is, would you?"

  "Boogie." Jimmy's voice was low with a hint of menace that gave me goose bumps. Turning inward, he was quiet for awhile. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse and soft. I had to strain to hear him. "I went up and saw him the day he got sprung."

  "I didn't know that." I pushed myself up onto the seat and leaned back. If the reporters were around, they had to be behind us. Good thing Dane had several shotguns hanging in the back window—not only was the view inside the truck obscured, but we could defend ourselves if necessary. "How many years did he do?"

  "Thirty's what he got. I don't recall exactly how many he did. But he got out—" He paused then whistled. "It's been maybe twenty years ago, I bet."

  "Hell of a long time to keep a grudge," Dane muttered. I couldn't read the emotion in his voice, but there was something there.

  I leaned forward, closer, but still scrunched down a bit. "When you went to see him, what'd you guys talk about?"

  At the Strip, Dane took a left toward the Babylon. "Old times?" he offered. For once, someone else said what I was thinking.

  A sad expression tugged at Jimmy's features. "I know you're makin' fun, but that's all we had to talk about. There was nuthin' else. I tried to make it right between us, but he wouldn't have nuthin' to do with it."

  "Some people just have to hang onto bad feelings, Jimmy." I reached over the back of the seat and squeezed his shoulder. "Not much you can do about it."

  "Last thing Boogie said to me, he was going back to Jersey to pick up the pieces. Then he'd be back. And he'd be gunnin' for me." Jimmy's face hardened, his eyes narrowing to dark slits. "But not just for me."

  "Who else was in the creep's crosshairs?" I asked. Could Boogie really be back? Or did we have a copycat? And who was the target? And why now? Hell, most of the bit players were probably dead by now.

  "Your father."

  Okay, that grabbed me by the short hairs—me and my misplaced smugness. "The Big Boss?" My stomach clenched as my blood ran cold. I touched the bandage on my forehead. A throbbing pain had pierced the heavy dose of local anesthetic.Waving away the offer of pain medication probably wasn't the smartest stunt I'd pulled lately. I was never quite as tough as I thought which, all things considered, probably wasn't a bad thing.

  "Yeah, back in those days, your father was willing to help clean up Vegas. He made a lot of enemies."

  "Several lifetimes ago, Jimmy."

  "But it was personal." His normal smile absent, Jimmy looked tired. "People are like elephants when it comes to that shit."

  I let my thoughts travel back in time. "Yeah, some things you just can't forget."

  Jimmy reached for my hand, which I gave to him across the seatback. He squeezed it hard, as his eyes bored into mine. "Do you remember?"

  "Like it was yesterday," I whispered, half-afraid that remembering would make it real all over again. "It was the same bomb, Jimmy. Put in the same place. Too coincidental to be anything other than intentional. Somebody's sending you a message." We stared at each other for a moment, connected by a memory.

  "Boogie's back." Even though a long time had passed, I felt it in my bones. I grabbed my phone, hit a familiar number, then pressed it to my ear.

  The Big Boss's phone rang and rang.

  No one answered.

  Chapter Two

  Against all odds, me and my little band of Musketeers made it to my office without being jumped by a pack of roving reporters. Breathing a sigh of relief, I let Dane pull open the door. Jimmy motioned me in front of him. Unaccustomed to such chivalry, I wasn't above appreciating it when presented.

  As was customary, my assista
nt, Miss P, didn't look up when I entered. And yet, despite not getting a visual, somehow she knew it was me. "Lucky, where the hell have you been? The phone has been jumping out of its cradle. For some reason, every reporter in the state wants your comments on some explosion. Why would they…" Her voice trailed off when she looked up. For once, she was speechless.

  "I had a front row seat, which could explain some of their enthusiasm."

  She jumped up. "Are you okay?"

  "The doctor's at UMC seem to think so. Either that or they did all they could and sent me to work to die."

  Jimmy took a chair against the wall of windows overlooking the lobby below. Sometimes, I loved to stop and look through the window—all the happy people below reoriented my day. Today would take more than that, so I didn't bother. Dane disappeared into the kitchenette in the back. Thankfully, as late as it was, the bird, our foul-mouthed office mascot, had been covered for the night—one less strident voice to grate on already raw nerves.

  I propped a hip on the corner of Miss P's desk. One glance at the huge pile of messages in my box left me on the verge of apoplexy. On the theory that actually picking them up conferred responsibility, I waved my finger at the stack. "Can you give me the high points?"

  "I'll take care of them."

  That took my breath. "Wow, really?"

  "That's what you pay me for." She raised an eyebrow—I couldn't tell whether it was a statement or a challenge.

  "And here I thought I paid you to give me a hard time." We grinned at each other. Why did all of my relationships use the dialect of obfuscation—a dance around saying what we really meant? Since I was the only common denominator, I guessed the path to the answer started in my backyard. However, I wasn't in the mood for playing in that sandbox, so I shelved it…until my next life.

  Miss P cleared her throat. "There is one thing." Her eyes didn't hold mine.

  "What? Something you can't handle? Oh goody."

  "Flash is in your office." This time, her gaze, open and pleading, held mine. "Short of calling security, I couldn't stop her. She breezed in here without a word. And I didn't think you'd want her thrown out."

  "Not today. Well, not yet anyway, but the jury's still out." I really did not need to deal with Flash right now, I thought as I teetered on the precipice of self-pity. Dane came to my rescue when he returned with a tumbler full of amber liquid. "Is that what I think it is?"

  My hand shook as I reached for the glass, which probably should have worried me. But my worry-plate was full, so I shelved that also.

  "A medicinal dose of Wild Turkey 101." Bowing slightly, he handed it to me.

  I would have kissed him but, given our checkered romantic history of thrust and parry, that would've been supremely stupid…even for me. Instead, I grabbed the glass and tossed back half of it in one gulp. The fact that it was a Flintstone jelly jar made me look like more of a lush than I am—at least that's what I told myself.

  The liquid burned a fiery path all the way to my stomach where it burst in an explosion of warmth. My pride having long since abandoned this sinking ship, I sighed. Thus fortified, I dared a glance into Dane's emerald eyes. "Thanks. I've got to get busy putting out fires."

  He took the hint, motioning to Jimmy. "Come on, I'll buy you dinner."

  Marshaling my thoughts, which was a lot like collecting fireflies on a still summer evening, I waited until the door had closed behind them before I divvied up the responsibility pie with Miss P. "I'll deal with Flash. You tell security to keep the rest of the riff-raff out. When the ATF guys show up, buzz me. But don't let them in until I'm ready, okay? Oh, and get the beautiful Jeremy Whitlock on the phone—here in person would be even better. How is he at finding the scent on a trail that's gone cold?"

  "The best." She grinned. Of course she'd say that. Fifteen years her junior, Jeremy had stolen her heart trading his in return, so her opinion was highly suspect.

  ***

  Flash sat at my desk, her feet propped on an open drawer, her phone tucked between her shoulder and her ear as she scribbled notes, nodding occasionally. One stylish pink stiletto dangled from her foot as she wiggled it. Her bright red curls were pulled back from her face and corralled with a neon orange scarf. In jeans and a t-shirt stretched over her ample chest well beyond the boundaries of good taste, she looked like a woman trolling for a fat wallet—which, of course, was a ploy. Behind the bimbo façade lurked a woman with more IQ points than an Ivy Leaguer. Giving me a quick glance, she raised a finger. As she wound up her call, I sunk into one of the chairs across from her and nursed the rest of my whiskey.

  Flash had peeled back the plastic tarp covering all the furniture when she'd set up shop in the construction zone I called my office. Caught in the throes of unbridled optimism, I'd given Miss P a promotion—she was now what I used to be. Unfortunately, as the 'me' I used to be, she hung out where I used to hang out—my old office.

  We'd knocked out a wall to make room for a workspace for me in an adjacent storage room. I had no doubt that my little corner of the universe would be a nice place to store my stuff—if it was ever completed. Two workmen with one hammer had been at it so long and made such little progress, I was seriously considering adopting them.

  Now, tarps protected all the furniture. The only light was a weak circle cast by a lone light bulb dangling from a wire. A hole in the outer wall—my future private entrance—necessitated us locking all the important stuff in drawers and filing cabinets. To be honest, I wasn't there that much, so the whole thing never rose high enough on my priority list to actually do anything more than whine about it.

  "I've phoned in my story on the explosion," Flash announced as she slammed the receiver in its cradle, then set her feet on the floor and kicked the drawer shut with one foot. Leaning across the desk, she fixed me with her most serious, investigative-reporter stare. "My deadline is almost here, and I'm still a little thin on details. That's where you come in."

  "I'm fine, thank you for asking."

  She waved away my grousing. "Hell, it was just a little bomb. You're walking and talking. How bad can it be?"

  "Besides a blistering headache and a scar on my forehead?"

  She opened her eyes wide. "Oh, I hope it's a lightening bolt like Harry Potter."

  "And add Voldemort and the dementors to the list of people after me? Why not?"

  "If you include some vampires, zombies, and maybe a werewolf or two, you could sell your story and make billions." Flash, her pencil poised, morphed back into reporter mode. "But if a bomb is all we've got, we'll have to make due. What can you tell me about the explosion?"

  "More than you can imagine, but some of it has to be off the record, at least for now. I need your help." I took another sip as I tried to figure out how much to tell. Flash and I went way back—all the way to our time at UNLV where she worked to keep our names out of the paper and I kept us out of jail. A match made in Heaven. We'd had each others' backs ever since. I'd trust her with my life—normally a figure of speech, but this time I might have to for real.

  "I'll give you the skinny on Jimmy G's—at least enough to make you a hero with your editor. In return, I need to tell you a story that's totally between you and me."

  She chewed her lip, then nodded once.

  I settled back and opened the door to a time long ago, to memories I'd protected myself from for a lifetime. "When I was a kid, Jimmy had a place over on D.I. east of the Strip. The Danger Zone. Everybody went there. Late at night was the best. The entertainers would gather there after their last act. Often they'd play the piano and sing, just for the fun of it."

  "I've heard of that place. There was something about it." Flash's face was open, her eyes intense. "Didn't it burn down?"

  I shrugged. "Sorta. I was there." Memories washed over me. "It was late. The place was almost empty."

  "How old were you?"

  "Four."

  "What were you doing in a joint like that late at night at that age?" Indignation tinged Flash's
voice, which I thought was cute—naïve, but cute.

  "Please, it was Vegas…old Vegas. And I was there with my mother. She was nineteen at the time and not long on good judgment." I leaned over and grabbed a paperweight off the corner of my desk—a golden cockroach in Lucite—a gift from the employees after dealing with one of our more creative guests. Turning the weight over and over, I stared into it as if looking through a window to the past. "Apparently, Jimmy was the go-between for my parents. He gave them a safe place to meet. Of course, I didn't know the Big Boss was part of my family then."

  Wallowing in visions of the past, I paused for a moment. It's funny, I opened the door to the past, walked inside and it seemed so crisp and clear, un-diluted by the passage of time. "We were waiting at the bar. Dean Martin was piped in over the loudspeakers. Mona was having a ginger ale." I looked at Flash with, I'm sure, a bewildered expression. "Why would I remember that?"

  "The mind has weird coping mechanisms."

  I nodded even though I had only a vague idea what she was alluding to. "Actually, that could explain a lot but we won't go there. Anyway, my father was a no-show, which wasn't normal for him. Mona was ready to leave, but I needed to go to the bathroom before we left. Those sixty miles back to Pahrump took longer then."

  "A bumpy blacktop, I remember," Flash said with a grin. "And a great place for alien abductions as I recall."

  I felt a smile bloom across my face. "You remember that guy?"

  "He had the whole city goin' with his story."

  "Fun while it lasted." I adjusted myself in the chair. Aches and pains I didn't know I had whined for attention. "But as I recall, by the end we were all ready for the aliens to come back and get him."

  "He got way more than his fifteen minutes." Flash nodded, then turned serious again. "So back to Jimmy G's, you went to the bathroom..."

  I captured her eyes with mine. "The story was the place burned—a grease fire."

  "That's not true?"

  I shook my head. "It was a bomb."

  "Shit. No way."