by K. A. M'Lady
Table of Contents
Also By K.A. M’Lady:
Dedication:
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
K.A. M’Lady
Published by Mojocastle Press, LLC
Haymarket, Virginia
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
Get Lucky
ISBN: 978-1-60180-059-6
Copyright @ 2008 K.A. M’Lady
Cover Art Copyright @ 2008 Mojocastle Press
All rights reserved.
Excluding legitimate review sites and review publications, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
Copying, scanning, uploading, selling and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without permission from the publisher is illegal, punishable by law and will be prosecuted.
Available online at:
http://www.mojocastle.com/
Also By K.A. M’Lady:
Song of the Wolf
Realm Book One: To Tell of Darkness
Realm Book Two: Shadow Slave
Faith Savage, Demon Huntress Series
Ramshackle Castle: Bent Poetry and Other Altered Verse
Dedication:
For Rose, because everyone needs a whiskey-swillin’, shotgun-toting Irish Nana--and you're perfect for the job. For always being an inspiration.
For Tad, because my life would be nothing if I didn't already have my own Irish hero.
And finally, for all the readers who need a little Irish in them...and want to get lucky, too.
Irish Proverb:
The wearer best knows where the shoe pinches.
One
I should have known the deal was going south the moment I got my heel caught in the spoke of the fire escape stairs. And, let me tell you--mangled faux leather does not a happy woman make. I guess that would teach me not to buy cheap Gucci knock-offs from a street vendor, whether they were at the extraordinary bargain basement price of forty-five dollars or not. At that price, you’d think the damn things would have come with wings.
I’m quite sure ducking out on my blind date in the middle of the first drink (Something blue, repugnant and triple-loaded with alcohol, no doubt. My date’s idea, I’m certain, definitely not mine) and the appetizer, had absolutely nothing to do with the dark cloud of bad karma that was about to rip open a thunderstorm right above my head. Yeah, they don’t call me Lucky for nothing.
I mean, really, was it my fault my date was all of five-feet-four inches of ‘Call Me Doctor Nerdsville’? His doctorate must have been in the Psychology of boredom, for all the conversation we had going on between us. Whoever’s bright idea it was to hook up an assassin-at-large--that would be me--and Sir Shrink-My-Head needed their own melon examined.
I’m quite certain that despite my current line of employment, tonight’s dubious date of disaster had little to do with the fact that lately everywhere I went, misfortune seemed to follow. One would think that being a smart, savvy and--not to mention--good-looking Irish girl, I would have had a whole lot better luck. Hell, with my family lineage of Irish ne’re-do-wells, I should have a virtual rainbow shooting out my ass; maybe even a bevy of gold coins falling in my wake.
But alas, no such luck. And since there’s no family of leprechauns living under my bed, as my luck would have it, even this gig of brazen bullets at twilight didn’t seem to be panning out for me. For the life of me, though, I just couldn’t figure out why. I mean, I’d done my research. Learned the tricks of my trade. I even managed to place top honors in my gun course at the shooting range, which should have counted for something. Like I said, I even came from a long line of crackpots and criminals. My grandfather ran rum for Capone, for cripes sake! But, as I stood on the metal stairs of that fire escape, the heel of my lovely shoe wedged tightly in the jagged little hole of spiked heel horror while it began to rain so heavily I could no longer even see my quarry beyond the rusted metal edging of the fire escape landing, I knew that even I was beyond my own unfortunate fortune.
Was there even a word to describe the cesspool of crapdom I’d landed myself in? My night should have been titled Malfeasance of Mayhem. Karma of Chaotic Calamity. Or better yet, Rebounding Retroactive Ruin. For once this got out, my goose was literally going to be cooked.
Really, what were all the other hit men going to say when my contract came back on Three Fingers Jack unfulfilled? I’d be a laughingstock. The only killer in town done in by her own fabulous footwear.
I can see it now; my headstone will read ‘The lovely Lucky--a legend of lunacy’.
With a huff of unsettled annoyance, I did the only thing any smart assassin could do. I abandoned my glorious Guccis and clambered down the stairs in my now rain-soaked stockings and silk sheath. The dress was utterly ruined, not to mention the sling-backs I was leaving on the stairwell. Ah, the trials of a calamitous killer.
By the time I reached the alley, Three Fingers had ducked into whatever ride he’d been waiting for and drove off into the rain-filled, darkened night, my next six month’s rent going right along with him.
My sigh of despair was tangible as I skirted the front of Maurice’s so as not to be seen by my bumbling blind date. A repeat of that unfortunate folly I did not need. Two disasters an evening were a maximum, even for me.
I made my way about a block from the restaurant before I finally hailed a cab. There was really no point in completing dinner anyway; I was a drowned rat who’d lost not only her shoes, but her bankroll as well. Besides, Doctor Bob was a few PhDs short of a personality. That, and a hairline.
I really did like my men with hair, and blue eyes. Yes, blue eyes were a must. Something about muddy brown reminded me of dirty streets and back alleys. Why I’d let my friend Cynthia even talk me into this blind date thing, I had no idea. On first sight, it was obvious Dr. Bob just wasn’t for me. So why the blind date?
Oh, yeah, it was close to my hit.
I watched the rain drenched city pass me by as the taxi petered down the quiet roadway. Now what was I going to tell Cynthia about her not-so-dubious matchmaking skills? Hmm, let me think on this. I’m sure I could come up with something. I am, after all, a wise-girl.
I know, I could tell her my dog died and that’s why I had to bail. No, I used that one last time. Maybe my Aunt Pearl died? No, blessed Pearl’s died twice, and I think good ole’ Cyn’s catching on. Well, shit! Of all the people who should have died, Three Fingers Jack sure as hell wasn’t on that list. Damn it!
Some days this killer stuff is just not good on relationships.
Lost in the melancholy of my thoughts, it was seconds before I finally realized the cab had ground to a halt outside my flat on Main and Wyman. Casually, so the cabbie wouldn’t catch on, I slowly glanced around before stepping out into the night. One in my line of work just couldn’t be too careful. A quick inhalation of breath passed before I felt that first inkling of being watched. Question was, by whom?
There, just beyond the shadows of trees. A man. Waiting. Watching me. His features were hidden in the obscurity of dripping leaves that hung like burnt cloth in the rain-drenched twilight, but I knew he was there the instant I stepped out of the vehicle. The chill of fear snaked up my spine as the imminent threat poured over me. Sometimes certain death is a dead giveaway.
Crap, crap and triple crap! This night was just getting better and better. But who was he? And what did he want?
Well, if my sharp killer mind had to fatho
m a guess, it had to be none other than Ron the Don’s son Jon, I thought as I stepped onto the wet, cold roadway. You know, now that I think of it, I’m not really sure if his name is Ron or Jon or if he’s even the Don’s son, but he is my payer. Or if a deal goes bad, he’s the man that comes to collect.
“Lucky.” His voice floated to me from the shadows between the rain and the darkness, lingering like a dark threat. I could feel it settle in the pit of my stomach. It was an oh-so-lovely end to my beautiful day.
“Ron. What brings you by?” I asked, all calm and eloquence. I knew why he was really there. The question blazing through my mind at that very second, however, was how he already knew about my fiasco this evening. As usual, it was completely beyond me. Trying for nonchalance, I swallowed down the pulse in my throat, but I knew I was only fooling myself. Ron was a killer’s killer. If you screwed up, the muscle sent bigger muscle to take care of you. I guess this was my warning. At least, I hoped it was just a warning.
“Things not go according to plan, Lucky?” Still with the floating voice, all eerie and melodramatic. If he was going for a Bugsy Malone ‘I’ll kill you dead, so make a move’ kind of mentality, he sure was getting it. Chills continued to snake their way up my spine, and I was no longer certain if it was from being rained on and shoeless, or scared and stupefied. I was betting on stupefied. Seemed to be fast becoming a normal state for me lately. One I was really beginning to dislike.
“I…I had a little trouble with the weather,” I stuttered, stating the obvious. Cripes, Lucky, get a grip on yourself! I’m sure my shoeless state was a complete given, and I was sincerely hoping that looking adorable and drowned would buy me some time. However, there was no way in hell I was going to voluntarily give up my faux pas from tonight’s turn of events. What Ron didn’t know wouldn’t kill me. Maybe. Here’s hoping, at least.
“The boss has agreed to give you one more opportunity. Tomorrow. A dinner party. A new hit. Do you think you’re up to it?”
Each offer separated oh-so-slowly. Carefully, as though he were speaking to a child. A dangerous child, but a child all the same. My chest began to ache as my mind caught up with all he had said. “What about Three Fingers?” I asked, a bit more uncertainly. I squinted into the darkened bushes, trying to get a good look at the shadowy figure who was giving me another chance to redeem myself.
No one had really ever seen Ron Jon. Well, not and lived to tell of it. Word on the street was that he did his whole family for forgetting his birthday. Talk about vindictive. Apparently the man liked presents or something. Maybe I should find out when the big day was and buy him something special.
“Three Fingers has been dealt with. Are you up to this new deal?”
“What’s the take?” I asked, thoughts of silk ties and nine-millimeters with extra clips and big red bows still running through my head.
“Five hundred now, five hundred when it’s complete.”
I blinked a few times at that one, birthday wishes evaporating like blood-soaked confetti. I almost choked as I tried to get the words out, wrapping the dollar amount around my head like the new noose that it was. “One hundred G’s? Jesus. Who’s my target?”
“Just arrive at the address. The invitation’s on your table. Wear something sexy.”
What? My table? Son of bitch--he’s been in my flat! The words bounced around my mind like a ricocheting bullet, red-hot and finding their mark.
“And Lucky?”
“Yeah?” I gulped down a wash of annoyance, sheepish fear and unabated anger.
“Don’t be late. Boss doesn’t like it when his orders aren’t followed.” With that parting shot, the shadow faded into the darkness and like a silencer on your favorite pistol, was just suddenly gone. Damn-ass gangsters! I grumbled, my stomach tight, fear my own undertaker.
I just had to choose this as my profession, didn’t I? What in all the pots of gold was I thinking?
Don’t even bother to answer that.
Ten minutes later found me trying to wash the chill of doom from my flesh. Who knew a shower could feel so luxurious, not to mention what it did to chase away dark visions of dread, dead bodies and fools’ gold coated in red? After another thirty minutes of standing stock-still like a beleaguered corpse under the scorching hot water, I finally felt warm enough to wash the rainwater from my long blonde hair. Of course, about the time I’d made it to the conditioner I was speed rinsing, as my heat cycle went from brilliant warmth to artic deep freeze without even a transitional period. It always seems to be just my luck.
I’m sure my neighbors probably thought someone was being murdered at knife point, what with the bloodcurdling scream I let fly as rivulets of icicles pelted my finally warm flesh. Hitchcock himself might have been proud. However, when no one come beating on my door, it was pretty apparent that if Ron Jon were to slay me in my flat, my next of kin would never know about it until the stench became so noxious that even the rats wouldn’t be able to stand it.
Such concerned citizens I live next door to. You could pretty much bet your birthday money that if one of them screamed for help in the middle of the night I would so not be coming to their rescue with my guns blazing. Lucky for them, too--I’d be more inclined to shoot one of them in the ass just for the irritation.
I’m seriously beginning to think that I pissed someone off in a past life and that I’m paying double duty in bad Karma for it for all the rotten luck I seem to be having lately. I say this because as I stepped out of my brilliantly cold shower, cream rinse barely gone from my frozen hair and reached for my towel, of course the phone decided to ring. Which, with my current set of nerves of steel, just set me off all over again, startling the bejeezus out of me. And wouldn’t you know it, slick as the dead off the Fifth Street Pier, I managed to bash my knee against the side of the tub as I was tripping over its edge. I might have been okay had the bathroom doorknob not decided to break my fall right upside my face.
As all the pretty shiny little stars burst behind my eyes and my cheekbone exploded in a welt of pain, I knew I’d be lucky not have a black eye for my new hit’s dinner party. Here’s praying I owned enough concealer to cover up raccoon eyes. Calamity, thy name is Lucky.
Two
Daniel McCray watched his enforcer, Ron, the Don’s son Jon, from the safety and warmth of his large black Cadillac as it sat idly running in the vacant lot of Nick’s Liqueur and Smokes. RJ, as McCray liked to call him, was a good deal maker. A good one to have in one’s back pocket when those he wished to control got out of line. RJ was evil to the core and as deadly as sin--as any good enforcer should be. Lucky for McCray, he had the goods on ole’ RJ--owned a piece of his soul, if you would. It was the piece that McCray used to control him.
Tonight, McCray had sent RJ out on a small, nefarious errand that held the potential for scandalous deeds, one that set into motion the wheels of a very progressive future. McCray’s future. Oh, McCray had made certain that Three Fingers had been taken care of--small potatoes in the bigger pot of stew, as it were. It was too bad for Three Fingers that he knew too many things that he just shouldn’t have known. Things he was on his way to tell McCray’s archenemy, Collin McGregor. They were the kind of things that would bury McCray financially, dark, ugly things that would send him to prison for the rest of his years.
For certain, there was murder involved. What kind of mob boss would he be if he let the underlings get out of line? And, there was plenty of smuggling involved--one did need to fund their treasury, after all. But when you scam the very city that feeds you? Rob from the coffers that you pay to keep you from winding up in jail? Well, that is another thing entirely. Of course, the suits with golden shields don’t take too kindly to having the pockets you’ve just filled emptied when they’re turned the other way.
It’s true that Collin McGregor did his own greasing of the brass wheel. However, he was wise enough not to bite the hand that kept his appearance clean and his booty from the firing line. I, Daniel McCray, on the other han
d, don’t take to kindly to being used by the brass and having them call me dirty when they are just as dirty as I. No, if this town is going to play by a certain set of rules, they’re going to be my rules and the interlopers can be damned.
That’s were tonight’s little plan comes in. My plan and one lovely little lady killer by the name of O’Brian. ‘Tis true she is quite the looker; eyes of summer blue and blonde hair that hangs long and free to a waist small enough for a man to wrap his hands around. And her legs, such lovely, lengthy legs. The kind any sane man would like to see wrapped around him as she rode him to oblivion. Mmm, but the mind does wander with wicked visions when one thinks of Lady Lucky.
Quite the catch she would be too, if a man were insane enough to catch her. She is lovely enough to be dangerous. Dangerous enough to be deadly. But damn me if’n she ain’t just a wee bit addled to go along with that beauty. Mighty ripe pickings for a bit of folly, if you ask me. And just the right touch of naivety to place blame where blame is due. Hell, she’s so dog-eared, she won’t even know what hit her.
RJ was almost to the car as I stuffed my bubbling laughter down inside me. Wouldn’t want to give the boy a fright. Not often you find your boss gleeful with sex, murder and mayhem lighting his eyes. Quite the shame I couldn’t give myself just a bit of a taste of the lass before doing away with her. But she has a purpose in my grand plan. A plan that must be served.
The car door slammed and RJ shifted it into drive, silent as the darkness surrounding us.
“Did she accept?”
“She accepted,” he stated dryly, his voice rumbling from the front seat like an encased storm.
“Good. Now we just need to make sure everything else goes accordingly.” There was no reply this time from the front; RJ simply drove on into the night like a good little lackey was supposed to do. What this lackey seemed to forget was that if everything didn’t go according to plan, I’d see that his head managed to roll right along with the rest of them. “RJ?” One word, yet the weight of my threat filled the car, stretching between us like the storm just beyond the windows; a dark and heady skyline that came to rest like a hammer between the blades of his clenching shoulders.