by K. A. M'Lady
“All is prepared, boss,” he growled, not bothering to look back in the rearview mirror. There was no need at this point. I had his number, and he knew it. “See that it is, RJ. Because if there is even the hint of a screw up…” I let my words trail. I think we had a perfect understanding.
* * * * * *
Six feet, four inches of brawn encased in silk pinstriping were stretched to their optimum length, definitely not a normal state of function for a man of my attire to be found in. But the lovely little blonde who stood before me was worth it. All this flexing just so she could un-snag her wrap from one of the awning’s hooks. The entire ordeal would have been comical if not for the fact that my tie cost more than her entire outfit, or that I had five thugs with hidden weapons within glancing distance, waiting for the command to blast something. Or someone.
Despite being captivated by the lady’s lovely, sculpted calves exposed to a maximum view in her four-inch heels, I held the collapsing awning like it was an everyday occurrence, even though it was filled with what had to be at least five gallons of water from another afternoon of unending rain. What was five gallons compared to my normal daily bench presses of one-fifty in five sets of ten? Besides, those legs were definitely worth it.
However, I was a bit perplexed how this glorious little creature had gotten her damn shawl hooked over her head like that in the first place. Now that, I would never comprehend.
Why the awning was collapsing from one little yank by such an ethereal creature was another thing. Didn’t this hotel keep up with its repairs? Once we were finally finished here, I was definitely going to be speaking to the manager. Maybe I needed to buy this hotel. Or at the least, send my men to check into it. Call it a sort of pleasant persuasion to take better care of its repairs, if you will.
For now, though, I was content to quietly watch as she fought with her clothing, clothing I was seriously considering getting her out of at the first opportunity. As I looked at her with ample delight, I considered her attributes. She had to be about five feet nine in those heels, which meant if she were naked and standing before me she would only come to my shoulder. A delightful thought if ever there was one.
For the life of me, I just couldn’t stop staring at those lovely legs of hers. They were trim, tan and just the right amount showed below the hemline of her dress as she stretched sleek arms above her head, trying to unhook that silly black shawl. The wrap was no way near the appropriate covering for a rainstorm, I absently thought before being drawn back to those slender legs of hers in her open-toed heels. Mmm, what the sight did to a man’s faculties.
I was completely engrossed in her antics--not a normal state for me, I assure you. Visions of soft, bronzed skin, tantalizing breasts and warm sighs of delight whipping their way through my mind like machine gun chatter. At that moment, I had no idea where my men were, what I was supposed to be doing tonight or whom I had come to see. All I could focus on was her lithe frame reaching upwards, standing on her toes as I held the rain-filled awning above us. Just as she gave the shawl a final yank, all hell broke loose.
Amidst the deluge of rainwater, bursts of red flames erupted in the night. People screamed from the twilight’s dark edges. Bullets shattered my revere; ricocheting off everything and anything they came in contact with. Glass burst everywhere around us. The blonde yelled something and the next thing I know we’re hitting the pavement, hard. She was on top of me as the awning continued to let loose. Cold, crisp water poured all over the both of us. I wasn’t certain if it was the contact of her body against mine, the possibility of certain death or an instant cold shower, but chills shook my body from head to toe.
“Are you out of your mind?” she yelled.
“What?” I was too perplexed by the soft, wet frame that I now held in my hands to comprehend what was going on. I tried to get up, bullets still flying above our heads.
“By all the Saints,” she suddenly exclaimed, pushing on my chest. “Those are freaking bullets they’re shooting at us, you know.”
I could only blink a dazed response at her clear blue eyes. I knew they were bullets, but I was too stunned by everything. I knew we needed to move, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. From somewhere nearby, someone bellowed, “He’s down, but he ain’t dead.”
Then I heard the distinct sound of another shell being jacked. The click-clack of a bullet with my name on it. Her weight just suddenly lifted from me and her tiny hand was grabbing mine, pulling. Trying to drag me up from the ground. It was useless. I was too heavy, and my dead weight wouldn’t comply. Bad choice of words.
“You want to live?” she asked, her tone darkly serious.
I must have blinked the appropriate reply.
“Then haul it on up!” The command and vibrato in her voice did things to my insides. Things I liked. Then she started pulling me down the street, a small, black gun materializing in her hand.
“Who are you?” I thought to say as more bullets hollered down the sidewalk, screaming for each of us.
She glanced up at me, her large, doe-like blue eyes hooded--a million thoughts there, then gone. “Lucinda O’Brian,” she gasped as we skirted down an alley as though the hounds of hell had marked us for death.
“Lucinda.” For some reason, it didn’t quite fit.
“My friends call me Lucky.”
I couldn’t help but snort at that one. Lucky, yeah, and I’ve a chest of Leprechaun’s gold.
“Go ahead, yuck it up,” she replied, derision dripping from her voice. “But ‘lucky’ for you, I just saved your ass from certain death.”
Her words sank in like a shank in a prison brawl as we rounded the next corner, hit a main thoroughfare and hailed the closest cab.
“Where to?” The cabbie asked, barely glancing at us. He didn’t care who we were, he just wanted to be paid.
I had no idea. Three of my men had just tried to kill me, and I wasn’t even sure who’d called the hit.
“Portsmith Road, Cedarville,” she told the driver.
He looked at her in the mirror, a frown prominent between his dark eyes.
“Just drive. You’ll get your fare.”
“What the hell happened back there?” I asked, the absurdity of the entire situation just beginning to sink in. “How the hell did this happen?” I wasn’t even sure who I was asking, her or me.
“Not now,” she whispered glancing at the cabbie with a nod. She was right, of course. At this point in the game, I didn’t know who I could trust. Not the cabbie, definitely not my men. Hell, probably not even my Lucky little guardian angel here. One thing was for certain; I sure as hell was going to get to the bottom of this, or my name wasn’t Collin McGregor.
Three
Ron Jon, that double crossing rat bastard, set me up! That’s all I could think as yet another cab drove my soggy, pathetic, lucky-to-be-alive-at-this-point pathetic posterior out of town with Mr. Tall, Definitely Drool-worthy and Incredibly Interesting. Well, at least I got my man. Sort of. Question was though, why were those men shooting at him, who the hell he was and, what did it all have to do with me? Oh, yeah, and now that I had this fella, what the hell was I going to do with him?
Whatever was going on, neither of us were safe at our normal jaunts. No, if this assassin stuff had taught me anything, it was those were going to be the first places the bad guys were going to look for us. So it was a cab ride to Nowheresville for us, then to the nearest safe house. After that, a whole lot of answers had best be forthcoming from Mr. Delectable. Starting with who he was.
I glanced at his overly large, wet, deep-in-thought and sullen frame from time to time as the cab drove on into the night. My own head swirled with thoughts on whose rainbow I’d rampaged. I mean really, I truly didn’t do anything to deserve such a low down double-cross. If they were really trying to shoot me, that is.
Was this my payback for Three Fingers? Maybe. Whatever was going on, it was definitely bad.
Forty minutes after we had left town, we pulled up in f
ront of a rundown diner in Cedarville. I still didn’t have any answers as to what the hell had just happened. Cedarville wasn’t the kind of place to get any, either. It was the kind of town you were either trying to spend your whole life running from, or were just passing through. It was a blip on the map that always led to the city; a bygone town going nowhere fast. The place where the jobs had left forty years ago, and the people right along with it. We had chosen to stop right in the middle of the town square. Thank God it wasn’t going to be a lengthy stay.
A & J’s was an old diner turned car lot. The stations still held the drive-up menus, each reminiscent of thirty-five cent sodas and cheese curds by the bucket. Now two-hundred-dollar beaters sat in the stalls with neon yellow numbering slashed across the windshields, most up on blocks, their tires long since stolen.
“Come on. We’re here.” I got out of the cab and waited for Mr. Obviously Gotta Bank Roll to toss the cabbie his pay and the driver to pull away. I then took his hand and started for the back of the diner.
“So, Lucky,” he said, a small smirk showing his pearl-white teeth. “Where exactly are you taking me?”
“I thought I’d ravish you in the back of an old Dodge,” I told him, unable to keep the flirtation from flying from my lips. Good grief, Lucky! I groaned. What is wrong with you?
I couldn’t mistake the stumble in his step or the glint in his eye as he paused to look at me. “You shouldn’t jest,” he said, his tone serious, a delicious chill sweeping up my spine despite my best intentions. The chill was enough reminder that we were both still soaking wet and needed to get out of these clothes--and out of the open.
“Come on. We need to get hidden.”
“Where exactly are we going?”
“Like I said, somewhere safe.”
“You know this place is safe, how?” he questioned, unmistakable distrust seeping into his voice. “You’re sure no one knows of it? The people there, we can trust?”
Obviously he’d been marked before. All of these were good questions. I couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, to all of your questions.”
“You are certain?”
“Look. I don’t know who exactly you are or why those men were shooting at you.”
“Us,” he interrupted.
“Us,” I hesitantly agreed, though it didn’t sit too easily. “And whether you’re willing to admit to it or not, I did just save your ass back there. The rest, well, you’re just going to have trust me with.”
He looked at me. Really looked at me, from the top of my head to the bottom of my toes. I’m not sure exactly what he saw, but it must have been something because he stated, “You really don’t know who I am, do you?”
“No.”
“And you’ve no idea why those men were shooting at us?”
“Well, that depends,” I slowly replied as a million bad thoughts began to perpetuate in my mind.
“On what?” His voice began to thicken with even more distrust, if that was possible. His brow creased in increments over sharp blue eyes, his stare beginning to bore a hole straight through me. This was the part I hated. The part that usually turned would-be boyfriends into laughingstocks or sent them screaming from the room. The part where you put all the pieces together and come up with a bloody silhouette.
“Who you are.”
“Ah,” he stated, realization dawning. Then, “What exactly is it that you aren’t telling me? Or should the question be, who are you, really?”
“Tell me who you are, and I’ll tell you what I think I know.”
“Tell me what you think you know, and I’ll tell you who I am.”
This was getting us nowhere, least of all dry and out of sight. “Look.” I pulled him around to the back of the diner where a rundown garage stood, padlocked and chained against intruders. “Obviously we’re both in some kind of trouble here and the sooner we’re straight with each other, the quicker we can figure this out. The quicker we figure this out, the less likely we’ll be to die.”
“Not one to mince words, are you?”
“I try to refrain from lying. Unless it’s necessary to stay alive, of course.”
“Of course.”
While Studiously Considerate pondered the situation, I used my key to undo the padlock and pulled the chain free. This was my Uncle’s old lot. He used it for parts mostly...that, and a tax write-off. I kept my car here, you know, in case I ever needed it. Apparently tonight, I needed it. I guess it’s a good thing I had it stashed away for such an emergency. I just never thought I’d actually have to use it. When you live in the city, you take a cab or the bus. Hell, even the subway, if you’re not afraid to be mugged from time to time. My dad bought me the car right after college and when I moved to the city, my Uncle let me store my car here. For a small storage fee, of course. The man was nothing if not an economist.
I had an old Dodge Shelby, black as pitch and fast as hell. If the downtrodden only knew what kind of treasure lurked behind this garage. I didn’t even want to think about it.
“So, do I get a name or do I leave you here?” I watched him eye my car with a man’s appreciation of fast women and even faster wheels.
He looked up at me then, a glimmer of excitement in his clear blue eyes. “You gonna let me drive?”
“Not on your life.”
“Didn’t think so,” he replied, a note of sadness carrying across the entrance of the garage.
“A name?” I said with a jingle of the keys as I headed towards the driver’s door. I watched as he paused a moment, unsure if it was more for effect or if he was actually considering the repercussions of giving me his name. At this point, I really wasn’t certain.
“Name’s Collin McGregor. Mean anything to you now?”
“Holy freaking leprechaun balls!”
He laughed, a short rumble from deep in his belly. It made my toes curl. “So can I drive now?” he asked, all but batting his baby blues.
The ramifications of the entire night’s events rushed over me in one fell swoop. Mr. Lovely Irishman, King of the Damn Gangsters just stood there and smiled at me, his laugh warming my insides despite that fact that hell followed us. He knew full well just how deep the hole was, and how much dirt McCray’s goons were going to fill it with.
“Not for all the magic in Fairy Land,” I told him. I got in the car and slammed the door behind me. Talk about all the rotten luck.
Four
We hit Interstate Seventy at about nine thirty doing eighty. By my calculations we should reach the safe house in twenty minutes. I only hoped I wasn’t going to live to regret introducing one of Shiretown’s biggest mobsters to my Grandma Nan.
Nana O’Brian was the sweetest old Irish lady one could possibly ever hope to meet. But as soon as she found out my life was in danger, all bets were going to be off. Who do you think taught me to shoot? I didn’t become such a crack shot at the range on my own, you know. Oh, no. My Nan was one seriously crazy Irish lady. She loved her guns and she loved her whiskey too, just about in that order. And if someone was messing with her family, her whiskey, or her guns...well, there was going to be some serious hell to pay.
We pulled up in the gravel drive precisely at ten to nine, just as I thought we would. Nan’s house is on a cul-de-sac but only two other houses sit in the round. Unfortunately, Nan’s drive had never been paved so our arrival wouldn’t be a secret. When I turned off the engine, I saw a flutter of crisp white curtains from where I knew the kitchen sink sat, then came the distinct sound of creaking from the back door. Two seconds later, the sound of a shell being jacked into a shotgun sounded from the passenger side window.
“Good way to get yourselves shot, Lucky. Coming out here in the dark all unannounced and such.” Her voice held just a lilt of Irish drawl, yet she was so serious and matter-of-fact. I’m not sure Collin even breathed, the barrel of the gun pointing at his head like it was.
I knew she hadn’t gone out the back door. She hadn’t just been at the kitchen sink either. No, Nan had
heard us coming down the road as soon as we turned down the previous block. I swear, the woman had the hearing of some wild jungle cat. She could stalk you from five miles out and always find her prey. “I’d have called, Nan, but I didn’t want to worry you.”
Her sharp eyes turned to the drive beyond, scanned the entire block and still somehow she watched her quarry in the passenger seat of my car. “Well, we ain’t got all night. Get that car hidden and get inside,” she ordered. “Nan’s got your back.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I told her, turning the key over and putting it in drive once more. The snort she made turned my head towards her. “What was that for?”
“Stow your best behavior for someone who might actually buy it, child. Like your charming friend in the suit here. I’ve known you since you could crawl through a sewer drain to escape a whipping. Whatever trouble you’ve gotten yourself into this time, ole’ Nan will see that you bear no markings for it and come clean through, none the worse for the wear. Now get on back and get that car hidden.”
The ridiculous grin on Collin’s face made my fingers itch to smack it right off. “Don’t even tell me you don’t have one of your own to contend with.” I pulled the car into one of the three outbuildings my Nan had in the back of her property. It looked more like a barn than anything, what with all the tools, lawn gear, and just plain crap she had stored in it, but the car fit perfectly inside of it and was completely out of sight.
“Oh, no. I’ve got one. Just not filled with so much gusto. And, she doesn’t tote around a shotgun. Or smell like gun oil, now that I think about it.” His smile and good humor despite our current situation was completely intoxicating. It was hard to believe that this man, this six-foot-plus, dusty-blond-haired, blue-eyed god of an Irishman was one of Shiretown’s biggest killers. Hard to imagine that he had a whole network of underground criminals at his beck and call twenty-four seven. Men or women like me that would do his dirty work with one well-placed phone call, one improper glance, one dark, whispered comment.