Kwik Krimes (9 page)

He eyed the caffeine cowboy who labored under a flimsy hat. “I’ll have a cappuccino.” He glanced down at the rows of trucked-in sweets. “And that thing with the little marshmallows on top.”

“A cappuccino and a lolly, that’s eight bucks even.”

Hap handed over a ten. Waved off the change. He turned away. Scanned the room. Holding the treat on a stick in front of his face. Dumbest fucking way to meet someone. Ever. In the corner, a jittery little man made eye contact.

Hap walked among the tables and couches, past the bar with saddle seats, and took the chair opposite Pete. “Looks like you’ve had too much coffee.”

“Fuck you. I’ve been waiting an hour.”

Hap checked his watch. A nice Tag he took off a guy who couldn’t dodge punches. “Did you remember to set your clock back, asshole?”

Pete shook his head. Not in response, more like a tick. “You got it?”

Two seconds and Hap was already tired of the guy. “Sure. You?”

“Yeah. I got the pics with me.”

“Memory too?” Digital pictures could be anywhere. Everywhere. Made his solution attractive to clients.

“Yeah. All of it. It’s right here.” He tapped his lap.

Hap took a sip. The drinks were always too damned hot. “Pete. I’m gonna tell you something.”

Pete shuddered. “Didn’t come for a lecture.”

“No. But you’re gonna listen anyway.” A small sip. “Blackmail’s a bad deal, Pete. People with enough money to make it worthwhile usually have enough money to make problems go away.”

“Is that a threat?”

Hap rolled his eyes. “Just advice. My guess is you got lucky. Took some pics and thought you’d make a quick score.” He took another sip.

“So?”

“So. Look at you. You’re a mess. The stress. The fear. Better for you if you give it up. Walk away.” Hap fiddled with the ball on a stick.

“Yeah? Or what?”

“See, Pete. My client wants to play along. Most of them do. Just want it to go away quietly. I do what I’m paid to do.” A long sip. “I’d rather hunt you down. Find you at night. Alone. Or with someone, I don’t care. End it all. No more threats, payments, worries.”

Pete swallowed before trying to act tough. “Thanks for the advice. Now. The money.”

Hap pulled an envelope from his jacket. “This is the spot. The choice. You take the money, and it doesn’t go well from here. Give me the stuff. Leave now. No money. No pics. No trouble.”

“Money.”

Hap sighed. “Your choice. Here ya go.”

Pete started to open it.

Hap slapped his hand. “Not in here, moron. Take it out back. Count it there.”

“What if it’s not all there?”

Hap sat back. “Keep the pics until you count.” He spread his arms across the back of the booth. “Come back when you’re done.”

Pete furrowed his eyebrows. “What if I just run?”

“Then I’ll get to do things my way. Either way, I win.”

Pete stood and left out the back. Hap took another drink and twirled the frosted ball on a stick. “Weird shit.”

A man sat across from him. Handed him an envelope. “Thanks, Hap. Finding the guy made this a lot easier.”

Hap nodded. “Always does. Anonymity makes people brave. Being found makes them stupid.” He finished his drink and set it down before a sound like a car backfiring rang out from behind the mall. Hap grinned and placed the envelope in his jacket pocket.

“You’ll bring the pics by the office?”

“As soon as I make sure he didn’t have any copies anywhere else.”

“Thanks again, Hap. You really are the best.” The man left the shop.

Hap took a bite of the ball. “Piece of cake.”

T
HIS STORY WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN
S
HOTGUN
H
ONEY.

R. Thomas Brown writes crime fiction set in Texas. His novel,
Hill Country,
was published by Snubnose Press in 2012. You can find his thoughts on fiction and other matters, as well as information on his short fiction and upcoming novels, at
RThomasBrown.blogspot.com
.

Ken Bruen

T
heir latest gig was as follows: drive at a slow speed through pedestrian areas beside, preferably, an older person, chuck a bottle of dirty water on the poor bastard, rev the engine, and then speed off, leaving the old codger on the brink of coronary.

Oh, the fun.

The rush.

The bravado.

The duo: dumb-ass so-called students of engineering at NUIG, all of nineteen years apiece, named

Dolan

Brady.

Way too fucking cool for first names. Dolan was almost a good-looking kid, if he had had an ounce of feeling, a trainee psycho who got the rush from others’ pain. Brady was just the apprentice moron, attached to any ship that provided color and beer money. Their latest wheeze was a plastic bag of red paint, handled delicately, to be lobbed at some prize suspect. The anticipation had them respectively hard.

The Red Letter Night had arrived, and they’d prepared, like
dude
, get seriously wasted first. That they spoke in quasi-American hip-hop only added to their irritating ration. Eight
Red Bull—yup,
Red
Bull, the irony! A bottle of cheap vodka—the working stiff’s cocaine—and a few spliffs, and they were good to

“Roll.”

And they did.

Dillon was sixty-five, a little stooped from an old gunshot wound in his lower back; that sucker still reared up. Ten years in a European jail had tamed his wilder excesses—that is, his hair-trigger temper. Tamed, as in rationed.

Sparingly.

He had hung on to a combat jacket from those wild days on the Ormeau Road, and
phew
, cruising down the falls, bullets to backside, oblivious to all but The Cause.

Walking.

Now, slow to slowest as he remembered his dead mates. Returning to Galway he wanted only some peace, some aged Jameson maybe, and three pints of the black, stretched over four hours.

Stretched over the meager euros they called a
pension.
Those walks, he’d think…

“One good jolt afore I go, to rock one more glorious time.”

He’d reached the top of Eyre Square, his daily ritual, one more kilometer before he headed for the pub and half-arsed ease.

The car was turning by the Meryck Hotel, about two minutes from him. Dolan was getting angry. Not a single person in sight. Jesus!

Everybody hanging with some other fucking body. Brady said,

“Ah shite, the paint is leaking. We got to get rid of it.”

Dolan saw the hunched man, shouted,

“An old fuck. Look, see the bollocks in the combat jacket? Move, for Christ’s sake, before he crosses the road.”

They moved.

An old woman in her fragile eighties got off the Salt Hill bus, on the blind side of the car. Dolan roared,

“Sling it.”

The bag sailing high, suspended for one glorious moment, then exploding over the lady, like a prayer gone so badly wrong. Covering like a spectrum of blood, her frail small body, a tiny cry as she collapsed in a coronary cloud.

The car desperately vying for balance, nigh losing it, then righted but straightened, then roaring off.

Dillon, momentarily stunned, then recovering, his eyes fixed on the license plate—old habit. He bent down, tended to the lady, his mind already in the cold place. A flick, a light, the years-old spark about to turn.

Burn.

To burning.

A blaze when the ambulance came. Told the guard who arrived:

Saw nothing.

Know nothing.

Thought:

The Sig.

Daily primed, like an exercise in hope.

Did go to the pub, had only the Jameson, two doubles, no Guinness, no bloated feeling required.

Just sleekness and fire.

How many places could two idiots hide? Found them close to one in the morning. A flat off the canal, top floor, the sound of Thin Lizzy bouncing off the water. The dead car parked sloppily outside. Dead from the moment he focused on the number plate.

He stormed in, put a bullet in the sound system, killing Phil Lynott mid
Whiskey in the Jar
. Still moving, lashed Dolan across
his face with the butt of the Sig, whirled, put a hard kick to Brady’s knee. As the duo

Moaned

Groaned

On the floor.

He took a Miller, drained half, said,

“Guys, here’s the deal.”

They stared at him, stared at the gun. He said,

“The old lady isn’t going to make it, so one of you isn’t going to make it.”

He paused.

Everybody loves a dramatic interval, then,

“I’m going to…as you
dudes
say…
waste
…one of you.”

Let them digest that, finished the brew, said,

“So, you guys choose, or…I’ll kill you both.”

Dolan looked at Brady, thought,

“Never liked this eejit.”

Brady thought,

“Uh-oh.”

Ken Bruen received a PhD in metaphysics, taught English in Africa, Japan, Southeast Asia, and South America, then became a crime novelist. His Jack Taylor series has had worldwide acclaim, and his novels have been nominated for numerous awards, including an Edgar Allan Poe Award for
The Guards.
His novels
Blitz
and
London Boulevard
have served as the basis for feature films. His most recent Jack Taylor novel is
Headstone.

C.E. Lawrence

“M
ake a wish,” said the genie.

Marie crossed her arms. “I don’t think so.”

“Oh, come on.” He beamed genially. “You dragged me out of the bottle—you might as well use your wish.”

He was big and blubbery, rotund and round-faced, just like the illustrations from her childhood copy of
Aladdin and the Lamp
. His skin was the color of polished brass. He wore loose-fitting yellow silk pants, a tiny vest barely covered his fleshy chest, and a wide, multicolored belt was wound around his enormous belly. His head was completely bald, the skin smooth as river stone.

Marie frowned. “Don’t I get three wishes?”

The genie shook his head, the enormous gold hoops hanging from his earlobes tinkling like tiny bells. “We’ve been hit by the recession, too. We’ve downsized to one wish.”

Rain pelted the cabin’s roof, fast and furious, like the sound of popcorn popping. Marie shivered and buttoned her sweater. She wished she had never ventured into her grandmother’s attic. With her grandmother gone to her bridge club, there was little else to do on this dreary rainy afternoon. Like all teenagers, she was easily bored, and today she was feeling especially restless. Sarah
McGinty had bullied her again at school, teasing Marie about her lumpy thighs and unfashionable clothing.

Marie looked down at the shards of crimson glass at her feet. She hadn’t seen the ornate red bottle with its heavy glass stopper until it was too late. While digging through a pile of old clothes, she had knocked it off the dusty bookshelf, watching helplessly as it splintered to pieces on the wooden floor. She sat on a dusty old steamer trunk, brushing away the cobwebs at her feet.

The genie sat down beside her. He smelled of sandalwood and sawdust. “So what’s your wish?”

“How did you end up stuck in a bottle?”

He looked down at his hands, which were immaculately manicured, the nails shiny with just a touch of clear polish. “I lost a bet.”

“With who?”

“Another genie. Look,” he said, “I haven’t got all day. I have to find a new master before sunrise, or I’ll lose my powers.”

“Why can’t I be your new master?”

“I need someone with experience. Otherwise terrible things could happen.”

“Like what?”

He glanced out the dusty window at the rain drumming down on the roof. “Have you heard of the bubonic plague?”

A clap of thunder rattled the loose windowpane, startling her. “You mean—”

“That was started by a nasty little German peasant who stumbled on a really powerful genie living in his hayloft. Apparently his neighbor owed him money, and things got out of hand.”

He brushed the attic dust from his silk trousers. “Do you want your wish or not?”

She studied him, eyes narrowed. “Whatever I wish for isn’t going to go horribly wrong?”