Guts and a Gun by Jason Lairamore

Guts and a Gun by Jason Lairamore

Now, I’m from Chicago, a dirty city-boy through and through, raised on the streets, and still working on the streets. I do odd jobs, bits of this and that, like picking up the scraps the cops leave me. I deal better with the seedier side of the street. They’re my people. It’s my world.  Unlike a cop, I know how to move around without making waves.

But I’m not in Chicago now. I’m in Vegas, the city of sin. And sin I have. Yesterday I won big. I won so much that the casino put me up in a high roller suite just to cool me down. And it worked. Today, I lost my shirt, lost it bad.

The good news was that I had this room for one more night. The better news was that I’d met a knockout blonde named Lisa Velt who, at this very moment, was lying in my arms, sleeping soundly.

There is no better way to fall asleep than with a beautiful woman in your arms.

& & &

I’d always thought I could sleep through just about any commotion. I’d taken pride in it, and that’s a fact. When you live like a sardine in a building with cardboard walls, you learn real quick how to ignore all kinds of sounds.

The sound that woke me, well before sunrise, wasn’t a sound that could be ignored. It was awful. I thought at first that somebody had stabbed Lisa in the throat and she was screaming through her mutilated voice box. I sat up and tore off the blankets covering us. Lisa and her amazing curves were just fine. She trembled something fierce though, and she was yelling something in the dark, something I couldn’t hear over the screeching.

“Hold on,” I bellowed. The sound was coming from the open balcony. I stood and got my .22 pistol from between the mattresses. It was one of two guns I’d brought along on the trip. Good Ms. Staci, my secretary, had told me to leave them behind. I’d told her I would, but I’d lied. It wasn’t like I could really leave my guns behind.

I eased to the wall and flipped on the light. A white and black monkey sat there screeching for all it was worth. As soon as the light hit it, it jumped, apparently toward another balcony, trying to get away. It never made it. I shot the thing mid-jump and it tumbled down toward the ground far below.

“Can’t beat a .22,” I said, turning a grin back toward my beautiful lady. “Quiet and effective.”

She sat up in bed and clutched the black comforter to her chest. Her eyes were wide and staring at me in horror.

“Oh, no, no, no,” she said, her head shaking. “That was Joe Trusher’s monkey. He found me. And, you killed it. Are you crazy?”

I rubbed my eye with my gun hand. Now that I thought on it, there was no reason for a monkey to be jumping around from balcony to balcony in a hotel, none that made any kind of normal sense anyway. I shook my head and closed the balcony doors. The crazed look Lisa was giving me told me things I didn’t want to hear.

I didn’t want to know. I really didn’t. Dammit, it’d been good while it lasted, all couple hours of it, but, I’d seen that look before. I’d seen it many times. In my line of work you get to where you can almost always nail things down just by the faces people wore.

And in this case, there was another man involved. It was as simple as that. I didn’t have to think too hard on how he’d feel knowing I’d had his ‘so-and-so’ up in my room for drinks and a twister.

“Tod,” she began, and I held up my hand. A woman never has anything good to say if she says your first name in a level tone.

“Stop,” I said. I looked at her one more time, with longing, or course. She was beautiful. But, I also looked at her in sadness. What a waste. If I let her keep on talking, then she’d probably try to con me into one thing or another. I could just taste it in the air. This whole thing stank. She must have scoped me out during my winning streak yesterday. I should tell her what I was worth now, just to see the shock on her face.

“I think it would be best if you collected your things and left,” I said, looking away from her. “I don’t want to hear another word.”

“But Tod, I thought—”

“Shut up.” I spoke over her, my eyes returning to stare hard at her. I didn’t want this to end ugly. I shook my head and tried to just will her away.

She understood. It didn’t take her long to put her clothes on and leave. I did my best not to watch her get dressed. If anything, the process was more alluring than the taking off was.

Finally, she walked out and shut the door. I went to the mini-bar to drink, a lot.

& & &

There is nothing worse than waking up to the sound of a vacuum cleaner. Industrious little bastards try to make you feel guilty for sleeping till noon, or whatever time it was. That I’d overdone it and felt like yesterday’s buffet table didn’t help matters.

“Excuse me, sir,” said an overly polite voice. The vacuum continued its happy little work.

I turned my head and creaked open one grainy eye. A man stood there wearing the double breasted overcoat of the Flamingo hotel. He looked young, like babyish early twenties. That could have been the enormous jacket he wore, though. These hotel wait staff all seemed to want to look like 50’s mobsters.

“I hope you enjoyed your time with us,” the man nodded. “It is time to check out and settle accounts.”

I couldn’t help the feeling of deja vu I was having. It looked like it was my turn to be kicked out of this room.

“Got time for a shower?” I asked.

The man took a moment answering, like he was considering it, but I read the answer in his bearing before the words were out his mouth.

“I’m sorry. This room’s new client is already downstairs waiting.”

That was bullshit. The debt I’d rung up yesterday must have sent a red flag across some higher-ups’ desk.

“Get the hell out then and let me change.”

He nodded. The man was a nodder. “Have a pleasant afternoon. Do come again.” And he turned and left the room.

The cleaning lady kept up her work like I didn’t exist, so I didn’t make her acknowledge my presence by saying anything to her. As quick as I could—which wasn’t very quick, and involved a good deal of staggering—I collected my things and retreated to the bathroom to change.

Something was missing from my effects. It wasn’t where I’d left it. I rubbed at my rough jaw. Lisa had taken my .38 ultra-light, the other gun I’d brought, while she was getting dressed last night. That was the only thing that made sense. Damn it all, I liked that gun.

It was past time for me to cut my losses and return back to my world. I shouldn’t have listened to Good Ms. Staci and come on a vacation down here in the city of sin. She was a sweet lady and I knew she only had my best interest at heart, but still, I should have stuck to my gut. So maybe I’d been a little overworked. Maybe I needed some time away from the game. I should have stuck close to Chicago, anyway. Playing in somebody else’s back yard never turned out well.

I eyed the shower and thought about taking a quick dip anyway, but decided against it. I dressed for home, grungy and all, with some black slacks, a white collared shirt with marbled ivory buttons, and a simple, black sports jacket. I didn’t forget to put on my lucky drawers, neither. I was going to need all the luck I could get today. I could just feel it.

After a comb through my hair and a toothbrush across my teeth, I was out of the room and heading home.

& & &

In the lobby I was met by a nice security agent, who very politely pointed out the office where I could settle up my outstanding credit. They had a smooth operation running, I give them that.

I hesitated, but kept heading in the direction of the collection office. The guard had his eye on me, and I didn’t want to give him reason to come over and talk to me again. I didn’t like being pushed, and if the man came over I might lose my temper. It’d happened before, and never to good effect.

Good Ms. Staci’s number was on speed-dial. I gave her number a ring as I ambled ever closer to the collection doors.

She picked up on the first ring.

“How’s my favorite gal,” I said. “Miss me yet?”

“Tod, I told you not to call for a week. Why are you bothering me? Go drink something fruity by the pool and relax.”

That’s what I should have been doing, alright. That’s what I should have been doing the whole time. It’s funny though, how one’s basic nature tends to find its normal groove no matter the setting it’s put in.

“Just listen, alright. It’s not like I wanted to talk to you anyway.” I could almost see her shaking her head. “But, I’ve run into a little trouble down here, and,”

“I’d say,” a voice said at my back. I went for my .22, but a hand latched onto my wrist. Another hand, from another guy, ripped the cell phone from my ear before I could utter a peep.

“Tod, Tod?” I heard Mr. Staci say. Then the phone was in the goon’s pocket. Aw shit, now I’d gone and made her worry. That really sucked.

“You shouldn’t have killed Monkey,” one of them said. The two of them, one on each side, began hustling me out the door. I looked for the guard and found him. He was pointedly looking in the wrong direction. The other patrons glanced mildly in our direction, but nobody made a big fuss. They probably assumed I owed somebody a lot of money. Well, they were part right.

“What gives fellas,” I said, letting them drag me through the lobby. They were more than up to the task. It felt like vise grips were squeezing my arms.

“You harassing a guy for pulling some tail? She coulda said no, ya know.”

“Shut up,” one of them said.

I tried to resist. They won. Bastards. I hated being jumped.

We were outside in no time. I felt a stab in my shoulder and saw the flash of an empty syringe being recapped. I wondered what would come next then thought about good Ms. Staci. I always seemed to do that when things got hairy.

One of the thugs put me in the back of a car and I fell to my face on the cloth seating. The world started spinning around and around.

& & &

I was lying under the sun. It was pressing me into the baking sand at my back. My clothes felt hot enough to catch fire. Man, was I thirsty.

A shoe appeared out of nowhere and smashed my head deeper into the sand. I heard the click of gun.

“Wake up,” the owner of the foot said.

I had to wait for him to take his foot away. It wasn’t like I could talk with a mouthful of shoe sole.

“You deserve to die slow,” the man said, twisting his foot on my face. I grabbed his ankle of out reflex and yanked it away. I tasted blood in my mouth.

I stayed on my back and ran my tongue behind my lips. It wouldn’t do to move too fast. There were probably a couple guns on me.

“They don’t like that you killed their monkey,” a familiar voice said. Lisa Velt.

I raised my head slow and came up to my elbows. We were in a little low spot between two sand dunes. The two toughs from the casino were on either side of me, both with guns drawn. Lisa stood between them with my .38 held loosely in her left hand. I hadn’t realized before that she was a lefty.

“Well,” I said. “Looks like we’re one short for the party.” Though, I thought I pretty much knew what had happened to the other guy.

Neither of the hired hands even flinched at my words. They were good, heartless men. Lisa, though, her eyes got good and wide, though she tried to act nonchalant.

“Joe found me after I left,” she said. “He tried to beat me. But I didn’t let him. Not this time.” She held up the gun just to make sure I could see it. “Thanks for the gun. It gave me the guts I needed. That bastard would never have let me leave.”

I glanced to the two goons, at their hard face. Lisa, Lisa, Lisa. Such a fool.

“So, now I’m going to die over a monkey?” I asked.

The two men tensed. They obviously had cared more for that monkey than they had for their recently dead boss.

One of them raised his gun.

“Wait, Wait,” I said. “Can’t a man die standing up? Can you give me that much?”

“Yes,” Lisa answered before either of the men had said a word. They’d probably just have shot me where I lay if not for her.

I took my time getting up and made a show of dusting the sand off my ass.

“Lisa,” I said. “You really should shoot these two while you have the chance. They don’t plan on letting you leave here. You killed the guy they’d been hired to protect. That makes them look bad.”

The two goons glanced at each other and I took my chance. My lucky drawers held my little P-32 back up gun, held it right up against my man tackle. I don’t care how professional a guard is, they hardly ever check a man’s junk very carefully. It’s just not something a man likes to do to another man.

I pulled out my little gun and shot the two men before they could look surprised. Lisa gasped and started to raise my own gun against me.

“Don’t,” I said. But she kept raising the gun. I squeezed the trigger one more time.

& & &

Good Ms. Staci answered on the first ring.

“Well, Ms. Staci, I’m coming home early.”

I called her as soon as I had settled up affairs and got back in my own car. The sun was setting as I left Las Vegas.

“Damn you for making me worry Tod. What happened down there?”

“Calm down.” I patted the bag of cash in the seat next to me. It appeared Joe had been quite the high roller, the real deal. He’d left behind quite the windfall. And all I’d had to do was get into his safe.

“There was a misunderstanding about a monkey, nothing too serious.”

“A monkey, Tod?” She paused. I imagined her shaking her head at me again. “Forget it. I don’t want to know.”

* * * * THE END  * * * *
Copyright Jason Lairamore 2023