Monday, October 11, 2010

Stilettos & Shirley Temples, Pt. 13 – Some Explaining To Do

That’s right, friends, it’s episode no. 13. How fortunate! Mercedes claims 13 is her lucky number, but I’m not getting a Mercedes-is-lucky vibe from this part of the story. No, no I’m not at all. >:)

I’ll cut to the chase, then, shall I? Well, right after letting you know you can catch up with the back-issues of the serial under the S&ST tab at Mercedes’ blog. Yes.

~~~~~

It’s pushing 7 o’ clock by the time Mercedes returns. I’ve spent the past two hours alternating between attempting to read and pacing the floor inventing new curse words. I want a drink in the worst way, but getting loaded in this kind of mood is liable to make me say something I’ll regret. Well, something else, anyway.

I lower my book and lay the gun back in my lap as she slips in and shuts the door behind her. Her eyes flick to the Sig.

“Were you just pointing a gun at me?”

I bite back the first eight responses that spring to mind. Goddamn right might not go over so well. “Precautions, darlin’. What if it hadn’t been you?”

“Then I’d probably have to explain to the manager why someone shot one of the housekeeping staff.”

I watch as she drops her purse on the countertop, heads for the bathroom. She seems distracted.

“What’s going on?”

“I need a shower,” she says without turning.

I wait to hear the sound of water and the hiss of the shower curtain before standing and padding after her. The bathroom door’s ajar, steam curling out to swirl in the cool air of the bedroom.

I bend to touch the sleeve of her shirt on the floor, warm from her body. On the cuff, a faint blot of crimson, still damp after a hurried cleaning. I grimace. What the hell was the trouble this time, Mercedes?

Humid air bathes my face as I lean against the bathroom doorframe.

“Don’t make me stab you for invasion of privacy.” Her voice is deceptively light; there’s a cold edge to it.

“With what, the shower nozzle?”

The curtain twitches aside enough for me to see a steel blade, water beading clear on its glinting edge. I bark a short laugh. “You’re so trusting, dear.”

“Out.”

“I was thinking,” I say, ignoring her, “we should do dinner. I could use a good steak.”

“The only stake you’ll get is to the heart if you don’t let me finish my shower in peace.”

“Touchy today, are we?” I step back into the bedroom. “Think of someplace nice, would you?”

She snatches the shower curtain back into place. I pull the door shut behind me.

*

The restaurant’s a standard-issue steakhouse at one of the less trendy casinos, a few blocks off the strip. Dark-stained veneer walls, dull red and purple patterned carpet, a chandelier over the bar that looks as though it hasn’t been dusted in a while.

Monday night’s a quiet night in Vegas-town, apparently. The few diners in the place speak in hushed voices, their conversations barely rising above the piped-in jazz standards.

I pass the hostess a $20 with a wink. “We’ll choose our own table, darlin’.”

One near the back of the restaurant by the doors to the kitchen. We slide into the side chairs, each with a full view of the room. Mercedes sits on the corner of her seat, eyes darting to the door when she thinks I’m not looking. Whatever trouble she got into earlier, it has her on edge.

Suits me just fine. She’s been leading me around by the nose since I got here. It’s time for some pushback.

“So what’s the specialty here?”

She shrugs. “Check the menu.”

“You don’t know? I thought you chose this place for a reason.”

“I did.”

“And?”

“No one comes here.”

“Embarrassed to be seen with me, Merc?”

Hint of a smile. “Not as such.”

She grabs the menu, gives it a quick glance. The waitress approaches.

“A bottle of San Pell,” I say, “and a Shirley Temple for my girlfriend. Extra cherries.”

Mercedes leans forward as the waitress leaves. “Girlfriend? Are you trying to make me angry?”

“How could you think that, honey?” I give her my most disarming grin, knowing fine well it won’t work.

“Simon,” She says, low and tight, “this is not the night to piss me off.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“And what’s with the sparkling water?”

“I’ll save the heavy drinking for later.”

My fillet is excellent, pepper-crisp on the outside, meltingly tender in the middle. Portion is small. Perfect. I don’t like working on a full stomach.

Mercedes picks at her Chicken Piccata, pushes small slices around her plate. Her Shirley Temple disappears in tiny increments. She responds tersely to my attempts at conversation. I watch her watch the entrance. I’ve had worse nights out with a lady, but they usually ended with someone trying to kill me.

I suppose there’s still time for that.

“Can I interest you in dessert?” the waitress asks brightly.

“No,” Mercedes mutters.

I look sharply at her, follow her gaze to the door. A compact man dressed in a pinstriped suit stands by the hostess’s desk. Olive skin, thick eyebrows, thinning hair greased and combed back tight against his scalp. A toothpick bobs rhythmically at the corner of his mouth. He stares at us, unblinking, then turns and disappears into the casino gallery.

“Should we ask him to join us?”

She ignores me. “I’m sorry,” she says to the waitress. “We have to go.”

Merc pulls several C-notes from her purse, drops them on the table, stands. I stand also.

“A little something for your trouble,” I say, slipping a fifty into the confused waitress’s hand. I pat her lightly on the arm, grin, and follow Mercedes into the kitchen.

The chefs stumble past me and out into the restaurant as I step through the door. Merc’s standing across the room by the back entrance, knives already in hand.

“Give me one of your guns,” she says as I approach.

I pull one of the Sigs from the underarm holster she loaned me, check the clip, hand it to her. “Who’s your friend?”

She rechecks the clip. “Paulie Trent. Usually works out of Reno.”

“Any good?”

“Decent.”

“He’s not the real problem, though, is he?” I draw the other Sig.

“He travels with an entourage. Usually four of them. Silenced submachineguns.”

I mutter a curse or six. “Well, that’s pleasant.” A quick glance round the kitchen. “They’ve staked out the service corridor, then.”

“It’s likely.”

I grab a long-handled pot from the nearby hanging rack and hand it to Mercedes, fill two more with grease from the fryer. Back to the door—one pot on the ground, one held at my side. Gun in my free hand. I nod once.

Merc pushes against the bar and swings the door outward. Silence.

Slowly she pokes the mirrored bottom of the pot out past the doorframe. The hallway’s distended reflection creeps into view, stacks of trash bags, boxes, fluorescent lights ranking down the ceiling…tall, dark figure against the far wall.

The uzi’s muffled chatter sounds loud in the close hall. Bullets ping off the pan, jerking it out of Mercedes’ hand. Pock-marks march across the metal door.

“Ten feet away, opposite wall,” she whispers in my ear, then moves back.

I can’t keep the grin from my face as I heft the pot and step forward, bringing it around in a fast arc and flinging it around the doorframe. Boiling oil geysers into the hallway, splattering the walls, the linoleum floor, the dark-suited hitman crouched ten feet away.

His shriek of agony is cut short as Merc whips round the door just long enough to put a bullet in his face.

“One down, four to go,” I mutter.

Merc gestures at me. I glance through the narrow gap between the door and the frame to see two more thugs advancing toward us. They look ex-military, moving with a hunched, bent-kneed gait, gunstocks tight to their shoulders. I grab the other pot of grease, send it around the door to tumble down the corridor toward them.

Short, controlled bursts of gunfire. Staccato spatter of bullets against the door. The two men stop short of the puddled oil, crouch against opposite walls, waiting.

“Should we head out the front?” I murmur.

“No need. Here,” she says, “move.”

I back away from the door and she steps forward, pushes lightly against the bottom of the door with one toe. It creaks open slowly. She presses the point of the pistol against the widening hinge gap.

More bursts of fire from the gunners. Bullets ricochet off the door and thud into the sheetrock corridor walls. Puffs of gypsum powder float through the door crack as it opens further…more…just a bit more.

Then: “Shit!” from one of the hitmen.

Two shots. Two bodies hit the floor. Clatter of guns against concrete-backed linoleum.

Mercedes brushes the white dust from her cheek as she turns and smiles. “Three down, two to go.”

“Nicely done, darlin’.”

“Thank you.” She pulls a mirror from her purse, checks her face, wipes the last speck of gypsum from her nose.

“Where d’you think the last two are?”

“The other goon’s probably at the entrance to the service corridor. Paulie? Not sure. Maybe the alley by the loading dock. Easiest escape route if we get past his muscle.”

“Well, we don’t want to make it easy on him, do we?”

The last gunner’s at the hallway entrance, as predicted. A short, controlled burst from a borrowed submachinegun makes a pretty mess of his chest. Merc and I step over his twitching body and push our way through the door into the gallery.

*

“Are all your little hitman friends this predictable?” I ask as we stand at the end of the alley, watching Paulie smoke in the shadows by the dumpsters.

She shrugs. “We keep killing the uncreative ones, sooner or later the really dangerous ones’ll show up.”

“Good think they can’t send us after ourselves.”

She snorts. I wonder if she knows I noticed the infinitesimal pause before her response.

I look at her. “Why don’t you wait here, darlin’. I only got to knock off one so far. I’m feeling a bit inadequate.”

“Not my fault I’m better than you.”

“In your dreams, baby.” I pat her cheek as I slip past her into the alley. She digs a knuckle into my kidney in response.

The asphalt underfoot is wet with leakage from garbage bags, littered with refuse. The street smells of rotten food and urine. I slip from trash pile to trash pile, watch as Paulie finishes one cigarette and pulls out another. The lighter flame’ll ruin his night vision temporarily. I wait for it.

Flick…flick…flame.

My throwing knife catches him in the hand, spiking his palm and sending the lighter spinning to the ground. He’s good, to his credit—his first instinct is to reach for his gun—but I’m better. I’m on him before the gun leaves its holster. The first kick connects with the point of his chin. The second breaks his knee. He crumples to the ground with a strangled cry.

I crouch next to him, yank my blade from his hand, and wipe it on his pants before resting the point on his neck.

“Paulie, Paulie. Smoking’s a bad habit, y’know. It’ll kill you.”

He screws up his face and spits on me. I glance at the wet spot on my trouser leg and sigh. “Now, that’s just not polite.”

I press a foot on his shattered knee. He grates curses at me through gritted teeth.

“Listen,” I say, “I won’t keep you long. I just have a few questions.”

“I ain’t tellin’ you nothing.”

“Uh…yes. You are.” From over my shoulder, the ticking of Mercedes’ heels on the blacktop. “It’s about our mutual friend, see. The pretty one with the stiletto fetish.”

“Simon?” she says.

I raise my free hand. “Hang on, dear, I’m working.”

Paulie spits at me again. I press harder on his knee, carve a line in his cheek with my knife. More screaming. Sweat sheens his forehead.

“Look,” I say conversationally, “this can go one of two ways. One: you answer a couple questions, I let you say your Hail Marys, and it’s over quickly. Two: I poke my knife in a place that’ll paralyze you from the waist down, and leave you for the police to find. I’m sure Craze would send someone to visit you in hospital.” A pause. “I hear he’s nice like that.”

“Simon!” Merc again, a note of warning in her voice.

I look over my shoulder at her. “Not now, Mercedes,” I say coldly. “Bit busy.”

My attention on Paulie again. His gaze flickers between Merc and me. I bend close. “She’s not the one you should be worrying about.”

I reach over him, place the tip of my knife against his spine. “What’ll it be?”

“You’re dead,” he says.

“Not yet, I’m not.”

It’s fast, almost imperceptible, but his eyes dart to Mercedes, then away.

I lean toward his ear. “Now that’s interesting,” I murmur. “Why would you look at her right now?” My blade digs into his lower back between the vertebral ridges. “What do you know, Paulie?”

He screams through his teeth, his breath hissing harsh and fast. I ease the pressure on the knife. “She’s playing you!” he pants. “She’s under contra—”

The back of his skull opens, spilling the rest of what he knows across the filthy ground as the gunshot echoes and dies.

“Son of a bitch!

I’m on my feet in a flash, pistol pointed at Mercedes’ heart. Rage pulses in my temple. Her gun’s aimed at my head, smoke still curling faintly from the barrel. Her expression inscrutable.

“It looks, darling,”—I force the words past my teeth—“as though you’ve got some explaining to do.”

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