Send your best man out, you expect the job done.
Unless the target is just a little bit better.
Unless the target is just a little bit better.
Three Fingers of Scotch by Jonathan Brown
Taking a punch in
the face is never good. That’s why when Jensen sent a straight right aimed at
my jaw, I slipped it. As his meaty fist and forearm sailed past, I gave him a
nice hook to his rib cage. I envisioned his floating rib busting off and
puncturing his intestines.
A body shot
followed with a knee to the guts and I wrapped it up with a fast- moving elbow
to the back of his thick skull. Squirming on the floor, he stayed conscious and
wheezing like a ninety-year-old asthmatic.
I grabbed the
remote from the bureau and brought the television volume back down. The beating
was over. As I stepped over him on the way to the mini bar, he reached for my
ankle. The move got him a busted wrist. He squealed.
Through tears so
pathetic his mother would deny knowing him, he asked if we could make a deal
and offered me all kinds of money.
“You’re not the
money guy, Jensen. We both know that so sit quiet.”
After the money,
he offered his daddy’s Bentley and season tickets to Charger games on the fifty-yard-line.
“Didn’t I ask you
to be quiet? A guy takes half a beating and he folds like a poker player with a
bad hand.”
I was two-thirds
of the way into pouring three fingers of my favorite swill when his phone
buzzed.
He tried to dig it
out of his windbreaker but subsided when I put a foot across his neck and
relieved him of it.
Without looking at
the screen, I knew who it was. “I’m still breathin’. Come over and let’s chat,”
I said, killing the call.
He shivered on the
floor despite Hollywood suffering its hottest heat wave in thirty years. The AC
unit had crapped out the day before. That’s why three fingers of booze instead
of my usual two.
“You don’t know
what kinda hell you’ve unleashed?” he whined. “He’ll kill us both.”
“No he won’t, I’m
gonna kill you before he gets here,” I bluffed, delighted by his twitching. “Why’d
he put you on me, Jensen? You guys knocked over the armored car, you got the
money. And now he sends you to clip me. Why?”
“Look,” he said
wincing as he got to his knees.
“Lay back down. You
look like you’re praying to me I don’t like it.”
He obeyed with a
moan. “You set up the truck deal nice and clean.”
“Stop telling me
what I already know, Jensen,” I said, stepping close to him.
“Everything went
smooth until one of the guys on the truck popped out the back door and blazed
away. We lost Smitty.”
“Always liked
Smitty,” I said.
“Likewise. Anyway,
boss thought maybe you tipped ‘em off.”
“Tipped them off?
Why? So I wouldn’t get my cut? Grow
up, moron.”
“Right, he only
thought that at first, though. It wasn’t until later he knew it wasn’t you…but
now he’s kinda…well, you know too much.”
“Know too much? I
was in on the score. Of course I knew--”
A quiet knock came
from the door. I opened without any Hollywood drama. The boss man strode ahead
of his two semi-truck sized security detail. They ignored me as they walked past.
He sneered at his
failed hitman. “Pretty ballsy opening up like that,” he said to me.
“If you see balls
on this frame you need your prescription changed, boss.”
“Yeah, okay. You’re
a knockout, Veronica. So what?” he said.
“That hump on the
floor is who set you up and got Smitty done in the process.”
“Prove it.”
“He’s got fresh bills
pokin’ outta his Dockers, and he wasn’t even on the job. And I know you haven’t
paid out yet. He’s in it with Smitty’s killer and maybe another guy who were
supposed to whack your guys. But it went south.”
“That adds. Sorry
we were slow on the uptake. At least Jensen didn’t clip ya,” the boss man said.
