Shotgun Honey Presents: Locked and Loaded (Both Barrels Book 3)

by Owen Laukkanen

  Which meant Giles got in first. Took his time about it too, pausing between the words as if he was auditioning for the villain’s part in a production at the Traverse. “Yellow... car... punch.” He fiddled with his rings for a moment. Centred the gold sovs on his fingers and formed a fist.

  He let fly.

  Colin saw it as if it were in slow motion. The arm swung low and then came back in an upper-cut. Giles lowered his shoulder to get some weight behind it and Colin tensed as many muscles as he could still control.

  The fist connected with Colin’s jaw. Smacked his teeth together and they crunched like line-backers on third down. His head snapped backwards and there was a crick in his neck just before his skull collided with something hard. Tingles shot through his spine and sprinted down into his fingers and toes. His head seemed to fill with spots of light as if he were a cartoon character taking a fall.

  That’s when the pain kicked in. His jaw screamed out to his brain, his gums were on fire and his skull felt broken.

  “Maybe I just got lucky,” Giles said. “You might do better next time.”

  The next time was worse. The punch came from the side and loosened a few of Colin’s teeth.

  “See,” Giles said. “This is what you get when you borrow money you can’t afford to pay back. So here’s what we’re going to do.” The voice didn’t sound quite right. It was as if Colin was hearing it through ears filled with cotton wool. “We’re going to keep that Saab of yours, the one you’ve been cruising around town in. The one you’ve been impressing your friends with. And before you leave here, you’re going to sign the papers to transfer the ownership.”

  When the words and their meaning filtered in, Colin did his best to process the information. He wanted to explain. To give them the story and make them understand. Times were tough for entrepreneurs just now. He’d had a few people let him down and a few horses finish out of the frame. Sure, he’d missed making a couple of payments to Uncle, but he’d be good for the money. He’d get it back to them. He just needed more time.

  “But before we get you to sign, we’re going to carry on with our game. You see Colin, you need to learn a little lesson and I’m going to make sure that I teach you very well indeed.”

  Danny turned over another card. A yellow Ferrari. Colin nodded his head. He wanted to sign the car over right there and then. He wanted to feel that quill in his hand and the scratch of the point on the paper, but all he got to feel was another hammer blow that connected with the tip of his nose and ended up somewhere in the middle of his dreams.

  When he came to, he kept his eyes shut. Let his mind do an audit of his body. Everything was still there, it just wasn’t all in the places and shapes he was used to.

  The pain came from everywhere. His bones throbbed with the beating of his heart, but he could handle it.

  Whatever he was lying on, it wasn’t a mattress. There were hard corners poking his ribs. Sharp edges cutting into his skin. Solid objects pushing him into new shapes. He needed to shift to try and get comfortable.

  His eyes opened to darkness. He let his hands wander like they were his drones checking out the terrain. When they got to his head, they pushed gently at his skull. It was soft. Cold. Was oozing some kind of slop. If it was his brains, he was a gonner.

  He scooped some of the matter with his fingers. Brought them to his nose and sniffed.

  It wasn’t the scent he’d expected. There was none of the aroma of the butcher’s shop on Leith Walk. Instead it was something he recognised. Made his mouth water. Took him a while to work it out. Egg Mayonnaise. Maybe a touch of onion in the mix.

  Saliva pooled underneath his tongue. Collected until it overflowed. Something about the mess he was in made him want to chuck up and his throat closed tight. He needed to spit. To get rid of the liquid. Pushed himself up until his head hit something hard. He raised his arms and pressed against the ceiling of his cell.

  As it lifted a fraction, a crack of light appeared. It hurt his retinas to look at it. He pushed harder until the darkness was defeated and he was free, standing in the middle of a skip at the back of Tesco. He rubbed his eyes, covered them in the Mayonnaise and swore quietly to himself.

  Giles Yokobo was on a break. A fag break. Stood on the corner of the Mile and North Bridge taking in the passers-by. Eying up the girls and calling after the ones who took his fancy. Some of them looked back. A few wandered over to chat.

  The guy had some kind of magic. Was able to give out his personal cards like it was everybody’s birthday and someone had put him in charge.

  Colin watched on from the other side of the road, hidden inside his hood and taking everything in with the patience of dispossessed.

  Losing the car had been the last straw. Set his life tumbling with the force of an avalanche. Left him at the mercy of the wind and the rain. Had him hungry for revenge.

  It was when the tall blond in the mini-skirt turned around to Yokobo’s wolf-whistle that Colin decided to move. He wandered down the hill until the traffic cleared, then ran across to the other side, narrowly avoiding some white van that must have been late for an appointment. It sped by with the driver shouting something Polish out of the window and using the international language of the middle finger to make sure he’d been fully understood.

  Another day, Colin might have chased the bastard. Waited until he got snagged at the lights. Dragged him out and taught him a lesson about Scottish manners. Sent him home to Warsaw with his tail between his legs and a shaggy-dog story about the day he was set upon by a gang of wild men with bare buttocks and blue paint on their faces.

  But not today.

  When he arrived at the other side of the street, he turned again and headed up the slope, hands deep in his pockets while he stared at the pavement. He pulled level with Yokobo, stopped and leant into the wall.

  The girl Yokobo was talking to was stunning. Thick lips and clear skin. A pair of perfectly formed tits hanging loose underneath the summer print of her dress. Clear blue eyes that shone and spoke of promise. If she wasn’t Swedish, Gordon would never fill out a betting slip again as long as he lived. She babbled on about the castle and the Edinburgh Dungeon in an exotic accent that could have been anything while she puffed on her cigarette and blew smoke into the afternoon.

  Yokobo seemed to sense he was onto a good thing. He stood straighter and puffed out his chest so that his muscles strained against his white shirt. Listened to the girl talk, smiled in the right places and even had the balls to pick off a piece of something from the front of her dress. Practically tweaked her nipple when he did it, too. Dirty bastard.

  Things like this, people like Yokobo getting to sleep with hot women, were proof to Gordon that there was no God. Which was a shame, because if there was no god there was no devil. Without a devil, there could be no real justice.

  Gordon shook himself back into the moment. Pulled his gaze from the woman’s proud nipples and checked out the traffic.

  Someone really should do something about the way the cars hurtled down towards the New Town. People would end up getting hurt if nothing changed.

  There was a taxi—a blur of black. Three green cars followed, then a red. Another black and a couple of silver BMWs. Gordon bided his time.

  Another taxi, then another. Two red cars. A white van. Red Volvo. Blue Beetle. Nothing doing.

  Yokobo pulled out one of his cards from his back pocket. Was handing it over when the moment came.

  A car took off to beat the lights, its exhaust emitting a low rumble as it went.

  Gordon shifted on his feet. Extended his arms. Felt Yokobo’s ribs against his palms. Used the weight from his rooted leg to push and before he knew it the man had gone. Headfirst into the car and tumbling over the bonnet.

  There was a screech of brakes, the crunch of glass splintering and a loud scream from the Scandinavian princess, but Gordon didn’t turn to look. Instead, he tightened his hood, pushed his hands into his pockets and set off to escape the gathering
crowd.

  An old woman blocked his way. Put her hand up into his chest and stopped him in his tracks. She was tiny and frail. Had less hair than a doll that had been given a trim by a 5 year-old. Wore a heavy woollen jumper in spite of the heat. If it had been anyone younger, he’d have pushed her out of the way, but Gordon McCrae had been brought up better than that.

  “What happened? Did you see it?” she asked.

  He took his hands from his pockets. Re-enacted the smash. Made a fist with his right and slammed it into the stiff palm of his left. “Yellow car punch,” he told her. “Yellow car punch.”

  The lady looked bemused. Stood on her tiptoes to try and get a better view.

  Gordon nipped off down a side-street. Decided he’d nab a car to celebrate. Maybe drive over to Glasgow to see if the grass was any greener out west. Wondered about the make and model he might go for. Didn’t care, as long as there was petrol in the tank and the colour fitted the occasion.

  Love at First Fight

  Angel Luis Colón

  You fighting tonight?” Leroy’s words come between bites of a sloppy spaghetti dinner. He lifts his shirt up to wipe his chin clean and the peep show’s not worth the price of admission.

  “Yeah, Aleksei said I had a match at 7:30.” I look at the old spook house decorations around us. There’s an old neon sign that’s seen better days right above Leroy that says ‘The Ghost Hole’. Behind ‘Ghost’ it says “Hell’—an old remnant from the 70’s.

  He doesn’t look up from his dinner and jabs a sausage link thumb behind him. “Go wait with the other assholes. They got a movie on.”

  “Any idea what it is?”

  “I look like the fucking TV guide?”

  I ain’t got it in me to argue, so I give him a shrug and walk to the back. There’s a closet sized room with one of those old tube televisions with the wood paneling playing the second Die Hard in Spanish. Six ashen-faced, fallen out losers do their best to share an old, leather couch without touching legs.

  I lean against the doorframe. “They get up to the part where William Sadler’s doing the naked karate? That shit’s ridiculous.”

  “Nah, they cut that shit out on regular teevee.” The voice comes from the very end of couch farthest from me. I don’t know the guy, but he looks about as broken as any one of us. Welcome to the club.

  “Who’s got the 7:30 fight?” I rub my eyes. There’s a headache creeping up on me.

  “That’ll be me.” Reggie, an overweight mess of a man whose only claim to fame was getting his jaw dislocated at a bar by Mike Tyson back in the eighties, raises a hand. We’ve fought before. He hits like an oatmeal stuffed doll.

  “Sounds good.”

  The movie gets to the part where John McClane is betrayed by Major Grant, then the signal shits out and all we get is snow. I decide to talk a walk to the back of the place—get a look at tonight’s crowd.

  It’s the usual Russian and Serbian riff raff, not too sure if they have a word for white trash in Eastern Europe, but this is pretty much it. Their fists have wads of twenties and fifties in their grip. They all group up beneath the skeleton of the old gravitron ride that was housed in this space. There’s a weird maze of metal piping and rotted wood above us that’s in a permanent state of ‘about to fall’. I still can’t help but jerk my head up every time I hear a noise that seems out of place. The smell this kind of environment produces—the sweat and the dirt and the old cash—the embodiment of desperation. Nobody here stinks worse of it than the boxers.

  None of us fight for money—only drugs. I fight for my weekly dose of horse. The shame’s worn off by now. All I know is that there’s harder ways to score than taking a few hits to the face—especially from doughy never-beens like Reggie.

  • • •

  It’s near eleven when Aleksei shows up to “pay out”. I’m nursing a mouse under my right eye—more my fault than Reggie’s doing—I let him get a few clean jabs there. Didn’t repeat that mistake for the rest of the match. We don’t fight in rounds, the state of us dictates that we go at it until someone cries uncle or gets knocked the fuck out.

  I had Reggie on the floor in seven minutes—a new personal best.

  “Kevin.” Aleksei is your typical, boisterous, overweight Russian stereotype. He doesn’t smile much, and when he does, most folks find themselves preferring he stuck with a frown. What always stands out about the guy is the long braided ponytail running from his head down near his knees. Could never get my head around the hairstyle choice, but hey, strange Russian racketeers need to have their quirks.

  “Kenneth,” I correct him.

  “Yeah, sure. Good fight, good fight.” He lifts an old doctor’s bag to his chin and almost crosses his eyes into the back of his head to see. “What do you get?”

  “Uh, horse…” I look around the room rather than watch him. My knuckles still burn from the fight. Those of us lucky to find gloves that fit use them. “You ever think about seeing an eye doctor, Aleksei?”

  “No, why?” He keeps burrowing into the bag. “Ah, yes…here we go.” Aleksei fishes a small baggie from the doctor’s bag and tosses it over. “That should be enough for the next week. Unless you’re one of those kinds of junkies.”

  “Yeah, thanks. See you next week.” I pocket the heroin. It’s shit quality, but beggars can’t be choosers. I turn to get the hell out of this place and nearly walk into someone behind me.

  He places a firm hand on my chest. “Easy.” His brogue is thick Irish cream.

  I look up expecting another gray-faced loser and instead I get the weirdest looking son of a bitch I’ve ever seen. He’s about my height, but he’s rocking one of those greaser haircuts that goes up about seven inches—must be enough gel in there to clog up the Hudson. His clothes—leather head to toe, a faded Bauhaus tee under his jacket and a belt buckle the size of a dinner plate—make him look like a low rent Happy Days extra. On the buckle, a young Elvis flashes the grin that made millions of panties drop.

  “My mistake, sorry.” I walk by and keep eyes on him. On the back of his jacket is one of those old illustrations of a black panther—the kind you’d see on a Vietnam vet’s arm. Above the cat reads ‘Blacky Jaguar’ in gold stitching.

  He turns and meets my gaze. “We good?”

  “Uh, yeah, sorry. Just thought you looked familiar is all.”

  “Sure.” He makes a motion with his hand, waving me away. “Got business with the man in charge, have a goodnight.”

  I don’t wish it back, just beat feet the fuck out of there and wonder to myself, just what the hell is a Blacky Jaguar?

  • • •

  “It’s his name.” Leroy’s sucking down on an ungodly amount of hot wings tonight.

  “Bullshit. Who the fuck has a name like that?”

  “Blacky Jaguar does.” He leans in. “Listen, I’d keep a clean nose about that dude. One of my buddies from the Bronx says he cleared out a chop shop in Hunts Point with a sawed-off full of rock salt and his boots. Off the boat mick maniac is what he is.”

  “For real? What is he doing here?”

  Leroy shrugs. “No clue, all I know is he wants to fight.”

  “A bunch of junkies? For what?”

  “No clue. He and Aleksei got some kind of weird deal going. The guy says he needs practice bashing in heads.”

  “That’s fucking bizarre.” I scratch my forearm and wince.

  “Yeah, well, try not to find yourself on the business end of his fists. He broke Reggie’s jaw the other night with one punch.”

  “Fuck. Is he here tonight?”

  “Who? Reggie? That guy’s done for the next few weeks.”

  “Fuck Reggie, I meant Blacky.”

  Leroy’s brows rise up. “You actually want him to be here?” He scans a dirty piece of notebook paper next to him. “He ain’t on the list, but I don’t think he’s scheduled talent like the rest of you assholes.”

  • • •

  It’s another month before I see Blacky again.
He strolls into the waiting room and plants himself on the couch next to me with a Cheshire grin. You’d think he fucking owned the place.

  “How we doing, then? Kenneth, right?” He lights a joint and looks right into me.

  “Yeah. I’m doing okay. Better than that poor bastard you dismantled tonight, for sure.” Something tells me Blacky’s not interested in Jim’s shattered left orbital. “How are you?”

  “I’m doing okay, thanks. More than okay. Seen you fight. Won your last, what, six matches?” He talks in a strange mile-a-minute staccato. Doesn’t work with the brogue—easy to miss words. Very unsettling.

  I nod. “Not much competition.”

  “Suppose so…still…” He smirks and exhales a thick, strong cloud right at me. “…six less arseholes who can claim one on you.” He leans in closer to me. “You fought professional level?”

  “Years ago.”

  “Oh yeah? Where at?”

  I scratch the back of my head and wonder where the hell Aleksei is with my payment. “I did the MMA thing for a while.”

  “Why’d yah stop? What happened?”

  “Broke my leg during a fight.”

  “So? You can walk—can clearly still fight.”

  “Yeah, I’m good now, just a piece of metal and few screws in there. Kinda got hooked on the meds, though.”

  “Ah, there’s the rub. That’s why you’re locked in this fucking death trap with the rest of the junkies.” Blacky pulls the joint from his lips and offers it to me. “I stick with weed or Bushmills. Either do the job, together is cake and eating it. How long you’ve been using?”

  “Less than a year—easier than convincing my doctor to let me get the pills again.” I take the offered spliff. “I hear you’re fighting just to fight?”

  That grin comes back. “Yep. Gotta keep the blood boiling. Figure a more…coordinated event keeps me from having to stir the pot out on the streets.”

  “Or you could join a boxing gym.” I hand the joint back. My head’s already spinning.