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

by Owen Laukkanen

  “They won’t charge me,” Jake said.

  “You sound awful sure of yourself.”

  “No witnesses.” Jake began ticking points on his fingers. “Bucky won’t say squat. We caught the principal screwing one of my teachers, so he won’t say squat. County don’t have the money for forensics on something that didn’t kill anyone. So why don’t you cut me a little frigging slack?”

  Ernest drew one of those prissy yellow cigarettes he kept loose in the breast pocket of his tailored button-down shirt, lit it with his silver Zippo infantry lighter, and took a few soft puffs while he thought the situation over. “You know we can’t have anyone looking at us, with all Kevin is working on, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Can’t have any police sniffing around, no school people…”

  “Right, right. I get it.”

  “So you’re grounded. If you’re going to set stuff on fire, stick to the property.” Ernest leaned over and hit the radio button, twisted the knob until heavy metal shook the car’s frame, his message clear: end of discussion.

  “Poop,” Jake yelled over the noise, leaned back in his seat, and pulled out his phone to text Bucky. With any luck, the video of the burning car was salvageable enough to put online. If they could rack up sufficient eyeballs on the destruction, it might translate into enough ad money to secure Jake a bit of beer and weed. A kid could always hope. Otherwise, the rest of this summer was going to be sadder than a Stephen Hawking exercise video.

  IV.

  Bucky fought through his morphine haze long enough to email the video over. As Jake uploaded it to YouTube he thought about doing something nice for his injured pal—a subscription to a prime porno site, maybe, so Bucky wouldn’t go completely insane recuperating under the roof of his fundamentalist parents.

  The video was pure Hollywood: the Buick centrally framed onscreen, the crisp pop of flames eating away the rag, the white flash as those flames hit the gas tank, the trunk rocketing toward the viewer at what seemed like a million miles an hour. He heard Bucky scream in high fidelity, and the view smeared as the phone went flying, bounced off the pavement once, and landed with its lens pointed at the perfect blue sky. That was worth a half-million viewers, easy. Before uploading, Jake spent fifteen minutes going through the video frame by frame, seeking any incriminating glimpses of his face. None. Perfect. At least something today was looking up.

  He heard footsteps downstairs, the click of the refrigerator opening, and the faint rattle of a beer bottle pulled from the machine’s frozen guts. That meant Kevin was home from whatever sketchiness he was building in the shack at the far end of the property. Jake closed his laptop and headed downstairs for a powwow.

  Kevin sat at the kitchen table, the overhead light burning down like an interrogation lamp. When Kevin returned from Iraq after four years of vaporizing insurgents, he had a catlike ability to predict where people would appear, and when, and would wait for them in his most frightening pose: massive arms crossed over his chest, eyes locked in his best Badass Stare. Kevin shaved his head every morning but allowed his beard to grow into a bear pelt dangling from his chin.

  “Heard you blew up the school, little bro,” Kevin said.

  “Just burned it a little,” Jake said. “Can I have a beer?”

  Kevin tilted his head toward the fridge, and Jake retrieved a cold one. Say what you will about Kevin, he always chose the best microbrew, even if it required driving forty-five minutes to buy some from the fancy store in Growler. If I’m going to soak my liver in alcohol, Kevin always said, I might as well soak it in the best.

  “Which cop talked to you?” Kevin said, gesturing for Jake to sit in the chair across from him.

  “Keegan.”

  “Huh.”

  “Told me he’d shoot me in the head, except the state wouldn’t look kindly on that,” Jake said, anxious to earn a little respect in his brother’s eyes. “Threatened me in all sorts of ways, and you know what I said? I looked him dead in the eye, said I wanted a lawyer.”

  “You didn’t tell him anything.”

  “No, sir.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I got nothing to tell him. It’s not like anyone around here’s sharing with me what’s going on. I know it’s big, whatever it is.”

  “We don’t share, and it’s for your own good.” Kevin’s voice rose a half-decibel but to Jake it was the same as if he’d started screaming his head off. “We share, you know a little something, you’re a tempting target for those who might get in our way. You understand?”

  Jake stared at the scarred tabletop. “Yes.”

  “Good. Because I love you, buddy. We all do. So what happens now?”

  “In terms of what?”

  “In terms of the court, you dumb monkey. You facing charges?”

  Jake laughed. “Nope.”

  Kevin’s stony face cracked, his eyebrows colliding in curiosity. “Why’s that? I thought you didn’t tell them nothing?” His hand tightened on the beer bottle, squeaking the wet glass.

  “I caught the principal with a teacher,” Jake said, chuckling as if it were the most hilarious thing in the history of comedy. “They must have been boning in the office or something, they came running outside with their clothes undone. They can’t say they witnessed anything without it wrecking their marriages, yeah?”

  But Kevin’s face stayed stony. “You know where they live?”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it, bro. Seriously.” The fear hit him, that electric jolt that rocketed up his spine so often when talking to Kevin.

  “We’ll see,” Kevin said. “You got any evidence? Shooting a video with your phone, anything like that?”

  “We shot a video,” Jake said. “Why else set the car on fire to begin with?”

  “Okay, delete it.”

  “Aw, man...”

  “I am serious as a heart attack. Get rid of it.”

  “It’s got nothing incriminating, no faces or anything,” Jake snorted. “You’re taking away my ad revenue, man.”

  “How much you’d earn off that?” Kevin asked.

  “Maybe five hundred,” Jake said, inflating future revenues by a generous margin.

  “I’m not one to separate a businessman from his money.” Kevin tugged his cash-roll from his jeans and peeled off several large bills. “This look like enough to you?”

  Jake nodded, his mind crackling with images of fragrant weed.

  “I’m buying something with this,” Kevin said, as he laid the bills on the table with slow ceremony. “Stay out of sight. Cops come around, call the lawyer, don’t engage, you get it?”

  Jake pocketed the bills.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” Kevin stood and headed for the kitchen doorway, revealing the skull tattooed on the back of his neck. “I got to head out for a little bit, but you stay out of trouble, you hear?”

  V.

  Kevin’s pickup chased its headlights onto the empty highway, Kevin making a phone call before hanging up and letting his mind drift into the night. He thought about his younger brother acting hard beyond his years, in that way of teenage boys. The kid hadn’t known pain yet—true pain, the kind that comes with watching your platoon buddies scream and die—and Kevin wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible. The scars appear soon enough.

  Twenty minutes later Kevin pulled into the Smokehouse’s parking lot, taking care to choose a spot where he could slam the gas and rocket onto the main road, yee-hah and gone in five seconds.

  When Kevin walked in, he made a point of dumping fifteen quarters into the vintage jukebox and cueing up the entirety of Bruce Springsteen’s catalog, setting “Radio Nowhere” first, because anyone who didn’t like the late-era Boss was either dead inside or un-American. The music for the next three hours having been set, Kevin took a seat at a rearmost table and waggled his eyebrows at Lola, who worked Tuesday and Thursday nights and managed to sling heavy trays despite a left hand missing two fingers. Kevin saw Lola as a
fellow survivor, another member of the Missing Body Parts club, although in Kevin’s case it wasn’t so much lost limbs or digits but roughly a pound and a half of flesh cored from his torso, calves, forearms, and back.

  “You want that fancy stuff, right?” Lola asked, swooping near.

  Kevin nodded. “Yeah, and some nachos, extra everything, please and thank you.”

  She offered a little smile and disappeared into the crowd, returning a few minutes later with the beer and food. Kevin had scooped out the first bit of salty nacho goodness when Jeremy appeared at the far end of the room, in his pearls and bright purple shirt, blending in among the late-shift autoworkers and roughnecks about as well as a rose in a rusty scrap heap. He offered Kevin a finger-wiggle and sauntered over.

  Kevin wiped his hands on a paper napkin and leaned back in his seat. “Hello again.”

  “Hello, handsome.” Jeremy took a seat, crossed his legs, and made a show of adjusting the alligator-leather strap of his very expensive wristwatch. “I hope you haven’t been waiting too long.”

  “You’re actually on time, for once.” Kevin knuckled the nacho platter an inch in Jeremy’s direction, and the man winced as if Kevin had shoved a corkscrew through his palm—probably concerned about consuming a plateful of cholesterol. Kevin didn’t expect to live much past thirty-five, which meant he could gleefully consume any greasy, spicy food his tongue desired: yet another benefit to being an outlaw.

  “I do my best,” Jeremy said, trying to wave down Lola. Kevin ticked his peripheral vision a few degrees to the left, to better scope the four cowboys hanging out by the dingy pinball machine, all of them glancing over with unfriendly eyes. “How are you?”

  “Friggin’ great,” Kevin sighed. “My little brother just tried to set a school on fire.”

  “Why would he ever do that?”

  “Because it’s school. What, you were never a teenager?”

  “Did they arrest him?”

  “Yeah, but it’s okay. He’s getting off.” Kevin helped himself to another handful of nachos, scanning the pinball cowboys again. He didn’t like the way they kept looking at Jeremy. “We’re grounding him for the rest of the summer. You got my USB stick?”

  “Darling, I would have just emailed you the files.”

  “No good. Don’t you know the NSA watches everything?” Kevin laughed. “Last thing I need is more government up in my business.”

  Jeremy rolled his eyes. “Yes, I brought it. What are you planning to do with it?”

  “What do you care?”

  “I like knowing what I’m an accessory to.”

  “We’re starting a cute little flower store. Reach under, you want your cash.” Kevin slipped the fat envelope from the inner pocket of his jacket and passed it under the table with a hustler’s slight of hand. Jeremy tugged it away, and Kevin kept his arm under the table until he felt a bit of cold plastic in his palm.

  “You think grounding your brother is the best idea?” Jeremy asked.

  “Why?” Kevin said, pocketing the USB stick.

  “He sets the school on fire, gets away with it, that’s not someone you ground—that’s someone you give a job.” Jeremy toyed with his pearls. “Sounds like he’s a chip off the old block.”

  Kevin’s eyes flickered with emotion. “I don’t want him getting hurt.”

  “It’s life, dear: he’s getting hurt one way or another. He might as well make some cash doing it.” Jeremy tilted his head toward the pinball machines. “Speaking of hurt, see those crackers over there? I don’t think they like my style. Walk me out?”

  “No. Go out the back.”

  Jeremy sighed. “Why are you always so cruel?”

  “We walk out together, maybe get into a fight with those guys, people will remember. Last thing we want is people remembering us here.”

  “Thanks for nothing.” Jeremy mimed spitting into the nachos. “But seriously, consider taking the kid on. You had to learn somewhere, too, right?” He stood, with another anxious look around. “Actually, never mind my advice. You’re a bastard. Goodnight.”

  Kevin almost responded with something witty, or at least profane. Instead he kept his gaze fixed straight ahead as Jeremy disappeared down the hallway that led to the bathrooms and the rear exit.

  When Kevin glanced back at the pinball machines, the cowboys had split, leaving their beers and half-finished games behind. Kevin drained his glass, sighed, and stood up.

  Outside he saw Jeremy first, his shirt a flash of purple at the edge of the bar’s flickering neon glow. The darkness made it an ideal place for a pack of drunks to kick someone to death—and here they came, slinking between the parked cars like wolves.

  Kevin took a deep breath, his heart racing like it did every waking minute in Iraq. He came up behind the last cowboy in the line, wrapped both hands around the man’s neck, and slammed his skull hard into a convenient truck door. The man went down without a groan, but his boots hammered the dirt loud and that made the rest of them turn around. Kevin already had his fist rocketing into the surprised face of the next-closest cowboy, who squealed as he fell. They were soft, these punks, and too drunk for hard work. The other two ran away.

  To his credit, Jeremy seemed calm as he squinted to examine the bodies. Something in their broken forms met his approval: he smirked and nodded before unlocking his garish rental vehicle. “Like I said, take your brother on,” he said as he buckled in. “The world can use more people like you.”

  “Maybe I will,” Kevin said, and stood watching as Jeremy’s car raced for the road. The idea made sense. Hadn’t he started out as a vandal, too? We all need to begin somewhere.

  Young Turks

  And Old Wives

  Shane Simmons

  The apartment tower sticks out of the neighbourhood like a single broken tooth. Chipped white concrete exposes the rusty checkerboard rebar just under the surface. If somebody doesn’t condemn the building, it’ll fall down all on its own one day. Sooner rather than later, fingers crossed. A pile of rubble would be less of an eyesore. Wipe that fuck-ugly building off the map and the money would still be left standing. The money wouldn’t go away. It would find another dark corner to go hide in, like the rats and the cockroaches.

  It’s the first of the month which means rain or shine, shit or storm, I have to get my ass down there to cook the books. They send a car around to pick me up at my house. It’s not that they don’t trust me to show up on time, it’s that I don’t trust that hellhole to leave my car alone for a ten-minute appointment. This is one of my conditions. The other is that they send a respectable looking driver in a respectable looking vehicle. No gangstas in a muscle car, hopping around on hydraulics and jacked up on blow. What would the neighbours say?

  Today it’s a new guy and a new car, both acceptable. The car is luxury but non-descript, the driver sharply dressed, also non-descript. We don’t bother with introductions. It’s not important we know each other’s name so long as we know where we fit in with the organization.

  “You new?” is all I ask him.

  He’s too mature, too well dressed, carries himself too well, to be new talent. But I haven’t seen him around before. He’s either from out of town, or operates locally in circles I have no personal contact with.

  “Not really,” is as much explanation as I get from him. It suits me. We listen to the radio instead of making small talk.

  Half an hour later, we’re in another world. Urban sprawl gives way to urban blight, and finally urban apocalypse. This is the part of town the degenerates and lowlifes look down their noses at. Nobody comes here unless they’re looking to score, and nobody stays longer than it takes to get well. Even the hard-core junkies, jonesing for a fix, will wait until they’re clear of the area and among a better class of scumbag before they shoot up.

  We pull alongside the curb and I have to look through the sunroof to see the top. Thanks to some zoning kickbacks decades earlier, it’s the only tower for blocks. Once upon a time, somebod
y wanted to build a high-rise and paid the necessary bribes down at city hall to make it happen. Maybe they thought it would be catching, that urban renewal would spread like a virus. They didn’t realize the whole neighbourhood was already terminal.

  In a dodgy corner of town, the tower was gleaming and modern for the first few years. But it was cheaply built, badly maintained, and by the end of its first decade of existence, it was such a dump it looked like it had been standing there as long as all the century-old tenements it dwarfed. When it was repurposed as something known locally as The Factory many years later, all those levels were put to good use. These days there’s a meth lab on seven. The coke-cutters are on nine. Stolen brand-name meds are packed and distributed throughout three and four. Homemade pills are milled out on five and six. Everything is nicely compartmentalized on a floor-by-floor basis.

  Eleven through fourteen serve as a grow-op jungle of pot plants and sun lamps. The windows are painted black to keep the place from shining like a lighthouse beacon all night long. Extension cords run across telephone poles and plug into neighbouring buildings to help distribute the energy demand, but the lamps suck up so much juice the electric company has to know they’re feeding a mary-jane greenhouse. And if they know, the cops know. But a raid has never materialized. Cops like a toke of quality weed just like the next guy, and who wants to fuck up a good thing? Through hassle or hustle, one way or the other they all get their piece once the goods hit the street. Nobody is willing to step up, make an arrest, and become the most hated boy scout in the troop.

  Or maybe the cops just don’t want a high-profile drug collar to turn into an even higher-profile bloodbath. The lobby of the building is always thick with lookouts. There’s never a shortage of young men willing to keep an eye out for a small cut of the take and a taste of the wares. Paranoid and packing, they’re itching for a fight that might be coming with every strange face that walks down the street, every unfamiliar car that drives past their block.