Gutshot Straight with Bonus Excerpt

by Lou Berney

  But, seriously, damn. This was taking forever.

  “Just grab the whole fucking thing!” Lucy blurted, her voice rough and panicked.

  Gina kept shuffling methodically through the Rolodex and didn’t look up.

  “He can’t notice anything’s missing,” Gina said. “That’s the whole point.” She tapped her bean. “You see? Always thinking.”

  And then, finally, almost to the very last card—there it was. Had to be.

  ROLAND ZIEGLER.

  PANAMA.

  No address, but a phone number.

  “Let’s go!” Lucy said.

  Gina copied Roland Ziegler’s phone number onto the inside of her wrist with a ballpoint pen, then put the card back where it belonged.

  “Gotcha,” Gina said with a smile, as Eddie Van Halen’s opening riff started ringing all over again in her head.

  Panama … ah … ah.

  BACK IN THE PARKING LOT, Gina took Lucy’s hands in both of hers.

  “I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me, Loosey Ends.”

  “Let me come with you.”

  “Too risky. I’ll call you the minute I cash out. Then we’ll hook up on Maui.”

  “No you won’t.

  We won’t.” “I promise!

  I will!”

  Lucy usually wasn’t very complicated, but Gina was surprised by the smile Lucy gave her now—resigned and amused and pissed. Heartbroken, but also relieved.

  “You promise,” she said.

  “I do!” Gina protested. But before she could go on, Lucy gave her a quick kiss to shut her up.

  “Take care of yourself, okay?” Lucy said. Then she turned and walked away and hailed one of the cabs that lurked along the east side of the Jungle.

  How, Gina wondered, did Lucy know she was lying about Maui, when Gina herself hadn’t even realized it until a second ago?

  That question, and Lucy’s walking away without a smile or a wave back at her, made Gina feel a little melancholy.

  She climbed into the Town Car and fired it up, then rolled down her window, because this time of night, three in the morning, the breeze in the desert was never cooler, never sweeter.

  Before she could shift into drive, though, a bright red muscle car rolled up in front of her, cutting her off.

  She felt a little trill of excitement—fight! flight!

  Shake!

  He strolled over, rested his forearms on her open window, smiled.

  She smiled back.

  Chapter 21

  Mr. Vanilla Milk Shake,” she said.

  “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” he said. Shake supposed he should be mad at her for everything she’d done to him, and he was. But more than mad, he was relieved, especially when he spotted the briefcase she’d stolen lying in the backseat be hind her.

  And, oddly, more than relieved, he was just happy to see her again.

  Eyes a pale green in this light. Crooked smile. Dusting of freckles across the bridge of her interesting nose. Shake had liked Gina’s face the first time he saw it, but he found it even more appealing now that he’d had a glimpse of what was really behind it.

  “I just knew it,” she said. “I had a feeling.”

  “Did you?”

  “That you were following us.”

  “Your sexy friend doesn’t lie nearly as well as you do.”

  “She’s got a heart of gold,” Gina confided.

  “What’s your heart made of?”

  She scoffed. “Who needs a heart these days?”

  She was looking in the rearview mirror. Shake decided to provide assistance.

  “There’s a car parked behind you. I’m parked in front of you. You’re not going anywhere.”

  “Why would I want to go anywhere?” she asked with surprise that seemed so genuine that Shake had to think, or hope, at least part of it might be.

  Then, “Sexier than me?”

  “I’d lose the Pocahontas wig,” Shake said. “It doesn’t really suit you.”

  She seemed suddenly to remember the black wig with braids and peeled it off.

  “Are you gonna answer the question?” she asked.

  “Sexy is subjective,” he said. “It’s in the eye of the beholder.”

  “Does that approach really work on some girls?” she said, amused. “Where you pretend you’re not that interested? Throw them off and make them wonder?”

  “You’re sexier than your friend with the heart of gold and the great legs,” he admitted. “Yes.”

  “Was that so hard?”

  Shake smiled, though, because he could see that Gina couldn’t help wondering how her own legs stacked up. But the hell if she was gonna let him know that.

  “I was thinking earlier,” she said. “It’s like Snow White. You know? The evil queen sends her huntsman to kill Snow White. He takes her into the woods, but then he feels sorry for her and lets her go.”

  “Funny. I don’t remember Snow White drugging the huntsman, cuffing him to a bathroom sink, and robbing him blind.”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s in there. You should rent the DVD.”

  And with that she grinned, jerked into reverse, cut the wheel hard to the right, punched the gas. The Town Car’s nose whipped left, almost knocking Shake on his ass. The back bumper clipped the Honda Civic parked behind. The Civic, much lighter than the Town Car, lurched sideways, and Gina, cranking her wheel, careened backward through the gap.

  “Shit,” Shake said. He hopped back into Vader’s Road Runner and took off after her. He gunned toward the parking-lot exit to cut her off, but she anticipated that and—still in reverse—jumped the curb behind him. By the time he made it onto the Strip, she was at least several blocks ahead of him.

  Good luck with that, he thought. No Lincoln Town Car in the world was going to win a race with a 1969 Plymouth Road Runner that could do the quarter mile in thirteen seconds. Even discounting, Shake thought modestly, the professional wheelman who was making that run.

  He ate up the distance between them in about a heartbeat.

  Gina slalomed between two cabs and stomped it on the straightaway.

  “Huh,” Shake mused to the miniature travel gnome hanging by a miniature noose from the rearview, “all that and the girl can drive, too.”

  He slalomed around the same two cabs. Gina glanced in her mirror at him. Shake lifted a finger off the wheel to wave.

  “Better watch the road,” he counseled her as they neared the south end of the Strip, where traffic was heavier, even at three in the morning. Up ahead, across from the Venetian, a fender bender had locked up most of the southbound lanes.

  Gina pounded the brakes and squealed to a stop a foot from the back of a city bus.

  Shake stopped, too, several cars back, and climbed out of Vader’s Road Runner.

  A drunk panhandler on the corner noticed Shake. He glanced around to remind himself where he was, then tuned his pitch accordingly.

  “Mi amico,” he said. “Spare a little something for the troops?”

  Shake tossed him the keys to Vader’s Road Runner.

  “All yours,” he said. “Treat her right.”

  The panhandler looked at the keys. Looked at the car.

  Shake walked up the line of cars. Gina was pounding her horn, but traffic was barely inching forward. He tapped the barrel of Jasper’s .45 against her passenger window.

  She slapped the horn once more, in frustration, then hit the button and unlocked the doors.

  Shake slid in next to her.

  “What do you say,” he suggested, “we go somewhere quiet to talk?”

  Chapter 22

  Gina stewed and steamed all the way to Caesar’s. He directed her to pull off there and park in the big garage. When she killed the engine, he held out his hand. Gina pretended for a second she didn’t know what he wanted—she figured it was worth a try—then dropped the car keys in his palm. He set them on the dash but kept the gun in his hand.

 
; She didn’t think he’d actually shoot her, but she’d been wrong about these sorts of things before, so she played it cool.

  Funny thing? She was glad, in a way, he’d caught her. Or maybe she was glad he was the one who caught her, if someone was going to do it.

  He smelled nice, like lavender.

  “Did you take a shower?”

  “No,” he said, “but I did use shampoo. Thanks for noticing.”

  “You’re not gonna give me up, are you? The Whale’s a bad fella, Shake, I’m not fooling.”

  “So you thought it would be a good idea to rip him off?”

  She giggled. “You heard about that, huh?”

  “I’m all up to speed on you now.”

  She doubted that. So did he, by the way he was looking at her. She liked that look.

  “Almost three hundred large. Cash. Sweet.”

  “Till Moby put the word out and the Armenians dinged you in L.A.”

  “I mean, what are the odds? A whole big city, and that lady with the gray eyes, she and I end up at the same party?”

  “You’d be surprised how the odds don’t apply when you most need them to. That’s been my unfortunate experience.” Then he said, “No.”

  She worked back. “No you’re not going to give me up?”

  “I’m going to bring that briefcase to the gray-eyed lady you mentioned and hope she forgives and forgets.”

  “She’s your boss?” she asked, testing him. He was a guy, after all.

  “She’s not my boss.”

  “But you work for her?” All innocent.

  “Does that approach work on some guys?” he said.

  Gina smiled. “She’ll do that, you think? Forgive and forget?”

  It was the first time, really, since she’d met him, that he didn’t look calm and sure of himself. He’d managed to look calm and sure of himself—vanilla milk shake, cool like ice cream—even when she’d handcuffed him to the pipe under the sink.

  “I think she harbors a certain fondness for me that may, possibly—if I’m lucky, if she’s in a good mood, if professional considerations don’t factor too heavily—may inform her decision.”

  “What are the odds, right?”

  He sighed. “What are the odds Moby’s bagman would find me, this entire city, in less than half a day?”

  She scooted over a little closer to him and put her hand on his knee.

  “So listen,” she said. “Here’s an idea.”

  He lifted her hand off his knee. He set it back on the steering wheel.

  “I’m taking the stamps,” he said.

  “They’re not stamps.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “They’re foreskins.”

  He looked at her.

  “You don’t want to know,” she said. “It’s a long story. But the important thing—”

  “I’m taking them. Whatever they are.”

  “Don’t you want to know what they’re worth?”

  “Definitely not.”

  She held up a finger. Then another one. Then three, four, and a thumb. She gave him a Queen Elizabeth wave, all wrist.

  He wanted to ask. Gina knew he did. So she waited. She could wait, when necessary, with the best of them. Sure enough, after a second …

  “Five hundred grand?” he asked.

  “Five million.”

  She liked that his eyes didn’t go wide, that he didn’t whistle or say “Holy shit.” He kept his cool.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Gets better,” she said. “I have the name of the guy the Whale was going to sell them to.”

  “The foreskins.”

  “I know. It’s weird. They’re ancient religious relics or something. They used to keep them in cathedrals, in special relic holders.”

  “Reliquaries.”

  “Wow!”

  “I grew up in New Orleans,” he explained. “Everyone’s a Catholic.”

  “Roland Ziegler is the guy’s name.”

  Shake laughed. Gina didn’t like not having any idea why.

  “What?”

  “Roland Ziegler is the buyer?”

  “So?”

  “Roland Ziegler is a ghost.”

  “A ghost like dead?”

  “A ghost like invisible.”

  “Explain, please.” She was enjoying this: It was like a business conference, it was like they were already partners.

  “Roland Ziegler is a fugitive. The DOJ’s been wanting him in a bad way for nine, ten years.”

  “Who’d he kill?”

  “That’s not why the DOJ would want you in a bad way.”

  Gina considered. “Money.”

  “Very good,” Shake said. His approval gave Gina a little tingle, she was embarrassed to admit. She put her hand back on his knee. He picked it up and set it right on the steering wheel again. “He managed a hedge fund back in the nineties. I know about him because he helped the Armenians set up some burn companies.”

  “But that’s not why the feds want him.”

  “No. His big play, he swindled a bunch of old folks out of their retirement savings. I heard he cleared north of a hundred million. Probably an exaggeration, but probably not much of one. The feds busted him, but he got bail and bounced before the ink was dry. He’s not been seen nor heard from since.”

  “A hundred million. That means he can afford to buy himself some foreskins, doesn’t it?”

  “Did I mention the DOJ’s been hunting him for nine, ten years? Did I mention he’s not been seen nor heard from since? Did I mention he’s invisible?”

  “I know where he is.”

  “Panama?”

  “Hey! You know?”

  “That’s one rumor.” He shrugged. “Croatia is another one. Penang, too, I think.”

  “Well, Mr. Cool, I know for certain he’s in Panama.”

  She told him about the index card she’d found in the Whale’s Rolodex. And the phone number.

  Shake laughed again. Again, Gina didn’t like not knowing why.

  “What’s so funny, sport?”

  He dug around in the glove box, found a cell phone, handed it to her. “Call the number,” he said.

  “Where’d you get this?” she asked.

  “It came with you, the car, and all the trouble I’m in. Call the number.”

  “Fine,” she said. She read the number off the inside of her wrist, dialed, put the phone on speaker. After a few rings, a woman’s recorded voice said something in Spanish. Then the same woman’s voice told them in English they’d reached Anita’s Bakery in Panama City, Panama. Please place your order at the beep.

  Gina killed the call. “I must have dialed the wrong number.”

  “It’s not the wrong number. It’s a telephone dead drop.”

  She frowned. “You have to know what to order.”

  “The code. That’s my guess.”

  Gina shrugged it away. Minor setback. “We know he’s in Panama for sure, then. That’s something.”

  “A capital city of seven hundred thousand inhabitants. Throw in, once you get out of the city, remote jungles, inaccessible mountains, private islands, a culture of corruption, and a guy, with money to burn, who doesn’t want to be found.”

  “You want me to do the math, right?”

  “I hate that cliché.”

  “Me, too.” Gina considered. “Panama. I thought there was just a canal.”

  “The country is a beautiful, fascinating, undiscovered gem.”

  “And a tailor. And a hat.”

  “The hat was actually invented in Ecuador.”

  “Do a lot of reading in the joint, did you?”

  “New York Times Sunday travel section, cover to cover. You can understand why. I hear the food down there’s good.”

  “Fine. We go down there and flush his multimillion-dollar ass out of hiding.”

  Shake started to laugh and almost said, How we gonna do that? Just as Gina expected. But then he stopped himself. Gina expected that
, too.

  Shake studied her briefly. She enjoyed the moment.

  “It’s not a half-bad idea,” he said slowly. “But it’s not a half-good one either.”

  “He wants these foreskins. If we put the word out, he’ll come to us.”

  “If we’re not careful, he won’t be the only one.”

  “So we’ll be careful. We’ll sell out and split the take, fifty-fifty.”

  He studied her some more.

  “Or you can just go back to your lady boss and explain what happened. I’m sure she’s very fond of you. I know I am, and I’ve barely known you twenty-four hours.”

  “Well, we’ve been through a lot together, Gina,” he said.

  Gina smiled. She liked that he could tease her and at the same time still be serious (his mind turning and turning—she could see it in his eyes) about what she was proposing. She liked that he didn’t seem to be trying to talk himself into, or out of, the idea but was just squaring the corners up in his mind, taking a cool, objective look at all the angles.

  “If we’re gonna do this,” he said finally, and Gina felt a bounce of happiness, “I need to know what they—these foreskins—are really worth. If they’re really foreskins. Which a large part of me hopes they’re not.”

  “I told you already,” she said, “they’re worth five million dollars.”

  “Your source?”

  Gina shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “An expert,” she said.

  “What I thought,” he said. “Forgive me if I’d prefer some independent verification.”

  “So what do you suggest?”

  “You’re the local girl.”

  She thought about it while Shake took the car keys off the dash and jiggled them in the hand that wasn’t holding the gun.

  “That’s making me nervous,” she said.

  “Good.”

  “Wait!” She remembered a regular of hers, a shy, awkward, older guy who always wore a tie and a corduroy jacket to the club. He was a professor at UNLV. “I know someone who might know something. Let’s go!”

  Shake just jiggled the keys in his hand for another minute. Gina had the feeling he wasn’t merely trying to decide whether or not he wanted to visit this someone who might know something about the worth of the foreskins; he was trying to decide whether or not he wanted in on the $5 million. With her.

  She remembered the same look on his face back in the motel room this morning—yesterday morning?—when he’d been trying to decide whether or not to give her up to Jasper.