Die Laughing: 5 Comic Crime Novels

by Steve Brewer

  “That could explain why he thinks you’re in Fowler. He said Shamu’s looking for you. If he finds you—”

  “I’m being careful. But you might want to find out what else Lola told him. She’s your leak, not the accountant.”

  Nick stubbed out his cigarette. “I’ll have a talk with her. You can count on that.”

  “What about Kelton?”

  “I was thinking about shooting him.”

  “He’s got a lot of guns on his side.”

  “Whoever gets in the way gets a bullet.”

  “Maybe that’s the only way,” Tony said, “but I hate to rush things.”

  “You’re not the one he’s threatening to hand over to the cops.”

  “I know, but look at this from my professional point of view,” Tony said. “Big Jim Kelton is a rich man. We kill him and what do we have? A body to clean up. But if we rob him, we maybe hit the jackpot.”

  Nick lit another Winston and blew the smoke out his nose. He said, “Stealing from Big Jim won’t make him go away.”

  “It would make him mad. Might make him careless.”

  “True. Then I could put a bullet in his head.”

  “That,” Tony said, “would be entirely up to you.”

  Chapter 52

  Rex Mangrum wouldn’t have fallen for it if the caller had been a man. But there was such promise in the unfamiliar woman’s sultry voice, he couldn’t pass up the chance that it was all real, that his fucking dreams had come true.

  She asked him to come to the Starlite Casino and get her. She wanted to talk to him, needed to talk to him about something important. But she was afraid. She wanted someone to walk her over to the Rancho Palomino, where she’d tell him something that would mean a lot to Big Jim. Of course, he quizzed her on what it could be, but she wouldn’t talk over the phone.

  “Just come get me,” she whispered. “Hurry.”

  “How will I know you?”

  “I’ll know you.”

  “What’s your name?”

  The breathy way she said, “Eve,” Rex got a vision of snakes and apples and sin.

  Then he was out the door, weaving between parked cars, walking as fast as possible for a man wearing cowboy boots and an erection. He made his way across the blazing asphalt, not slowing until he reached a shaded sidewalk running alongside the Starlite. He turned a corner, the sun in his eyes, just as a vehicle roared up beside him. A dark van with its side door open. What the hell?

  Bam! The collision was so sudden, so unexpected, that Rex’s brain first processed it as a car wreck. Oh, my God, his brain said, I’ve been hit by a car. And I’m blind.

  Then he registered a color, a shape, appearing out of the darkness, a big tan hand coming down over his face. Smack on the mouth. It hurt. But it focused his eyes.

  “Mmrmrph!” Rex protested.

  A giant watermelon of a head swam into view. An enormous man with narrow eyes and a thin mustache. The man was lying on top of Rex, squashing him in places not intended to be squashed.

  Rex sorted it out. This linebacker had run down the sidewalk and knocked him inside the van. Right into the open door of a moving vehicle. Then, zoom, they were back on the highway. Superior timing, Rex had to give them that.

  The big man wrested Rex’s gun out of its holster and pointed it at the ceiling. He flipped open the cylinder and gave the gun a shake so the bullets fell out all over Rex’s face.

  When Rex opened his eyes, his head was twisted to the side, toward the driver of the van, a thin younger man with lank brown hair. The driver glanced back at them, smiling, said, “Coast is clear, Angie. Do your stuff.”

  The big man rolled off Rex, who gasped for breath.

  A fist the size of a brick hit him in the chest, knocking the wind right back out of him. Rex curled up, clutching his chest. The big man punched him again, on the side of the head, getting enough of the ear that Rex heard a pop and whistle, like a bottle rocket.

  “Jesus!” he gasped.

  The thug hit him twice in the gut. Rex writhed, trying to get out of range, but the blows kept coming, body shots taking the wind out of him as he rolled around on the floor of the van. He tried to raise up on an elbow, and he saw the next punch coming. The big man was up on his knees, and he let one go from the shoulder, a beauty of a punch, really, that caught Rex right on the chin.

  After that, Rex didn’t see anything.

  Chapter 53

  Ross was digging the mirrored sunglasses. Only pricks wore mirrored sunglasses, which meant you saw them a lot in casinos. Ross liked the way the reflective shades hid his busy, busy eyes as he strolled between rows of slot machines at Rancho Palomino, headed toward the lobby, right on schedule.

  The front doors were automatic sliders made of heavy tinted glass. Whenever they opened, dazzling light from the setting sun poured into the lobby. Then, whoosh, the doors closed again. It was as if the casino kept blinking its eyes.

  The desert sunlight bounced off the golden coat of the stuffed palomino that stood proudly in the lobby, corralled in blue velvet ropes. Big Jim Kelton’s pride and joy, Lucky. Ross stopped beside the knee-high stanchions and admired the horse’s fine lines.

  The doors slid open just as a dark blue van screeched to a stop in the valet zone. The side door rattled open and Angie – looking particularly fetching with a stocking pulled over his head, smooshing his nose and ears – tossed out a bundle of flesh and clothes. It bounced twice on the pavement, right in front of two red-vested valets.

  The bundle clearly was a man, but he was all upside down. His pants were over his head and his belt was cinched around his neck. The legs of the pants were like floppy bunny ears. His suit jacket was pulled down off his shoulders, and twisted wrong-side-out over his arms, pinning his hands together behind his bare thighs. From the waist down, he wore only saggy briefs and cowboy boots. His knees were bloody from impact with the sidewalk.

  The man groaned. The sound made everyone freeze, coming, as it did, from his pants.

  Angie tossed out a cowboy hat, then slammed the door. Tires squealed as the van sped away, leaving the squirming bundle behind.

  “Help!” the pants yelled. “I’ve been kidnapped! Help! Where the hell am I?”

  One of the thick-necked valets had a thought for the first time in a year, and he turned to the other and said, “That sounds like Mr. Mangrum!”

  The lobby guards hustled over to the entrance and helped the valets stare at their half-naked boss. Finally, it occurred to one of them to remove the pants from the security chief’s head. While the khaki-uniformed guard knelt over Rex, the others clustered around to watch.

  Ross used the distraction to step over the low velvet ropes around Lucky the palomino. He patted the horse on the butt, a giddy-up gesture the guards never would’ve allowed if they hadn’t been busy turning their boss right side out.

  He stepped back over the ropes and slipped through the crowd that edged forward to check out the commotion. As Ross passed a mirror, he saw himself reflected in his own mirrored shades. A big shit-eating grin on each of his faces.

  Chapter 54

  Big Jim Kelton stormed down the stairs, his bodyguard thudding barefoot behind him.

  “What the hell is going on down there?” Big Jim shouted back over his shoulder. “They said on the phone that somebody tossed Rex out of a car!”

  Shamu had nothing to offer. Sometimes, it was like talking to a goddamn rock.

  Jim shoved through the office door and out onto the gaming floor. The usual collection of gamblers remained attached to slot machines as if they relied on them for life-support. But a crowd also had formed in the lobby, clogging the front entrance. The last rays of the setting sun haloed their heads.

  “Look at that,” Big Jim said. “That’s a fire marshal’s wet dream right there. Get those people out of that lobby.”

  Shamu swam into the crowd. Didn’t say a word. Just loomed over people, who scattered like minnows.

  The valets par
ted, and Big Jim could see Rex sitting on the pavement, pulling on his pants. He was battered and bleeding and his thin hair was askew.

  “What the hell’s going on here?” Big Jim demanded.

  One of the security guards, a young ass-kisser named Monroe, said, “Somebody threw Mr. Mangrum out of a moving vehicle.”

  “It was a van,” somebody else said. “And it was stopped when they threw him out.”

  “What’s with his pants?”

  “They put ‘em over my head!” Rex sputtered. “Kidnapped me and used my own pants against me!”

  He buckled his belt and creaked to his feet, the guards gingerly helping him. Every time they touched him, he winced with pain.

  “Who was it, Rex? And what the hell did they want?”

  “Never seen ‘em before. They clearly wanted to beat the hell out of me, that’s all I know. I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck.”

  “Help him inside,” Big Jim said. “Can you make it to my office?”

  One of the valets handed Rex his hat as he shuffled away.

  Shamu finished chasing off the gawkers and joined Big Jim on the sidewalk.

  “Get a doctor over here to look at Rex,” Big Jim said. “And tell Security to bring in some extra people.”

  “Too late now,” Shamu said. “Whoever beat him up is gone.”

  “I think they’re just getting started.” Big Jim’s eyes roamed the casino entrance and the strip beyond. “They’re setting us up for something. Put Security on full alert.”

  While Shamu got on his cell with the security office upstairs, Big Jim did a lap around the horseshoe-shaped driveway, anxiously checking for suspicious vehicles.

  Surely, those assholes didn’t believe they could rob casinos in the same town and get away with it twice. Surely, they weren’t that fucking stupid.

  “Tell ‘em to double the security detail,” he said when he got back to Shamu, who still held the little phone to the side of his head. “Bring the next shift in early.”

  “Okay.”

  Big Jim strode through the lobby, past his beautiful palomino. His gaze glided along the horse’s smooth flanks and round rump to the perfectly groomed blond tail.

  Wait. What the hell was that? Something on Lucky’s haunch. He stopped and looked closer. A cardboard package the size of a paperback book was stuck to the horse’s coat with two strips of black tape. One of the strips was peeling away from the weight of the thing.

  “Shamu! What the hell is that?”

  The bodyguard, phone still to his ear, stepped over for a closer look just as the little firebomb flashed to life on the horse’s ass. Bits of fire and fur and blond tail whipped across his face.

  Lucky erupted into a fireball that blackened the lobby ceiling. The beautiful blond mane instantly curled and turned to smoke.

  Shamu was knocked backward by the blast, and Big Jim caught him in his arms. He spun the blinking bodyguard around and patted away the flames licking at his hair and clothes. Shamu’s face looked like he’d walked into a weed whacker. His eyebrows and eyelashes were gone, and one broad cheek was a bubbling burn that made Big Jim think of lasagna.

  “Shamu! Can you hear me?”

  Sprinklers came on throughout the casino. Icy water showered from the ceiling, soaking everyone and cascading over everything.

  Big Jim said, “Shit.”

  Then people were running past them, screaming and crying and coughing on smoke, their drenched clothes pasted to their bodies. Guards directed people outside, and sirens sounded nearby. Big Jim steered Shamu toward the street, away from the flickering carcass of one damned good horse.

  As soon as they broke out into the fresh air, Big Jim spotted that loudmouth guard, Monroe, soaking wet, directing foot traffic. He motioned him over.

  “Fire Department’s on the way,” Monroe said.

  Big Jim coughed a couple of times, then said, “Tell Security those thieves might try to sneak in, pretending to be firemen.”

  Cough.

  “Tell them to go to red alert, you hear me? This is all part of a plan. They’re trying to find our weak spot, so they can steal from me.”

  “Who?”

  “The people who just blew up my horse, you damned idiot. Who do you think? They’re thieves. It’s part of their plan. Get on your radio. Put people on every exit.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Big Jim turned back to Shamu, who stood blinking at the curb. He still had the cell phone to his ear, but he wasn’t getting a signal.

  “Shamu? Can you hear me? Are you okay?”

  “I’m all right.”

  “You don’t look all right. You look like somebody beat you with a fucking torch. You’re still on fire a little bit.”

  Big Jim slapped at the smoldering shoulder of Shamu’s tracksuit.

  “There you go. Just stand right there. Ambulance is on the way.”

  “I’m all right. Do you think it’s Tony Zinn?”

  “Who else? Bunch of jokers, think they’re being funny. Beating up Rex. Blowing up Lucky for no good reason at all. That ain’t fair and it ain’t right. They’re setting something up. I can feel it.”

  “If it’s Zinn, let me have him.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Big Jim realized they were shouting. His hearing was still coming back. “For now, go to the hospital and let them patch you up.”

  “I’m all right.”

  “Yeah, but you’re getting blood everywhere.”

  Big Jim turned to Monroe, who buzzed around like a goddamned bumblebee, and said, “Put Shamu on the first available ambulance. I want him patched up and back here as fast as possible.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Red alert, Monroe. Red fucking alert.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Monroe took custody of Shamu, grasping his elbow as if it were a live bomb. A fire truck came wailing into the parking lot.

  Water dripping off the brim of his hat, Big Jim went back into the hazy casino. Carpet squished underfoot. The sprinklers had been shut off, but several slot machines had shorted out and were hissing and crackling. The place had emptied out, except for a few loyal employees standing around, soaked through and breathing through their handkerchiefs.

  Big Jim’s cell phone vibrated.

  “Now what?”

  He fumbled the phone out of his pocket, noticing a hole burned clean through the sleeve of his thousand-dollar suit. Absolutely ruined. Those motherfuckers.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Jim, it’s Nick Papadopoulos.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Other way around. I’ve got something you want.”

  Big Jim coughed some more, then said, “What have you got?”

  “Tony Zinn.”

  “No shit?”

  “I’m looking right at him.”

  “What’s he doing?”

  “Not much. I’m holding a gun on him.”

  “Hot damn, boy, that’s what I like to hear. Where are you?”

  “I’ll bring him to you.”

  “Things are a little mixed up here at the moment—”

  “Your house. I’ll bring him to your house.”

  “I’m kinda in the middle of—”

  “I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.”

  Click.

  “Son of a bitch!” Big Jim nearly threw the phone across the casino, but he caught himself and stuffed it in his pocket.

  The cocksuckers were setting him up, for sure. Trying to get him out of the way so they could knock over Rancho Palomino. He wasn’t falling for it.

  He hurried outside, past the firefighters and medics streaming into the flooded casino. Shamu stood right where he’d left him, Monroe still tugging on his arm. An ambulance waited with open doors ten feet away, but Shamu stared into the distance like he was studying the horizon.

  Big Jim hurried over to them and said, “Shamu! Hey! How you doing?”

  “I’m all right. That’s what I was telling this guy.”<
br />
  Monroe said. “I’ve been trying to get him to—”

  “Forget it,” Big Jim said. “I need him. You come, too. We’ll need guns.”

  “Guns?” Monroe said.

  “See if Rex can focus his fucking eyes yet. We can use him. Everybody else stays here and locks down the casino.”

  “I-I don’t get it,” Monroe said. “What’s going on?”

  “This thing’s coming to a showdown.”

  Chapter 55

  The pistol Nick Papadopoulos held now was much bigger than the earlier belly gun. The muzzle dug into Tony’s neck as Nick marched him to Big Jim Kelton’s front door.

  “That hurts,” he said.

  “Shut up.”

  Low hedges lined the flagstone walkway, screening off flowerbeds dotted with wilted yellow blossoms that made Tony think of Lola Cantrell.

  Nick let go of his wadded collar and rang the doorbell. As Tony straightened his leather jacket, Nick said, “Don’t move.”

  The door was flung open by some guy Tony had never seen before, a curly-haired security guard in a sopping khaki uniform. His name badge said “Monroe.” The pistol in his hand was shaking. Tony didn’t like that.

  Monroe stepped out of the way, and Nick shoved Tony inside, the gun jabbing his neck again.

  Rex stood to the left, squinting and pointing a cowboy Colt at them. Shamu loomed to the right, holding a sawed-off shotgun. In his big paws, it looked like a double-barreled derringer. His face was criss-crossed by slices and welts, and one cheek was scorched and peeling. That purple knot in the center of his forehead remained a thing of beauty.

  Big Jim towered in the middle, soaked like the others, his brown suit clinging to him, his Stetson limp. One hand absently stroked the smooth flank of a golden horse that reared up in the center of the tiled foyer. The seven-foot-tall statue glinted in the floodlights. Rearing hooves and flaring nostrils and real fucking gold.

  Tony thinking: Giddy-up.

  Monroe closed the door and stood in front of it. He looked scared and tentative, like he was trying to decide whether to run out the door or piss himself.