by Jane Brooke
Vic knew my street creds and that my rep was solid. Vic chatted me up at the club one night. He thought this Maurice was the killer. I didn’t think so, told him that.
This Maurice character is one handsome artist stud savant of stone and Winds main squeeze. One of the few men that actually scares me and is a rock solid good guy, scary guy, but great creds in our little community.
I told Vic that and after, we became buds.
Garcia knew my rep, asked me if I could snoop around, I did.
Shit went down. Garcia got hurt, hurt bad. It turned out the perp was some insane real estate mogul, bought up the slums, getting rid of the homeless, so property values would sky rocket, which they did.
Then they didn’t.
Maurice, in a last stand blood bath with the puke, ended up saving Vic’s life after he was stabbed in Maurice’s warehouse. They became after that rock, solid friends.
It’s a long story Wind, Maurice, Garcia and me.
Maybe a later day. Maybe a better day for that story.
XXX
Needless to say I’m pumped, pissed, liquid mercury melting my brain. Since there is no time like the present, it’s time to roll.
It’s time to hit up the Lieutenant on the cell so I do.
Speed dial.
Ring a ding ling, ding a ling ding.
“Hello.” Seep’s out of the speaker.
I get right to it, no small talk left in my mouth.
“Lou, it’s Jane, I need a little help, you offering?”
“Hey Jane, some time, I miss ya. Yeah, sure, always, what’s up sweetness?”
“Young girl, friend of mine, gone missing, I was wondering if you had any paper on her mother, maybe the kid, any info.”
“Sure Jane, no problem, what’s her name, how old, MO if you got it, let me have it.
Love Garcia, totally professional, right to the point. He knows me, digs me, DITTO to him on the dig thingy.
“She’s a Missy Smith, thirteen, blond, pretty, daughter of a sick head case, Ginger Smith, the mother. I’m sure you got a jacket on the mother of the year.”
“Just a sec, Jane let me see if a she’s in the box.”
I wait and need a smoke, light up a Marlboro
Puff, puff, puff.
FUCK
I’m starting to act like Ginger, agitated, manic, except I’m enraged. There’s nothing knew about that.
“Got her, yeah, lots a busts, shop lifting, drugs, peddling her ass, usual stuff. A coupla week’s here and there in the clank, nothing serious. You want me to bring her in, sweat her a little?”
“No Lou, it’s my thing. If you don’t mind, run her kid through the system, maybe talk to some cops. See if she pops up. Could you ring my cell if anything pops on the kid, do you mind?”
“Not at all Jane, what else, anything for you Jane, you know that.”
“I know that Lou. I’ll send over a pink teddy bear for that doll daughter of yours, just to say thanks. Gotta scoot.”
“Jane.”
Yeah.”
“Good job with the Jimmy Flicks and Tina Barks take down. Saved me and the boys a lot a grief. Boys here have big shout outs for ya. We all love ya know.”
“Love back at you, thanks Lou, my pleasure, more later.”
“Jane.”
“Yeah.”
“Be careful, ya hear.”
“Sure Lou, real careful, later.”
I kill the cell, grateful for friends like Vic.
I stand and think about Lou’s and mind world.
It’s all about street creds and folks reputations.
Lou’s got I’m, I got I’m, were solid and everyone knows that. So I move to my pine gun cabinet, spinaroo the dial on the heavy combination lock. I have that because I don’t want kids like Zoe messin’ around with my guns. J
ust might shoot a cut toe off.
Opening the door, I smile. I always smile when I see my guns.
I love my guns, respect my guns, and glow looking at my AK-47, banana clip curving out of its guts. Next to that is a Saw hanging on a rack. You know the kind the dudes in the Special Forces use killing bad guys in Afghanistan.
I need something light today, ignore my Glock, Walther PP-K, my Smith & Wesson Viper and my lovely old school Colt 45.
Reminds me, I have to go to the gun range.
Practice makes perfect.
Focusing on one of two Berettas hanging on the hook, I decide on one of them.
Still have my other Glock in my shoulder holster, but its Beretta time.
So I grab it, fondle it and grab a thirteen in the clip bullet cage. Slapping her in the Velcro whore, I ratchet a slug into it. It’s the little things in life that make me happy.
I then retrieve a black silencer, screw it on the tip, give it a tug. My baby, like me is ready too.
I grab my 16 gauge Mossberg, over and under shot gun and a fist of shells. Turning, I grab my other Glock, put it to bed, close the door and spin the lock. I sit and do one of my most fav things.
I love the feeling of those red copper caps shells revolving in my fingers, they almost make me cum.
Humming right along to Madonna in my head, I slot six caps into the scatter gun.
I am now almost ready to visit Bobby. He doesn’t know me that well, but he soon will.
“CLICK.”
I check out my six inch stiletto, love that too.
“CLICK.”
Back in the handle the blade goes. Stabbing it into my boot, I have one last caffeine hit as I make sure my PI and Gun Permit are in my jeans pocket. Almost finished, I sit in front of my Apple computer. Moments later, after I get the address that I was seeking, I turn and down the stairs I go.
POKER players often go On Tilt when shit goes bad. I don’t go there, but I am close.
Moments later, after dropping off my blood stained leather hip huggers at Chang’s, I cruise down Northern Ave. After passing MLK Blvd, I check my GPS machine. It tells me to hang a left. I move down the block and moan.
There are abandoned tract houses everywhere. They are all a part of the new morgue Vegas has become. For sales signs are stacked into the ground. Houses are dead, empty and garbage is everywhere, lawns over grown. Fucking raccoons, coyotes, cougars have been reported prowling the streets. It’s almost tragic what’s happened to Vegas. But, that’s evolution at work.
Darwin, that brain wizard was right.
Half way down the street, I see it, Bobbies dump. Same deal, looks rundown, except his Caddy Escalade, black of course, is parked in the driveway. The three houses on each side of his are vacant.
Perfect. I can use my Mossberg, no eyes, no worry.
Gun reports are a part of N. Vegas as elevator music is to Trump Towers.
I rip the Buick into the drive, kill her dead, no open door, melt over the chassis, 16 gauge nestled in the cleft of my bare arm. I lift it and with one hand ratchet a cap into it.
I love that action.
My shoulder holster is holding my black Beretta, stiletto now in my hip hugger belt. My teeny tummy is sucking air. I’m wired hard and my eyes feel like squash balls and yet, are acid clear.
I feel like I’m on acid. You know, you can see a pin at five hundred feet.
Moving across the corpse of a lawn I get to the door. No time to hang around, a kids life is at stake. It’s truth or dare time.
IT IS TIME, TO GIDDY-UP.
XXX
I’M NOT one of those polite girls, you know.
Knock, knock, knock.
Let’s have a conversation.
That only ever works in bad flicks, bad celluloid and since a little angels life is at stake, I lift the Mossberg.
“KABOOM.”<
br />
I blow a foot square hole into the door knob.
The plywood blasts open. I re-shoulder my long-gun and lift my Beretta and cruise through the door and into the hallway. With my 9mm poking straight ahead held with both hands, I head into the living room.
The place looks like a poster for The Grapes of Wrath one of my fav books.
There’s a ripped up couch, over stuffed filthy lounges, torn up curtains, soiled clothes, old food cartons scattered everywhere. Cheerios, Oreos, open packages of Little Debbie, the usual junkie foods plastered every where.
Carpet ripped, burned, stained, I see empty bottles scattered everywhere.
It looks like he’s Dewar’s and Gordon’s freak. The smell of burnt eggs stinks up the place. Junkies always revert back to eggs. It’s all they can handle when their done nodding out.
My eyes are acute, scanners, miss nothing, can’t afford to. I see a 38 on a table and a user’s shoot up kit, dime glassine bag of heroin, a cell, some other shit and make note of it. Important that.
I see him. He’s bare-chested; sitting at a desk.
What, he didn’t hear Mr. Mossberg?
I see the ear phones, I-pod, on his ears.
I get it.
He’s a skinny dude and all sinewy, barefoot, filthy Levis leering into a computer monitor staked onto the desk. He’s playing video games. He’s got this filthy thick red hair, freckles and he’s just about to take a snort from a pile of coke, could be meth on a mirror on the desk. There’s a straw stuck half way up his snout.
Surprise, surprise, he knows me, my rep, I hope. He sees my gun stabbed at him. Dropping his straw, he stands, takes a step towards his 38.
I drop the trigger.
“Psssst, Psssst. Thump Thump.
I drill two into the wall, about eight inches from his running nose. He freeze-frames, mumbles. “What the fuck.”
I’ll show him what the fuck.
He’s a human Flex Straw, druggies you know, eyes like hub caps. He’s got all the usual face twitches and his nerve endings are frying.
I know that.
He moves towards me.
This ain’t a home invasion.
He steps before his couch, fists bunched. I smile, pistol whip him in the cheek.
“Crack.”
That sounds right. Blood erupts and splatters on the wall.
Moan, moan, bitch slap moan.
Because I’m in a bad mood, I whack him again, forehead time, just as he’s going down to the cushions.
I do a little bunny-hop, spread eagle I’m. Grabbing a tuft of hair, I rip his bloody face to my chrome, hard eyes. Prying his bloody mouth open, I stick my silencer tip down to his tonsils.
“CLICK.”
Hammer back and locked and loaded.
He looks crazed and terrified. I guess he has a right too, as I seethe.
“Missy, where is she. Fuck with me, I’ll bury you in a junk yard in Bakersfield.”
He googly-goops me.
He’s a born loser, liar, doesn’t fit my mood, snot running down his lips, eyes spilling tears. I yank the silencer out of his mouth.
“Psssst.”
I pop one in the wall and, then jab it back in his yap and ask this time, not nice like before.
“Where’s the fucking kid? It can be easy, or hard, you choose?’
His head, like one a those Dodger bobble head dolls over there at the ballpark at Chavez Ravine bangs up and down, snot running down his chin. He sees I’m all serious and such. He mumbles words I can’t understand.
I want the kid, can’t afford to whack him yet. So I rip my baby from his mouth, stand, point it at one of his blue eyeballs, cock her.
“CLICK.”
That sobering sound usually brings the truth out of any muck.
As he touches the blood on his face he jerks off his eyeballs at his red fingers and glares at me, not so nice.
I can see the cogs and gears rotating in his head, measuring me for a rush. I am a shoelace after all.
Same deal with Tina Barks and Jimmy Flicks.
When will they ever learn?.
But, I don’t think so for he’s the usual coward. Whack some broad around, be a man. But, he can see I’m a hard kind, different than other girls.
He mumbles some bull shit at me, which makes my hormones boil. I glance at my jeans.
Fuck more blood, thank god for Chang’s dry cleaners.
“Fuck Jane, you fucked me up, why ya gotta be that way. I don’t know what the fuck yer talkin’ bout.”
“Psssst, Psssst.”
I pour two hollow points into the pillows. Dust and feathers fly as he jerks all around, bitch yelps, yips; fucking pathetic.
Taking a step, I pistol whip him in the side of his head. He screams, moans, face in the hands, blood everywhere, bare feet jerking off like a motel quarter in a slot vibrator bed.
I take a step back. Weeping, he leers at me, my eyes, Beretta as I seethe.
“Next one in the cabasa amigo. Where’s Missy, now, not later.”
When will they ever learn? I like to think sometimes, but not really.
He’s measuring me, but he’s a coward, as he spit outs some words at me. So I listen, just praying to some Buddha head that he makes a play at me.
“Yeah, Ok. Jest don’t hit me no more. Fuck Jane, I ain’t feeling good, I need a hit. Come on, just one toke. I’ll tell ya everything, please Jane. I feel sick, real sick.”
Oh really. Simonizes through my mind, me knowing exactly what is going down.
I jerk my silencer at the crank on the desk, nod once, whisper, “Go.”
Why the fuck not, I got a lot of violence, like battery acid pumping through my arteries. Maybe I can get off, before he finally let’s go of the truth.
Fuck, I’m selfish like that at times, can’t help it.
He stands up all wobbly and such. He’s right, he looks strung out. He’s got tracks on his arms and I can see he’s got the ebbie jeebies.
He doesn’t look that good, courtesy of Mrs. Beretta and the bitch at bat with her.
He moves, all shaky and such to his desk, eyes jerking over at his 38 on the table. He sits in front of his partially open drawer. He peek-a-boos at moi and, then he look’s-at-the-coke.
I figure he’s got a PIECE in the drawer. I hope he doesn’t go there.
I have a plan, always think head. Bobby Fisher knew that. So I ask and I mean it this time.
“Where’s Missy? Last time amigo, or pain for you.”
“Fuck Jane, jest a sec, why ya gotta be so hard...Just a sec.”
He shoves the straw in his nose, hits the pile. I move to him, rip a tuft of red hair, lift his head, slam his face into the coke, breaking his nose as I do.
White flake memories dozing in the air, straw protruding out of his nose as he screams. It’s stuck somewhere up there.
Those things are always a mystery to me when they happen.
He bounces real-good and falls back in his office chair, blood, coke, other shit splashed on his face.
He wails again, as I see his hand reflex into the drawer. I immediately kick it shut with my boot, shattering his hand, as he bellows. “OOOWWWWW...FUUUUCK.”
Fuck that had to hurt. His eyes twitch, jerk as he weeps and balls like the soda cracker he is. He’s totally fucked up. I never planned it any other way.
I get real close, put the silencer tit to his forehead.
There’s that magical “Click” again.
His eyeballs revolve to the back of his head, return to sender, and he gawk’s at me. He finally finds the mumbles I was looking for.
“Ok, ok, ok. Sheeeet, pleeeease, don’t hit on me no more...she’s good....The fucking VIG Jane, bookies...ahhhh
my nose, fucking Kansas State, was a sure thing, missed the fucking spread...I’m sick...rented he...he...her out...gave her to this guy...she’s all good...I...I...”
I go Polar and feel like a sheet of cold brass has plated my body. And, then his words absorb. I straddle him, rip his head back, and this time not soft, like before, I break three of his teeth as I punch my heater into his mouth.
He screams as I get up front and personal with him. Wanting to pull the trigger, bad, real bad, I don’t.
It’s time to go crazy girl, my specialty as I ROAR.
XXX
“YOU FUCKING RENTED HER...WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN?...RENTED HER TO WHO?”
Ripping the silencer out of his mouth, he begins to babble. I can smell, as well as hear his urine drip, drip, dripping on the floor. That tells me he’s on page, fucking, finally.
“Yo...yooo...you know I’m, uh Jane...Sure...Sh...shes all good...Ed...eddi...Eddie Jett, gga...gave me three grand...sa...sid...said he’d treat her Ok...Yeah, she’s at Eddies cr...crib...jeese, I thin I...I’m dyin...I.”
EDDIE FUCKING JETT.
My brain screams, not that deviant?
Ex Acid Rocker who does the Big Casinos shows and has hit on me a zillion times at clubs.
No fucking way?
So I pistol whip the words right out of his mouth.
He whimpers, groans, as I stand, shaking all over.
My blood is boiling like lighter fluid. I face him, hand shaking. I want to kill him. Why not? One more cock roach off the face of the earth won’t be missed.
I don’t.
“Your not dead yet. If you’re lying, if you pick up a phone, write a fucking post card, I will come back and FUCKING put a bullet in your ear. CLEAR?” I bellow.
He nods. Ok.
I turn, take a step and, then stop from a single word.
“BIATCH.”
That’s always the magic word for me as my lips tick and my molars start to grind. I turn and find a dark, cold smile. You know the kind.
Leering at him, I tilt my head and look more, smile more.
Fucking perfect.
Ooops-a-daisy.
I can see he knows he’s made a boo-boo. I am a bitch, and know this is the perfect time for him to see just how big of a bitch I am.
