First Thrills: Volume 2 Page 7

  LoLa had always possessed an unshakable will. Even when they wandered the country from sea to shining sea, LoLa working the clubs and bringing the house down while Shorty emptied the pockets of enraptured drunks, she was determined to be a star. Shorty always admired that, although he secretly wished she could just be happy with who she was: his passionate little honeybee.

  Shorty yanked the lamp off his head and threw it into the darker recesses of the hold. As the headlamp flew through the air, LoLa fired another shot. The light exploded in midair.

  Shorty rocked back on his heels. It was one hell of a shot, and Shorty hoped for his own sake it was more luck than skill.

  He looked out again and their eyes met. LoLa was smiling behind a transparent visor, her teeth as white and perfect as he had paid for. She flicked her soft, pink tongue, proving she still knew how to use it.

  Shorty automatically returned the smile, lost in remembrance of times past when they had adored every quarter-inch of each other. Then, he saw her driver. The man on the motorbike was a hairy monster with a full ginger beard and a grin that was a few kernels shy of a cob. Dressed in full leather biker gear, he must have stood at least five foot six in boots, and the sight churned Shorty’s stomach. LoLa had always liked them full-sized and the memory of catching her cheating ass writhing on top of the rent-to-own portable dishwasher was a sight he wanted burned from his brain.

  LoLa shouted, “Give us the bags, Shorty.”

  “Fuck you.”

  LoLa laughed. “Not anymore. I’ve moved on.”

  Shorty heard movement to his left and crawled over the luggage to get a better look. Twinkle had staggered to the open doors, his face a mess and his movements unsteady.

  “Get the bags, Twinkle,” LoLa yelled. The motorbike kept perfect pace with the bus.

  “I can’t,” Twinkle cried. “He busted me good.”

  “Get the fucking bags, brother.”

  “I can’t!” Twinkle moved closer to the edge. “I want off this damn bus.”

  Shorty yelled: “Hey, Twinkle!”

  Twinkle turned.

  Shorty swung one of the heavy black bags in the air and let go. “Don’t forget your luggage.”

  The bag hit Twinkle square in the chest, knocking him off balance. Twinkle screamed as he fell out the open doorway with the bag clutched in his arms.

  LoLa’s driver swerved, but the sidecar still bore the brunt of the impact as Twinkle’s head slammed into the windshield and the bag he was holding burst open in a giant cloud of white powder.

  With a fierce determination, the driver managed to maintain control even as the sidecar’s wheel crunched over Twinkle’s broken body. A windowless black van following behind didn’t even attempt to brake.

  When the bike caught up to the bus again, its sidecar was dented and its windshield cracked. Streaks of blood dusted in powder flowed over LoLa’s leathers. Even her pretty silver helmet was webbed with gore.

  Angry tears filled LoLa’s eyes when she raised her gun again.

  Shorty threw a blue backpack at her. With its lightweight aluminum frame, the pack hit the pavement and bounced high, almost removing his former lover’s head from her compact body.

  She fired in hasty retaliation, but the bullet pinged harmlessly off the side of the bus.

  Shorty followed with a volley of a half-dozen open suitcases: boxer shorts, pajamas, blouses, underwear, a smart tuxedo, and a rubber diving suit all flowed through the doorway and sailed down the freeway.

  LoLa and her driver backed off after the bike nearly went into the ditch, when a small blue box exploded and a flock of errant panty liners got stuck on the bearded monster’s goggles.

  Best of all, Shorty found a large, unopened Toblerone bar. It was the size of his left arm.

  As Shorty contemplated ripping open the triangular packaging, the dark, windowless van pulled up level with the bus. Its side door slid open to reveal three men dressed in head-to-toe body armor, complete with knitted balaclavas that showed only their eyes, and holding paramilitary-style submachine guns.

  Shorty gulped and dropped the chocolate. “Y-you want the drugs?”

  The three men nodded as one.

  Shorty crawled back over the scattered luggage and pulled one of the black bags to the door. The van moved closer to the bus. One of the men grabbed the bag and yanked. Shorty instantly let his end go before he was pulled out of the bus along with it.

  “Get the others,” yelled the shortest of the three. It was difficult to tell the man’s exact height, but in Shorty’s estimation anything over four feet was a waste of vertical.

  Shorty retrieved the third bag, but this time, when he went to hand it over, the head of the reaching gunman imploded, his balaclava mask becoming a sieve of blood.

  Gunfire and broken glass rained from the passenger compartment above. The other two gunmen quickly ducked inside the van and returned fire. Both vehicles swerved and the dead gunman slid out of the van to vanish in a pink mist, but he left something behind snagged in the nylon handle of the drug bag—his submachine gun.

  With the sound of two-way automatic gunfire filling the air, Shorty picked up the gun and grunted. It was heavier than he expected.

  Shorty had never fired a machine gun before, but he’d seen plenty of movies. Getting used to the weight, he turned it on its side. A small dial marked in red pointed to two symbols. One showed a single bullet, the other showed three. He reasoned this toggled the gun between single-shot and full-auto modes.

  Shorty flipped the switch to full-auto and pointed its barrel out the open doorway. People were screaming in their seats above as the bus continued to barrel on at top speed and bullets flew in both directions. Shorty imagined the greedy driver, knuckles white as he gripped the steering wheel, desperately searching for help and cursing the day he met a crooked dwarf with a Hollywood smile and an offer too rich to refuse.

  Shorty drew in a deep breath and squeezed the trigger. Rounds spat from the gun like a horde of angry wasps with lead stingers. His first bullets chewed up the road before the gun’s unexpected kick drew the muzzle skyward. Shorty released the trigger before a volley stitched the metal ceiling. Fortunately, the van had been an impossible target to miss. His stray bullets shredded its front tires, windshield, and roof.

  Without tires, the van’s front rims dug into the road and its ass end flew into the sky for a series of cartwheels that would have made an overweight gymnast proud. Two screaming bodies flailed into the air as the van exploded. Its flaming carcass careened off the road and rolled down a sharp ravine to a farmer’s field below.

  Shorty looked at the gun in surprise. It packed a lot of wallop for such a small—

  A bullet smashed through the ceiling and tore a chunk of meat from his arm. Shorty cried out and dropped the gun, only to watch in stunned horror as it bounced once on the floor before sliding out the open doorway.

  Shorty’s cries were silenced when another bullet pierced the ceiling and puckered the floor between his legs. It was followed by an angry voice.

  “You little bastard! Think you can steal from me?”

  Another bullet, this time less than four inches from his head. Shorty dove into the remaining luggage and scrambled toward the rear of the hold … where he found Twinkle’s handgun. He snapped it up in both hands as the drug dealer pumped another hole through the ceiling.

  This time, instead of retreating, Shorty sprinted to the fresh hole, jammed his gun against it, and squeezed the trigger.

  A loud scream echoed through the hold and a heavy thump hit the ceiling as the gunman fell.

  “You shot my fucking bal—”

  Shorty aimed his gun where a bump had suddenly appeared in the ceiling and fired again. By the time he ran dry, the screaming had stopped.

  “Nice work,” said LoLa. “You always did overcompensate.”

  Shorty spun. The motorbike and sidecar was matching pace outside again, while LoLa was armed and pissed and standing in the doorway o
f the baggage compartment.

  “And you were always nimble.” Shorty dropped his empty gun to the floor and cradled his wounded arm.

  “So what do we have left?” LoLa asked.

  “Between us or—”

  “Drugs, numbnut.”

  Shorty indicated the lone black bag sitting near the open doorway. “Twenty kilograms of uncut heroin. Worth around two million.”

  “Hardly seems worth the trouble.”

  Despite himself, Shorty grinned. “You’ve come that far up in the world, huh?”

  LoLa smiled. “Never walked taller.”

  She lifted her gun and fingered the trigger.

  Shorty blurted, “There’s a fourth bag.”

  LoLa’s smile brightened and she eased off the trigger. “Oh?”

  “Six hundred thousand in cash. I figure you take the drugs, leave me the dough. I’ve earned it.”

  “Earned it? You cost me four good men, transportation, weapons, and dry-cleaning, not to mention my brother.”

  “You never liked Twinkle much.”

  “No, but I loved him.”

  Shorty and LoLa stared at each other for an endless moment, a thousand memories shared in the blink of an eye.

  “We’ll always have Paris,” said Shorty.

  LoLa snorted. “A fishbowl fuck in Tennessee doesn’t count, Shorty, don’t you get that? I need more than road trips in a broken-down VW van, nightclubs with putrid toilets, and hiding from the landlord on rent day. You always thought too small. I plan to live large.”

  “You’ve gone hard.”

  “No, Shorty. The problem is, you’ve stayed soft.” She waved the gun at his chest. “Get me the bag.”

  Shorty tilted his chin. “It’s just back there.”

  “Do I look like I do heavy lifting? Get it.”

  Shorty scrambled over the remains of the unopened luggage and pulled out the last black bag. He hefted it onto his shoulder, wincing at the pain, and returned to the woman he’d once loved.

  “Pity it has to end this way, honeybee,” he said.

  LoLa thumbed back the hammer.

  * * *

  When the bus pulled into the Texaco station ten minutes later, a squad of eight patrol cars swarmed around it. The men and women in blue were bundled in armor-plated protection, riot helmets, and enough firepower to ventilate a crack den.

  They removed the traumatized passengers first before rushing the luggage compartment.

  They didn’t meet any resistance.

  Inside was a lone body dressed in head-to-toe black, its lifeblood coating a duffel bag filled with twenty kilos of pure, uncut heroin.

  The dead woman had a tiny screwdriver protruding from her chest and half a Toblerone bar stuffed in her mouth.

  * * *

  GRANT McKENZIE was born in Scotland, lives in Canada, and writes U.S.-based thrillers. As such, he wears a kilt and toque with his six guns. His debut novel, Switch, was lauded by author Ken Bruen as “Harlan Coben on speed” and quickly became a bestseller in Germany. It has been published in seven countries and three languages so far.

  Wednesday’s Child

  KEN BRUEN

  Had.

  Funny how vital that damn word had become in my life.

  Had … An Irish mother.

  Had … Big plans.

  Had … Serious rent due.

  Had … To make one major score.

  * * *

  I’d washed up in Ireland almost a year ago. Let’s just say I had to leave New York in a hurry.

  Ireland seemed to be one of the last places on the planet to still love the good ol’ USA.

  And, they were under the very erroneous impression that we had money.

  Of course, until very recently, they’d had buckets of the green, forgive the pun, themselves. But the recession had killed their Celtic Tiger.

  I’d gone to Galway as it was my mother’s hometown and was amazed to find an almost mini–USA. The teenagers all spoke like escapees from The Hills. Wore Converse, baseball T-shirts, chinos. It was like staggering onto a shoot for The Gap.

  With my accent, winning smile, and risky credit cards, I’d rented an office in Woodquay, close to the very centre of the city. About a mugging away from the main street. I was supposedly a financial consultant but depending on the client, I could consult on any damn thing you needed. I managed to get the word around that I was an ex-military guy, and had a knack for making problems disappear.

  And was not averse to skirting the legal line.

  I was just about holding my head above water, but it was getting fraught.

  So, yeah, I was open to possibilities.

  How I met Sheridan.

  I was having a pint of Guinness in McSwiggan’s and no, I wasn’t hallucinating but right in the centre of the pub is a tree.

  I was wondering which came first when a guy slid onto the stool beside me. I say slid because that’s exactly how he did it. Like a reptile, he just suddenly crept up on me.

  I’ve been around as you’ve gathered and am always aware of exits and who is where, in relation to the danger quota.

  I never saw him coming.

  Should have taken that as an omen right then.

  He said, “You’ll be the Yank I hear about.”

  I turned to look at him. He had the appearance of a greyhound recovering from anorexia and a bad case of the speed jags. About thirty-five, with long graying hair, surprisingly unmarked face, not a line there, but the eyes were old.

  Very.

  He’d seen some bad stuff or caused it. How do I know?

  I see the same look every morning in the mirror.

  He was dressed in faded blue jeans, a T-shirt that proclaimed Joey Ramone will never die and a combat jacket that Jack Reacher would have been proud of. He put out a bony hand, all the veins prominent, and said, “I’m Sheridan, lemme buy you a pint.”

  I took his hand, surprisingly strong for such a wasted appearance, said, “Good to meet you, I’m Morgan.”

  Least that’s what it said on the current credit cards.

  He had, as he put it, a slight problem, a guy he owed money to and the how much would it cost to make the guy go away.

  I laughed, said, “You’re going to pay me to get rid of a guy who you owe money to? One, why would you think I can do it, and two, how will you pay me?”

  He leaned closer, smelled of patchouli, did they still make that old hippy shit? Said, “You’ve got yerself a bit of a rep, Mr Morgan, and how would I pay you, oh, I’d pay you in friendship and trust me, I’m a good friend to have.”

  Maybe it was the early pint, or desperation or just for the hell of it, but I asked, “Who’s the guy?”

  He told me, gave me his name and address and leaned back; asked, “You think you can help me out here, Mr Morgan?”

  I said, “Depends on whether you’re buying me the pint you offered or not.”

  He did.

  As we were leaving, I said, “I’ll be here Friday night; maybe you can buy me another pint.”

  Like I said, I didn’t have a whole lot going on so I checked out the guy who was leaning on Sheridan.

  No biggie but on the Thursday, his car went into the docks and him in it.

  Some skills you never forget.

  Friday night, I was in McSwiggan’s; Sheridan appeared as I ordered a pint and he said to the barman, “On me, Sean.”

  He gave me a huge smile; his right molar was gold and the rest of his teeth looked like they’d been filed down.

  We took our drinks to a corner table and he slapped my shoulder, said, “Sweet fooking job, mate.”

  I spread my hands, said, “Bad brakes, what can I tell you.”

  He threw back his head, laughed out loud, a strange sound, like a rat being strangled, said, “I love it, bad break. You’re priceless.”

  That was the real beginning of our relationship. Notice I don’t say friendship.

  I don’t do friends.

  And I very much doubt
that anyone in their right mind would consider Sheridan a friend.

  We did a lot of penny-ante stuff for the next few months, nothing to merit any undue attention but nothing either that was going to bankroll the kind of life I hoped for.

  Which was

  Sea

  Sun

  And knock-you-on-your-ass cash.

  An oddity, and definitely something I should have paid real attention to. I’d pulled off a minor coup involving some credit cards I had to dump within twenty-four hours. With Sheridan’s help, we scooped a neat five thousand dollars. And at the time when the dollar had finally kicked the Euro’s ass.

  See, I do love my country.

  You’re thinking, “Which one?”

  Semper fi and all that good baloney. It pays the cash, it gets my allegiance.

  So, we were having us a celebration; I split it down the middle with him, because I’m a decent guy. We flashed up as Sheridan termed it.

  Bearing in mind that the Irish seven-course meal is a six pack and a potato, we went to McDonagh’s, the fish-and-chipper, in Quay Street.

  We sat outside in a rare hour of Galway Sun; Sheridan produced a flask of what he called Uisce Beatha, Holy Water. In other words, Irish Moonshine, Poteen.

  Phew-oh, the stuff kicks like one mean tempered mule.

  Later, we wound up in Feeney’s, one of the last great Irish pubs. Here’s the thing: I’d sometimes wondered if Sheridan had a woman in his life. I didn’t exactly give it a whole lot of thought, but it crossed my mind. As if he was reading my mind he said, “Morgan, what day were you born on?”

  I was about to put it down to late night-drink speak, but I was curious, asked, “That’s a weird question, what day, how the hell would I know what day?”

  He looked sheepish, and when you add that to his rodent appearance, it was some sight, he said, “See, my girl, she has this thing about the nursery rhyme, you know, Monday’s child is fair of face and am.… Thursday’s, is, yeah, has far to go, she judges people on what their day of birth is.”

  My Girl!

  I was so taken aback by that it took me a moment to ask, “What are you?”