Authors: Tony Black
Tags: #Crime, #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Short Stories, #Suspense, #Thriller
The Sin Bin (5 page)
Jailbait Stalemate
(an
anti-romance)
'
Fucksake,
Jonesy — the age ay that lassie, it
'
s 50/50 you
'
d get
hair oan it!
'
Jonesy stared into his pint, smiled,
swilled the last mouthful and belched.
'
If there
'
s grass on
the pitch — let
'
s play!
'
Bandy Rab coughed into his fist, spoke
with a head-shake,
'
That
'
s what I
'
m saying though — maybe there
'
s no
'
!
'
The bold Jones didn
'
t seem to register his friend
'
s intoning. His mind was fixed on
hot-pants, high-heels, an exposed midriff and a rack he could only describe as
like two puppies fighting in a sack ... Great Dane puppies, likely.
'
Fuck it, ah
'
m gaun in!
'
he said.
Rab recoiled,
'
Well yer on your own, mate ... no
'
remember Errol Flynn?
'
'
Oh aye,
'
said Jonesy,
'
Ye goat a match?
'
'
Eh?
'
went Rab, scoobied.
'
No
'
since Errol Flynn died!
'
Jonesy laughed up his own joke.
'
Ye goat a match? ... No
'
since Errol Flynn died! Eh, get it?
'
He was still laughing as he strode off,
hitching up his belt buckle, sucking in his gut.
As he crossed the pub floor Jonesy put
the eye on the young girl in question. Her St Tropez tan was more orangey the
closer he got — looked like a tandoori chicken, but that was okay; lassies were
just like tandoori chicken, he thought, the best bits were the white bits.
Jonesy was still smiling as he reached
the girl
'
s table,
'
Hello there,
'
he said,
'
what you
drinking, love?
'
She looked up, she had eyes like a cow —
all lashes and dark mascara, too much maybe, like a schoolie playing with her
mam
'
s make-up box. She
stalled, seemed to hold her breath for a second or two whilst she eyed Jonesy,
up and down. Her answer could be heard on the other side of the pub:
'
FUCK OFF, YA PAEDO!
'
Jonesy eased off the table, sharply,
stepped back.
He sensed the error of his approach now
— and he could hear Bandy Rab
'
s
laughter behind him, all the way across the pub floor.
Paedo! Fuck me, he thought. She was
young right enough, but maybe he could use that, maybe he could still turn this
around. He felt a mighty brainwave erupting on his boozy breath.
'
So would ye mibbe like a sook on a lollypop
instead, darlin
'
?
'
###
KILLING TIME IN VEGAS
The City of Sin plays host to a
performance-enhanced bodybuilder who loses control with bloody consequences in
Killing
Time in Vegas
and an attempt to kidnap a billionaire's daughter goes badly
wrong in
The Long Drop
in this second collection of original short stories
by Irvine Welsh's 'favourite British crime writer', Tony Black.
Find out how a victim of high school
date rape takes the ultimate revenge and explore the grisly aftermath of a bank
job with a crew who suspects one of their number has tipped off the cops.
These American-set stories are
collected here for the first time in a 15,000-word anthology.
Killing Time
in Vegas
originally appeared in
The Baddest of the Bad
whilst the
rest of the collection featured in
The
Mammoth Book of British
Mysteries, True Brit Grit, Plots With Guns
and
Thuglit
.
Killing Time in Vegas
Killing Time in Vegas
Man, I was itchin
g
. The temp
'
was up at 90-plus, but
Christ,
the humidity was the killer.
Collar and tie weather it wasn
'
t.
Shit, you carry about a 55-inch chest in this — I was bench-pressing 500lbs and
upping the reps daily — comfortable you ain
'
t.
My suit was linen. Navy blue, bought
from Hugo Boss back in New York. Not by me,
uh-uh
. This was a thrift
store job. Time I can buy Hugo Boss off the rack I ain
'
t coming back home to Vegas for work.
'
Can I help
you, sir?
'
Blonde with diddy
eyes and the whitest top row of teeth I
'
d ever seen. Bottom row lagging behind, must've been waiting for the
top's payment plan to finish.
'
Francis
Jarman,
'
I told her,
'
I
'
m here for the instructor
'
s job.
'
'
Excuse me?
'
She looked vacant. Like the chick on the
Minute Maid ads, minus the smile.
'
The, eh,
fitness instructor ... for the gym.
'
She still didn
'
t get it, pointed me sit with a long red fingernail. When she picked
up the phone I heard her get my name wrong, called me
'
Farnham
'
. I shook my
head but I only got a look, one that said,
'
Purleeze
, like I give a shit
'
.
I sat back down and saw her cross her
legs away from me, tug her skirt over her knees. Always makes me smile when
chicks do this around me. They see the muscles bulging out all over and think I
'
m a real player. But I ain
'
t; chicks don
'
t pop my trunk.
'
Stay seated,
Mr Farnham,
'
she said slamming
down the phone,
'
there
'
ll be someone to see you presently.
'
'
Presently!
'
I said too soon, then realized I
'
d put the heavy-hitting intonation in
there. I'd been blurting a lot lately.
She dipped her head, looked at me over
long lashes,
'
That
'
s right away,
'
she spat.
I smiled one of my widest, Jonny calls
it my stage school smirk,
'
Thank
you so much, mam.
'
I could hardly wait to meet my
interviewer; just a joy to be dragging ass across state for this kinda shit.
****
Five
'
ll get you ten this guy
'
s a homophobe, I thought. Had queer-hater written all over him as he
came in: Brooks Brothers
'
shirt
open at the collar, Gap khakis and sweet loafers: Timberland or Sebago,
something like that, way outta my price range.
He blanked me big time as he popped an
iPad on the desk. A good ten minutes of office chat passed between Mr Big Shot
and Blondie as he tried to tell her to fish out something from the mail he
wanted
'
upstairs on my desk by
five
'
. She smiled and giggled.
That ain't all he was getting upstairs on his desk later, I thought.
I was ready to bail when he finally
turned to me, dropped eyes on a clip-board and said,
'
Mr ... Jarman?
'
'
That
'
s right.
'
I stood up, tried to keep my size outta the picture, but I dwarfed
him into shadows.
''
Pleased to
meet you.
'
'
Would you walk
this way, please.
'
I was thinking if I could walk that way
I
'
d be buying size 32 khakis
off the rack too, as my thighs chafed together on every step.
'
Take a seat,
'
he told me. I still didn't know the
motherfucker
'
s name.
Shit!
Bad manners, that
'
s always been
a hatred of mine. I don
'
t allow
myself prejudices, but bad-mannered people I just hate right out. I needed the
job, though, so I battened it down fast.
'
That
'
s some heat you got today,
'
I said, going for the small talk angle.
'
This is Vegas,
'
he said, shooting a look that told me he
wanted to end the sentence with
'
fuck-head
'
.
He handed me over a form to fill out.
On grey paper, real thick too. I fired through; when I handed it back it looked
like I
'
d been moppin
g
up by the sweat marks all over.
'
Sorry, I
'
m real hot,
'
I said, spluttering,
'
I mean, the heat, y
'
know
it
'
s hard being in the heat
when you
'
re used to New York.
'
I was screwin
g
up. I knew it. Could see the signs, but I
'
d have been way off the mark if I had to pick his next question. I
didn
'
t see it coming in a month
of Sundays.
'
Mr Jarman ...
'
he paused, leaned over the desk and locked
his fingers together in a tent,
'
are you a ... homosexual?
'
I felt my breath stop. I suddenly went
from hot as hell, to ice. I wanted to say,
'
Can you even ask me that? Is it legal?
'
But some defence mechanism kicked in, an
old one, probably learned in the schoolyard. I said:
'
No.
Shu-u
... no way!
'
I wanted to spit after saying the
words. Could see Jonny
'
s face
and there was shame in his eyes as he looked at me.
He raised his eyebrows: 'Interesting.
Your resume doesn't say if you're credentialed.'
'Credentialed
...' Shit. 'I thought you said ... I mean, I misunderstood.'
Big Shot rose. He leaned over the desk
and collected up his pencils and papers, shuffled about a bit, then,
'
I think we
'
re done here.
'
'
That it?
'
'
Excuse me?
'
'
I mean, I came
all the way from New York ... it seems hardly like five minutes since I got in
here.
'
His hand went in the pocket of his Gap
khakis, there was a dip in his brows, hard to spot, but definitely there,
'
We
'
re very specific about what we look for in suitable candidates.
'
Suitable candidates?
I heard that and was ready to snap his neck like a breadstick, but
there was still a chance; I couldn
'
t jeopardize it.
'
Well, I hope I
'
m a good fit,
'
I said.
'
Thanks for
dropping by. We
'
ll let you
know.
'
I grabbed his hand, I knew I was
holding it too tight. But I let that grip linger for a little longer, just long
enough for his brows to lift back up his damp forehead.
****
I took a motel just off the Strip.
I dropped my bags and swapped the Hugo Boss for a set of beach shorts and a
black T-shirt. With my wraparound shades I looked like I could ride point for a
biker gang.
I sent a text to Jonny about the
interview — lied and tried to sound hopeful. I switched off my cell after that
to avoid the retread he
'
d take
me through. I was sore as hell and I knew it
'
d only mean a beat-down for me on getting home if I kicked off
again. I couldn
'
t hurt him
either, he'd been through enough when I lost my job and we started going behind
on the rent. The guilt smacked me again like acid bile rising in my gut.
I hit the casino bar with
brass-knuckles. I was coolin
g
down nicely, on my second bottle of Bud, when some torn-assed old butt-surfer
started hitting on me.
'
That
'
s a work-out paying off, I
'
m thinking,
'
he told me.
'
Yeah, well ...
nothing for nothing, huh.
'
I
tried to be polite, wanted to tell him to ditch the shit and leave but he was
way older than me and looked lonely.
'
What you
bench-press?
'
'
I dunno ...
500lbs or so.
'
'
Man that
'
s a work-out!
'
'
I guess.
'
He looked me up and down, watched me
every time I raised the neck of the bottle to my lips.
'
Want another?
'
'
Look, I ...
'
'
Hey, it
'
s just a beer ... no harm in a man buying a
stranger a beer is there?
'
I nodded okay, said,
'
I guess not.
'
Soon enough he was buying me margaritas
and slapping my back. We laughed away and were getting on just fine, but then I
felt his hand linger a mite too long on my thigh.
'
Take it away,
pal ...
'
I warned him.
'
Wha-a-at ...
this here,
'
he rubbed his hand
harder into my muscles, grabbed the flesh beneath my shorts,
'
There
'
s no harm in that, surely.
'
In a flash I
'
d grabbed his fingers and crushed them in my hand. I knew he hadn
'
t done anything that wrong, but outta
nowhere I was a race car in the red, I'd been on a slow boil since the interview
... since a lot longer than that.
'
Arg-g-g ...
you son-of-a-bitch!
'
he yelled,
'
you son-of-a-Goddamn-bitch!
'
I saw the barman getting edgy, the old
hom' was making a scene. I stood up and grabbed my keys off the bar.
'
Look at you,
standing there like an ape! I knew the second I saw you you was a jackass ...
'
he yelled at me,
'
whenever someone bulks up like you, it
'
s because they
'
re
building over something!
'
He was still hollering as I walked out
of the bar, into the casino lobby, and a whole other world of shit.
****
Outside the elevator a fresh
ruckus was underway. A busboy was taking heaps from some corporate-type who
'
d tied a few on. The jerk was swaying and
holding onto a bottle of pink champagne, pockets stuffed with chips, another
victim of the Vegas flesh-pots who should've stayed home.
It was late and I knew better than to
intervene but I was being pushed, call it whatever, I didn
'
t want to see anyone else take any grief.
'
Okay, sir, you
'
ve made your point, now leave the kid be,
'
I said, as I put myself between the busboy
and the second big shot of the day I
'
d had cause to tussle with.