A Smith & Wesson with a Side of Chorizo by Andrew Welsh-Huggins

Author:Andrew Welsh-Huggins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Down & Out Books

Daniel assumed the person on the other side of the van door was a cop. That somehow the actions of the last thirty-six hours had caught up with him. Was it really so unreasonable to think that way? He’d escaped from prison, stolen a van, stolen the van’s pricy cargo, and bought the special from Jessie. At this point somebody in uniform had to be looking for him—for them—and in this day and age how long could they run? That line of thinking was his first mistake. His second was ignoring Nancy’s whisper to take the gun as he climbed out of the back of the van and went up front, where no sooner was he looking through the windows than the driver’s door was flung open and he found himself staring at the barrel of a much bigger gun than his “fully loaded special.”

“Out of the van, bitch.”

Daniel thinking the man probably wasn’t a cop.

“No trouble,” Daniel said, carefully climbing out.

“The girl, too,” the man said when Daniel was outside and eying the Chevy Blazer with tinted windows pulled up behind him. Noticing for the first time how desolate the neighborhood was that they he’d stopped in after paying the visit to Jesse’s Tacos. Across the street, on the other side of a small field more dirt than grass, two of every three houses boarded up or windowless.

“No girl,” Daniel heard himself say.

“You serious?” the man said, driving the side of the gun against Daniel’s head without warning. He staggered back, pain stabbing his eyes shut, and reached his hand up to his head. He pulled it away, warm and slick, as nausea washed over him.

“Fuck you,” Daniel said.

The man was shaking his head and raising his gun hand when a sound from behind interrupted him. The van door opening. Another man’s voice and then Nancy, protesting loudly. A second later she stumbled into view, clutching Daniel’s backpack, a second man behind her, a gun as big as the first man’s in his right hand.

“No girl, huh?”

“What do you want?” Daniel said.

“You’re trespassing.”

Daniel looked around, trying to ignore the pain from the blow to the head. The trickle of blood down his cheek and jaw and neck. “Don’t see any signs.”

“Don’t have to,” said the man who hit Daniel. “Everybody knows that here all the way to Jesse’s is ours. You can’t just waltz in and buy a special and not pay for the privilege. There’s a tax, my friend.”

“That’s all the money we had,” Daniel said.

“Bullshit.”

“I’m telling the truth. We had just enough.”

“Not our problem, is it?”

“Look, we’re sorry,” Daniel said, shivering in the cold. “Honest mistake. You can—you can have the van. Just let us walk away.”

“Little late for that.”

“Please—”

“Shut up and listen, bitch. Get back in the van, in the back, and get on your knees.”

“What about her?” Daniel said, looking at Nancy.

“We got other plans for her. Plans that don’t involve you.”

Daniel traded a glance with Nancy, whose face had turned white as a chunk of sun-bleached cement.

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