Slot Machine Fever Dreams by Chris Bohjalian

Author:Chris Bohjalian [Bohjalian, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-07-24T23:00:00+00:00

Yes, you’ve killed in self-defense. Twice. Or, to paraphrase Russell Krinder, at least mostly. In theory, you could have wounded in self-defense. But you have, you admit only to yourself and only then in your darkest moments, the soul of a vigilante.

This Russell Krinder? A contract killer. That’s different.

“So, we’re just going to sit here?” he asks. “Or do we order room service? Dessert? Champagne? Oh, wait, you don’t drink. Anymore.” He snaps his fingers with regret and makes that condescending tsk-tsk sound you detest. He does this, clearly, just to get under your skin—which actually makes him a little more endearing. It’s the kind of thing you would do if he were pointing a gun at you.

“The lava cake here is quite good,” you tell him.

“I’ll bet.”

“Whenever real players say those two words, an angel gets its wings.”

“That a fact?”

“It is.”

You sigh. You could shoot him. One more pop, a few minutes distant from the first. No one would hear, or—so far removed from the first—think twice, if they did. You could then carve him up the way he planned to dismantle you, slicing and dicing him into enough pieces to fit into a couple of suitcases.

But the cameras: they showed you both in the corridor. They’d show you leaving alone. With his suitcases.

Which would be a very bad look.

And there’s that bullet lodged in the chair in which he’s sitting.

So, if you’re going to leave, you’re going to have to leave together.

“Give me your jacket,” you command.

“Going to strip me naked? That might be fun.”

“Just the jacket.”

He leans forward and peels off the windbreaker with the crazy number of pockets and hands it to you. You put it on and stand and then take a step back. You check to see that the Glock will fit in your hand inside one of the two front pockets. It does. You could walk him out of the room and down the hall and into the elevator and through the gaming floor and out the doors and finish him off . . . wherever. If he lunged at you in front of any of the cameras, you’d be shooting in self-defense—and this assumes he wants to take a bullet.

Which is unlikely.

You place both knives in the jacket, one closed and one open, zip up the pockets, and inform him that the two of you are going to leave the suite. And Russell Krinder, man of a thousand surprises, says, “I have a last request. If, that is, you really do plan to kill me.”

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