Smoked by Patrick Quinlan

Author:Patrick Quinlan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: crime, kidnapping, mafia, caper, pulp fiction, elmore leonard, heist, guy ritchie, chase action adventure, crime action thriller

* * *

Smoke arrived at the apartment knowing how late he was.

It was full dark. He parked his little Toyota half a block down from the apartment. He killed the headlights, then waited and watched. No one was moving on the street. TV lights flickered from homes on his left and his right. His sense of dread was so complete that he felt he might vomit. All along, he had made mistakes, and now it had probably cost Lola and Pamela their lives. He should have told Lola long ago about his life before now. Scratch that – he shouldn’t have become involved with Lola, or anyone.

A breeze kicked up and the trees along the street creaked and swayed. Shadows moved. A young couple, bundled up and leaning on each other, laughed together as they walked along the sidewalk.

He had killed the kid without thinking of the fallout. It had been an instinct. Kill the kid. Kill them all. Get away. But of course he hadn’t been able to kill them all. That big guy, Moss, it would be hard to kill a guy like that.

He should have let them take him in – maybe he could’ve escaped some other way. Lola’s death was a horrible price to pay for his own life.

He had been unable to go back to the apartment – the neighborhood was crawling with cops and firemen. His car was around the corner, so he had simply climbed in and driven off—you mention earlier that he had to go back and get his car. It’s a little confusing as written. He didn’t know when he would go back there. So the long and the short of it was he couldn’t pick up his guns. They were trapped in the apartment. In the old days, he had loathed guns, but over time he had made a certain peace with them. Since he had been on the run, he had kept three of them. Two, fully loaded, safeties off, hidden in the apartment, and one small two-shot derringer here in the car, tucked away under the driver’s seat.

At least he had the derringer – the Bond Arms Cowboy Defender. He held it in his big hand. Five inches long in total, with three-inch, over-under barrels. It was so small that it looked almost like a toy cigarette lighter. But it packed a wallop. It fired two .45 rounds, and was fully loaded. The barrel was so short that the gun was useless except for the most up-close fighting. That’s why he kept it in the car. You couldn’t hit the side of a barn with it if the barn was more than ten yards away, but if somebody was sitting in the car with you, or standing right in front of you, you might just kill them. He thought of Moss again. He looked at the tiny Derringer in his hand.

Jesus.

He climbed out of the car and moved slowly toward the building, limping, gun palmed in his hand.

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