LA by Blake Banner

Author:Blake Banner [Banner, Blake]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-06-13T16:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

She gave a funny little laugh that bordered on the hysterical.

“That I’d like to watch,” she said.

“Yeah? I’ll see what I can do.”

More hysterical giggling, a glance at Tony. “He’s not exactly easy to kill.”

“So he’s staff. Good to know.” Her face became serious. I ignored it. “Introduce us. I’ll give you a spectacle you won’t forget.”

Her cheeks flushed. “Let’s just stay on task, shall we? There are two things I need you to clarify for me.”

“Just two? Shoot.”

“The BB gun.”

It had been too much to hope for that they’d left the gun in the holster. I had been expecting the question.

“What about it?”

She frowned, like my answer confused her.

“Why in the name of all that’s holy were you, of all people, carrying a BB gun?”

“Maybe for people like you, who are above the law, it’s normal for a guy to walk around carrying a gun. Maybe if I lived in Texas, Arizona or Wyoming I’d have a whole damned arsenal. But in New York carrying a gun is illegal except under very specific circumstances. And in California the same applies. It may surprise you, but I am not allowed to carry a gun either in New York or in California, and the last thing I need is to get busted for carrying a firearm. So I carry a very realistic replica instead. Most times, waving it around is enough to scare people off.”

She threw back her head and laughed out loud. “Oh,” she said with delight, “how the mighty are fallen. Big, tough, dangerous Harry Bauer, toting around a BB gun to scare nasty bad people away.” She laughed again.

“What was your other question, Karen?”

She chuckled a little more, then became serious. “Mohammed Ben-Amini.”

I gave that question the same treatment. “What about him?”

“You told us this morning that you had killed him.”

I made like I was thinking about it, staring at the top of the kitchen door.

“Yeah, I was kind of tripping. I don’t know what you gave me but it screwed me up. I always wanted to kill Ben-Amini. I fantasized about it. But the CIA took him. I tried to track him down when I got back to the States, but his trail was cold.”

She sat staring at me for a long while. I frowned and echoed her words from a little earlier.

“What’s it to you?”

“He was a client of ours. We did a lot of trade together.”

I sat forward and tried to convey excitement by imagining Gal Gadot walking out of the ocean toward me with hungry eyes and a small bikini.

“You know where he is?”

She nodded. “I know where he is.”

She took off the bikini top and smiled. I got intense. “What do you want for him? Name it.”

She smiled. “You’d kill him for us?”

“I’m not a hit man and I don’t need the fucking money. What the fuck are you playing at? I thought you said he was a customer of yours!”

“He was.”

“Where is he, Karen?”

“He’s dead. He was murdered, not far from here, at Salton Sea.

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