Share A Drink?

Here's a hardboiled crime story that takes place on a sweltering summer day in the Louisiana bayou. I hope you enjoy the surprising tale of a femme fatale and the two men she conned in the story "Share a Drink." 

The day I died, the temperature was over one hundred degrees and the humidity was unbearable. We needed rain. The whole continent of North America needed rain. It was the middle of August and there hadn't been any relief from the heat for over two weeks. I'd also had it up to here with swatting gnats, flies, and mosquitos while sitting on the front porch of my Louisiana bungalow with Leanna.

Leanna's official job description was secretary and office manager. Her unofficial job description was sex kitten to the boss, but with this heat, neither of us was in any mood to fool around. Even Leanna was having trouble beating the heat, and had taken to walking around with nothing on but the radio, which was currently playing Jimmy Buffet's "Cheeseburgers in Paradise." I could have gone for a cheeseburger right about then, but my doctor (and damn all of those doctors anyway) had told me to watch my cholesterol and my triglycerides, so I was reduced to drinking strawberry kiwi lemonade through a straw and watching my skiffs bob with the current of the bayou, the mercilessly hot breeze creating ripples along the murky water every now and then.

"Leanna!" I called out, shaking the ice in my empty lemonade glass. "A refill, please!"

Leanna strutted her way onto the porch in all of her naked glory, her twenty-two year-old body fresh and unblemished. Her fire-red hair fell across her teardrop-shaped breasts, concealing their tanned texture. The rest of Leanna was easy on the eyes too, and had also built up quite a tan since she started working for me. A month ago, she showed up out of the blue in nothing but a blouse and bikini bottom and told me she needed a job because Mason, her jack-hole boyfriend, had kicked her out of the house, donated her belongings to Goodwill, and spent all of her money on booze and hookers. What was a man to do except take pity on the poor girl and give her a job?

"Comin' right up, Gil," Leanna said, her voice dripping with honeysuckle sweetness. "Would you like anything else?"

"Not right now, sweet pea," I told her, taking her hand in mine. "How are the books looking?"

"Not good," she replied, holding my lemonade glass in both hands. "If we don't get ten more rentals before the end of the month, we'll be in the red again."

I nodded and waved her off. This wasn't news to me; renting skiffs for a trip down the Louisiana bayou didn't have the same kind of appeal to tourists as it used to, and with the heat, it was something of a crap shoot.

I heard the approaching boat before I saw it, and when Leanna returned with my lemonade, her eyes went wide at the sight of the boat's driver.

"Mason," she whispered. "How'd he find me?"

"Whoa, slow down, sweet pea," I soothed. "He's still got a ways to go before he gets here. Go into the safe and get my sawed-off. I'll keep watch outside."

Leanna nodded and dashed inside the bungalow. I could hear her manipulating the lock on the safe, opening the door, and scrambling to pull the shotgun out of it before Mason arrived. I took a long sip of my strawberry kiwi shit as Leanna handed me my two-barreled side-by-side. By then, Mason's fishing boat had pulled alongside the skiffs, and as he cut the motor and climbed onto my makeshift wooden dock, his eyes fell on Leanna's naked body, studying all of her curves in detail.

"So this is where you've been!" Mason announced as he approached the porch. He was in his late twenties, well-muscled, and tall, with black hair greased back against his head and a set of biceps that were frighteningly huge. He had donned a sleeveless black shirt with a white skull and crossbones on it, along with black jeans and black leather boots.

"That's right," I said to Mason, rising from my chair and cocking my shotgun. "And if you're smart, you'll walk down that dock, get back in your boat, and forget you ever saw her." I stood in front of Leanna and jerked my head toward the bungalow. "Go get dressed, sweet pea." She nodded, backed away slowly, and shut the door behind her.

I aimed the shotgun at Mason and tried to keep my hands steady. I hadn't held the shotgun or fired it in over five years, and the last time I did it blew a guy's arm clean off. I didn't know if I still had the balls to pull the trigger.

"Look, this is all a simple misunderstanding, mate," Mason started. I realized for the first time that he talked with a British lilt in his voice. "If I can talk to my girl, we'll get this sorted out."

"She's not your girl," I said, hoping I sounded menacing enough. "She's not anybody's girl. And last time I checked, you threw her out on her ass with nothing but the bikini on her back."

Mason chuckled, put his hands on his hips, and shook his head.

"Is that what she told you?" he said in apparent disbelief. "You old sod. You stupid, old sod. She's taking you for a ride, mate, just like she took me!"

By now my mouth was hot and dry and my palms were getting sweaty. What was Mason talking about?

"Look, I'm going to lay it all out for you, okay?" He ran his hands through his slick hair. "A month ago, that little tart stole twenty thousand quid from my bank account. She robbed me blind and took off running. It's taken me all this time to find her, and when I do, I see her pulling the same scam with you!"

I wiped a hand over my eyes to clear the sweat from them. What was Leanna doing in there?

"In fact, I bet she's robbing you as we speak!" Mason finished.

"That's a lie!" I shouted. I blinked a few times to clear my vision. The heat was really getting to me.

"You think so?" Mason pointed to the bungalow's door. "Then why hasn't she come out of there yet?"

I turned to the bungalow and considered what Mason said, even though I was having a hard time putting two thoughts together. I walked over to the bungalow's door and rapped my knuckles against it.

"Leanna?" I called. "You almost done in there, sweet pea?"

There was no response.

"Leanna?!" I called again in alarm. "You okay in there?"

Again, there was no response.

Mason barreled up to the door and smashed his right boot into it, sending splinters of wood clattering to the floor. Mason stormed inside the empty bungalow, swore, and ran out the back door and into the bayou, wading up to his thighs through the mire without so much as a "goodbye." When I entered the bungalow, the safe door was open and the five hundred dollars I usually kept in there was gone.

My heart sank to my feet and flopped to death on the floor, waiting for someone to revive it. I staggered a few steps, unable to get oxygen to circulate through my lungs, and almost tripped over some broken floorboards. I steadied myself and realized that they weren't broken, just pulled up, and beneath them was a secret compartment. I kneeled by it, scrounging in the dirt for some kind of clue, and found a soggy hundred dollar bill lodged between two rocks.

"I'll be damned," I said out loud. Mason was right. Leanna had hid the twenty thousand she'd stolen from him under the floorboards of my bungalow. She'd only pretended to be my secretary and lover all this time. "Gil," I whispered, "how could you be so stupid?"

"That's what I asked myself every time I saw your face," Leanna's voice said from the bungalow's doorway. I stood up fast, too fast, and got lightheaded from the exertion. Leanna stood there in her blouse and bikini bottom, the garments soaking wet and clinging to her in just the right places.

"Leanna," I said through gritted teeth, "don't make me do this." I aimed my shotgun at her as my finger tickled the trigger.

She laughed in my face. "Oh, please," she said, "like you actually have the stones." She strutted to the icebox and poured herself a glass of the strawberry kiwi lemonade, my shotgun following every one of her movements.

"Share a drink with me, Gil?" she asked, a wicked smile on her lips.

"I'll pass," I told her.

She shrugged, drank the lemonade down in one big gulp, and smiled. "And now, I bid you adieu." She exited the bungalow and walked toward Mason's boat, which she had already loaded with a vinyl duffel bag that probably contained the twenty grand and my five hundred bucks.

I kept pace with Leanna, following her down the wooden dock that led to the boat, as she snaked aboard and started the engine.

"Well?" she said. "Are you going to shoot me or what?"

"I don't have to, sweet pea," I told her. "You just shot yourself."

She frowned. "How'd I manage that?"

"You poisoned my lemonade," I said. "I don't know what you used, but I feel like shit, and I know I don't have much time left before I leave God's green Earth."

"Your point, Gil?"

"You drank the same lemonade," I pointed out. "Which means you just poisoned yourself."

Leanna gave me this blank look, like she couldn't fathom she'd done something so stupid. She turned her head to the right, looked down at the water, and then started to laugh.

"Shit," she said. "I guess I did, didn't I?" She put a hand to her forehead. "I was so thirsty that I--I didn't even think about--" She stammered for the right words, couldn't find them. "What a way to go," she muttered.

That's when I gave her both barrels in the chest. She tumbled out of the boat and performed a dead man's float in the water, her blood tinging it from green to black. After a few moments, Mason came upon me and ripped the shotgun from my hands. He found his twenty grand in Leanna's bag, returned my five hundred to me, and left in his boat, rocketing down the bayou and leaving me with Leanna's dead body.

I didn't bother telling Mason about the poison. I didn't want to annoy him, and quite frankly, I wasn't sure he'd give a shit. Leanna is still floating in the water, drifting down the bayou, as I sit on the porch of the bungalow and listen to Jimmy Buffet's "Margaritaville" while the unbearable sweat and feverish shivers take hold. It's not the way I pictured myself going out, but then again, none of us knows when and how we'll die; it's all in God's hands. 

But there is one thing I do know: the next time some half-naked girl with a sad story wants a job, I'm giving her directions to the nearest whorehouse.

Father's Day

Here's a piece of hardboiled flash fiction for you guys out there.  It's called "Father's Day," and was inspired by a fanfic written by my good friend, Mindy Owen. 

I jerked the chain on the forty-watt bulb above my head.  Pale yellow light blasted across the mossy stone of the brewery's basement, illuminating kegs of beer, bottles of wine, and a man, a pitiful-looking thing, bound to a wooden chair by chains.  He was in his mid-forties, owned a less-than-average build, and wore horn-rimmed glasses.  His hair was a raven black, and as his blue eyes opened and fought for focus in the damp surroundings, I stepped forward and hit him with everything I had. 

His head jerked to the right and blood spewed from his gums.  My left hand found a handful of that hair, ripped his head upright, and socked the poor sap again.  Some of those black locks came away in my hand as his head snapped backward and his nose answered my fist with a delicious crack. 

"What...?" he mumbled as he regained consciousness.  "Who...are you...?"

"You'll want to save that for the end," I told him.  "But first things first.  I need your name."

"Why...?" he blubbered.

"Checks and balances," I answered.  "Give me your last name followed by your first."

"Dunwin...Miles," the man in the chair croaked.  "Are these...chains?"

"Thank you, Miles," I said, removing my phone from my coat pocket.  "And yes, they are."  I dialed a number and waited until the third ring before I hung up.

A moment later my phone buzzed.  I answered it on the first ring.  "Who is this?" I asked.

"Do you have him?" the male voice on the other end responded.

"He's here," I replied.

"I need his pin number."

I snapped Miles's head upright.  His blues were fighting to focus on my blues, and he was losing the battle.

"Pin number, Miles," I said.  "And be quick about it."

"Why...?" Miles muttered.

"Because I'll bury you in one of these kegs and kick your corpse into the Thames if you don't."  Miles hesitated.  "My time is valuable, Miles, and I can't spend all of it dealing with you."  I brought myself nose-to-nose with the man in the chair.  "Do you understand, Miles?"  He nodded like a disappointed child.  "Then the pin number, please."

"Two, five, eight, nine."  Miles hacked up blood and spat some on the concrete floor.  I observed the sorry state he was in and almost wanted to apologize for not treating him better.

I turned my attention back to the man on my phone and passed Miles's pin number along.  The sound of fingertips stroking computer keys flowed to my ear shortly thereafter.

"Mister Dunwin has half a million quid in checking," the man on the other end said.  "He's also got three hundred thousand in savings."

"Take it all," I told him.  "Leave him penniless."  Miles's head turned toward me, his eyes wide as realization set in. 

"You're the boss, doll face," my man inside the phone replied, and with a few more keystrokes, transferred Miles Dunwin's funds into my account.  "It's done."

I disconnected and returned the phone to my coat pocket.  When I pulled that hand out again, it had a .38 Special inside of it.  Miles recoiled in horror at the sight of the neat little revolver, but the chains kept him from squirming around too much.

"Miles," I said, "I want you to think back to 1989."  I leaned forward and matched his stare with one of my own.  "Do you remember a woman named Deidre Langford?"

The man in the chair was silent for a few moments.  His head rocked back as his cerebellum recalled events from over twenty years ago.  Then he spoke.

"Deidre," he rasped.  "She was...my fiancé."

"A lovely fiancé, too." I leaned in closer.  "Would you care to know how she died?"

"Deidre's...dead?"

"I'm afraid so, Miles."  A scowl took form on my face and blasted into Miles's eyes.  "She died a junkie, strung out on heroin, trying to support her only daughter by selling her body on the back streets of London."

"No...not Deidre..."

"Yes, Miles."  I leaned in much closer.  "And would you like to know why Deidre's life turned so sour?"  Miles nodded.  "Because you abandoned her.  You used her for sex and for money, but never for love!  You went back to America, to your wife and child, and left Deidre penniless and alone!"

"Deidre's...daughter..."

"That's right, Deidre had a daughter.  She was your daughter too, Miles."  I cocked the hammer on the .38 and held the steel death machine in both of my hands.  "And would you like to know where she is?"  Miles nodded.  "She's standing before you."

The blue in Miles's eyes faded somewhat and became darker, duskier.  He appeared disappointed that things had come to this.

"Annabelle...?" Miles questioned softly, and damn if I didn't hesitate.  Nobody had called me by my full name for over a decade, but I had to do this, for Mum and for every woman Miles Dunwin had deceived, robbed, and left to die in cities all over the world.

"Yes, Miles," I said.  "You're my father."

"Annabelle," he whispered, gathering his strength, "you don't--"

"And do you know what today is?" I interrupted.

Miles froze in place for a brief moment.  He stared straight ahead, concentrating, until he closed his eyes and bitter tears streamed down his face.

"Father's Day," he sobbed.  "It's Father's Day...!"

There was a sharp clap of thunder against the stone walls.  My father's head lay crooked on his shoulders, a bloody hole in his forehead, as smoke twirled from the barrel of the revolver and into the ceiling.  I bit back the tears that threatened to spill from my eyes as I tucked the .38 inside my coat, shoved my hands in my pockets, and walked up the basement steps and into the drizzle of a chilly London night.