Restless City — Chapter 5

by R.Hooker on October 2, 2009

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This far out on the east end of Las Vegas it’s useless to call for a cab. They’re focused on hustling customers up and down the Strip, out to McCarran Airport, and over to the string of topless bars that pay kickbacks to drivers to deliver hopelessly horny marks wearing monogrammed sports shirts and too much cologne.

But in a tough economy there’s always someone willing to give a guy a ride, especially when there’s quick money in it. Brady stopped a construction worker coming out of the convenience store with a six-pack of Budweiser. The guy’s hair was full of dust. He had the coyote eyes of a meth tweaker. His T-shirt had sweat rings on its sweat rings. Even his bulging pitbull forearm tats looked tired. He wore the heavy boots of a laborer and looked up from them when Brady explained that he needed a ride across town. When Brady flashed a C-note, the laborer grinned, his rotted yellow teeth catching the artificial light.

For two hundred more dollars, the laborer agreed to trade his scuffed cell phone for Brady’s new one, neglecting to inform his newfound benefactor that it was a Wal-Mart throw-down with limited minutes.

Brady hated to lose his new phone, but he couldn’t take chances on someone tracking him. He was feeling a little paranoid, but then he was the one being set up for a heavy fall.

“You in some kind of trouble?” yellow teeth asked, drinking a beer and driving one-handed.

“Not much,” Brady replied.

“Trying to lose the old lady, huh? Yeah, man, I know that feeling,” he said. “You got any more of those Benjamins I can hook you up with a piece. Not much for looks, but it shoots good. Five hundred.”

“How about two?”

“How about three?”

Brady nodded.

Racing up Tropicana in the left lane, running lights not as yellow as his teeth, the laborer sipped his Budweiser, lit a Marlboro, broke wind, spat out the open window, cursed a Hispanic family in a too-slow Hyundai and still managed to reach under the seat and pull up an object wrapped in a red mechanic’s rag. He handed it to Brady.

“See what you think.”

It was a .32 Smith and Wesson with the barrel serial number clumsily filed off. Cloth tape around the handle to cut down on print transfer. No doubt hot as a skillet. From its heft, Brady knew it was loaded.

He peeled off three bills from his bankroll and said, “You can drop me off at the next corner.”

The tweaker nodded and sealed the deal with a lugee out the window.

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Tagged as: John L. Smith, Las Vegas Writes, Resltess City