[identity profile] pierot.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] zg_shadows


The sun was dipping like a drunk at the bar, scattering dregs over the streets out of the desert, groping the end of his fingers through the window. The bar inside was quiet, all dark oak and heavy leather that ate the sound and filled up my nose with last week’s spills and pine fresh polish. The clock was slow and down by the bar I could just make out bad cologne and working man sweat. By the fourth glass I was starting to like the place.

That was when she blew in, swinging through the door like a 50’s moll, all legs and crimson lipstick. I knew right away she was trouble. But the kind you can’t turn down, the kind you tell the cubs to avoid.

She kept swaying straight past me, all the way to the bartender who was handing out whisky and stories to the locals and getting his daily wage in heartache and old jokes.
She stood there a long minute and not a head turned her way, the barkeep kept grinning all polite like, and the joker kept on telling his tale as if all his private dreams weren’t three feet away. No sound of impatient fingernails on the bartop, not a whiff of delicate scent drifting back to me with the breeze from the closing door.

Slipped my boots down from the table, quiet like a mormon in a cathouse and sipped off the last of the whisky. Made it to my feet and straightened my hat and started my bootheels walking toward the door.

Not a one of them in the bar looked at me more then a second glance, I swear to you not a one of them was gonna remember my face in the morning, five steps from the door, then three and the hairs on the back of my neck were just starting to go down.

That’s when I felt the cold breeze hit my cheek a ticking space before the hand landed on my wrist.

“Buy a lady a drink?”



She was better up close than she was across a bar. Every minute I had spent walking around on two legs started pumping blood to all the wrong places. I ordered a pair of whiskies “three fingers, straight up” to give me time for the rest of me to stay down.

As soon as it did the lack of scent washed over me like a cold patch in a lake and the part of me that can hear the trees whisper and the fire growl started to pace behind my eyes.

The table in the corner looked real inviting as I put my back to the wall, and kicked out a second chair.

She didn’t even cross her legs when she perched across from me; somewhere in my head a bit of old lore told me a Mitford girl would be proud of her. She leaned a shoulder across toward me, flash of white flesh stretching out from under something gauzy as she laid her hand down on the table.

The outfit was white and black, not prim like a secretary but long lines and curves that made the pinstripe bend and dip along with your eyes. The top carried them down toward the colour now visible where the shawl had moved, a nice neat hole with bright red edging right over her heart. Small calibre experience told me, and a killing hit my instincts confirmed.

She noticed right away and shifted just enough to make everything all black and white again and told me the story. It wasn’t a new one.

She had lived in this town back in the day, when gambling started to make money and honesty didn’t. She was a singer or maybe a showgirl and she had been walking out with an important guy. The kind of important that had enemies. She wasn’t his wife and showed me the diamonds to prove it. They were in love, it was even in the summertime. Then she had died.

She told me that she knew it was the mob that hit her man, dragging the two of them out of the flat top Ford into the alley out back of this bar across from Peterson and Third. She told me about how they had held her as she yelled for help. She told me how the guy had stepped out of the shadows to meet them, all dressed in spats and pale in narrow shouldered style. She told me every word of the conversation she had heard and she told me what it sounded like when the gun burned down her man.

I’ve seen a lot of tears in my time, some of sorrow, a few of joy and twice of blood. Hers were just as real, even though I still ain’t sure if they were water. She told me how the narrow shouldered guy hadn’t even looked her way, when he told his boys to get rid of the dame, hadn’t even looked around as she heard the crack by her chest.

She asked me to make him pay. It was the asking that did it.



To be honest it didn’t take long to find the right guy, the alleyway still knew the smell of the blood and while the walls had seen their share of deaths she had given me enough detail to be able to find the right one. True enough I got lucky to find the remains of the long ago bullet in the old stone and wood – but then I was born under a laughing moon.

A circle scratched in the dirt and a length of twine were enough to get a direction, a time listening to old voices gave me a name and the wind off the desert was enough to keep the stink of the traffic out of my nose.

It took me a few hours walking to put the three things together and left me standing outside one of the biggest lightshows in the town. Name of the Tangiers stood out half a mile above me and their front desk lady telling me she couldn’t confirm which suite the name was in. The hundred in my hand had her go get me a brochure from the back, the computer screen glowing all green in front of me. Damn but the weaver has too much of these people.

The top floor was everything you would expect from this kind of place, plastic smells and desperation on every stairwell getting there. The room number was on the left with one of those card things on the wall. The spirit in it was like a tiny eye at the end of a glowing line running away into the brick. I miss that glasswalker some days more than others, but at least her tricks still work.

The two monkeys in the front room went all blank as I wandered in, lady giving them sleep while their eyes stayed open. Big men with all year tans and sweat stains under the arms. The place had old cigar smoke and sweat on every wall, the undercurrent of rot and pain rough contrast to the clean marble and heavy wood my eyes found.

I stopped for a few long heartbeats breathing through all the songs and memories the spirits taught me. Felt the warmth as wind surrounded me and the tingle of awe as silver fire wrapped me up and down. Looked at the night sky outside and spoke quiet and simple like; to take in the night and ask for the lady’s blessing on my next few moments, then stepped through the darkness into the next room.

The fire was out, a chair with its back to me hid the name from my sight and I ghosted down the wall to set up a good line on the monster I was about to take on. I reviewed what I had on me and what it might be that ran with the mob in this town.

Never touching the light that pooled around the lamp I eased up and slipped the silver onto my left hand. Drifted around a few more paces and prepared to steal whatever might come my way, slowly letting the rage burn out across my body and felt the snarl start to lift me into a strike.

It looked up and I held in the shadows. Frozen. I could see it clearly at last.

It had glasses perched on a high nose, liver spots staining the hand that straightened them to try to see me outside the light. Its voice sounded like old road when it asked if anyone was there.

The name was an old man, thin enough to see through, and tired enough to breathe pain and rot across the air between us. I let the rage die away, the silver drop off my hand and the flames go silent around me. He was just a man and too old to fight or gain any glory from his death.

So I let him get to his gun before I stepped out and cut his throat.

Date: 2008-08-02 02:16 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lanfykins.livejournal.com
Nice.

Good concept, some lovely phrases. I particularly liked “three fingers, straight up” to give me time for the rest of me to stay down.

I think the flow may need a little work, but it's a good piece.

Date: 2008-08-02 02:21 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] anysbryd.livejournal.com
Good piece, like the atmosphere of it and the ending is wonderfully sad.

Date: 2008-08-02 02:31 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] wraithwitch.livejournal.com
Very Jude, very cool =)

Date: 2008-08-02 03:32 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] castorlion.livejournal.com


I do like the shades of PI narration.. :-)

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