Dying For LA Ian Jones (the ebook reader .txt) 📖

three weeks ago. He hadn’t taken a cent out since, so he was in credit. Even paid off some of the balance on his cards.

‘Was he paid to marry Deanna?’ Judy wondered aloud.

They stopped to eat just outside Barstow, Judy and Warner sat at the table fiddling with their mobile phones while John and Reed watched the traffic go by outside the window. John realised he’d left his own mobile back at the hotel. Not that it mattered, he wouldn’t be needing it.

‘You been to Vegas much?’ John asked.

Reed shook his head.

‘Not really. We went on a road trip when I was a kid, I don’t really remember it. My brother had his bachelor party there a couple of years ago. That was a pain in the ass, I had to fly in from Japan and then back out again a couple of days after. Selfish bastard,’ Reed smiled.

‘I’ve only been there once, I thought it was OK actually. I liked it, apart from all the other crap that went on at the time,’ John watched a blue Buick roll into the car park and stop, two guys inside.

‘Yeah, you’re some kind of badass private investigator, right?’ Reed asked him.

‘No, I’m a lot of things, but absolutely not that. People play me to sort out problems. That’s it.’

The food arrived and they ate, Judy talking about her granddaughter and Warner about his kids, and both complaining about how they hated the time they had to spend away from their families. The food was fried but good, and they were hungry. It was nice in the diner, done out like an old-fashioned ranch house.

John’s eyes kept going back out the window to the Buick. It was parked close to the car park entrance pointing toward the building, and the two Hispanic looking guys inside hadn’t moved. Warner’s phone chirped and he answered it, walking away from the table and Judy became engrossed in hers again.

John looked around the building and then at Reed, deciding. He set a smile on his face, just two guys having a chat.

‘Tom, there’s a couple of guys just pulled in. They haven’t moved. I’ve got that feeling you know?’

Reed didn’t turn to see out the window behind him, instead returned the look straight back at John.

‘Oh yeah, I know that feeling.’

‘It’s a blue Buick, behind you. They can see right in. I’m going to go to the gents, nice and slow and obvious.’

Reed nodded, keeping the act going.

‘Right, OK, so I get your back?’

‘They will probably only send one in after me, so how about you go and get something from the car, be really casual about it.’

‘Yeah, OK. I’ll deal with the other one.’

‘Keane got me a gun, it’s in the car, so I’ll have to do it old school, but that’s OK.’

‘I don’t have one, it shouldn’t be a thing.’

‘Just keep watching this way, I’ll let you know.’

‘Right.’

John stood up and stretched, then eased away from the table and sauntered across the room to the toilets. Out the corner of his eye he saw both doors open on the Buick. Maybe he had been wrong, and the two men would come in. He wasn’t worried, Reed was at the door and walking into the car park, he would be able to see what was going down.

He walked in, the gent’s toilet was a large room, three cubicles on the right and urinals straight in front, with another door next to them, which presumably led straight into the car park. Sinks down the left wall. He quickly made his way across and stood at the urinal at the far end, waiting.

He heard the door slowly open, a pause, then footsteps. The door closed again. He didn’t look over his shoulder, there were chrome fittings above the urinals and he could just about make out an unclear reflection of the room. A Hispanic man, wearing a blue suit, light shirt. He was moving gradually across the room, light on his feet, hand reaching into his jacket.

John made a show of finishing, and stepped back, coughing loudly and covering his mouth, turning toward the sinks, counting slowly 1, 2, 3, 4 in his mind. The element of surprise. The man moved closer.

John wandered over, casual, relaxed, just a guy doing what he did several times a day as he made his way toward the sinks, closing in, then shot out his left arm, and seized the man’s hand in his inside pocket through the jacket, feeling the gun that was in there. He squeezed and twisted upward, unrelenting, then pulled the man toward him. The man was shorter than him, his mouth opened in shocked surprise then gasped when John wrenched the arm up further, still with the hand pointing down. He reached out and grabbed John’s t-shirt, but it did no good, just took both his hands out of action.

Without letting go John punched him twice hard in the face, the first one a swing which caught the man high on his left eye, the second more accurate, smashing his nose and breaking some teeth. John pushed him back hard, he fell against the sinks and John hit him again, this time in the stomach and as he doubled over John grabbed his hair and slammed him to the floor, his head smacking heavily against the tiles.

John dug the gun out of the jacket pocket, a Ruger with a thick, long silencer. He threw it in the nearest sink.

He pulled the man up and sat him against the wall. He was dazed and bleeding, left eye closed. John laid his right hand on the floor and stamped down several times as hard as he could, covering the man’s mouth to hide the scream.

‘OK, so who sent you?’ John asked, leaning close to the man’s ear.

The man looked at him with his good eye, in a world of confusion and pain.

‘It all seemed really simple, right? Guy goes for a piss, and you just pull the trigger.