Guns + Tacos Vol. 1

By Michael Bracken and Trey R. Barker

There’s a taco truck in Chicago known among a certain segment of the population for its daily specials. Late at night and during the wee hours of the morning, it isn’t the food selection that attracts customers, it’s the illegal weapons available with the special order.

Each episode of Guns & Tacos features the story of one Chicagoland resident who visits the taco truck seeking a solution to life’s problems, a solution that always comes in a to-go bag.

Episode 1: “Tacos de Cazuela con Smith & Wesson” by Gary Phillips.

Episode 2: “Three Brisket Tacos and a Sig Sauer” by Michael Bracken.

Episode 3: “A Gyro and a Glock” by Frank Zafiro.

Episodes 4-6 of Season One are featured in Guns + Tacos Vol. 2.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Down & Out Books
• Release date: Jan 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463822616

Michael Bracken

Michael Bracken is the author of several books, but is better known as the author of more than 1,200 short stories, including erotica published in the Lambda Award-nominated anthologies Show-offs and Team Players and in Best Gay Erotica 2013, Best New Erotica 4, Fifty Shades of Grey Fedora, Fifty Shades of Green, Flesh & Blood: Guilty as Sin, Gent, Hot Blood: Strange Bedfellows, Oui, Ultimate Gay Erotica 2006, and many other anthologies and periodicals. Learn more at www.CrimeFictionWriter.com.

Book preview

GUNS + TACOS

Season One, Volume One

Series Created and Edited by

Michael Bracken and Trey R. Barker

Season Copyright © 2019 by Michael Bracken and Trey R. Barker

Individual Episode Copyrights © 2019 by Respective Authors

All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

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The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Cover design by Zach McCain

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Guns + Tacos

Episodes 1-3

Tacos de Cazuela con Smith & Wesson

Gary Phillips

Three Brisket Tacos and a Sig Sauer

Michael Bracken

A Gyro and a Glock

Frank Zafiro

About the Authors

Books by the Authors

Preview of Episode 7 of A Grifter’s Song,

a Series Created and Edited by Frank Zafiro

Gone Dead on You by Eryk Pruitt

Previews from Guns + Tacos Episodes 4-6

Three Chalupas, Rice, Soda and a Kimber .45 by Trey R. Barker

Some Churros and El Burro by William Dylan Powell

A Beretta, Burritos, and Bears by James A. Hearn

There’s a taco truck in Chicago known among a certain segment of the population for its daily specials. Late at night and during the wee hours of the morning, it isn’t the food selection that attracts customers, it’s the illegal weapons available with the special order. Each episode of Guns + Tacos features the story of one Chicagoland resident who visits the taco truck seeking a solution to life’s problems, a solution that always comes in a to-go bag.

TACOS DE CAZUELA CON SMITH & WESSON

Gary Phillips

Augustina Gus Blanchard, M.D. passed under a stand of trees with drooping limbs into the plaza area. It was past 11 p.m. and remained hot and humid, the air still like a rundown watch. At least there wasn’t the intense whiteness of sunlight bouncing off the sparkling concrete, only the warm yellow circles of overhead sodium lighting. Momentarily she had to focus to retain her bearings, reminding herself why she was here and steel her will on what was yet to be done. What had to be done. She removed her earbuds, looping the thin cord around her neck. Her cotton shirt clung to her damp back, the coolness of the cloth against her skin keeping her centered. Before her there was a twenty-something couple at the taco truck, the man with a Cubs cap on backward. Both wore baggy cargo shorts and limited-edition sneakers. The young woman scrolled through her smartphone while she half-listened to her boyfriend rattle on about how the start-up he was part of was going to establish a recognized niche in the gaming industry.

It’s all about the IP, babe. We’ve got some iconic characters populating our shit. Disney won’t have anything on us, he chuckled.

For sure, she muttered, amused at something on her screen with its harsh light detailing her pronounced cheekbones.

Their order was called and the two walked off to a clutch of nearby illuminated lunch benches. Other people clustered there too as the free concert in the adjacent park had ended not long ago. Their food had been deposited on cheap paper plates that required them to hold the goods with two hands.

Blanchard stepped up to the order window. As she understood it, it didn’t matter whether or not she used the name Jesse with this older man looking down at her through the opening in the plexiglass, a glow from inside illuminating the vehicle’s interior fluorescents along the ceiling. Though that was the name in flowing script alongside the mobile kitchen, Jesse’s Tacos. He didn’t look like a Jesse, but then, she wasn’t here about the name that may or may not be on his business license. This individual was balding and pleasant-faced. He reminded her of a younger version of that actor she saw now and then when, after any one of her demanding shifts, she zoned out binge watching The Big Bang Theory. Bob Newhart, that was the guy she concluded. Jesse in his short-sleeved white shirt and old school black frame glasses looked like an accountant, not a man who dealt in…well, what it was he dealt in.

What can I do for you, ma’am?

I’d like the special, she said self-consciously though no one else except the cook, his broad back to her as he was cleaning the grill, was within earshot. At least she hoped that was the case. Was this an elaborate sting? Was she willingly putting her career and freedom in jeopardy as some division of the Chicago Police Department listened in on one of those too-damn-small and too-damn-clear digital devices? There had been these exposes in the past about secret groupings with the department such as off the books interrogation locations. How well could a trauma surgeon take trauma she wondered.

What special would that be? The placid demeanor didn’t change but there was a brief flintiness in those eyes. There was a tattoo on the back on one of his hands. It was a ship’s wheel, like something from a schooner two centuries back.

The tacos de cazuela, she answered as she’d been previously instructed.

His head dipped slightly with a nod and he turned it sideways to address the cook. You get that?

Yeah, came a grunt as a thick hand reached for the ingredients along with a comal-style pan. Chicken livers with that? were the only other words from him.

The supposed Jesse had turned back and raised a questioning eyebrow at her.

This flummoxed her for a few seconds. What was the right response? Was this a test to see if she was a cop? Sure, she settled on.

Okay. That’ll be a hundred and fifty even.

She handed over twenties and fives. As she waited for her order, Blanchard couldn’t help but continually scan her surroundings, nerves prickly. She was used to all manner of gore and carnage in the ER—faces blasted full of glass from auto accidents, gunshot victims bleeding out into a towel pressed on the wound, knives in the head, hell, even an ax buried in a poor bastard’s groin. Images and conditions she’d come to grips with as part of the job, part of her duty to set right if she could and, sometimes, accept that their fates were out of her hands as the breath of life left their body forever. A doctor had to learn to compartmentalize or could easily fall into the trap of self-medication various colleagues of hers had succumbed to over the years. Not just losing their license but their sense of purpose. Tonight, though, her gnawing worry had a different origin.

Tacos de cazuela, the bespectacled man announced, breaking the silence.

Thank you. With steady hands she took the special, which was passed to her through the opening in a white paper bag, grease staining the bottom.

Hope you find the order satisfactory, he said.

She didn’t know what to say to that so didn’t say anything. She walked away briskly, keenly aware of moving from the light into the gloom of night. At a city trashcan she opened the bag and removed a handgun she recognized, a Smith & Wesson 9mm M&P. She crumpled the top of the bag but then hesitated in tossing the contents away. Rather, reaching the perimeter of this section of Millennium Park, she left the bag next to the homeless individual she’d seen on her way in. He was asleep in a fetal position in dirty clothes on some flattened cardboard, a shopping cart of oddball possessions next to him. She paused to assess him, feeling the regular pulse in the big vein of his neck. She moved on, putting the earbud back in place and removing her smartphone from the back pocket of her jeans. She tapped a familiar number on redial and made sure the mic on the coated wiring was unobstructed.

Any problems at the truck? said the voice on the other end of the line.

No. So far, so good, she said, as she continued to walk and talk. I’m heading back home. She’d stuck the nine into her waistband at the small of her back under the tail of her untucked shirt.

Nervous? asked the woman on the other end. ’Cause I sure as hell am.

Some, she admitted, but I know how to use that to my advantage.

Who you talkin’ to, Gus? You’ve long since figured out how to use that kind of energy to deal with all sorts of obstacles. No second-guessing on the operating table. Isn’t that one of your favorite sayings?

Am I that vain…and predictable?

Assured, you cutters would say. Of course I’d say you is who you is, baby. There was only a trace of sarcasm in her voice. Wish I didn’t have to work tonight.

Me too. But at least no getting that good thing of yours means I’ll be rested and ready tomorrow.

Gus, I… began the other woman.

I know. Love you.

Me too.

Blanchard ended the call and continued to where she’d parked her car. While downtown Chicago wasn’t the hyped and mis-characterized South Side, which did suffer from an inordinate amount of gun violence, a woman alone—a black woman of a certain age at that—night or day better be aware of her surroundings no matter what part of the city she was in. But she made it back to her several-years-old Lexus without incident and beeped the car unlocked. Maybe a part of her hoped she’d have been challenged. For what a surprise a would-be mugger would have to shockingly discover the older chick he’d eyeballed as an easy mark had come strapped. Could fill her hand in a whisk like a gunslinger of the Wild, Wild West like the tag line to that rap song by Kool Moe Dee popular when she was a kid back in the day. Comfy on her leather seat and starting the car, she drove off to her apartment, Sarah Vaugh rhapsodizing over the car’s speakers.

Morning and she awoke early. Automatically she checked her phone and saw that she hadn’t missed any emergency calls. That didn’t mean there wouldn’t be some reason to summon her to the hospital later, but for now she could pretend she had a day off and it was best to get herself in gear. After a shower and a shave of her legs, she had some orange juice and a piece of seven-grain wheat toast with a single smear of margarine. She packed her exercise bag with her workout clothes and fetched her yoga mat. Blanchard left the gun, slid under the stacked washer-dryer combination. But being the kind of person she was, she’d done her trimming just in case this plan of hers went south. Okay, maybe she was a little vain she admitted. But she sure as hell didn’t want to get laid out on the mortician’s table and have them do a quick job leaving her corpse with razor burns and cuts.

Heh, she chuckled mirthlessly at that, setting her alarm and heading out of the door. Getting behind the wheel of her car, earbuds in place, she talked on the phone.

Anything else you want me to see to before we make our plays? the woman said.

I think we’ve prepared as best we could, she answered, guiding her vehicle away from her building and out into traffic. Just knowing you’re, you know, around is terrific comfort.

You smooth talker you.

Later, gator.

Be safe.

She set the instrument aside. After her workout at the rec center, she checked the time and made her way over to the Wicker Park area. She parked at a pay facility and walked the three blocks to her destination. Her disguise was minimal, an afro wig over her naturally frizzed-out ’do, sunglasses, and bland clothing. Not that she figured her target would recognize her if they passed in the street, but this wasn’t a time for any slip-ups. Having prowled this neighborhood previously, she went into the hipster coffee shop named the Queen Bean and, after getting her coffee, was able to get a seat at one of the windows. This afforded her a view of the rehabbed apartment building across the street. Around 11 a.m., out came a youngish brown-hued Latinx in the company of an older white man with silvery hair brushed just so. He was over six feet and was a fit sixty-three-year-old. It could have been a father visiting his daughter but Blanchard knew the deal. They chatted and smiled as they walked along the street, disappearing around a corner. The man was Dr. Broderick Freslan, an oncologist of some renown and chair of her hospital board at Becker Memorial. The woman—Teri Baldwin nee Theresa Ortega—was his girlfriend some twenty-eight years his junior. She was a part-time pharmacist at a Walgreens and, on her own, could not afford the rent in this building. This and other pertinent facts hadn’t been learned from expending shoe leather or perusing public documents but was the product of gossip from the staff—the charge nurses in particular, especially if you had an insider and bought a round or two at the watering holes they frequented after their shifts.

She crossed the street and waited until the gate to the underground parking swung open to let a car out, she went through and descended the ramp. The disguise too would help given there were surveillance cameras down here aided by the half-light from several regularly dispersed wall scones. She walked confidently along, parking slots marked on the concrete with parallel white lines and numbered to the corresponding apartment overhead. She came to Baldwin’s car, a few-years-vintage Camry with a bonded front fender. Freslan might be springing for the rent, but he wasn’t so gone he was outlaying money for his squeeze to tool around in a shiny new sports car. Surely, he still had financial responsibilities at home, even though his children were grown and his wife had her