Guns + Tacos Vol. 3

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 7: Burritos & Bullets by Eric Beetner
Episode 8: Jalapeño Poppers and a Flare Gun by Michael Bracken & Trey R. Barker
Episode 9: Four Shrimp Tacos and a Walther P38 by Alec Cizak

Episodes 10-12 of Season Two are featured in Guns + Tacos Vol. 4.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Down & Out Books
• Release date: Jan 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005665609

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 Two, Volume Three

Series Created and Edited by

Michael Bracken and Trey R. Barker

Season Copyright © 2020 by Michael Bracken and Trey R. Barker

Individual Episode Copyrights © 2020 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 7-9

Burritos & Bullets

Eric Beetner

Jalapeño Poppers and a Flare Gun

Michael Bracken and Trey R. Barker

Four Shrimp Tacos and a Walther P38

Alec Cizak

About the Authors

Books by the Authors

Previews from Guns + Tacos Episodes 10-12

A Taco, a T-Bird, a Beretta and One Furious Night by Ann Aptaker

Sopa and a Streetsweeper by Ryan Sayles

Dos Tacos Guatemaltecos y Una Pistola Casera by Mark Troy

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.

Back to TOC

BURRITOS & BULLETS

Eric Beetner

1.

He knows. Winona lifted her eyes from the carpet where she’d been staring while she worked up the courage to give me the bad news. Now she leveled her eyes at me like the twin barrels of a shotgun before she blasted me with the second part. And he said he’s gonna kill you.

I knew getting involved with a married woman could be trouble, but not like this. I’d seen him before, the husband. I even met him once. He was nobody to ignore if he threatened your life.

Do you think he can do that?

I know he can, she said. And I think he really might try.

Part of me wanted to ask what he threatened her with, or did she sell me out? I mean, this whole thing was her idea, really. She said he’d never find out. She said he wasn’t giving her what she needed, that their marriage was over. She said a lot of things that I guess were lies, but this sounded all too true.

What the hell do I do?

You gotta protect yourself.

With what? I don’t have a gun or a knife or anything. I have a baseball bat.

She thrust one hip out and huffed an exasperated breath. Winona gave me a look of disgust that made me question how I ever ended up sleeping with her in the first place.

Then you need to get out of town.

Just leave?

Think of the other option.

I did and first a chill ran up my back and then I swallowed hard and nearly choked on it. Shit. An angry husband was after me. A six-foot-three guy who worked at a steel mill and could probably crack open a coconut with his bare hands. I didn’t know how strong or prone to violence he really was, but he got scarier in my head by the second.

Winona, holy shit, what do I do? What do I do?

I don’t know, but I thought I should tell you.

I almost said, Gee, thanks, but I didn’t think sarcasm would help right then.

I know a place where you can get a gun, she said.

You do?

Out in the hall the rattling cage of the elevator clanked open. We both turned to the door, our feet stuck in cement while we waited. Was it him already? Was my number up? When nobody came kicking down the door with an Uzi in their hand, she turned back to me.

Just promise me you’ll be safe.

I could make no such promise, so I lied. Of course. Don’t worry.

I was scared. I’m not afraid to admit it. More scared than I’d been since I was nine and went to see that horror movie with my cousin way before I should have. But I wasn’t surprised.

I knew the first time I got with Winona it was a bad idea. I felt a little guilty about violating her marriage, but the way she talked about it and about Will, things were basically over anyway. And now here I was about to reap what I’d sown.

She’d given me the name of a place to buy a gun. I didn’t want it, but she insisted. Honestly, the way Winona acted all freaked out made even more scared. She, who’d treated the affair like no big deal for nine months now.

The place she’d told me about was a taco truck. I had to ask three times if I heard her right. She said yes. I didn’t want to know how she knew where to get a gun that was obviously less-than-legal. But if I wanted to skip waiting periods and whatnot…

So I went on a food truck tracker app and found it. It was parked down on South Clark that night so I hopped the El and went to meet it. Ask for Jesse, she’d said. Or ask for the Jessie special, or something like that. I was so damn nervous even Mexican food from a truck on the side of the road couldn’t have twisted my stomach into a tighter knot.

I walked the few blocks from the train to where the truck was parked. I felt like everyone on the street knew what I was doing, or at least that I was a cheater. Like I wore a big scarlet A on my chest. I passed a lady walking two dogs, brown and white twins of each other. They sniffed at me and lunged like those sniffer dogs at the airport, like they could smell my fear.

Duke! Molly! Get down.

She tried to laugh it off but I didn’t stop to make nice. She smiled and tried to make small talk. Sorry. Once the weather gets nice, they love to get out and they get a little— But I was already gone. As I ran for the taco truck, she gave me a look more suspicious than the dogs.

I was the only customer. I’ll admit, it smelled pretty good, but if I inhaled too deep I started to gag. Maybe getting out of town would be the best thing. I wouldn’t have to go through this.

What can I get you?

The guy inside the truck was hard to see through the tiny window. He wore a white T-shirt stained with salsa and cheese and grease. He wiped at his hands with a towel that was itself so dirty I wondered what the point was.

Oh, uh… I scanned the menu on the side of the truck. Standard stuff. Tacos, burritos, quesadillas. None of it seemed appetizing. I shook myself. I wasn’t here for the cuisine.

You need a minute? he asked.

Actually, I was hoping to get the special. From Jesse.

He gave me a blank stare.

The Jesse special, I said with a wink, wink in my voice. A burrito made by Jesse.

He finally set down the rag after giving me a once-over with his eyes as detailed and invasive as any X-ray I’d ever gotten.

Chicken or beef?

Stunned, I didn’t know what to say for a second. Chicken, I guess.

Gimmie a minute.

He vanished from sight and started cooking. Had I ordered a gun or just a burrito? I had no idea. For a brief moment I thought maybe Winona had tricked me here as a way to let Will know where I’d be so he could ambush me. I was a sitting duck out there on South Clark, standing around waiting for a burrito or a bullet, I didn’t know which yet.

Chicken burrito, the guy called from the little window.

I moved from the sidewalk to the truck and took the bag he offered me.

Oh, um…I wanted the, um, Jesse special. Did I…? Is this the right truck? I stepped back to read the decals on the side again and then noticed how heavy the bag was. Unless that burrito was filled with a whole chicken, bones and all, there was more in the bag. I made eye contact with the guy through the screen and he gave me an unwavering stare.

I went to open the bag and he said, Take out, right? Better to open it at home.

I felt like an idiot. I was sweating, even more than him and he stood next to a hot grill. He held out a small ticket for me. I took it and read the total. Three hundred. Yeah, I was paying for more than a burrito.

I handed over the cash Winona had told me to bring and walked off down Clark Street. I couldn’t resist and peeked into the bag. The foil-wrapped burrito sat on top so I lifted it out. There, at the bottom of the bag, was a black revolver. A shudder ran through me. I quickly folded up the bag again. I still had the burrito in my hand so I decided to try to eat something. After one bite that wouldn’t go down I knew I was too tense. I tossed the rest of the burrito into the gutter. I heard dogs barking and looked up to see the same blonde and her two dogs. She was bent over with a plastic baggie filled to the brim with dog crap and she was giving me giving me a stink eye. I picked up the pace and moved past them. Behind me I heard her mutter, Asshole.

I glanced over my shoulder to see her heave the full bag in my direction.

How do you like it, ya big jerk-off? Why don’t you litter in your own neighborhood?

I clutched the gun to my chest and ran.

2.

Having a gun is supposed to make you feel confident, like a big man. A badass. It made me feel like I held a live grenade with buttery fingers. I felt anything but safe. It was incredibly weird to ride the El with a gun on my lap. I held the bag so tightly wrapped around it I’m surprised I didn’t squeeze the trigger by accident. Every person I saw became a potential target. The ominous notion that I could kill any one of them almost made me hyperventilate. How did cops do this every day?

I made it back to my apartment building without killing anyone. I doubted if owning a gun would help me against Will. I didn’t know where I’d keep it, or if I’d be able to pull the trigger when the time came. There was still the chance that Will was all bluster and big talk in front of his wife. Threatening me was a decent way to get her to stop seeing me. But the look in Winona’s eyes, the sound her voice when she warned me…she believed him.

The fall crisp had come to the air and a chill wind blew in off the lake several blocks away. There weren’t many people out and the street lighting on my block had always been a problem. Once the Thai place closed down and the acupuncture place shut the only lights from any businesses came from the laundromat. I saw a woman walking briskly down the block. I wondered if she had a gun in her purse. I thought about all the guns around me every day I’d never known about. It freaked me out. I needed a beer and maybe an Ambien to calm the hell down.

Across the street I saw a shadow move in a doorway. It was another three-story apartment building. Someone was there. Not going in, not coming out. Waiting there. Waiting for something. I stopped a few doors down from my building. The shadow moved again. Will. I knew it. He was here to kill me.

I could have torn the paper off the gun and started firing into that shadow, but I wasn’t ready. I didn’t know if I’d ever be ready to use the gun. I started moving again, headed for the bright lights of the laundromat.

I must have looked like a character in a horror movie. The first sucker to die. Checking over my shoulder, doing a fast walk so I didn’t seem like I was running away even though I was. I had the sinking feeling that I’d spend the rest of my life living in fear all because I couldn’t resist the come-on of a beautiful woman.

The laundromat was empty, but two dryers spun in the vacant space filling it with a drone that mixed with the buzz of overhead fluorescent lights. The empty room felt ominous. I thought reaching the light would make me feel safer, but just the opposite came true. I rushed to the back of the room, beyond the row of dryers. I found a gap between the row of steel boxes stacked two high and the wall which ran with sweat from the damp heat of the dryers. I slid into the gap, soaking my shirt with the condensation. The gun stayed wrapped tightly in the paper bag as I clutched it to my chest. I knew it would do me no good unless it was in my hand, but I couldn’t bring myself to unwrap it. The steady mechanical hum of the dryers muted