Guns + Tacos Vol. 4

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 10: A Taco, a T-Bird, a Beretta and One Furious Night by Ann Aptaker
Episode 11: Sopa and a Streetsweeper by Ryan Sayles
Episode 12: Dos Tacos Guatemaltecos y Una Pistola Casera by Mark Troy

Episodes 7-9 of Season Two are featured in Guns + Tacos Vol. 3.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Down & Out Books
• Release date: Jan 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005728472

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 Four

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 10-12

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

Ann Aptaker

Sopa and a Streetsweeper

Ryan Sayles

Dos Tacos Guatemaltecos y Una Pistola Casera

Mark Troy

About the Authors

Books by the Authors

Previews from Guns + Tacos Episodes 7-9

Burritos & Bullets

Eric Beetner

Jalapeño Poppers and a Flare Gun

Michael Bracken & Trey R. Barker

Four Shrimp Tacos and a Walther P38s

Alec Cizak

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

A TACO, A T-BIRD, A BERETTA AND ONE FURIOUS NIGHT

Ann Aptaker

Chapter One

The darkest corners of hell have more light than some of Chicago’s vacant lots, and this one, a murky strip off South Racine near the river, is dark as Satan’s intestines. The ambiance suits me. I’m a woman whose business is best done in the dark. Tonight I’m here for some special take-out from Jesse’s Tacos, a beat-up old roach coach cramped between two dead warehouses. The rectangle of greenish fluorescent light from the truck’s window throws a path through the darkness to the curb, gives a nifty green shimmer to my black boots, my jeans and my dark gray coat.

Jesse’s beefy silhouette fills a good third of the window as I approach. He’s leaning on the counter, his chin in his thick hands, his bald head tinged green from the bug-encrusted overhead light.

Jesse knows me. I’ve ordered here before, always the special. Never know, though, what the cute little Chinese cook is gonna give me, but it’s right on the money.

Evenin’, Maureen, Jesse says. The guy always sounds like he’s trying to swallow a brick. What’ll it be?

The special, as usual. Make it with extra everything. And a topping.

The cute Chinese cook turns from her grill, her face sweaty from the heat. She gives me a nod with barely a hint of a smile, an adorable, deadly smile, then walks off to the right, out of my view.

Jesse’s not one for conversation, so while I wait for my taco order, I pull my comb from my back pocket, comb my hair to keep it slicked back and tidy, the way I like. My mother never liked it this way, but she’s dead, so who cares. Take that, Mom.

To my pleasure, the cute Chinese cook comes back into my sight, swirls some sausage, salsa and cheese on the grill, shovels it all into a taco shell, then into a brown paper bag. She gives the bag to Jesse, then puts more meat on the grill. I swear, she smiles at the sizzle.

Jesse says, Special with extra everything and a topping. That’ll be four even.

I peel out four hundred from my wallet, Jesse hands me the bag.

I walk back through the path of green light to my car.

I’m not a fan of sausage and cheese, so I toss the taco to a mangy dog loitering in the vacant lot. The cur leaps for it, clamps the dead taco between his jaws, then trots through the green light and into the darkness. Bon appetite, kiddo.

The rest of my order is perfect, a Beretta 92FS with fifteen shot magazine, extra magazines fully loaded, and a silencer already mounted.

She’s quite a cook, that cute little Chinese.

It’s a little after eleven o’clock when I pull away from the curb. The engine of my fully restored shiny black 1955 T-bird hardtop purrs under me. I’d originally wanted a red one—y’know, a hot number—but black has a better stealth factor. With the headlights off, the T-bird is barely visible on the dark streets where I do my finest work.

Twenty minutes later I’m on the North Side, on a street that’s a lot brighter than Jesse’s vacant lot. It’s a jumpin’ street off Logan Square. Lots of neon, lots of pretty people. I find a spot to park, then make my way through the crowd to the Vagabond Club, a glossy nightspot catering to the young and the deluded who think they’re still young. My Beretta and extra mags are in my coat pocket.

Inside, the place is noisy with thumping music. Flashing lights give everyone in the packed crowd only quick, jerky glimpses of each other, just enough to size up the possibility of a hookup for an after-club fuck. It’s a tough trip to get across the dance floor, thick with writhing bodies dressed to the nines, but I slither through and make my way to the chrome bar where the schmoozers work hard to impress each other with their cool. Some of the women have some interesting attributes, round and sizeable if you know what I mean. I wouldn’t mind hanging around, see if I might score one of those post-club fucks, but I can’t spare the time. I’m here on business.

I spot the woman I’m looking for perched on a stool at the end of the bar. She’s not bad looking in a plain sort of way, thirty-five-ish, her body still able to carry off her silver satin dress pretty well. Her brown hair is pulled back from a slightly fleshy but intelligent face, her dark rimmed rectangular glasses magnify her emotionless brown eyes. Her mouth is two barely curving lines of red lipstick.

Her name’s Carla Talbot, and she’s eyeing all the goings on as if she owns the place, because she does.

She sees me as I emerge from the dancing throng. Even through the choppy flashes of light, I can see she doesn’t look happy about my visit. In fact, she even looks a little scared. That could work in my favor or freeze me out. I put on my friendliest smile.

Maureen Eckles, she says in greeting, more mouthed than heard above the pounding disco music.

I need to talk to you, I more or less shout. Let’s go to your office.

She looks me up and down behind her glasses, playing for time while she decides if I’m here to harm her or not. I keep smiling.

Hard to say whether my smile scared her into submission or gained her trust, but either way it works. She slides off her barstool, nods for me to follow her.

The hallway to Carla’s office is a relief after the noise and seizure-inducing lights of the club. The office itself is bright with white walls and well-placed lamps illuminating framed canvasses of squiggles and lines which I guess is called modern art. The room is a testament to Carla’s taste for the sleek and expensive.

Still drinking bourbon and rocks? she says, walking to a chrome liquor cart behind her polished black desk.

Yeah, I say. And you’re still a fan of gin and tonic?

You say it like it’s a pleasant memory.

Well, it’s not unpleasant. We got along just fine once upon a time, Carla.

I was your lawyer, that’s all. There’s enough bitterness in her voice to poison all the air in Chicago. I can’t blame her. Getting disbarred must’ve stung like hell. She blamed me for it. She was right.

She comes around the desk with our drinks, hands me my bourbon. Her silver dress catches light, exposing a thickening of her body that the peek-a-boo light of the club kept hidden.

Carla looks at me over the rim of her glass while she sips her gin. I look at her over the rim of mine while I swallow my bourbon. After we’ve assessed each other and lowered our glasses, she says, Why are you here, Maureen? Our association is long over. You’ve done your damage.

Looks like you’ve recovered nicely, I say, glancing around. From what I saw out there, the club is a gold mine.

I do all right. Now cut the crap. What the hell are you doing here?

I’m looking for Riddles, I say, using Leo Ridley’s eminently suitable nickname. I hear he’s back in town. I don’t know where he’s holed up, but I bet you do.

Carla’s face freezes so fast I think it might crack. Her fleshy cheeks go stiff as stone, her eyes go hard behind her glasses, her mouth is just a tight red slash.

You had a thing for him back in the day, I say. So I figure you’ll know where he is. Scorned women never really let go.

You’re a vicious bitch, Maureen.

So I’ve heard.

How’d you get that way? she says with a sneer. Was Mommy mean to you? Or did some high school honey slap your face and break your heart?

The tiny laugh under Carla’s sneer twists into me, goes deep, goes where I don’t want it to go. I don’t let anyone go there.

I give Carla a hard stare, but smile at her. What makes you think I have a heart to break?

I know by the way she puts her drink to her lips and clamps the glass hard between her teeth that she’d heard the steel in my voice, saw the cruelty in my smile. A long swallow of gin loosens her fear’s grip a little bit, enough for her to lower her glass and say, I don’t know where Riddles is.

Carla, I say, switching to a friendlier voice but lapping up a cube of ice from my drink, holding it between my teeth and letting it put a chill into my smile before swallowing it, lying to me is not a good idea. You know that, don’t you?

I’m not lying. She leans against her desk, trying to be nonchalant. But it doesn’t play. Her hand grips the edge of the desk, tight, as if the damn thing might save her life.

I’m enjoying this, watching the usually self-possessed former attorney, the woman whose merciless gaze could make a testifying witness shrivel, cling to the furniture just to hold her up.

I flick my coat back, slide my hand into the pocket of my jeans, just for the pleasure of watching Carla jump at every move I make.

Listen, Maureen, she says, edgy and fast, as if trying to avoid swallowing her own tongue, I’m not lying to you. I really don’t know where Riddles is, and to tell you the truth, I don’t want to know. But I know who might have a line on him. It’s Nick. Nick Stickley.

Suck-up Stickley?

We both grin at that one, even laugh a bit, snide laughs deep in our throats.

You still see him? I say.

He comes in now and then. Tries to get me to give him drinks on the house, for old times’ sake, he says. He’s mentioned Riddles once or twice, like he still buddies up with him. She’s lost the look of fear, replaced it with a dismissive snicker.

He still hanging his hat in the same place?

Carla sips her drink, shakes her head. He lives over in Lincoln Park now, near the zoo. Here, I’ll give you the address. Taking a pen and pad from her desk, she’s clearly relieved to send me on my way.

But I have a better idea. I take the slip of paper from her, put it into my coat pocket next to the Beretta. Grab your coat, Carla. We’ll take your car. You drive.

Don’t be ridiculous. I have a club to run. I can’t take joyrides with you.

Your clientele seems to be able to get drunk and dance without your guidance. Now get your coat. Don’t make me say it again.

I take a certain pleasure in watching Carla’s hand tremble slightly, the ice in her glass rattle around a bit when she takes the last of her gin and tonic to her mouth. She’s afraid of me, and has good reason to be. She knows what I’m capable of. She saw the evidence. What she had to do to get me off is what got her disbarred. But I left her no choice. Just like now. Carla Talbot will drive because she has no choice.

Where’s your car? I say.

She’s pale as stale cheese. Out the back door. In the alley behind the club.

Perfect.

Yeah, Carla’s doing very well, if her top-of-the-line white Mercedes is anything to go by. Looks like she makes more money as a club owner than she did as a defense attorney for Chicago’s criminal crowd. These wheels don’t come cheap, and she’s loaded the interior with all the goodies a fat bank account can buy, including computerized everything. Makes me wonder just who’s driving this thing; a human Carla Talbot, the high-living mistress of trendy nightlife in her white cashmere coat, or a bunch of chips and wires under the Mercedes’s hood.

We’ve been driving in silence for about ten minutes when Carla says, Why are you looking for Riddles? If her voice was any tighter her vocal chords would snap.

He owes me, I say. Just like you owe me, Carla.

"Me?