Two Black Bean and Shrimp Quesadillas, and a Pink Ruger LCP

By Joseph S. Walker

Alvin Bleeker has a ratty apartment, a rusted-out car, and a dead-end job, managing a big-box store barely clinging to life. He also has a compulsive gambling habit that’s put him tens of thousands of dollars in the hole to Lamar, the bookie and loan shark rarely seen without his brutal enforcer, Jimmy. Alvin can’t bring himself to worry too much about his debts, though. He’s just marking time, waiting for his rich Aunt Elaine to kick off and leave her only living relative with a fortune that will end all his problems forever.

Unfortunately, Aunt Elaine has other plans, leaving Alvin out of her will almost entirely. Even worse, Lamar knows it. He extorts Alvin into Plan B: stealing a priceless Picasso sketch from Aunt Elaine’s North Shore mansion. Naturally, Jimmy will come along for the ride. So will Brittany Orozco, who has the face of a cheerleader, the heart of a killer, and the sharpened icepick of a sociopath. Behind Brittany is Lamar’s boss, the shadowy mob chieftain who doesn’t care how many bodies have to drop if he can add the sketch to his collection.

Alvin is in way over his head, but it should be a simple enough job, in and out in ten minutes. He’s just playing it safe when he goes to the taco truck to buy some insurance, in the form of the first gun he’s ever owned—a gun which, to his dismay, turns out to be pink. He’s betting he won’t really need it.

It’s one more bet he’s going to lose.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Down & Out Books
• Release date: Aug 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005019761

Book preview

TWO BLACK BEAN AND SHRIMP QUESADILLAS,

AND A PINK RUGER LCP

Guns + Tacos Season Four Episode 20

Joseph S. Walker

Series Created and Edited by

Michael Bracken and Trey R. Barker

Copyright © 2022 by Joseph S. Walker

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 and Margo Nauert

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Two Black Bean and Shrimp Quesadillas,

and a Pink Ruger LCP

About the Author

Books by the Author

Preview from the twenty-first episode of Guns + Tacos

A Handful of Chicles and a Custom Nine by C.W. Blackwell

It was almost one in the morning by the time Alvin found the taco truck in a Wrigleyville parking lot, a few blocks from the ballpark. The third of five possible locations Tony had given him, making Alvin memorize them rather than write anything down. There were four food trucks, one in each corner of the lot, with Jesse’s Tacos the farthest back from the street. The nearest halogen lights weren’t working, and the truck lurked in the shadows, older and smaller and dirtier than any of its competitors.

The neighborhood was a madhouse when the Cubs were in town, but a few hours ago they had blown a three-run eighth inning lead in Miami. Once the bars closed, drunks looking for grease and dough to soak up the booze would likely flock to the lot, but right now there were only about a dozen people milling around, all at the other trucks.

Today’s loss dropped Chicago ten and a half games back in the National League wild card. Which, normally, who gives a fuck about wild card standings in July? The problem was the bet Alvin had placed back in April: three grand that the Cubs wouldn’t be more than ten out for the entire season. So much for that. The players were still walking off the field when Alvin received a text from Lamar: YOUR OFFICE. 10AM. Then, almost immediately, a second: DON’T MAKE ME LOOK FOR YOU.

Thus Alvin’s panicked appeal to Tony, the only person he knew who could tell him where to pick up a gun immediately, like, now immediately, and forget background checks and waiting periods. Thus Alvin hunting for this rattrap in the middle of the night, pinning his hopes on something that sounded like an urban legend. Heard the one about the gun dealers in the taco truck? Seeing the ratty little vehicle didn’t exactly inspire confidence. It looked less like a going business and more like a Health Department test site for training new inspectors.

Alvin put his hand on the ignition. He could start the car, go home, trust to his ability to placate Lamar. Just touching the key, though, reminded him that he was driving a Ford Escort hatchback that, after thirty-five Chicago winters, was more rust than steel. It was the only ride he could afford when he had to ditch the Honda SUV a couple of years ago, after a sure-fire, can’t miss filly broke her damn leg before she was even clear of the starting gate. Who the hell was he to judge? Next to his car, Jesse’s Tacos looked like a five-star bistro.

Fuck it. You can only hold the dice so long before you roll. Alvin got out and walked over to the truck. Up close, the smell coming off it closed around him like a fog. Onions and peppers, and underneath them something deep and funky, more like a locker room than a kitchen.

The woman leaning against the counter couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. The right side of her head was shaved clean, so recently that the light from inside the truck gleamed off her scalp. The hair on the left side was dyed Smurf blue and hung limply to the level of her chin. Her right arm from shoulder to elbow was covered by a vividly colored and anatomically detailed tattoo of two naked women entwined with each other. She wore a gray wifebeater and John Lennon glasses. She