One Last Bluff

By Gil Miller

Honor among thieves is an outdated  cliché, as Gil Miller shows in this collection of short crime stories. These thrilling tales will have you holding your breath and waiting on the edge of your seat to find out who the "bad guys" really are. Includes a preview of the novel

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gil Miller
• Release date: May 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9798987767665

Gil Miller

Gil had a normal upbringing, which means his parents aren't to blame for him going into crime (fiction). Instead, he blames a steady diet of movies, shows, and books, from Miami Vice and Scarface in the '80s to Breaking Bad and Justified in the '00s. To cap it all off, he discovered authors such as Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, Don Winslow, and the late, great Elmore Leonard. Gil is a member of the Northwest Arkansas Writers Workshop, whose members sometimes wonder where he gets his inspiration. He makes his home outside Fayetteville, where he is at work on the next of his Rural Empires novels.

Book preview

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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without the express written permission of the author, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

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

Copyright © 2023 by Gilbert D. Miller

All rights reserved.

ISBN 979-8-9877676-6-5

Cover Design By Venessa Cerasale

CLEANUP DETAIL

THERE’S A TAXI waiting for me when I exit the airport terminal.

Where to? the driver asks.

I check my itinerary, give him an address. He doesn’t say a word, just activates the meter and pulls into traffic. He’s a white guy, maybe a little on the skinny side, but clean looking. One of the cleanest cabbies I’ve seen, and so is his ride. Most cabs, they smell, and sometimes the seats are sticky. But not this one.

His taxi permit says he’s Robert Maxwell.

Red numbers on the meter glow and tick over as we cruise.

It’s already dark out, the lights of LA shining like jewels. But I’ve been here before. I know what the lights hide, how the shadows mask what happens down alleys in Hollywood and South Central LA. In Riverside.

It’s like picking up a beautiful red apple, only to bite into it and taste the corruption left by the worm.

The cabbie’s fast, too. Gets us to the destination, no muss, no fuss.

I ask, How much to hire you for the night?

His eyes light up with unmistakable greed, but he glances away to hide it. Doesn’t stop him from starting high, though.

A grand. He gazes back at me in the mirror.

I think about it. A grand is nothing. I’ll make—what?—fifty times that, just tonight. Well, a bit more. But it’s the principle. If I give in too quickly, he’ll think he could have gotten more if he’d tried, and that’ll make things that much more memorable.

I don’t want to be remembered. I just want him to enjoy his money.

A glance at the building we’re in front of. Look, I’m doing some important business here tonight, heading back out of town tomorrow. But I still have a budget. How about eight hundred?

He smirks. Nine, or get another cab.

I make it look like I’m thinking about it, then pull out the cash. You got it. Here’s half. You’ll get the rest when we’re through. Might even throw in a bonus if you’re as good at getting me to all my destinations as you were getting me here.

You got a deal. He tucks the cash away.

I hold my hand over the back of the seat. I’m Nick. Which, of course, I’m not.

He shakes. Rob.

We’re in business.

IT’S AN APARTMENT building, looks like it was built in the seventies. The cement walkways are that dingy gray you see in cities, and the lawns—what there are of them—are more weeds and dirt than grass.

Outside stairways made of steel and cement lead to upper floors, the centers of the risers worn by years of foot traffic. The apartment doorways face outward. No interior hallways here. Some places on the walls are bleached clean, a sign there’s graffiti from time to time. The smell of frying food comes from somewhere. Upstairs—sounds like it’s on the second floor—someone’s having an argument. I stop for a moment and listen. If it gets too violent, neighbors might call the police.

A complication I don’t need.

But then it dies down, at least for now, and all that’s left is a blaring television in another apartment. Probably turned up loud to block out the domestic dispute.

I check numbers on doors. Just as my intel said, the one I want is at the end of the complex, right on the corner. There’s a hedge just past it that screens it from the street beyond. Not much traffic this time of night.

And no lights on in the apartment just up from it, the one I have to pass first. That could be good or bad. If it means the place is empty for whatever reason, that’s good.

Or it might be the witness’s protection detail.

If so, they’re sloppy leaving the lights off. Sure, it means they can see out better, but it also means it looks unusual. Especially at this hour.

I pass the target’s door and round the corner as if I’m still looking for the place I want. The sidewalk continues on around the building, though it doesn’t look like it gets much use. There’s trash blowing around back here, and it smells like something is dead. Dead enough to overpower the cooking-food scents I caught earlier.

I edge up to the other corner of the building and peer around. An open courtyard, in surprisingly good shape. Benches line the sides, and it’s paved with something made to look like brick. More doorways to apartments, more glowing