Dying For LA by Ian Jones (top fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

One down. But that didn’t go to plan, so answer the question. Who sent you?’

‘Costa got the call,’ the man whispered.

‘Who’s Costa?’

The man indicated outside with his head.

‘Ok. When?’

‘Last night.’

‘And what were you told to do?’

‘Stop you going to Vegas.’

‘Right, well, killing me probably wouldn’t have done it. So you would have taken us all out?’

The man shrugged miserably.

John looked at him then grabbed his shirt front and hurled him back against the wall, his head bounced off it with a loud crack and he was out cold. John searched him, finding nothing other than a couple of hundred dollars which he put in his pocket, and methodically broke both the man’s arms, then stood up and washed his hands.

Then with a loud bang the door next to the urinals crashed open, and a second small Hispanic man came bundling through, tumbling to the floor. He was a mess, he collapsed prostrate on his back, his face and shirt just a sea of blood. Reed walked in after, relaxed, looking as if he had just taken a pleasant stroll. He looked down at the man John had dealt with and smiled.

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘Snap.’

‘Yeah. Apparently, they got a call last night, stop us getting to Vegas,’ John told him.

‘This guy told me the same. Claims not to really know who called him, just some fella gives out work sometimes. I got his cell,’ Reed held up a smart phone.

John looked down at the man Reed had thrown in, and stamped down hard on his hand.

‘Ouch,’ Reed said wincing.

‘Helps to incapacitate these guys,’ John explained, unembarrassed.

‘Good point,’ Reed said, and stamped down even harder on the other hand, then dragged him across and sat him next to his colleague. He picked up the Ruger from the sink and looked at John questioningly.

‘Keep that somewhere. What did yours have?’ John asked him.

Reed dug in his pocket and pulled out a wicked switchblade, easily six inches long. He pressed the button and the blade popped out, sharp, gleaming. He raised his eyebrows and pushed it back in.

‘He hadn’t thought it through. I got to the car and realised Kyle had locked it, and he had the keys, so I fumbled around like I was looking for them and he tried to come up behind me. I got long fucking arms,’ Reed told him.

‘Let’s go and check the car,’ John suggested and they walked out into the car park.

The Buick was unlocked, keys in the ignition. They looked over it carefully, it was a rental, collected at LAX around the same time that they had left that morning according to the paperwork inside, reserved in the name of Franks. They disregarded that, there was an obviously fake ID in the same name in the door pocket. Reed found a fat envelope in the glove box and opened it. Full of hundred-dollar bills.

‘Shit, got to be fifteen grand here,’ he whistled.

‘Stick it in your pocket, that’s Vegas paid for,’ John replied with a smile.

They stood by the car looking at each other.

‘You know what this means,’ Reed spoke quietly.

‘Yeah. Yeah, I do, unfortunately.’

‘Who is it? Judy’s been acting kinda weird.’

John nodded. He didn’t want to think about it, but there was no choice.

‘I dunno. Maybe someone at the police station, although Keane said he wasn’t talking to them there.’

‘Fuck.’ Reed kicked at some stones.

‘Look, I don’t have any idea. You’re right, Judy has been edgy the whole morning and Kyle never stops fiddling with his damn mobile.’

‘It could be me,’ Reed looked at him seriously.

John smiled. ‘No Tom, one thing I do know, it ain’t you. It’s more likely to be me. You got thrown into this.’

‘Hell it ain’t you. Christ, you’re the only one who seems to do anything.’

They looked at each other. Tom stuck out his hand and John shook it, then they began to walk back to the diner. John stopped and went back to the car and pulled out the keys, then caught Reed up.

‘Way to take out the trash, you fucked that guy up for sure,’ Reed told him.

‘Same for you. Listen, don’t say anything about those guys to Kyle or Judy ok? Just keep it close for now, I’m not saying it’s either one but we need to keep ahead.’

‘Yeah, agreed. For sure.’

A rusty pickup rumbled past, John threw the Buick keys and the phone into the back.

They walked in. Warner was tapping away on his mobile, while Judy was talking on hers, pacing up and down and gesticulating.

Reed carefully dug out a hundred-dollar bill. Warner looked up, and shook his head.

‘It’s done. CIA’s dollar, they got enough.’

John and Reed glanced at each other and smiled, the bonus sitting in Reed’s pocket.

‘So let’s go,’ Warner said, and they filed back to the minivan with Judy in tow, still talking on her phone.

They got underway, and eventually Judy hung up and sat back, looking up at the car roof.

‘You ok?’ John asked.

She looked at him, and John saw for the first time the lines and bags around her eyes. She looked exhausted.

‘Yeah, I guess so. Like I said, I got a case going to trial, as usual there’s the same old bullshit. It’s hard to be on top of everything when I’m out here. I mean I want to be doing this, but you know, I got my day job. I’m burning the midnight hours just to keep up.’

That explained why she was so jumpy.

‘Sit back, we still got probably another two hours to go. Get some sleep. You could even lie down on the seat behind you.’

She looked at him gratefully and did just that. John looked back a few minutes later and she was curled up with her eyes closed.

***

Rico and Sal discovered their first drawback the following morning. They had decided to sleep up on the top floor, and when they were awake went downstairs to realise they couldn’t really hang out in the communal area, as Voorhees was asleep in the office at the back, they