Gutshot Straight with Bonus Excerpt by Lou Berney Read Free Book Online Page B

a private dance? I’ll make it worth your while.”
    Gina stood up, hands on her hips, and gazed evenly down at him. She was a hundred feet tall, and he was a sad gray mouse.
    “You really think you can handle me in private?” she asked.
    A second passed before he blinked.
    “No,” he admitted weakly.
    She gave his cheek a friendly pinch and followed the Whale through the crowd.
    LUCY KNEW THAT HER HANDS gave her away when she was nervous, so to keep them busy she opened her purse and fumbled for a Tic Tac. The Whale gave her an annoyed scowl, then leaned across his desk.
    “What’d you say?” he asked O.T.
    Lucy took a deep breath, disguised as a yawn. She glanced at her watch. She felt like she was going to hornk up her lunch, she was so scared. She started saying a rosary in her head, in Spanish, and that helped some.
    O.T. shifted around in his metal folding chair and tried to smile. I said, “Mr. M, I’m a little short again this week, but it’s because—”
    “Do I give a fuck?” the Whale said. He flipped through the stack of hundred-dollar bills on the desk in front of him. Bored. “Jasper?”
    “Mmmm?” Jasper was standing directly behind O.T., against the door.
    “Do I give a fuck?”
    “Nuh-uh.”
    “Didn’t think so.”
    The Whale slid open the cabinet door behind him, the one with the fake wood paneling, and tossed in the stack of hundreds. Lucy got a quick peek before he slid the door shut: shelves loaded with stacks and stacks of bills.
    Dios te salve, María, llena eres de gracia. . . .
    “You need to get you a safe, Mr. M,” O.T. said. He laughed nervously and looked around like maybe he hoped someone else in the room was laughing, too.
    The Whale laid his arms on the desk. Big, pale, pimply slabs, like they should have been hanging from hooks and attracting flies in an outdoor village market. He stared at O.T. “Why is that?”
    O.T. stopped laughing. “What? I just meant—”
    “Why do I need a safe?” the Whale asked. “Who the fuck is stupid enough to steal from me?”
    Lucy caught Jasper looking at her, but not in the creepy way most guys—the Whale especially—looked at her. Jasper looked at her like she was a human being, somebody’s daughter and sister, which she was, not just a pair of admittedly rockin’ 36Ds in a too-tight spandex mini-dress and three-inch spikes.
    Jasper was the only gentleman in this place. He always made sure, if he was around, that one of the bouncers walked her out after a shift. He did the same thing for the other girls, too, not just her, which made Lucy like him even more.
    The Whale called Jasper a dumb shine, sometimes right to his face. Lucy didn’t think Jasper was dumb. His round face was intelligent, just in a quiet, a sleepy, a shy way; she wished she’d had a big brother, growing up, exactly like Jasper.
    Jasper’s skin was a pretty color. A bit dark, a bit creamy, like expensive wood. His sleepy eyes were darker and less creamy, but a pretty color, too.
    She gave him a friendly half-a-smile. Jasper glanced quickly away.
    “I asked, ‘Who the fuck is stupid enough to steal from me?’ ”
    “Mr. . . . Mr. M,” O.T. was stammering, “I didn’t mean—”
    “Except you,” the Whale said. He stood up.
    Jasper cleared his throat. The Whale scowled at him. “What?”
    Jasper nodded at Lucy. “You want me to take her outside? Lucy?”
    “I know her fucking name. No.” The Whale had moved behind O.T., who wasn’t sure if he should turn around or keep looking straight ahead. “She’s a big girl. She’ll survive.”
    “Mr. M,” Jasper started to say, but then the Whale suddenly hooked a fat, pale, pimply arm around O.T.’s neck and jerked him out of his chair.
    Lucy stared in horror as O.T. gagged and kicked. The Whale squeezed harder. O.T. twisted, flailed. His eyes had too much white in them, an awful wet white, like they were going to plop out of their sockets.
    Lucy would have kept staring, frozen, but Jasper moved