The Ten-Ounce Siesta jb-2 Read online

  The Ten-Ounce Siesta

  ( Jack Baddalach - 2 )

  Norman Partridge

  Norman Partridge

  The Ten-Ounce Siesta

  ONE

  The Chihuahua didn’t bark. It coughed.

  “It’s the secondhand smoke.” The girl sucked on a Marlboro. “I can’t quit. Spike’s the one who suffers, though. The poor little muchacho probably has lung cancer. He’s been coughing like this for a week.”

  Jack Baddalach stared at the Chihuahua cradled in the girl’s arms. There wasn’t enough meat on the little sucker’s bones to fill a Taco Bell burrito, but it looked pretty happy wrapped in a private Cloud of Marlboro smoke. Its goggle-eyed head bobbled back and forth between the girl’s breasts. Her breasts were a lot bigger than the dog’s head. If the dog was dying, it had picked one hell of a way to go.

  “Do dogs get lung cancer?” the girl asked.

  A handful of girls stood behind her, but they didn’t answer. They looked at Jack, waiting for him to do the job.

  Jack looked at them. They were about a thousand miles away from the mental group portrait he’d imagined when he took Freddy G’s call.

  Cerebral rewind cued the soundbite in Jack’s brain, transmitted through the casino owner’s gravelly Mafioso voice: Fly to the coast. We'll have one of our drivers waiting with a limo. The two of you go to my daughter’s house in Palm Springs. Pick up my granddaughter’s pet Chihuahua. She’s coming to Vegas with a bunch of her friends for a bachelorette party. One of ’em’s getting married and they want to watch a bunch of steroid puppies shake their moneymakers or some such shit. Anyway, my granddaughter’s got a Chihuahua transport problem. She can fly but the doggy can’t. It’s sick or something, and she don’t let it out of her sight ’cause she ain’t done that since her Grandpa Freddy give it to her on her sweet sixteenth birthday. So I gotta put on my thinkin’ cap and find a way to keep my grandbaby happy even though I ain’t got time for this shit. But that ain’t no problemo grande, Jack, ’cause I’ll pay you to have time for it. .

  Listening to Freddy G’s encapsulation of the situation. Jack had expected Palm Springs debutantes deluxe. But that wasn’t what he was getting. Uh-uh. Because the semi-enchanting female tableau standing tough before him was a study in torn jeans, black mascara, tattoos, and the very latest in trashcut hairstyles.

  Jack shook his head. Man oh man, even punk rock had gone mainstream in the age of raging ennui. No surprise there. After all, Johnny Thunders had been dead a long time and Macy’s needed something to accentuate that new summer line. This year it was basic black, way too tight, and way too expensive. Not that Jack Baddalach was a safety-pin purist. He didn’t care one way or the other. Hell, he listened to Dean Martin records.

  The Chihuahua coughed again, reminding Jack that he wasn’t one of those erudite hipsters who slagged records for Spin Magazine.

  “Dogs,” the girl repeated. “Can they get lung cancer?”

  “I don’t know.” Jack paused. “I mean, I guess they could. But I’m sure that’s not what’s wrong with your dog. He’s probably just got a cold.”

  “Grandpa said you were a veterinarian. But you don’t sound like a vet.”

  Jack nodded, because who knew what kind of bullshit Freddy G had given his granddaughter. “Sure. I’m a vet. But I work with tigers. Those white ones at the Mirage, just down the road from your granddad’s casino.”

  “Which one are you?”

  “Huh?”

  “Siegfried or Roy?”

  She laughed and so did Jack. He kind of liked the way she laughed. The way she talked, too, the way her words crackled over him in that smoky voice she had. And he especially liked the way she gave it right back to him when he dished the sarcasm her way.

  “The name’s Jack Baddalach,” he said. “I’m what you might call a behind-the-scenes kind of guy.”

  “I never even heard of you.”

  “Oh, you will. I’m a comer in the white tiger business. Why, just last month Cat Fancy Magazine called me a man to watch.”

  Jack winked.

  “Shit.” The girl smirked bright and bloody, because her lipstick was a little smeared. “Bullshit.” Southern California sun catching spiked blond hair that was jet-black at the roots. “White tiger bullshit.” She passed the Chihuahua to Jack, the tattooed rattler on her left arm wriggling like some neon nightmare. “If you’re a vet. I’m Sheena, Queen of the Fucking Jungle.”

  Jack took the dog and returned the girl’s smirk. “The truth is that I’m kind of a troubleshooter for your grandpa. I may not look like much, but I’ll get your dog to Vegas.”

  “Normally I’d take him on the plane with me. It’s just a short flight. But with the way he’s coughing and everything, and the way his nose is running. . Well, I don’t want his ears to get fucked up on an airplane. I had that happen to me once, and it took the Cramps live to clear ’em out.”

  “Don’t you worry about it.” Jack shot a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the waiting limo. “Your granddad fixed me up with one of the best drivers in LA, or so the guy claims. We’ll put the pedal to the metal, take Spike straight to Dr. Newman, and I’ll bet you green money that he’ll be fast asleep in your suite at the Casbah before you and your girlfriends get your club crawl into first gear.”

  “Is Newman good?”

  “Best vet in Vegas. Your granddad had him checked out. Newman handles all the stars. I read about him in the paper one time. He spayed Wayne Newton’s bitch.”

  “And what’d he do to Wayne?" The girl laughed. Her breasts danced a little rhumba beneath a tight white T-shirt that said sweet cheery love. It looked like her breasts were penned up in a black lace brassiere, if Jack Baddalach was any judge. Not that he was paying an inordinate amount of attention. He only looked because, hey, the awful truth was that men always look.

  But truth be told. Jack had another woman on his mind. And the woman who was on his mind wasn’t anything like this girl. For one thing, the woman on Jack Baddalach’s mind would never in a million years wear a T-shirt that said Sweet Cherry anything-

  The girl’s arms were around him quite suddenly, pulling him close. Jack felt the undeniable warmth of Sweet Cherry Love penning the Chihuahua between her chest and his. She came closer.

  Jack figured he’d better say something, and quick.

  Her lips touched his.

  So Jack couldn’t say anything. Because he was kissing this girl and thinking of another one, and it was all pretty damn complicated and-

  Her mouth was open. And then so was his.

  The Chihuahua coughed between them.

  “I like the way you look at me,” the girl said.

  Jack shrugged. He’d finally thought of something to say, only it was a little late; “Be careful. I’m just the hired help.”

  The way she held on, it didn’t seem like she was the careful type.

  One of her girlfriends swore. Another one giggled.

  “My name’s Angel.” The girl whispered the words in Jack’s left ear. He managed to keep a straight face. Spike panted against his chest. Angel’s hands drifted away, traveling south before they gave him up, her right hand lingering on a bulge beneath his coat.

  “You expecting trouble?”

  “It’s not a gun.” Jack drew back his coat and showed her the leather holster strapped to his belt. “All I’m packing is a cellular phone.”

  She opened her purse. Took out a tube of lipstick. Opened it. Held it against her arm.

  “What’s your number?”

  Jack gave it to her. Surprised, even as he opened his mouth.

  She wrote it in red, on the neon scales of a tattooed rattlesnake.

  The
limo driver said, “Had me a woman with a snake tattoo once.”

  Jack stared at the back of the guy’s head. Bald as a cue ball. Bright pink skin. Heavy folds of flesh on the back of his neck that reminded Jack of a pack of Oscar Meyer wieners.

  As the big Caddy pulled away from the house. Pack O’ Weenies started talking about the woman with the snake tattoo. “Big old anaconda started at her pussy and wound its way up to her neck, sinking its fangs into her carotid and man, did she have a body in between. Skinny little Mexican thing with little bitty brown sugar titties that stood up and said Buenos dias. Man, was she something.”

  Jack didn’t say a word. Neither did Spike, who sat shivering on Baddalach’s lap.

  Pack O’ Weenies went on: “This chick ran a credit card scam. Bigtime. Her and her brother Jesus. Jesus worked at the post office. He stole the cards and she ran ’em up. Bought TVs and stereos, stuff she could sell or return to the stores for cash. Got me into it. We’d go out on the weekends like Ma and Pa Suburbs, buy stuff till we maxed out a card, then switch to another. See, doing it on weekends was the way to go, because then the credit card companies don’t pick up on it. That’s when they expect people to do their big spending. Go out and trot up those charges on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and alarm bells go off in the credit card company’s computers. But stick to the weekends and you can charge till the wheels come off. Unless it’s Christmastime, of course. Christmastime-that’s heaven for credit card scammers. Every day is what you might call Santa-intensive.

  “Anyway, it seemed like an okay deal at first. We made pretty good money. She put me in the driver’s seat of a brand new Cadillac. I put a ring on her finger. Then we got caught. Or Jesus got caught, I should say. See, one day the stupid motherfucker has a bunch of cards jammed down his shorts on the way out of work, and the postmaster stops him for a chat, and his ass starts to sweat, and pretty soon those little chunks of plastic start sliding down Jesus’s perky little ass cheeks and before you know it he’s shitting Visas and Mastercards on the post office floor.

  “It was summertime, see, and Jesus wore shorts. The son of a bitch wanted to show off his legs like he was a fucking UPS driver or something. He was always after the chicks on his route. And the fool wore boxers, too. If he would have stuck to long woolies and briefs, he would have been as safe as sunshine. But he just had to play the stud, this boy.

  “And Jesus was a tater, too. One hundred percent spud. Me and my wife, we just knew he’d give us up the first time the cops offered him a deal. And these were federal cops, y’know? The post office is a federal institution, and federal cops, hell, you don’t even want to take a chance with those motherfuckers.

  “So I shot Jesus before the cops could sweat him. Did his tater ass out in the woods, a little meadow in the middle of nowhere-this was up north, you understand. Marin County. Hell. I couldn’t see nothing that wasn’t green for miles. And the only sound I heard were the birdies singing. I didn’t think anyone was around. Not even Bigfoot.

  “Turns out there was a group of bird watchers back in the trees. Card-carrying members of the Audubon Society, all done up in their best L.L. Bean camouflage wear so they wouldn’t scare their fine feathered friends. They were awaiting the arrival of the palm warbler or some such shit. Some rare fucking bird. Instead, they got me and my.357 Magnum.

  “Ten pairs of binoculars were aimed right at me when I pulled the trigger. A half dozen cameras, too. And that magnum made a hell of a lot of noise. I never even heard those camera shutters click when I pulled the trigger.

  “The pictures came out pretty good, too. You should have seen me. All dressed in black, my bald head gleaming in the sunshine. I looked like Yul Brynner in The Magnificent Seven. After the trial was over, I asked the judge if I could get copies of some of those pictures. They were evidence; it shouldn’t have been a big deal. But the son of a bitch made some Fruit Loop ruling so I couldn’t have any of ’em. What a tater. He had no sense of humor at all.

  “Anyway, I took the fall. Spent the next ten years in Corcoran, which was one bad jailhouse in those days. Ten years without my little brown baby and her sweet anaconda. I couldn’t get her off my mind, though. Not even. I read every reptile book in the prison library and dreamed of my sugar’s anaconda every fucking night. Snakes, snakes, snakes. Pussy, pussy, pussy. That’s all I thought about.

  “Then I got out of prison. Parole. My baby’s waiting for me. She’d moved to Vegas and I hadn’t seen her in three-four years, but we kept in touch with letters. While I was away, she did all right. Went straight. Opened up a donut shop with some of the money she made off the credit cards.

  “That was a tough one. Bad enough I’m always thinking about snakes and pussy, now I start thinking about donuts. See my old lady’s always writing me about glazed donuts and chocolate bars and big old gooey bearclaws, and I’m lucky if I get some dried-out turd of a cookie in the slams. And not only that, the donut shop is a really different environment for her. All of a sudden she’s got plenty of cop friends. Las Vegas cops. They all like donuts.

  “Anyway, on graduation day my little mamacita sends a limo for me. The driver picks me up at the prison gate. Takes me to a Holiday Inn in Fresno. Man, I’m hard before I even hit the door, thinkin’ of my long tall baby and that snake writhing on her belly. That big ol’ anaconda traveling those sweet little lumps of brown sugar on her chest.

  “I open the door, and there she is. Naked on the sheets. You can’t fuckin’ miss her. But all I see is the snake. ’Cause it’s big now. Thick. Jesus. Some of those scales would dwarf the trunk of a Buick. And somehow I get the idea that the damn thing is a lot longer, too. Gotta be, because since the last time I seen her there’s a lot more of my baby to go around. . and around. . and around.

  “But the worst part is her chest. Those sweet breasts that used to be so little and firm. The snake is even wider there, sort of swollen, like it swallowed a couple of hamsters that it can’t quite digest.”

  Pack O’ Weenies sighed. “Well, sometimes you just flat out know when something is over. That’s the way it was with me and my wife and the snake. I just turned around and closed the door on the both of them, because I knew I couldn’t spend the rest of my life making donuts and watching that snake get bigger. Fact is, I ain’t never dated a woman with tattoos since, and I never will.” The driver glanced at Jack in the rearview. “What do you think of that?”

  Jack thought it over. “Tattoos are all right,” he said finally. “But donuts and gravity-they’ll get you every time.”

  Jack stared at the back of Pack O’ Weenies’ bald head as they headed toward Vegas. Physiologically speaking, the contents of one human skull was pretty much like another. Psychologically, it was another story entirely. That’s the way Jack Baddalach saw it, anyway.

  And Jack met all kinds of people. That was a given when you worked for the mob.

  Check that. The fact of the matter was that Jack Baddalach couldn’t possibly work for the mob. Because his boss, Freddy Gemignani, was the owner of the Casbah Hotel amp; Casino, located on the beautiful Las Vegas Strip. As such, Freddy G had passed muster with the Gaming Control Board. And anyone who had done that. . well, anyone who had done that couldn’t possibly be involved with organized crime in any way, shape, or form.

  Still, Jack had met some interesting people through his association with Freddy G. Then again, he had also met more than a few people like Pack O’ Weenies. Jack’s experience with cold-blooded killers told him that protracted conversations were generally a minus with same. Verbally speaking, a couple of strangers were bound to step on each other’s toes sooner or later. And with cold-blooded killers. . Well, Jack didn’t care how much time a guy like Pack O’ Weenies had served; he didn’t want to get on the wrong side of a murderer, verbally or otherwise.

  If you wanted to understand a guy like Pack O’ Weenies, all you had to do was hire a medium to channel the spirit of a postman named Jesus. And then factor in the not-so-stunning revelation
that a protracted stay in the slams obviously hadn’t done much to change the cowboy who’d delivered the postman with the studly legs to the big dead letter office in the sky. Anyone who listened to Pack tell his story could figure that one out. The guy wanted copies of the photos that showed him plugging the postman, for Christsakes. He probably wanted to hang them over the wet bar in his rumpus room, like a fisherman does with snaps of marlin and trout.

  Jack figured there was no reforming a guy like Pack O’ Weenies. In Baddalach’s opinion, anyone who’d murder a postal employee in full view of the Marin County Audubon Society had to be full-tilt Looney tunes, anyway.

  It wasn’t a long drive from Palm Springs to Vegas, but it was long enough. Jack didn’t want to spend the trip doing the nice-weather-we’re-having-today mambo. Fortunately, he knew how to cut a conversation short, even with a cold-blooded killer.

  He set Spike on the seat next to him and reached for his jacket, a worn leather thrift shop special with a faded red lining.

  His fingers found the inside pocket. In the rearview, Pack O’ Weenies eyed him suspiciously. The guy was already sweating. Jack grinned, and that made Pack sweat all the more.

  The driver was going to be easy. Jack let the grin grow into a smile. Kind of a frosty smile, lots of incisor showing. Just the way he’d done it in the old days, standing in the ring and staring down an opponent when he was the undisputed light-heavyweight champion of the whole fucking planet.

  “Sorry,” Pack O’ Weenies said. “I didn’t mean to go on like that, champ. I’m probably boring the shit out of you. Maybe I better just pay attention to the road. Maybe-”

  Jack’s hand came away from the coat.

  “Hey,” Pack O’ Weenies said. “What you got there, champ?”

  Jack held it up.

  The conversation ender to end all conversation enders.

  “Don’t sweat it,” Jack said. “It’s only a book.”