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My Gal Poison

Posted on November 26, 2007
Filed Under The Stories |

She was the type of girl men went to war for. Actually, calling her a girl was tantamount to giving the call to attack right there. She was and had been a woman for quite some time. Almost nobody failed to notice that she was fully grown and well filled out in all the right places. When she turned up at his desk he was tempted to look the other way almost immediately. In his experience, and he had enough to shame most police departments, women like her were poison. He wasn’t in the mood to die just yet. He had Africa to visit and Paris to fall in love in so he didn’t think it was wise to get involved in shady business with some dame with slim hips and a chest that fought her face for all the attention any man had.

Still he was a detective and she was a paying customer. What’s a fella to do when put in a situation like that except take the case and hope like hell that her face and form haven’t already told him everything he needed to know about staying alive or winding up dead. Still he considered himself a reckless individual, given to betting away the entire pot in online Blackjack on more than one occasion. So he sat back in his chair and pulled one of the desk’s drawers towards him.

“Reaching for your gun already Mr. Shepard?”

“Don’t kid yourself doll. Wouldn’t take more than two fingers to break your skinny neck. Bullets don’t grow on trees and I ain’t made of money.”

He thumped the bottle of whiskey onto his desk and placed just one glass next to it. Without taking his eyes off the bottle cap he was unscrewing or making the slightest attempt to straighten his mussed up hair he asked, “Are you lost or do you really need some help with something from a fella like myself?”

She stepped forward and leaned on his desk, her bosom doing a mighty fine job of attempting to lure his attention as she breathily sighed, “I am lost and I need your assistance.”

“Really? Assistance? Does that mean you’ll solve the case and I’ll simply help lift your luggage and open doors for you? What kind of pay do you suppose I can earn as a detective’s assistant?”

She straightened to her full height (in four-inch stilettos) and crossed her arms across her chest, as if obscuring his view as punishment, “You don’t like me Mr. Shepard? Is it because I called you Mister instead of Detective?”

“Cops worry about titles sweetheart. You could call me Shanna or Carmen or Pamela or Danielle and it would be all the same to me as long as your money was good. But yeah, I don’t like you.”

“Why not?”

“Pretty girls like yourself are more trouble than you’re worth. Had to learn that the hard way but learn my lesson I did.”

“How hard could the lesson have been?” she sniffed and turned up her nose, “You’re still alive and sitting pretty behind that desk.”

He turned and the chair turned with him and he rolled out from behind the desk on his wheelchair, “Oh the bitch didn’t walk out empty-handed. She took my legs with her when she went.”

She didn’t look impressed, “Bet you’re twice as fast on that thing as you were on your own two feet. Bet your gun hand’s steadier too.”

He studied her with flinty eyes, already sparking with the hatred he had for all women like her, “Right on both counts. Now, what do you need?”

She tossed an envelope on the desk and it skidded for a while before crashing into his pen stand. Good thing for him, he was a ballpoint and computer man otherwise that spill would have left a nasty stain on his weathered but authentic teak desk. He took his time setting the pens right and then he picked up the envelope. It was heavy, a fact he had already deduced from the thud it had made when it landed on his desk. He stuck his hand in and withdrew a pistol. He looked at it and then at her and said, “I already have a gun. And it ain’t even my birthday. What gives?”

She shrugged, “Nothing. I just wanted someone else to touch it before they came looking for that piece.”

He stuck a pencil in the trigger guard and held the gun up, waited for the barrel to swing towards his nose, and inhaled deeply. He looked at her, “It’s been fired. Recently.”

She nodded, “I came over right after I fired it.”

“Why come to me? Why not simply wear gloves and toss it in the river when you were done?”

She shook her head, “Too risky. I’ve seen the TV shows. Just hoping nothing will happen is not a good way to live your life. You have to give them a suspect to put away and build a case against. Allowing the cops to investigate is dangerous. They might uncover the truth.”

“Can I ask why you chose me for this honour?”

“We needed a loser who fit the profile of a guy who might pull a gun and shoot someone. Your name came up. Ta-dah!”

He nodded, “That’s a really heart-warming story. Might even make it to my Christmas card. So let’s see, you came here, you got me to handle a gun that may or may not be a murder weapon and you’ve confessed to shooting someone.”

She nodded and began pulling on her gloves as she said, “Very good. Just like in the movies. You wrapped it all up and brought anyone interested up to speed.”

“And now you expect me to turn myself in and take my chances with the law?”

“That would be great.”

“What if I refuse?”

“Still have it under control. The gun turns up at your house, cops get a warrant and find it, you go to prison, I got free.”

“Does that seem fair?”

“Survival of the fittest, honey.”

He nodded, in agreement and rolled towards her, “At that point I start agreeing with you again. Unfortunately for you, you’re not the fittest. Maybe you missed a few workouts or maybe you’ve just been bingeing. Either way, you tipped me off to the possibility of something big when you sent some boys to figure me out. They were good with the visible alarms but not so hot with the invisible ones. Human hair is hard to see and easy to break when you don’t know it’s there. Once I knew someone had been here I took the steps necessary to prepare for the next shoe to fall. The requisite number of video cameras placed to leave no corner of the room unwatched. Audio and video. Want to know something really funny?”

She didn’t look like she did but he told her anyway, “I don’t know whom you killed or shot or whatever you did but I have your confession all set to go. Six cameras, true HD, all set for your star turn.”

That’s when the girl grabbed the gun, turned it on him and pulled the trigger. Making the mistake of letting him have it first meant that he had drained it of its shells. Still, the girl with the clicking gun, on tape, was proof enough to put her away long past the sell-by date on her looks.

When the cops took her away he called after her, “Hate to see you walk away but love to watch you leave.” And just like that, he was ready for a drink even though it was only four-thirty in the afternoon. Case closed, violent predator imprisoned. All in all, a good day for him.

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