Read Godsend 6: All Jokes Aside Online
Authors: K. Elliott
Godsend 6: All Jokes Aside (6 page)
THE CHEROKEE was coming to a stop at a traffic light ahead. Breno was relieved. He’d lost the black man who was running after the Cherokee on foot, but he knew he still had problems. Whittier, California, was more than three hundred miles away, and he couldn’t risk driving a hot-wired vehicle that far with a duffle bag full of x-pills. Not only that, the cold air whipping through the broken driver’s window would become unbearable.
He stopped for the light and began wiping more broken glass bits from his seat. He looked up and spotted the black man again, four vehicles back, on foot again and trying to creep up to the Cherokee. Breno panicked and looked for a gap to drive through, but the vehicles ahead make it impossible. He grabbed the black duffle bag and the Mac-10, turned in his seat and sprayed the back window of the Cherokee with bullets, piercing windows and grills on two other vehicles and making Echo disappear.
Echo duck-walked around the shot-up van then saw Breno running toward the intersection with a gun and a duffle bag. He gave chase and thought about lying-ass Travis and his claim that the bag was blue and gray. Echo fired four silenced shots as Breno was swinging the Mac-10 around to spray more bullets.
Breno was hit in his lower back and leg, and as he was falling to the street a burst of his rounds found their way into the windshield of a Camaro, sending its three occupants ducking out of view.
Echo fired six more shots as he closed in on Breno, hitting him four more times. Cars were sliding to a stop, and sirens had grown much louder now. Several spectators were snapping pictures and video recording the scene.
When Echo caught up with Breno, he could hear the labor in his breathing, but otherwise Bruno wasn’t moving. “Your first-class trip to hell is paid for by the woman you raped at the Gold Creek Inn.” He snatched the duffle bag from Breno’s weakening grip. “She was hoping I kill you, and this is how I keep hope alive.” Echo fired a single shot to Breno’s forehead at point-blank range. People screamed, car horns blared, sirens were only a block away, and Echo was now sprinting toward the tree line again.
Less than a minute later he was in the rear parking lot of the Genuine Platter on Emerald Bay Road, a half mole down the road from the Tahoe Grove Inn. He approached a pregnant white woman who was getting out of her Honda pilot. The SUV had tire chains and a California license plate. He showed her a gun before she could even speak to him.
“I need a driver who wants to live. Eighty miles south and you drive away safely; no harm to you or the baby. I’ll be in the backseat area, and if we get stopped by the police, or you try to jump out and run, you’ll never meet your unborn.”
The woman got back inside and unlocked the rear passenger’s door without saying a word. She was only six months pregnant and desperately wanted a child at age twenty-nine.
Echo got in the back, closed the door, and said, “Let’s go. Highway
89 South to Interstate 395 South, and my ride ends in Walker.” When the woman started the vehicle and began driving, Echo glanced inside the duffel bag and saw two stacks of money. He guessed it to be about four grand, all twenties. He could feel the x-pills, which were concealed inside a black plastic bag within the duffle bag. Echo threw a stack of money up front to the passenger’s seat and said, “My gift, since I won’t be able to make it to the baby shower.”
WHEN THE HONDA PILOT was out of sight, Echo jumped inside the Durango with Kiandra.
She smiled at him, leaned over from the driver’s seat, and kissed him. “You don’t know how glad I am to see you.”
“You can prove it later.” He began removing his knit cap and clear latex gloves. “How long you been waiting?”
She began driving. “Only twenty-five minutes. I never went inside the store, and I’m not on camera.
Echo removed a cell phone from his coat pocket and broke the thing in half with his bare hands. He had taken it from the woman in the Honda before sending her back up North.
Kiandra said, “I guess you got him because I see a duffle bag, but I thought it was supposed to be blue and gray.”
“Travis lied. Remind me to pull that magnetic license plate off in the next city.” He was about to recline in his seat when his own Blackberry rang. He pulled it out of the console and answered it. “Brian, what’s up?”
“Where the fuck you been? I know you ain’t just now waking up.”
“Had to run a little errand for Kiandra.” “You won’t believe where I’m at.”
Echo said, “Tell me so I can take my ass to sleep. I been up all night.”
“Probably fucking Kiandra. I’m in New York. Sheree found Ramona Hartley.” “How?”
“Internet search. She only found her because two weeks ago Ramona got married to another woman under New York’s same sex marriage laws. I talked to Ramona, and she said she was afraid of how her family and friends would feel about her, which is why she didn’t tell them that she was attracted to women. She ran away with Jessica Prowley and changed her name later.”
Echo said, “Goddamn lesbians are everywhere nowadays.”
Kiandra looked at him and blew a kiss.
“The case is still considered solved, right?’ We still get the full payment?” Echo said.
“Damn right.”
“Good. I guess that means I ain’t got to step off in Shotglass’ ass.” Brian laughed. “If only he knew. We still going to his Where Was I? concert?’
“I don’t see why not. The tickets are paid for.” The conversation lingered another minute then Echo ended the call. He said to Kiandra, “Bring your girlfriend to my room tomorrow. It’s time to pay on your bill.”
She said, “Okay, and while I’m at it I wanna put about ten thousand fucks in the bank with you.”
He smiled the lowered his window and tossed the broken cell phone. “All jokes aside, I know I was gonna turn your ass out.”
North Carolina. The Charlotte Coliseum. The laughter was so loud, Shotglass finally had to pause before continuing. He grabbed his shotglass of liquor from the floor as he leaned forward in his leather swivel seat. He took one sip and said “And I got a message for every man in the world with a bald spot. Cut that bullshit all the way off; that ain’t no damn style. You got hair only around the rim of your fuckin head!” Even men with bald spots were laughing. “George Jefferson rocked that shit in the eighties, and thirty years later you’re using a temple bush to hide the full shape of your head. Tough decision when you got to trade ugly in for fucked up.”
More laughter.
“Where was I? The Jeffersons. Let’s talk about the new Flo, the one on them unfunny-ass Progressive Insurance commercial. I hate her wide eyes, eye liner, and tired-ass hospital suit. Oh, and her redundant hairdo and clown-flavored lipstick.”
Some in the audience were stomping as they laughed.
“But I still wanna fuck her ‘cause I got a bad driving record. But I got a better idea.” He stood now and pushed the swivel chair back. He stepped closer to the edge of the stage, cocked his left eyebrow, placed his hands on either side of his sports coat, and said, “Could switching to Geico save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance?” He inhaled deeply and said, “Did the Discovery Channel fail to teach you how to locate a snake’s dick?”
The laughter was deafening.
“If fifteen minutes could save me fifteen percent or more on car insurance, I’m calling that little green lizard after the show and staying on the line with his ass for an hour and forty minutes.” He pointed at a beautiful black woman on the front row. “Look at her horny ass; she’s still trying to figure out where snakes keep their dicks.”
by K. Elliott
Godsend
is an addictive thriller series with a private eye agency that has no rule book. The members are murderers investigating cold case homicides, abductors looking into missing person cases.
Here is the
Godsend
schedule:
A Necessary Evil.
The Search for Rochelle.
Pissed All the Way Off.
Hiding in Plain Sight.
Blashpemy Out West.
All Jokes Aside.
The Halo Effect.
The Value of a Woman.
THE WEIGHT OF ECHO (a full-length novel).
Square in the Mouth.
That Stupid Hooker.
Taken For Granite.
The Audacity.
Selling Woof Tickets.
Ass to Kiss.
Kill Somebody Else.
Shots Fired.
Natural Causes.
6 O'Clock News.
OUTLINE OF A MONSTER (a full-length novel).
Read them all before you die! Warning: Side effects include jitters resulting from constant suspense, goose bumps caused by sudden thrills, embarrassing arousals, and injurious laughter that may lead to severe headaches and stomach cramps.
