Sully - a Las Vegas short story.

The intentions of the man on the corner became obvious upon a second glance. At first look, he's warm jacket and blue jeans announced he was a local because winter-time visitors to Las Vegas wore shorts and Hawaiian shirts. The fifty degree days felt balmy compared to the near zero temperatures of the northern climes. Not-so to thin blooded Vegas residents grown accustomed to 108 degree summers.

My second glance revealed the muzzle of a handgun under the jacket, breaking smooth lines. The calm, almost sanguine early morning, with the rising sun back lighting the aptly named Sunrise Mountain promised excitement. Nothing ever happened at 5am, no hookers, no deliveries, nothing, except for...

I leaned against the neo-roman concrete fence of Caesars Palace and watched the man standing at the head of the alley between the Flamingo Casino and O'Sheas, my early morning job for a client temporarily postponed. No one posted an armed guard on Las Vegas Boulevard without cause. After a moment, I walked up to the man. He looked away, pretending we didn't know each other.

"Stephens."

"Get lost, Sully."

A radio-mike protruded from his collar. A clear coiled tube ran from under his jacket to his ear.

"Need any help?"

"Not your kind."

"Oh. One of those jobs?"

"Bounce." Beads of sweat formed on his brow.

"Just checking out the competition."

"Extraviarse."

"You looking a little sick. Are you okay?"

Stephens put his hand under his jacket and stared into my eyes.

"Extraviarse. I get it. One last question: When the shit goes down, which side am I on?"

Stephens's muscles tightened.

I departed, returning to the Caesars Palace side of the street to watch and wait. Stephens glanced at me. I imagined his thoughts: I've been made. Do we call this off? Is it too late? How do I handle him after this goes down? Should I kill Sully now? Is he packing? Probably. How messy is that going to get? He's got friends on the force.

I enjoyed fun on the Strip at any hour.

Ten minutes later the Oshea's side-door opened. Two guards and three drop-crew personnel manhandled a cash-cart over the threshold and down the concrete ramp. Stephens moved, talking into his coat collar.

I looked at the second hand on my watch.

A rented box truck, it's rear loading gate out and lowered, sped up the street, turned into the alley, and missed hitting the casino crew and cart by inches. The truck's brakes screeched as the vehicle stopped. The rear door opened and three men with sub machine guns jumped out. The loading gate straightened and lowered to the ground. The unarmed casino guards raised their hands and the drop-crew froze, bewildered. Gun barrels swung and pointed. Commands rose. Within half a minute the guards pushed the cash-cart onto the loading deck and the money disappeared into the truck. Five seconds later the truck went mobile again, and ten seconds later, police sirens echoed through the streets.

Those dumb bastards, I thought. I later learned that for ten years, since Flamingo purchased O'Shea's, they'd been taking the cash up an elevator and across the alley through the overhead walkway, then down five stories in another elevator to the count room in the basement. Concealed and secure, but inconvenient and a pain to manage, the bosses did something dumb-deciding to take the money outside, in public, rather than tolerating drop-crew complaints. They finally gave in. I wondered for how long. A day, maybe two, until they got robbed. The eyes on the city, eyes like mine, watching, learning, waiting to see how obtuse the managers were. Street people watched everything. Seeing this one time might be weird. Twice: an anomaly. Three times: opportunity not missed.

An hour afterwards, Detective Esposito, my current nemesis, and certainly not one of my friends, crossed the street. "Sullivan."

"Detective."

"Casino Surveillance says you were talking to one of the gunmen and you've been standing here since before it happened. Are you stupid or do you wish to go down as an accomplice?"

"Nice to see you too."

"What happened?"

"Nothing."

"I should arrest you for being an asshole." Esposito's eyes narrowed and he turned away.

"Well... I might have seen something." I walked after him, crossing the street.

"I'm not hiring you."

"Let's call it a finder's fee."

***

I expected the knock on my office door when it arrived that afternoon. I discussed with a visitor if his side would pay and which small-time, virtually unknown drug-dealer he would frame, deflect suspicion, and allow Esposito the glory of solving the case, recovering half of the million dollars stolen from the casino. The casino certainly reported twice that amount stolen to the insurance company. This profited the bad guys and the casino. I'd deposit two nice paychecks into my vacuous bank account. Everyone wins.

Three FREE NOVELS

♥➷♥ 3 NOVELS FOR FREE ♥➷♥  Mystery or Horror. You pick!!!
....What do you do when you are drugged, tied, hanging from the ceiling, and your feet are planted in a bucket of concrete? P.I. Sully digs deep in Sullyland - A Las Vegas Mystery
....What do you when you're 17, trapped with elite soldiers, surrounded by zombies, ammo and supplies run low, and your boyfriend is outside and M.I.A.? Julie Rayzor locks and loads for the final battle.
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Starting Thursday May 21st until the 25th for Memorial Day weekend only!!!  (And always free on Kindle Unlimited.)
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Do you need three full-length fast-paced adventure novels for Memorial Day weekend?
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Sullyland - A Sully Las Vegas Mystery: http://www.amazon.com/Sullyland-Sully-Mystery-Mysteries-Volume/dp/1492829579

Julie Rayzor - Zombie War Series Book One: www.tinyurl.com/JRZWS1
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RayzorWire - Zombie War Series Book Two: www.tinyurl.com/Rayzorwire
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“Crisp, fast-paced action novel... Writing style is very impressive... realistic energy and highly effective tough combat... Great dialogue in this entertaining novel... Elmore Leonard type: short, character-revealing, and advancing the story conflict. And conflict is everywhere... I will not give away any secrets in the plot... I won’t tell you about the train scenes, wow, you’ll have to discover those yourself...” says John Hill, Author and Screenwriter of "Quigley Down Under", and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (uncredited), "LA Law" and "Quantum Leap".
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Sullyland Excerpt:
Roused into a hazy darkness, dust with a hint of lime-the odor of fresh concrete, a stretching of my arms and a slap across my face made the world clearer. John Medici rubbed his hands, injuring himself on my jaw-line. I smiled.
“Wake up, dead man,” Anthony ‘Tall-Tony’ Constantino said. A half-dozen men stood around me.
My head swelled, aching, thudding, as the drug wore off, my crossed eyes focused in the dim room. I hung from my arms, propped upright.
“I want you awake for this,” Medici said. “You don’t get to die easy. I want you to suffer every agonizing gulp of water as it floods your lungs and try to grow gills and breathe like a fish.” He laughed.
With wrists tied above my head, my body hanging down, ropes secured me to a gaffing hook bolted to the ceiling. I sighed and dropped my eyes, gazing at the floor.
Legs weighted down, frozen, paralyzed, my feet held inside a bucket of masonry cement. No one wore concrete galoshes since Whitey Bulger won the Massachusetts state lottery and went on the lam… no one until me. My murder would be stereotypical... a cliché from old movies about Al Capone. I’d be embarrassed for them if the victim was anyone else. Blood drained from my head, I grew weak, panic rising.
Calm, I told myself. What can I do? Analyze the situation… How did I get myself into this mess? Anthony promised not to kill me… Fat joke. What did I do? I insulted John. A minor jab to anyone else except a man who possessed no humor. Killing Butterfield didn’t scare me off… probably upsetting Veronika more than worry of her own death… She wanted her children to be safe. This doesn’t help.
Eyes opening wider and my face flushing renewed bouts of laughter from the audience. They pulled at beer bottles until John gestured–retiring to the upper decks and saying, “Let’s wait while the concrete dries.”

Hell-Bent Wade

My name is Bent Wade. Some have called me Hell-Bent but I could argue that Hell comes to me; I never go looking for it. This isnt about my name. Its about the future. I've always had dreams that come true. No lottery numbers. No lucky scratch tickets. Just dreams about a fence along a highway or a jet crashing into a skyscraper and many others but no details. Nothing to identify when or where they might happen but happen they did. All my life. At 17 years old I visited a psychic on a lark, hoping for confirmation about a dreamhouse in the mountains. She told me of the desert and lots of horses. Then she grew extremely frightened and refused to tell me any more. Idk. Maybe she saw my first wife! I'd have appreciated the heads-up on that one! Even my first wife had nightmares about our divorce a year before I asked for one. Lol! The psychic annoyed me and I wanted my money back, departing with a feeling of being ripped off. Ten years later I bought a horse. Two years after that I moved from Boston, across the country, to Nevada. On the drive, hauling a trailer and my horse, I saw that fence in the Shenandoah valley. In Tennessee I crossed a bridge over a bend in a river to reach a barn for the night. I'd dreamed the barn stood on an island but everything else appeared the same, from the steep river banks to the trees and the stableyard. In Vegas I owned a boarding stable and rode and trained horses as a hobby. In 2001 I saw a jet and skyscraper on tv. In the last 30 plus years I've dreamed and seen things come true more than I can recount. Why do I tell you this? Because last month I felt a premonition that I will be dead in three months: June 2014... My name is Hell-Bent Wade and I hope Hell isnt waiting but rather I know it won't.

Write What You Know

Write what you know.

Write what you know. That's what they told him, but how? Simon thought. How does one write about love and loss and psychosis and suicide when the cuts run too deep and the edge of the knife scrapes a razor-edge against bone? A filet of his flesh, red and juicy, a prime cut made its daily, no, hourly slice and fall to the floor. Write what you know... Love as euphoric as morphine with fuzzy brain-numbing loss of intelligence hidden by a false veil masquerading as clear thought. The mask removed when his wife's infatuation mutated into insecurity, raising loneliness from the dead like a pheonix, with talons gripping psychological damage dug from the depths of some cranial malfunction. The damage itself, perhaps, caused by a childhood of incest or too much high fructose corn syrup in her baby formula. 

This he might pen. Write the words but to what feeling? What effect? To bring the reader to the brink of suicide? If one could write such words he would possess the power of the gods but even to lesser effect, for the sake of drama or enlightenment of the dark corners of life. 

What part did the man play in causing the problems? Is he an intelligent imbecile? A functional idiot? An innocent rube suckered by great sex and too many compliments? Would the reader believe such a man could be so dumb to miss all the signs and ignore the advice of his best friends? 

The story might sell. Simon wondered aloud and to himself as he sat at his desk. It could make him rich, but does wealth bring happiness after all? Yet another concern built a wall between the thought and the deed... Should he do it? Would it free him from the poorly crafted plot point of the protagonist committing suicide? How else besides murder could this fairytale conclude? There is always murder-suicide but-not to misuse a cliche-the horse that cliche rode died of fatigue. And suicide itself is a problem. A story told in first person might be formulated with the protagonist's ghost as the storyteller but he rides a similar problem-horse. Could our flawed but redeemable yet unredeemed hero become a villain filled with hate for all forever? Might he instead pick up the shattered parts of his life, sweep them into the dustbin and go merrily onward? 

The wall becomes too high, too wide and its foundation runs too very deep to reach the other side. This is what holds Simon back. This Shakespearian tragedy is his opus, his swan-song and his nemesis.

He opened a new document in Word and began to type as the never ending tears flowed once more.

Going to Hell

Ten years old in the fourth grade, on a snowy slushy day when the catholic school let out, I lined up with the others to walk by the church and reach Main Street in a near freezing rain. The Sister walks out into the street to stop traffic and then tells us to walk across the street and no running allowed. I walk fast like everyone else and the Sister grabs me by the coat and tells me I'm not supposed to run and that I have to walk back across the street and then cross the street a third time and no running. I think to myself, "How stupid is that!". Streets are dangerous but I walk across the street, reach the sidewalk and turn around. Walking back towards the sister but she moved to the far side of the roadway, as I approach I spot a large pothole filled with icy water. Beside the pothole stands my nemisis dressed in a knee length skirt, stockings, and flat-sole shoes. I accelerate. Walking faster. By the time I reach the pothole, I'm running. (Punished for the crime I didn't commit I figure I might as well do the deed and add a little more.) I leap into the air. Both feet coming together I descend rapidly, school shoes landing side by side in that pothole. Water flies, legs are instantly soaked! My felony committed I bolt across the forbidden convent lawn, comitting a third or fourth crime added to the list. My escape is made, running, racing towards home as I hear my name called,"Richard Howes! Get back here right now!" I don't stop. It's a mile to home and I'm free until mom returns from work. She knows what happened. I explain my side. She agrees that making a kid walk across a street several times for punishment is stupid. And... I should not have splashed the sister. Oh well. Life is interesting and I'm going to hell anyways!

Sullyland ~ A Sully Las Vegas Mystery is out now!!! Special promo!!!!

Do you enjoy mysteries? Hard-boiled Detective tales? Big cities? Mountain views? Do you want your villains mean and deadly and your heroes strong and reserved? http://amzn.to/1kH9SpG
Sullyland is out... The publisher is running a promo to offer all my other novels on kindle for 99 cents now until Sunday May 11th 2014
Sully appreciates divorce cases. Paid to stalk client's spouses, he makes easy money but when his client dies it becomes a mystery. When several people die, it becomes a trend... A trend he would rather not be a part of.
As he discovers who did the killing he learns secrets about the Russians and the Italians. When a street-gang and a drug dealer join in, Sully's old combat skills become a survival tool.
Richard Howes produces another heart-pounding thriller. Filled with intrigue and suspense, a host of suspects keeps the killer a mystery until the end.
Available in ebook and paperback http://amzn.to/1kH9SpG

Spring Cleaning - Time to dust off the antiques and send them to a better home

Hi. This is for my friends and their friends that might be interested in some antique shooters, some new shooters, and some collectables... Make me an offer... I'll ship to your FFL or directly as federal and state laws apply...

1893 turkish conversion Mauser. Stamped with Turkish markings crescent moon and star and 1934. Nice gun. $325

 1911 Reblued before I got it. This is a colt hardford, stamped United States Property. I have a reproduction WW1-2 holster and an original canvas ammo pouch. Asking $1150 for everything. Can throw in a couple magazine too.

This is a 12 gauge side by side, cutdown 20 inch barrel, used it for Cowboy Action shooting and mounted shotgun shooting but mostly collects dust now. Will get more details tomorrow.

 Carcano, Italian Carbine, WW2 era. This is the model of gun that killed John F Kennedy. You could buy them for $20 in the 1950s. Never fired this one. Didn;t look for ammunition too hard.

1888 Mauser. nice antique but not shootable. I paid $100 for it plus shipping and would like to get that back out. Could be sold for parts for more than $100. Bolts alone are $65.

 Cutdown springfield 45-70 trapdoor carbine. I bought this cheap. The sights are not correct, this was a rifle that someone cut down to a carbine and added a saddle ring. Makes a good shooter and show piece. I've carried this in parades and fired blanks at reenactments.

 Two Revolving carbines. .45colt. One with modern sights and one with original fixed sights. I used these for old west reenacting once a year and mounted rifle. The modern front sight is missing off one but I can replace it. Make me an offer!

 1970s or 80s Remington Model 70, 30-06 caliber, original, not modified by the factory recall - something to do with having to turn the safety off to open the bolt while loaded - if you follow good safe gun handling rules then you will be okay or you can ship it in and Remington will convert it for free. Includes scope mounts. make me an offer.

 My M1 garand. Fun shooter. Got some spare clips for it. Details upon request. $1000 and comes with a clips.

 Winchester lever action carbine 1894 45 colt. Used this for cowboy action shooting a lot, before I moved into Cowboy Mounted Shooting. Fired some blanks through it for mounted rifle but mostly it collects dust now. Make me an offer.

Springfield 1903. Low Serial number. Mint condition because they were prone to poor metalurgy. Would make a great reenacting piece but frankly it's nearly mint so you might not want to beat it up in the field.

 Mid 1800s old west percussion shotgun. Damascus barrel with a small dent. makes a great conversation piece. Make me an offer.

 Krag Carbine. This is what Teddy Roosevelt used with the Rough Riders in the Spanish American War. I shot  this a long time ago and it's a fun gun. It has a horizontal magazine well that feeds the ammo under the breech, up the left side of the gun and into the chamber. Make me an offer.

 Krag Carbine with the bolt open and the magazine cover open.

 M1 Carbine. Rock Island Arsenal stock, Barrel marked Inland arms 9-43 3rd production run. My favorite shooter. Can plink all day long. I have 12+ magazines (20 rounds each).  I'm asking for $1000 for the M1 Carbine. The carbine comes with a lot of extra magazines 10-15qty - ten to 30 rounds capacity. I have to count them.

 Cimarron 1873 45 Colt. Asking $450 each. Serial numbers approx 30-40 digits apart.

 Cimarron Thunderers with birdshead grips. 45 Colt. Asking $450 each. Serial numbers approx 30-40 digits apart.

 Make me an offer on these Civil War reproduction revolvers, all are .44 caliber except for the black handled Remington with is .36 caliber. The 1911 is a Springfield Arms WW2 reproduction that I modified for firing Black Ammunition. I'll have to unmodify it in order to comply with federal law. I can also convert it back to firing live ammo with a new barrel and slide.