Page 52 of Pistol Whipped

The three of us might technically be partners in literal crime, but I don’t trust either Lou Braun or Blue Grace worth a goddamn. At least with Blue I’ve got leverage, because that dumb fucker needs my help to stop Franklin Barrett from burying his ass. Who’d have thought a billionaire CEO would, behind closed doors, be the leader of one of the world’s largest human trafficking rings. I moan inwardly because right now, Blue’s ledger is the only one I can get to balance.

Standing up, I grab that particular ledger as I go. All the books are kept squarely behind the locked door of my private office safe. One by one, I put them all away, minus the “official” version of the Kitty Kat ledger. That, I leave out. Because the world’s best forensic accountant could look, and he wouldn’t find a single trace of anything suspicious. The last of the other ledgers is the one belonging to that little bar in The Neck.

Lou was right when he texted us last night and said that Cohen Brady’s fight with Rain Gamble’s supposed boyfriend, or is it fiancé now, was a convenient distraction and that the press would be all over it. Despite there being no apparent witnesses, pictures from the fight were splashed across the front pages of the tabloids today.

I’d grabbed one from the newsstand on the corner near the club, and the more I look at the picture, the more I wonder why the other man, the “boyfriend,” looks so damn familiar.

And then it hits me, because, like I said, numbers come easy, and as I store the last ledger amongst the others, two equations with the same solution float through my head. Lou seems to think that bringing The Pistols back from oblivion for this tour will somehow clear our debt. Then again, it was Lou thinking with his dick that led to The Pistols’ break-up and our own subsequent money troubles in the first place. So, let’s just say I’m not fucking convinced.

It’s something I’ve had many years to consider. The more time passes, the more questions I have about Lou Braun and his reasons for persuading Blue and me to join him in his shit. But there might just be a solution that will free me from my debt to Viktor and Lou Braun’s mess in one convenient move.

Interlude 10

Bad Apple

Bruce Cooper – ten years ago

On the far side of the balcony, across the expanse of dance floor, I can keep an eye on all the VIP tables. It’s why I put my office up here in the first place, instead of downstairs behind the bar. Because what is the point of having a VIP area at all, if you aren’t going to watch the elite fuckers, the movie stars and musicians closely and learn their sordid secrets?

Tonight, the table I’m watching belongs to The Preaching Pistols, and I’m not alone. Lou Braun decided to stop by tonight. We’re old army buddies. Who happen to share a love of money, drugs, and sex with beautiful women. He’s also the one who introduced me to Viktor Vetrov, the man whose drugs not only bankrolled this place initially but also keep it flush on nights like tonight. And not with cash.

All around the club tonight, my boys and girls, my beauties, are using their wiles to ensure club guests have their worst temptations satisfied. Nobody is giving into those temptations with quite as much gusto as The Pistols are.

“Tell me you don’t want a piece of that ass.” Lou thumbs over at Rain Gamble, who is standing on top of their table, her wide hips swaying to the beat while she pours whiskey straight from the bottle down her chin, over her barely covered breasts, all the way down to her ankles. The girl is drunk. Sexy as fuck, but drunk.

And those boys, her bandmates, they think she’s drunk enough that she doesn’t notice how they watch her. She might feel how her boyfriend licks at her ankles, yet there’s a sly smile on her face that tells me she knows her other bandmates, the Kelly brothers, are watching too. She’s a sexy little minx. She’s practically asking for it.

“Oh, believe me, friend, I’d love to take a bite outta that. I’m just not sure it’s worth it.”

“Hmm,” he grunts. Because he knows exactly what I’m talking about. I’m not the only one being bankrolled by Vetrov and his drug money. That Russian bastard has big plans where The Preaching Pistols are concerned, so better we think with our brains instead of our dicks here. Mess up those plans, and we could find ourselves completely and totally fucked.

Lou doesn’t seem to see it that way.

“What if there was a way we could do it without any blowback on us?”

Skepticism has me giving him a twisted stare. “No blowback? As in none whatsoever? As in we just get to have our fun and walk the fuck away?”

He nods once. “Just like we did back when we were a couple of Privates?”

Lou and I served during a major peacekeeping operation in South America. And boy oh boy, did we claim some piece of our own, or should I say pieces. The good old days, back before female Privates started reporting that shit up the chain of command.

“We’d need some bait,” I caution, “or some way to get her away from her merry band of men over there.”

This isn’t me agreeing, per se, but if Lou’s got a plan and it turns out to be a good one, well, I don’t think there’s any harm in us having a bit of fun. Reliving our glory days. So long as Vetrov never finds out.

End Interlude

Chapter 27

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

Blue Grace

Despite all the money in it, clean or otherwise, the music industry is small and full of fucking gossip. When Lou Braun reached out with a plan to revive the Deviant Dreams tour, I initially called bullshit. After the last fiasco with The Preaching Pistols and their Crash and Burn tour, Viktor Vetrov had to be downright stupid to invest in another one of Lou’s schemes.

It didn’t take long for rumours to reach me via my manager, Corbin, that Lou Braun was reviving Deviant Dreams. Initially, I assumed they were bullshit. The industry’s rumour mill has been swirling for a while about something big coming. Honestly, a rumour probably started by Lou himself. Not that I mind. As one of the co-investors in Orange County Records, a tour like Deviant Dreams is a fucking cash cow. One that might help me solve a few of my other problems. Problems like my wife, Delilah. Or Franklin Barrett. Both of whom are safely back in Barrett Hills. Leaving me free to forget my troubles poolside.

I had our manager book these shows at Asterix on purpose so that I could get the fuck out of Barrett Hills and away from Delilah. Between some of my favourite party favours, like the bikini-clad blonde smiling at me from across the pool and the coke, I was having a grand old time. That was, until this morning, when the headlines finally reached me that The Preaching-fucking-Pistols were back together and doing a small revival tour across the great wild north. The stench of Lou’s scheming was all over it.