Perilously Fun Fiction: A Bundle, Pauline Jones [top 100 novels of all time .txt] 📗

then stepped back into my shadows. He was so close I could smell his noxious after-shave mixed with acrid sweat. What came first, I wondered, the bad taste, then bad guy or the bad guy, then bad taste? Not my finest hour, I’ll admit, but the sheer terror, followed by shallow thought made me realize I could think.

While I had my mini-epiphany, whoever was approaching came into the round-headed guy’s range. He spoke in this growly, bad-guy voice, “Hold it right there, bitch.”

I guess I could understand the error, given the lack of light, but I didn’t like it. And I couldn’t cower and let someone get shot for me.

If only I had a gun.

Wait. I did have a gun.

I eased my hand in my purse and felt through the debris until I found the handle of Rosemary’s glue gun.

“You shoulda kept pretending you didn’t know anything, doll. Mighta stayed alive. Let’s see some hands.”

Not too bright if he thought he could see anything. I’d had time for my eyes to adjust to the dark and I could barely see his round-headed outline against the general murk. Still, even a mental midget would eventually notice the difference between a female victim and what I suspected was a CIA suit. And realizing the guy was CIA would only hasten the shooting.

I pulled the glue gun clear of the purse.

“That’s it, get those hands up nice and high. And let’s have your purse. I need that picture you made of me.”

What? This guy wasn’t just evil, he was stupid. Didn’t he know the police had the picture? I left my purse on the floor and eased upright, gripping the glue gun with both hands, the way they did it in the movies.

The round-headed man didn’t move. All of his little brain was directed to where he thought I was. I took a steadying breath. Then jammed the glue gun into his fleshy back as hard as I could.

“Don’t move, toe rag!” I growled trying to sound deep and official. “Lose the piece!”

He started, then said, “I have the bitch in my sights, spook. Now mebbe you better drop your heater before I do her.”

With a clarity honed by adrenaline, I acted on instinct, sliding the gun down his back until the glue gun was digging into his fat behind.

“Only way you have me in your sights, is if your eyes are in your ass with your brain, idiot. Now drop that gun before I make you into a freaking soprano!”

I gave him a good, hard jab to press home my point.

“Now, lady,” his voice spontaneously rose a couple of octaves, “don’t get your drawers in a twist! See,” he extended his arms, the gun swinging from his fat finger and thumb, “I’m putting it down. Just stay calm.”

“Don’t tell me to stay calm. It makes me nervous. Did I mention this has a hair trigger?” It wasn’t a lie. Rosemary had bought top of the line. This baby could produce a thin line of glue if you just thought you wanted it to. “Put the gun down and kick it toward the spook before I do something you’ll regret!”

I gave him another jab. It felt good. Maybe I should have been a cop. Or a spook.

“Okay! Okay!”

He bent to lay the gun down. The suit had his gun up, peering into our dark passage. Then the other suit called out, the sound making an eerie echo. It was just the distraction the round-headed man was waiting for. He elbowed me. My breath woofed out. He lunged forward and applied one of those shoulder butts football players do to the suit’s solar plexus. His breath woofed out, too.

Gamely the suit made a grab for the round-headed man, got a knee to the jaw for his trouble and went down.

Round head made a grab for his gun, but I saw that one coming and kicked it into the shadows.

“We’re here! Help!” Self-defense 101. Make a lot of noise.

I made more noise and the round-headed man staggered forward, his cowboy boots skidding against the floor for several dancing steps, then he got his footing and scampered down the passage, the frantic echo of his footsteps gradually fading away.

“You all right, Miss Stanley?” The suit helped me to my feet.

I did a little shimmy. It hurt, but no pain that was out of the ordinary. “Yeah.”

He brought out a little flash light and shined it around, then pointed it at the glue gun. “You should’ve shot him.”

“I couldn’t.” I held it up, so that he could see the cord dangling from the butt. “It wasn’t plugged in.”

Even Marion didn’t want me to stay. With a promise to explain later, if I was still alive and not in jail, I limped back to my car. They assigned me some new suits because my old ones had to “mop up.” The new guys tried but failed to look identical. One was tall and round, the other short and thin. As I drove home, I realized the incident had left more questions than it answered. How had round head found out I could ID him or that I was at the convention center?

The evidence was stacking up against Kel.

On the other hand, the suits had made serious, if ineffective efforts, to save me. If Kel had wanted me dead, why had he assigned people to protect me? This seemed to make Kel a good guy. Which meant there was something or someone in the mix we didn’t know about. Maybe round head had seen me and it had taken him that long to track me down. He could have taken the license plate number off the car and had it traced. Or someone at the police station could have tipped him off.

I liked this scenario better than the one where Kel kissed me, then tried to get me killed. And not just because he kissed like a romance hero. He didn’t give off bad guy vibes. Sometimes a