The Errant Heiress

Chapter Twelve - The Big Reveal

Chapter Twelve – The Big Reveal

So, here I am now, alone and lying flat on my back, staring at the night sky, reminiscing and pondering, waiting for the Grim Reaper to claim me. Alone? I guess not, not really. I can hear footsteps, people closing in from multiple directions at once.

First, the door swings open with a creak and a bang, and out comes the Latin fella, roscoe in one hand, and pulling one of his crates with the other. He spots me on the ground, then turns his eyes and lifts his piece. There are flashes of light, and I assume there’s a shootout, but all I hear are distant pops. The Latino is gunned down, he slides down the wall trailing an arc of blood, black in the hazy light, on the grimy wall. A shot hits his box, and a cloud of white dust rises from it. Then it hits me: flour, of course! Finest Colombian flour, Sal Santorini’s secret stash. No wonder I barely slept a wink the night I was last here!

I keep on staring, clinging on to the increasingly hazy reality. And who should I see but my very own client, Miss Renata Rossini, followed by one of her uncle’s gorillas, a broad-shouldered, handsome fella, if you like that brutish sort of handsome, and I’m in no position to be picky about anything, really. Of course! I knew something about her didn’t jive. The dame was in on it all along, trying to seduce poor Vic into giving up Sal’s stash. But when she came up with zilch, she hired me to play him, instead. And now she and her criminal cohort are rolling in it.

If only I could stop them somehow, if only I could alert the police... I doubt even Miss Rossini’s well-connected uncle would pull too many strings to protect her if he knew she was about to play him for a sap. And then, a shadow appears in the alley behind them, and I realize I’m not alone. Sven is creeping in from behind them, going straight for the mook, who had just put away his gat. Sven, the man whose Nordic fists have moved a thousand filing cabinets.

Unfortunately, he hits like a girl. With palsy. 

From behind, Sven lands a blow on the mook. I say “a blow”, it’s really more like a pat on the shoulder. The guy jumps, turns, and smacks poor Sven across the face. And then kicks him in the shin. Sven howls and doubles over, and then the mook pulls out his roscoe and hammers him on the back of the head with the butt. Sven falls face first on the ground.

I can hear myself whimpering.

And then, just as the gorilla lowers his gat at Sven’s blond locks, impossibly magnificent even in the dark, I hear something else: doleful wailing of sirens. Turns out Sven was brighter than I gave him credit for... Won’t be long before the black and whites start rolling in.

“Come on”, says the dame hollowly (or is it just my head that’s sounding hollow?). “Let’s skedaddle.” I can just about make out how they’re opening the wooden crate, and pulling a sack out of it, and then my mind’s a blank and my vision’s all grey.