A Twist Of Noir 632 - Jack Getze

BOY SCOUT OF THE YEAR - JACK GETZE

“Come on, baby,” Lorraine whispered. “We don’t have much time.”

I had to admire Lorraine’s focus. Maybe she thought I wasn’t trying, or she figured kicking me with verbal spurs was somehow going to push the stallion into a gallop. Damn thing wouldn’t even trot.

“Jeez, Lorraine, it ain’t like I’m eighteen no more. You might be squeezing it too hard.”

Lorraine wiggled underneath me, then nudged me off with an elbow. My bare bottom slapped against the cold tile. Through a tiny square window over the toilet, moonlight washed the musty, closet-sized bathroom with dirty grays. I couldn’t take my eyes off Lorraine’s silhouette as she wriggled back into her blue jeans. Yanking them off hadn’t been half as exciting.

“Lorraine. You in there?”

Shit. Hank’s loud voice froze both of us like crickets under a flashlight. My heart jumped. I heard Lorraine suck big air. Well, it finally happened. Hank must have woken up from his drunken stupor and had to pee.

“Give me a minute, will you, sweetie?” Lorraine said. “I’m on the potty.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes, Hank, that’s exactly right.”

“I don’t think so.” His voice sounded all sing-songy, like a little kid’s. Asshole.

“Do you hear the shower running?” Lorraine said.

“No,” Hank said.

“Or do you hear the sink splashing?”

“No.”

“Then what else you think I might be doing in here but using the toilet?”

I heard him chuckling in the hallway. Hank’s voice is normally low and gruff -- a lot like Hank, actually. The sound always grates on my nerves, only this time it was worse, probably because I’d been buck naked with his wife on his bathroom floor but couldn’t get the job done.

“The thing is, Lorraine,” Hank said, “honey, sweetie, wife of mine. I saw our good friend Eugene go into that bathroom five minutes before you did. He never came out.”

Lorraine stared at me in the silver gray moonlight. Her pretty teeth and the whites of her eyes glowed at me like candles.

“Don’t be silly, baby,” she said. “Eugene went to the Seven-11 two minutes ago to get me a pack of Marlboros. You’ll see. I’ll be right out.”

Lorraine flushed the toilet.

I rolled over and reached up underneath the stained, ceramic toilet. My fingers wrapped around the loaded Beretta 9 I had taped up there three weeks earlier. I had to hide the hot weapon away from my place, and since Lorraine couldn’t keep her hands off me, especially when her husband Hank was asleep in the same house, I figured why not stash that Beretta where it might come in handy. Think I win Boy Scout of the Year for this one.

The hollow bathroom door began to shake from Hank’s fists. “I know you two are in there. How long you been fucking my wife, Eugene?”

Lorraine stared at me. If she’d really thought about opening that door, trying to talk to him, I think Hank’s voice and those fists were changing her mind. I hadn’t shown her yet what I had taken from behind the toilet, but I used my head and a half-assed grin to wave Lorraine away from the door.

I stood up, gripped the Beretta with two hands and fired four rounds where I figured Hank ought to be standing. I heard a gasp, then a cry, and finally a sack of potatoes hitting the floor. I figured it was probably safe after that, as Hank couldn’t be that good an actor. But there was something else had to be done first.

Lorraine’s white teeth flashed me her happiest grin. Tickled pink at what I’d just done for her. Done for the two of us.

I brought the Beretta up level with her chest. Sorry, Lorraine. Can’t have witnesses.

BIO: Jack Getze earned his first byline for The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner in 1965. You do the math.