A Twist Of Noir 681 - Matthew McBride

A MONTE CARLO, A DEAD HORSE, AND A BOTTLE OF STEROIDS - MATTHEW MCBRIDE

He slid the key in the ignition of the beat up Monte Carlo and the old piece of shit coughed and sputtered. After several failed attempts, the engine came to life and the sounds of soft decay escaped the muffler.

That was his first mistake. NEVER USE A CAR WITH MECHANICAL ISSUES ON A JOB.

T.J. turned the radio up, spun his hat around backwards, and headed to the end of county road 681. That’s where he’d meet the girl. The rich girl whose Daddy called himself The Colonel.

The Colonel was a breeder of champion horses. Except he didn’t call them horses.

“These are thoroughbreds, boy.”

That’s what The Colonel told T.J. the day they first met. The day his mind began wondering and he cooked up his plan. The plan to boost the steroids the Colonel kept locked up in the tac room. The steroids the girl said would be there.

*

She was standing by an oak tree when he pulled up to the road. T.J. took a good look as she stood there in the headlights. Short shorts, long legs, and a tight, flat belly.

She opened the door, climbed inside, and they drove the two lane blacktop for another few miles before he turned off on a dead end road.

“This is the place, right?” he asked the daughter.

She nodded.

Of course this was the place. He was just making small talk because he was nervous.

She asked if he brought the gun.

Now it was his turn to nod. Of course he brought the gun. Never know when a Sig Sauer will come in handy. Besides, what if there was trouble?

“You shoot The Colonel if you get the chance,” she ordered.

Why did rich girls always hate their daddies?

T.J. didn’t know and he didn’t care. He just wanted the Winstrol, and she promised him a stockpile would be waiting.

Mistake number two. NEVER DO BUSINESS WITH A GIRL WHO HATES HER DADDY.

He climbed the barbed wire fence and made his way across the pasture.

*

The Colonel sat on the porch swing of his plantation style home and nursed a tumbler full of Southern Comfort. He felt the cool summer breeze tickle his whiskers as he dropped a match into his Meerschaum pipe. He lit a bowl of half and half and watched the small clouds of smoke escape his lips and float up to the ceiling fan.

That’s when he saw a light come on in the barn.

*

T.J. used the key the daughter gave him with little regard for the consequences. Who cares if she got caught? He didn’t know her that well anyway. He just wanted the roids.

When he opened the door to the cabinet, there was just a single bottle of Trenbolone. Not the small arsenal of muscle enhancement products he had been promised.

Oh well, it didn’t matter. One bottle was better than nothing, but as he turned, he heard The Colonel charge through the door with a shotgun in his hand.

T.J. dove out the window, landed on his back and a shotgun blast sprayed through the window frame and covered his head in splinters. He forgot to grab the Tren.

T.J. returned fire, he started blasting holes through the wall with the Sig. He shot The Colonel’s horse.

He made it back to the car, but he knew The Colonel was behind him, and The Colonel was pretty fast for an old bastard.

When he opened the door, she was playing with the radio and chewing gum.

T.J. hit the key, but the Monte Carlo wouldn’t start. As he worked the gas pedal, he heard the daughter scream. T.J. looked up to see The Colonel standing before them, wearing boxer shorts and cowboy boots and he was pumping lead into the windshield. The air was filled with muzzle flash and broken glass, as The Colonel murdered T.J., his own daughter, and then shot the fuck out of the Monte Carlo.

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A MAN AND HIS HORSE. That was his last mistake.