Josh Stallings - Beautiful, Naked and Dead

“Moses?”

“Want to make five large?”

“I’m there.”

“May get ugly.”

“So?”

I woke at nine, rolled over and started to search for my white wake up pills, only to realize I had left them in the Crown Vic. Maybe it was a sign. My head hurt and my body felt like it had been run through a meat grinder. Between the feds and the mob I was dancing blindfolded in a minefield. Whatever brain cells I had left would need to be in fine tune if I had any hope of seeing my way clear to the DMZ.

I called the Best Western but there were no messages. Slipping my.38 into my pocket I had no desire to put it against my head. There were too many bastards out there who needed the bullet more than I did.

At a convenience store I bought a six-pack of Red Bull and a fistful of ready-pac vitamins. In Golden Gate Park I switched my boots for high-tops, wrapped an ace bandage tight around the gauze to keep my stitches from popping and started to run. After only a mile, I doubled over and threw up in the bushes. I never will understand why tossing your cookies makes you feel so much better. After another three miles I started to sweat and feel like I might survive the run back to the car.

Showered and dressed I drank another Red Bull and joined the world moving by on the street, firm in the belief that I was on the path to a healthier life. No more speed, no more booze, all I had left to worry about was dying of lead poisoning.

Billy Joe’s Pleasure Hole was a supermarket of porno just off O’Farrell street. In the back room men sat in private booths watching small screens and doing who knows what. You’d think the advent of the VCR would have done them in, but they were doing landmark business. The walls were lined with every kind of device imaginable, whatever your kink Billy Joe had you covered. A happy yuppie couple was looking at a huge studded black dildo with glee. Along the back wall I found what I was looking for, a life size love doll. She had realistic features made from latex; her glass eyes stared out at the room vacantly. The price tag touted three entries and fully articulated limbs all for only $1,500.00. Not a bad price considering what my last wife had cost me. I paid the sweaty old man behind the counter and carried my new friend out into the street. She was 5’2” with long curly dark hair and dressed in a baby doll nightgown. We got more than one glare from passers by until I got her into the Crown Vic’s trunk.

At a small wig shop on Market I bypassed the rainbow afro and chose a short platinum blonde job. I also picked up a pair of lightly tinted pink glasses and a floral print sun dress.

Gregor was standing outside the airport in a black wool trench coat, a black fedora and sunglasses looking very much the Eastern European thug that he was. He slid in and we rolled off. He didn’t ask me what the job was, he didn’t ask for his cash, he just watched the road go by. I passed him an envelope, he didn’t open it. It disappeared into his coat. “I put two bills in to cover the plane.”

“Cool,” he said.

“Let’s go shopping.” I slid along in the now constant Bay-shore freeway traffic. There was a time when the run to the south bay would have taken twenty minutes. But that was long before the microchip mavens turned this whole end of the state into their own personal Mecca. Now Beemers and Saabs lined up to crawl up and down the bay.

Benny King worked out of a pawn shop on Broadway, just down the street from The California Hotel in the heart of Oakland. Stepping around the hookers trolling the sidewalk we moved under the three giant brass balls. The shop was crammed to the rafters with everything from tubas to baby strollers. A cage in the back held the real valuables. Guns and gold, the universal coin of the realm. A half foot of glass kept the clerk protected from his customers.

“Benny around?” I asked the middle-aged egg shaped man in a Grateful Dead tee shirt.

“That depends, dude,” the clerk said, picking a loose piece of tobacco from his lip. His fingers were stained yellow from the nicotine.

“Tell him Moses McGuire is here.” I dropped seven hundred dollar bills into the cash troth below the bulletproof glass.

“Sweet, I’ll check it out.” The clerk scooped up the greenbacks and disappeared past a steel door.

“You have some interesting friends,” Gregor said, looking around at the odd collection of junk piled high around us.

“Live long enough, and you accumulate all sorts of connections. Benny’s alright, as long as you don’t take his word on anything.”

After about ten minutes the clerk came and led us through the three locked doors into the back of the shop. The clutter was out front, all for show. The back room was clean and orderly with rifle racks lining the walls and glass cases filled with every imaginable handgun laid out on black velvet.

“Moses mother fucking McGuire, man, I thought you were dead.” Benny was a half Black, half Hawaiian, all huge man. The only sign of his aging was the white starting to show in his tight afro and scraggly beard. He had a FFL that allowed him to legally sell firearms. He also did business in straw purchases out of Texas, and took in hot guns off the street. He was connected to Chinese smugglers, Russian mobsters and crack dealers. He never took sides, and always made a profit. “Who’s the mug?” He nodded his head towards Gregor.

“Terror of the Eastern Block. Gregor, shake hands with a living legend.”

“Too young to be a partner,” Benny said, taking Gregor’s hand, searching his face. “You taking in trainees Moses?”

“No, he carries his own weight.”

“Bet he does.” Benny finally let go of Gregor’s hand and turned back to me. “Now what can I do you for, got a new shipment from Norinco, clean AK’s.”

“CZ75,” Gregor said.

“Washed if you got it,” I said.

“Sure, no problemo, got one out of Alabama just burned the numbers off. But CZ ain’t cheap. Sure you don’t want a Desert Eagle. Same gun, but knocked off in Israel.”

“CZ,” Gregor grunted.

“$450, ok with you Moses?”

“It catalogs for what? $370 and change, new.”

“How about I toss in four fifteen round pre-ban mags, round it up to five bills and call it a day.” Benny was grinning. He truly loved the haggle. Gregor had turned away and was inspecting a cut-down double-barreled 12 gauge. The wood stock had been filed into a pistol grip and the barrels were several inches shorter than the legal eighteen.

“Now that baby’s a real classic.” Benny pointed at the shotgun with pride. “Takes a man to keep that bitch from roaring out of your hands, but it will clean a street.”

“It’ll do the job.” Gregor looked from the gun up to me.

“The $700 I dropped on your boy. Both guns and you toss in two boxes of factory for both and two for my.45.”

“If you wanted to rob me why didn’t you wear a mask?”

“Rob you? Shit if I wanted to rob you you’d be on the floor face down and begging for your momma.”

“$750, and I toss in a shoulder strap for the sweeper.” I dropped a fifty on the counter before he could sweeten the deal and cost me another hundred. “Fine, as always, doing business with you Moses.” He dropped our purchases into a cheap canvas bag. “Come back any time.” He reached out shaking Gregor’s hand again.

“Better count your fingers.” I told Gregor. Grabbing the guns and ammo we hit the street. At a corner market I bought four Red Bulls and a potato. Gregor’s eye brow shot up, but as was his way he said nothing.

“Potato, vegetable with a million uses. Eat ‘em, make vodka and drink ‘em, shoved on the barrel of a.38 they make a passable silencer.” I told him, tossing the potato into my pocket.