Take the Koi

  Dan Ames

  Contents

  Copyright

  Foreword

  Take the Koi

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2015 by Dan Ames

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Foreword

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  Take the Koi

  A Short Short

  by

  Dan Ames

  I killed her in the Africa Room, not because she was black, but because there were already some dead animals on the walls. I figured they would keep her company.

  She sent out a plea for help on her cell phone, per my request. They would come because I’d asked for their best, most expensive girl. Even mentioned that $800 for an hour of fucking was no problem at all.

  “I did what you asked,” Nila said. “Now what? And who are you?”

  “My name is Theo,” I said. Not a lie. Theo Akerman. But my employers knew me simply as Taker. A bastardization of T. Aker. It was a good name because that’s what I do for a living. I take things. Objects. People. Payments. In this case, I was taking revenge. On behalf of a Grosse Pointe doctor whose daughter, now deceased, had been lured into drugs and prostitution by a slick pimp from Lansing named Ronnie Jay. Nila’s boss.

  “I said, who the fuck are you?” she repeated.

  “Have you ever seen Out of Africa?” I said, then put the muzzle of the silenced .22 Magnum to her forehead and pulled the trigger. I was hoping a little blood would splash onto the mouth of the wooden African mask directly over the bed. But it didn’t.

  When I left Detroit and came to Lansing, I chose the Cozy Koi bed and breakfast for three reasons: it was in Ronnie Jay’s neighborhood, it was two separate buildings, and the whole place looked empty. A fact that was confirmed when I was able to rent every room in the second, smaller building.

  There was a rickety stairway leading to the second floor, where an exterior door was positioned just outside The Garden Room. I went there now, sliding my .22 inside my shoulder holster, and picking up the Mossberg Defender 500 shotgun. I knew Nila’s driver would approach from the fire escape, not the front door. It didn’t take long to prove I was right. I’d even unlocked the door for him to make it easy. When he stepped in and quietly closed the door, I had already stepped into the hall. Thick carpeting helped me avoid making any noise. When he turned, I fired directly into his face. The double-aught spread took most of his head off. Chunks of brain landed in the Garden Room, beneath beautifully framed antique prints of Alaskan wildflowers.

  I went back downstairs to the Asian Room. A Geisha looked down at me from the wall, and I relaxed with the help of a little Buddha on the small, lacquer painted dresser.

  It wasn’t long before a shadow passed over the wooden blinds, changing the light’s reflection off the gold Japanese fan hung on the wall. Ronnie Jay and his cousin, Big D, had arrived.

  I walked to the front door. The door was solid wood with a small prism of art glass instead of a peephole. From five feet away I saw through the glass the shape of a black Adam’s Apple. I fired the .22 dead center through the little diamond of beveled glass. I heard the soft thud of someone falling, and a clatter of metal. I opened the door, saw Ronnie Jay, his throat shredded, and blood on his face, sprawled beneath the big COZY KOI yard sign.

  Rest and relax, indeed.

  I watched pink bubbles pop from what was left of his throat. His eyes were already glazing over. I put one more bullet in his forehead.

  I went back inside, snatched the shotgun from the dining room table, and raced up to the Tropical Room. I caught the scent of coconut, then gently slid open the glass doors to the little tiki porch above the back door.

  Big D was trying to look through the kitchen window next to the back door. I whistled a calypso tune. When Big D looked up, I fired the shotgun and turned him from Big D into lower case d.

  Back in the dining room, I opened the guest book and signed it.

  Had a great time at the Koi. Very restful.

  -Ronnie Jay.

  THE END

  Afterword

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  About the Author

  Dan Ames is bestselling crime novelist living in Detroit, Michigan.

  @AuthorDanAmes

  AuthorDanAmes

  www.authordanames.com

  dan@authordanames.com

 

 

  Dan Ames, Take The Koi (A Short Short)

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