First Thrills

Underbelly by Grant McKenzie

Shorty Lemon poked his index finger between tiny nylon teeth and gave it a wiggle. The teeth parted easily and the brass slider ran smooth, but it still took some dexterous finger kung fu to unzip the suitcase from the inside.

Once he negotiated the first awkward corner, the lid opened wide enough for him to peek out.

The compartment was dark and noisy.

Just beyond thin metal walls, a Cummins diesel roared as the transaxle drove eight massive steel-belted radials. On the other side, wind slapped against baggage doors, desperate to force its way inside. And below, the pavement whined as if protesting the weight of twenty-eight thousand pounds of fast-moving steel.

Noise was good. It stopped the passengers in soft seats a short distance above Shorty’s head from hearing his movements.

Shorty finished unzipping the case and stood to stretch. Even at three feet ten and one-quarter inches, a suitcase was a tight fit.

Dressed in black cargo pants and turtleneck, Shorty liked to believe he looked as cool as Steve McQueen in Bullitt. With an excited grin, he pulled on his spelunking lamp, tightened the headband, and flipped the switch. Three super bright LEDs lit up the cabin to reveal a mountain of luggage.

He hoped at least one of them contained chocolate. Milky Swiss was his favorite, but he had to be careful. Two months earlier he wolfed down a full box of festive Irish whisky liqueurs. The alcohol-filled chocolates had sent him into a near sugar coma and he was barely able to zip himself back inside the case before passing out. When his partner retrieved the case at the terminal, he discovered Shorty had puked all over his favorite McQueens.

The memory still made him shudder.

After rubbing his hands together to get the blood flowing, Shorty ripped bags open.

He started with the largest one, but was disappointed to find that all it contained was a collection of old lady clothes. And from the look of them, they would have found more use in a landfill than in somebody’s wardrobe.

He rolled his eyes. “Freakin’ loser.”

He shoved the bag aside.

The second bag contained a slick digital camera, a superthin Mac laptop, and a snack pack of Ritz Crackers with the fake cheese goop in the middle. A nest of rolled socks protected the crackers as though they were some kind of luxury treat.

“Loser number two.”

Shorty crushed the crackers in his hand before sprinkling the disgusting remains over the own er’s clothes. Whoever ate that garbage, he decided, deserved to wear it, too.

He slipped the camera and laptop inside his own suitcase and moved to the next.

Unzipping the bag, he stared at a gun… attached to a hand… pointing at a spot between his eyes.

“Shorty.” A familiar scratchy voice was attached to the hand that was aiming the gun.

“Twinkle?” Shorty lifted his head and exposed the gunman’s face to his headlamp. “What the hell are you doing? You’re Wednesdays on the Washington run.”

Twinkle squinted against the light and his upper lip curled in a sneer. “Change of plans.”

Jonathon “Twinkle” Toews climbed out of the suitcase, his gun never wavering from Shorty’s head. Shorty had heard Twinkle brag he had a quarter-inch on him in the height department, but he suspected the lying dwarf wore lifts.

“Well fuck me blue,” Shorty said with a laugh. “This is some mix-up.”

“No mix-up, Shorty. Big haul on this bus and I want my cut.”

“Big haul?”

Twinkle snorted. “Don’t play dumb. The horse is trotting crosscountry, but it ain’t gonna make the stable.”

Twinkle cocked the hammer. Even amid the blanket of engine noise, it was decidedly menacing.

“Whoa, back up.” Shorty raised his hands in surrender. “I ain’t part of your circus, so what the fuck?”

Twinkle snorted again. “You don’t know, for real?”

Shorty shook his head and the light from his lamp danced around the cabin like the return of E.T.

Twinkle resettled the hammer and lowered the gun. “Guess that’s why you ain’t packing.”

“Exactly,” Shorty agreed. “I’m not packing because…” He hesitated, then sighed. “Really, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Heroin,” said Twinkle. “Sixty keys.”

“That a lot?”

“When it’s pure, uncut bone, baby. One hundred Gs a key.”

Shorty whistled. “Six million dollars. And somebody put it on a bus?”

Twinkle grinned, his Hollywood caps reflecting the light. “Who’s gonna rob a bus?”

“Except you.”

Twinkle shook his head. “ ’Cept you, Shorty. I work Wednesdays, ’member? The Washington run. Ask anybody.”

As the double-crossing realization hit, the blood drained from Shorty’s face. It didn’t have far to go.

“Keep opening bags.” Twinkle lifted his gun into the light as a reminder. “Find me the barking dogs.”

Shorty tossed suitcases and boxes aside, searching for the likeliest suspects, until he discovered four black canvas bags with reinforced seams and heavy-duty zippers.

“Here’s your barkers,” he said.

“Dogs,” corrected Twinkle. He moved in closer. “Heroin is called ‘dog.’ ”

“Ahh,” said Shorty as if he understood. “Because you have to be barking-mad to use it?”

Twinkle was unamused. “You’re a lost cause. Always have been. Open the damn bags.”

Shorty turned his attention and his headlamp to the bags. They were each locked with a tiny padlock.

“Who, in their right mind, thinks these locks do any good?” he said. “I mean, really. You can get better ones out of a gumball machine.”

“Just open them,” Twinkle growled. “Save the commentary for your eulogy.”

Shorty pulled a pair of folding snips from his pants pocket and snipped off all four locks.

“Open them,” Twinkle ordered.

The first bag contained twenty vacuum-packed squares of white powder. The next two bags contained the same, but the fourth bag held money. Lots of it. One hundred dollar bills, crisp and smooth, bundled in packages of 50. If Shorty’s math was right, and it usually was, there were at least 120 bundles.

Shorty whistled. “That’s not pocket change.”

“I wasn’t expecting any money,” said Twinkle.

“Oh, good. Can I have it?”

Twinkle sneered. “You can’t use it where you’re going.”

Shorty sighed and zipped up the bags. Bigger men than Twinkle had threatened him in his time, but none rankled quite so much.

“So how you getting off?” he asked.

Twinkle nodded toward the large loading doors that ran along the side. “I sure as hell ain’t going all the way to Boston. Open the doors.”

“They’re locked.”

Twinkle lifted the gun and pointed it at Shorty’s crotch.

“I hear you only got one ball, Shorty. Want me to even you up?”

Grumbling to himself, Shorty slipped the snips back into his pocket and returned with a stubby screwdriver that held six different bits. With the flick of his thumb, he made the Torx head shoot out of the compact handle and lock in place. Shorty settled in front of the loading door and worked his magic. Within seconds, the doors were ready to be opened.

“What about the driver?” Shorty asked. “He’s bound to notice.”

Twinkle cut him off with a snort. “He’s gettin’ paid enough to ignore what’s in his mirrors.”

Shorty spun around. “So everybody’s in on this except me?”

Twinkle grinned. “Somebody had to be the fall guy.”

“Fuck!”

Twinkle brought the gun barrel close enough to caress Shorty’s cheek. “What you waitin’ for?”

Shorty heaved open the doors to bathe the compartment in blinding daylight. A hurricane rushed inside, ripping open the lids of unzipped suitcases and forcing the loose contents to take flight.

Twinkle screamed as a giant pair of old-lady bloomers leeched onto his face. Its breathable cotton crotch stuffed itself into his mouth and became lodged in his throat. When Twinkle finally yanked the choking garment free, Shorty’s clenched fist was closing in.

Shorty hit him with everything he had, sharp knuckles against soft cartilage, powered by arms, legs, feet, and toes. The punch was a beauty.

Twinkle grew two inches, his gun flying from his hand to the rear of the cabin as his nose was crushed against his cheek and his upper teeth pierced his upper lip. He flew backward, landing hard on the four black bags.

Before he could recover, Shorty was on him again. The second punch sent Twinkle’s nose to the other side of his face and the bones in his cheek went crack.

“You were going to kill me, you son of a bitch!” Shorty scored another hit. “How the fuck do you like it?”

Twinkle cowered, his hands rising to cover his ruined face as snot, blood, and tears dripped from his chin.

Shorty wasn’t in the mood for mercy. He raised his fist again, but before he could land a fourth blow, a gunshot pinged off the wall just inches from his head.

Shorty spun to face the open doorway. A black motorbike and convertible sidecar bore down. His ex-girlfriend, LoLa, hung over the side. She fired again.

Shorty dove behind the avalanche of luggage as the second shot ricocheted around the cabin. Cursing his luck, he peered out and felt his heartbeat stutter. LoLa was looking good in tight black leather and a silver helmet with an iconic honeybee painted on its crown. That had always been his nickname for her when they shared an apartment in the Village. She had a singing voice as smooth as honey, but a temper that stung like…

Another bullet whizzed by his head.

“Your ass is grass now, Shorty,” Twinkle mumbled through a bloody mouth. “My sis knows how to hold a grudge.”

Shorty peeked from behind his wall of soft-sided cloth and cheap plastic. LoLa was closing in, her voluptuous pale bosom peeking from the unzipped V of the leather jacket as she strained against the sidecar to gain more reach. The muzzle of her.45 searched the interior for a kill.

LoLa had always possessed an unshakable will. Even when they wandered the country from sea to shining sea, LoLa working the clubs and bringing the house down while Shorty emptied the pockets of enraptured drunks, she was determined to be a star. Shorty always admired that, although he secretly wished she could just be happy with who she was: his passionate little honeybee.

Shorty yanked the lamp off his head and threw it into the darker recesses of the hold. As the headlamp flew through the air, LoLa fired another shot. The light exploded in midair.

Shorty rocked back on his heels. It was one hell of a shot, and Shorty hoped for his own sake it was more luck than skill.

He looked out again and their eyes met. LoLa was smiling behind a transparent visor, her teeth as white and perfect as he had paid for. She flicked her soft, pink tongue, proving she still knew how to use it.

Shorty automatically returned the smile, lost in remembrance of times past when they had adored every quarter-inch of each other. Then, he saw her driver. The man on the motorbike was a hairy monster with a full ginger beard and a grin that was a few kernels shy of a cob. Dressed in full leather biker gear, he must have stood at least five foot six in boots, and the sight churned Shorty’s stomach. LoLa had always liked them full-sized and the memory of catching her cheating ass writhing on top of the rent-to-own portable dishwasher was a sight he wanted burned from his brain.

LoLa shouted, “Give us the bags, Shorty.”

“Fuck you.”

LoLa laughed. “Not anymore. I’ve moved on.”

Shorty heard movement to his left and crawled over the luggage to get a better look. Twinkle had staggered to the open doors, his face a mess and his movements unsteady.

“Get the bags, Twinkle,” LoLa yelled. The motorbike kept perfect pace with the bus.

“I can’t,” Twinkle cried. “He busted me good.”

“Get the fucking bags, brother.”

“I can’t!” Twinkle moved closer to the edge. “I want off this damn bus.”

Shorty yelled: “Hey, Twinkle!”

Twinkle turned.

Shorty swung one of the heavy black bags in the air and let go. “Don’t forget your luggage.”

The bag hit Twinkle square in the chest, knocking him off balance. Twinkle screamed as he fell out the open doorway with the bag clutched in his arms.

LoLa’s driver swerved, but the sidecar still bore the brunt of the impact as Twinkle’s head slammed into the windshield and the bag he was holding burst open in a giant cloud of white powder.

With a fierce determination, the driver managed to maintain control even as the sidecar’s wheel crunched over Twinkle’s broken body. A windowless black van following behind didn’t even attempt to brake.

When the bike caught up to the bus again, its sidecar was dented and its windshield cracked. Streaks of blood dusted in powder flowed over LoLa’s leathers. Even her pretty silver helmet was webbed with gore.

Angry tears filled LoLa’s eyes when she raised her gun again.

Shorty threw a blue backpack at her. With its lightweight aluminum frame, the pack hit the pavement and bounced high, almost removing his former lover’s head from her compact body.

She fired in hasty retaliation, but the bullet pinged harmlessly off the side of the bus.

Shorty followed with a volley of a half-dozen open suitcases: boxer shorts, pajamas, blouses, underwear, a smart tuxedo, and a rubber diving suit all flowed through the doorway and sailed down the freeway.

LoLa and her driver backed off after the bike nearly went into the ditch, when a small blue box exploded and a flock of errant panty liners got stuck on the bearded monster’s goggles.

Best of all, Shorty found a large, unopened Toblerone bar. It was the size of his left arm.

As Shorty contemplated ripping open the triangular packaging, the dark, windowless van pulled up level with the bus. Its side door slid open to reveal three men dressed in head-to-toe body armor, complete with knitted balaclavas that showed only their eyes, and holding paramilitary-style submachine guns.

Shorty gulped and dropped the chocolate. “Y-you want the drugs?”

The three men nodded as one.

Shorty crawled back over the scattered luggage and pulled one of the black bags to the door. The van moved closer to the bus. One of the men grabbed the bag and yanked. Shorty instantly let his end go before he was pulled out of the bus along with it.

“Get the others,” yelled the shortest of the three. It was difficult to tell the man’s exact height, but in Shorty’s estimation anything over four feet was a waste of vertical.

Shorty retrieved the third bag, but this time, when he went to hand it over, the head of the reaching gunman imploded, his balaclava mask becoming a sieve of blood.

Gunfire and broken glass rained from the passenger compartment above. The other two gunmen quickly ducked inside the van and returned fire. Both vehicles swerved and the dead gunman slid out of the van to vanish in a pink mist, but he left something behind snagged in the nylon handle of the drug bag-his submachine gun.

With the sound of two-way automatic gunfire filling the air, Shorty picked up the gun and grunted. It was heavier than he expected.

Shorty had never fired a machine gun before, but he’d seen plenty of movies. Getting used to the weight, he turned it on its side. A small dial marked in red pointed to two symbols. One showed a single bullet, the other showed three. He reasoned this toggled the gun between single-shot and full- auto modes.

Shorty flipped the switch to full-auto and pointed its barrel out the open doorway. People were screaming in their seats above as the bus continued to barrel on at top speed and bullets flew in both directions. Shorty imagined the greedy driver, knuckles white as he gripped the steering wheel, desperately searching for help and cursing the day he met a crooked dwarf with a Hollywood smile and an offer too rich to refuse.

Shorty drew in a deep breath and squeezed the trigger. Rounds spat from the gun like a horde of angry wasps with lead stingers. His first bullets chewed up the road before the gun’s unexpected kick drew the muzzle skyward. Shorty released the trigger before a volley stitched the metal ceiling. Fortunately, the van had been an impossible target to miss. His stray bullets shredded its front tires, windshield, and roof.

Without tires, the van’s front rims dug into the road and its ass end flew into the sky for a series of cartwheels that would have made an overweight gymnast proud. Two screaming bodies flailed into the air as the van exploded. Its flaming carcass careened off the road and rolled down a sharp ravine to a farmer’s field below.

Shorty looked at the gun in surprise. It packed a lot of wallop for such a small-

A bullet smashed through the ceiling and tore a chunk of meat from his arm. Shorty cried out and dropped the gun, only to watch in stunned horror as it bounced once on the floor before sliding out the open doorway.

Shorty’s cries were silenced when another bullet pierced the ceiling and puckered the floor between his legs. It was followed by an angry voice.

“You little bastard! Think you can steal from me?”

Another bullet, this time less than four inches from his head. Shorty dove into the remaining luggage and scrambled toward the rear of the hold… where he found Twinkle’s handgun. He snapped it up in both hands as the drug dealer pumped another hole through the ceiling.

This time, instead of retreating, Shorty sprinted to the fresh hole, jammed his gun against it, and squeezed the trigger.

A loud scream echoed through the hold and a heavy thump hit the ceiling as the gunman fell.

“You shot my fucking bal-”

Shorty aimed his gun where a bump had suddenly appeared in the ceiling and fired again. By the time he ran dry, the screaming had stopped.

“Nice work,” said LoLa. “You always did overcompensate.”

Shorty spun. The motorbike and sidecar was matching pace outside again, while LoLa was armed and pissed and standing in the doorway of the baggage compartment.

“And you were always nimble.” Shorty dropped his empty gun to the floor and cradled his wounded arm.

“So what do we have left?” LoLa asked.

“Between us or-”

“Drugs, numbnut.”

Shorty indicated the lone black bag sitting near the open doorway. “Twenty kilograms of uncut heroin. Worth around two million.”

“Hardly seems worth the trouble.”

Despite himself, Shorty grinned. “You’ve come that far up in the world, huh?”

LoLa smiled. “Never walked taller.”

She lifted her gun and fingered the trigger.

Shorty blurted, “There’s a fourth bag.”

LoLa’s smile brightened and she eased off the trigger. “Oh?”

“Six hundred thousand in cash. I figure you take the drugs, leave me the dough. I’ve earned it.”

“Earned it? You cost me four good men, transportation, weapons, and dry-cleaning, not to mention my brother.”

“You never liked Twinkle much.”

“No, but I loved him.”

Shorty and LoLa stared at each other for an endless moment, a thousand memories shared in the blink of an eye.

“We’ll always have Paris,” said Shorty.

LoLa snorted. “A fishbowl fuck in Tennessee doesn’t count, Shorty, don’t you get that? I need more than road trips in a broken-down VW van, nightclubs with putrid toilets, and hiding from the landlord on rent day. You always thought too small. I plan to live large.”

“You’ve gone hard.”

“No, Shorty. The problem is, you’ve stayed soft.” She waved the gun at his chest. “Get me the bag.”

Shorty tilted his chin. “It’s just back there.”

“Do I look like I do heavy lifting? Get it.”

Shorty scrambled over the remains of the unopened luggage and pulled out the last black bag. He hefted it onto his shoulder, wincing at the pain, and returned to the woman he’d once loved.

“Pity it has to end this way, honeybee,” he said.

LoLa thumbed back the hammer.

When the bus pulled into the Texaco station ten minutes later, a squad of eight patrol cars swarmed around it. The men and women in blue were bundled in armor-plated protection, riot helmets, and enough firepower to ventilate a crack den.

They removed the traumatized passengers first before rushing the luggage compartment.

They didn’t meet any resistance.

Inside was a lone body dressed in head-to-toe black, its lifeblood coating a duffel bag filled with twenty kilos of pure, uncut heroin.

The dead woman had a tiny screwdriver protruding from her chest and half a Toblerone bar stuffed in her mouth.

GRANT McKENZIE was born in Scotland, lives in Canada, and writes U.S.-based thrillers. As such, he wears a kilt and toque with his six guns. His debut novel, Switch, was lauded by author Ken Bruen as “Harlan Coben on speed” and quickly became a bestseller in Germany. It has been published in seven countries and three languages so far.