The Sin Bin by Tony Black Page B

He
returned to the lawyer, slowly taking the document from its manila envelope,
then he presented it: brown streaks of his own shit lined the length of the
page.
    Slowly, trembling, the lawyer accepted the offering. He
stared at it for a moment and then tore it with his teeth and began to chew on
it.
    'All the way down,' said Eddie.
    'Y-yes, yes of course.'
    'Eat shit!' said Eddie, smiling, 'Eat shit, you
motherfucker.'
     

I Want Candy
    I'd been working homicide for
twenty years, but this kind of thing, you just didn ' t see every day.
    ' It ' s the pits, Jake. '
    ' The pits, that ' s it, that ' s what you got for me? '
    Billy ' s mouth dropped, but I wasn ' t finished.
    ' A pregnant
woman, hacked to death with her child cut out of her, the strays in the alley
eating her guts ... and that ' s
all you've got to say? '
    ' Jake, I ... '
    ' Forget about
it! ' I hit out, could have
taken down a wall with that one.
    Billy didn ' t see it coming. Fell on the asphalt and shook his head. He got up
and walked, grimaced and flashed hurt blue eyes as he spat blood at me.
    Two days later they took me off the
case. The next week it was my badge they took.
    Now I ' m doing security in a 7-Eleven in Buffalo. Earning minimum wage and
sending half of it back to my ex-wife upstate. You ' d think life couldn ' t
get any worse. But, maybe I was the guy lying in the gutter looking at the
stars.
    ****
    ' Jake!
Jake! Get your goat-smelling ass out here. '
    I swear that bastard tries to bigfoot
me one more time, I'm popping' a cap in his wide old ass. I walk through to the
front counter, with the Irish in me rising like a rain cloud.
    'You want something, Mr Delago?'
    ''Course I damn well want something.
Think I'm hollering for my health? Help this lady out with her groceries would
you ... And put them in the trunk, too.'
    He turned that greasy head of his
towards her, spat out one of those lousy piranha smirks of his: 'Always glad to
help a lady,' he said, adding slyly, 'especially one so fine.'
    Delago got a smile back, but her eyes
were on the roll of meat spilling over his belt. 'Much obliged to you, kind
sir,' she said, turning tail and wiggling her ass at us both.
    Please. I mean, was anyone still
falling for this Daisy Duke shit? I slung arms around the groceries and
followed her out.
    'I'm the Caddy,' she said, smiling,
'pink one.'
    I nodded and headed off in the
direction of the shiny phallus, trimmed in chrome. All the while I could feel
her eyeballing me, as she rolled a cherry liquorice between her lips.
    'You look like you've been working out
there, fella.'
    I'd heard all the lines, but most
times, I hadn't been on the receiving end of them. As I popped the trunk I felt
her hand stray onto my hip and knew I'd scored for sure. Perhaps this wasn't
going to be such a hard stretch.
    ****
    I didn ' t tell Candy about my having been a cop.
    ' This place
sucks, ' she said.
    ' What do you
expect? The sign outside says Rooms by the Hour . '
    ' We should've
went to the Holiday Inn, at least they've got a pool. '
    I sat up, reached for my pack of
Luckies on the bed-stand. ' I
didn ' t know you wanted more
exercise. '
    She smiled at me, climbed on top and
stuck her hooters out like a cowgirl at a rodeo. ' Give it to me. '
    ' Honey, you ' re going to kill me. '
    ' The smoke,
wise-ass. '
    I could tell she was restless. Always
that look in her eye, darting off somewhere, searching for the next big
adventure. Shit, that was the last thing I needed dragged along on, I ' d way too much on my mind.
    ' I've got to
get back to the city, ' she
said.
    ' New York? '
    'Of c ourse,
where else? ' She rolled off and
parted her legs in the birthing position as she blew smoke-rings to the
ceiling. ' This place hasn ' t got any action. And I need action. '
    I took back my smoke. 'You're not a big hometown girl, are you?'
    'Shit no, I outgrew Buffalo long ago
... I'm here because I have to be.'
    'And why's that?'
    She slit her eyes as she stared at me,
changing tack