Short Story: BLOW TORCH

This wouldn’t be good news at all.

2 min read

I

They used to call Roberts The Kid because even in his thirties he barely needed to shave. He used to work the downtown district, but now he had all the high-flyers, all the safe buyers. He wasn’t The Kid any more. He had people who made sure of that. These days, Roberts walked around the city like any other businessman and few saw the tells: the friend he called Blow, the handgun strapped to the passenger side of his car, the touch-up paint in the hallway of his apartment, the look in Roberts’ eye when anything took more than a few minutes.

Roberts might have made it, but The Kid was still in there. 

II

Little Ray buzzed Zander in, and he looked nervous from the get-go. They could all smell booze on him. It wasn’t even eleven-thirty. 

‘Look at this,’ said Blow.

‘Zander, Zander, Zander,’ said Roberts.

This wouldn’t be good news at all.

‘What has happened to tall sharp lookin’ Zander?’

‘The cops came by,’ he said.

‘No shit. Where’s Damien at?’

‘His place. They took him down. He’s got a lawyer. It should be okay. He’s out already.’

‘He didn’t say nothing?’ said Roberts.

Zander wiped his nose, ‘Nah. He, ah…he’d didn’t really know about that last brick, he was just unlucky. I had it stashed out back of the club. They only grabbed him up because he runs the place. They’re just trying it on.’

The TV made a chirping noise, end of a level.

Roberts looked at the screen. ‘Oh shit, Blow, not bad. You play that one pretty good now.’

Blow said, ‘Don’t I just,’ and pushed a handful of corn chips into his mouth. 

‘So are we okay?’ said Zander. ‘I’ll get you the money, I’m just going to be late is all.’ 

‘Oh yeah, we’re good,’ said Roberts. ‘Tell your friend to keep it zipped though. And get me that money. People see me out and well, you know how it is, but Blow here, we call him that because he used a blowtorch on this dude once. Literally lit him up. Zander, you don’t want to come home one day and find this guy in your living room, do you?’

They all laugh. 

Blow winks. 

END

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— IAIN

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