Gun Moll

 

Gun Moll was another for a flash fiction contest, it had to be less than 400 words and contain the following words; crown, stiletto, horse and barrel. I did this one in a sort of noir 40’s detective pulp novel with a little humor thrown in for good measure.

 

 

Gun Moll

She spelled trouble from the crown of her fedora down to her stiletto heels. She walked in the bar like she owned the place and anybody who questioned her thought twice after staring down the barrel of her .45. She saw the bartender going for something under the bar so she let off a round over his head and waggled the gun at him. The sound of the gun in that small and area was deafening.

His ears were still ringing when she said, “Just put your hands up on the bar where I can see them.”

The bartender had instinctively covered his head to protect it from the rain of falling mirror shards, but once the last tinkle of glass had hit the floor he complied.

“I’m here to see Vinny”, she said to nobody in particular. She looked at the bartender and waggled the gun again. He only responded with a blank look.

“Vincent Macaroni”, she said to the room in general.

The bartender flinched when she said that and automatically corrected her, “It’s Marconi, he don’t like to be called Macaroni.”

“Where is he?” she asked, this time directly to the bartender, pointing her gun at him just below the bar.

The bartender gulped then said, “B . . . back room, he’s in the back room.”

She kicked open the door, no small feat in stilettos and found Vinny with his gun drawn. She said nothing, just squeezed the trigger an instant before he realized what was happening. As he lay there watching his life blood stain the carpet, she bent down and said, “That was for the horse’s head in Tony’s bed.”

She turned on her heels and left.

The police investigation turned up no witnesses and it was written off as a turf war killing, probably never to be solved.