Bio
Joe Greco is a lawyer and writer who lives on California’s Central Coast. His short stories have appeared in 34th Parallel, Flash Fiction Magazine, Emprise Review, 101 Words, Bartleby Snopes, Still Crazy, Right Hand Pointing, Long Story Short, and other publications.
Trigger Warning
“Ricky says we can boost four more bricks, maybe five,” the goateed man said. He grinned and tossed the burner phone onto the small wooden table next to his chaise lounge. “Looks like another drive to beautiful Bakersfield.”
Lana sat in a pastel pink chair on the hotel’s wooden deck. Her large oval sunglasses looked out over the undulating teal Pacific. She rolled the delicate stem of a wine glass between her thumb and forefinger. “Again, Tito?”
She raised the glass to her lips, sipped the sharply pleasing Sauvignon Blanc, breathed deeply. “Like, how many times can we flip a coin and have it keep coming up heads?”
Tito pressed a fist into his palm. “You don’t understand probabilities, sweetheart.” A tattoo of the scowling Mayan god Cizin twitched on his bronze bicep. “The past is dead. The odds we’ll get caught are the same as on the first score—slim to none. I told you it’d be OK then, right? And I’m gonna cut it again with that bodybuilding powder. Big money, honey.”
Lana held the glass up to a fire-breathing sun burning its way toward the horizon. The straw-colored liquid glowed in the beads of condensation on the tulip-shaped bowl. “I don’t know.” She patted her taut, tanned stomach with her free hand. “I just feel it here. I’ve been thinking about this story the nuns made us read in Latin class. A blind goddess spins us on a wheel and our luck comes at us in cycles. It doesn’t just keep turning out the same way.”
Tito leaned over, kissed her gently on the lips. He ran his hand along her moist golden skin from her white bikini top to the tattoo of a red rose tree partially peeking above the swimsuit’s bottom. “Superstitions, sweetheart. The neon temples of Vegas are built on the gut reactions of people who don’t understand the odds. Except their bellies aren’t as beautiful as yours.”
She set the glass on the table, reached out and took his hand. “Baby, I’d never quit on you. But I worry, you know. Like our wheel’s been stuck and nobody’s been watching. Like the goddess went on vacation.”
Tito grinned, stood, and pulled a quarter from the pocket of his cargo shorts. “What say, babe? Heads we go once more; tails we quit?”
Lana smiled wanly, nodded.
Tito flipped the coin, revolving, into the languorous sea breeze. It bounced on the deck, then rested near the red-painted toes of Lana’s sleek bare foot.
She looked down and saw George Washington’s silver profile glinting in the late afternoon sunlight. She looked up, smiled. “You’re right, baby. It’s silly to worry—”
A clattering of footsteps on the deck interrupted her.
Lana saw Tito’s dark eyes widen. She heard an exploding whoosh, watched his forehead bursting crimson. She turned. A man in a Dodgers cap and sunglasses swung the squared black barrel of a Glock pistol toward her. The vacation’s over, she thought. It’s over.