Apparently, I have a daughter. Some cunt I banged a hundred years ago called me up out of the blue to tell me that our teenage daughter ran away or something. It was a Wednesday. Who runs away on a Wednesday? Anyway, the cunt threatened to come after me for fifteen years of child support if I didn't help her find the little angel. So I booked myself a seat on the next flight to Cincinnati. Well, the next flight that didn't cost too much, which didn't leave until Thursday afternoon. That gave me time to get drunk and think about things.
A daughter! I hate kids. And teenagers are worse. And teenage girls.... What would I even say to her? She better not be expecting a pony! It was probably a boy. When I was that age I was always convincing skanks to run away from home to... did I just call my daughter a skank? Shit!
I continued drinking until I couldn't hold my head up anymore, about 9 am, then decided to lay on the bathroom floor & get some sleep. I had just gotten comfortable when I heard a knock on the office door. I tried my damnedest to ignore it, but this fucker was loud and persistent. I peeled myself off the floor & stumbled to the door.
"What!?" I demanded. My appearance must've startled the poor sergeant because he jumped back in horror.
"Gene, I need you to come with me." Sergeant Griffen was one of my contacts at the police department. He and I worked together on cases before. He's pretty handy to have around sometimes, but he's also a little too friendly and does not know how to talk to women. It's like trying to crack a case with one of the Hardy boys.
“Why?” I asked.
“Police matter,” He said officially.
I got in his squad car and we were off. I never really liked Griffen that much, but I had to talk to somebody, so I told him about my phone call from the night before. He seemed happy for me, about having a kid, not that she ran away, but he didn’t say much. He just kept smirking, like he knew something I didn’t. “She’s here, isn’t she? My daughter’s in Vegas?”
He started laughing. “She got picked up for underage gambling last night. Everyone at the station got a good laugh when she dropped your name. The captain didn’t want me to tell you, wanted to see the look on your face.”
So my daughter had run away to Vegas and was already in trouble for gambling. A chip off the old block, I guess. “Does she look like me? I mean, is it possible that she’s not my daughter?”
“She’s ugly alright,” he joked. It was only the second joke I’d ever heard him say. The first wasn’t funny, either.
We walked through the station to the woman’s lock-up. There she was. She was ugly alright. And I instantly remembered the woman I boned to... father her, I guess. A woman named Jeanette who was uglier than my ass and twice as fragrant. I was taking one for the team by banging her and I was good and drunk when it happened. Looking back on it, I definitely got the better end of that deal because I banged Jeanette so my old buddy Ken could bang her friend Rebecca, and Ken banged a grandmother with a mustache so I could bang a hot 19 year old dolphin trainer. I almost married that dolphin trainer. Not because I was in love with her, but because she thought she might be pregnant and I was drunk. Damn, I really should start wearing condoms.
Anyway, my daughter was ugly, but there was no doubt she was mine. She had my eyes, and she had my mom’s tits, kind of lopsided, with the left noticeably larger than the right. It’s a family trait.
“So here you are, the legendary Eugene Monroe,” she said sarcastically.
“So what brings you to Vegas....” I trailed off when it dawned on me I still didn’t know her name.
“My name’s Gertrude,” she said.
“Gertrude? Really? Shit. What brings you to Vegas, Gertrude?”
She glared at me and then looked down at the floor, her expression softening. “I guess I need your help,” she said.
I was pretty skeptical. Why would she think I would help her? She couldn't know that much about me. Either she really was in trouble or she was mad and setting me up. I had to get her out of there. That's when Captain White walked in.
"Gene! Good to see you here. I see you're getting acquainted with our..."
"Give it a rest, Jim. What'll it cost me?" I didn't have the energy to deal with this idiot.
"What's your rush? Have some coffee while we get the paperwork going."
"Let me guess, $500 a cup?"
So I bought the boys a round of very expensive coffee while the good captain explained that Gertrude had been picked up for underage gambling over at the Luxor, and that that was a serious offense. I gave the captain an extra hundred and the charges were officially dropped. Five minutes later we were on our way to the airport.
“Are we going to your office?” Gertrude asked.
“I am, just as soon as I get you on a flight back to Cincinnati.”
Just then, my Buick got broadsided by a black Escalade. We spun through the intersection. Luckily, my car is built like a tank. I hit my head on the steering wheel as we came to a stop. “Son of bitch!” I said as blood ran into my eye.
“Oh, yeah,” Gertrude said, “I may have forgot to mention that someone is trying to kill me.”
I lost sight of the Escalade and floored it. My left eye had a small window of vision,but my right eye useless. Damn kid.
"What the hell did you get yourself into?"
"Watch out!" She screamed. "To the right!"
I swerved right to avoid some car or woman or something. "Don't tell me what to do!" I retorted.
This went on for a good few minutes until I was sure enough we'd lost them. Then I pulled over and wiped my face. I was going to need about five stitches & three bourbons. I lit a cigarette and held my forehead closed.
"God damn it, you little shit sack! Who was that & why are they trying to kill you?!"
"Shit sack?" She had no idea what I meant. "Look, some guys back home asked me to drive a car to California. They offered me $2500."
"Where's the car now?" Seemed like a simple enough question.
She started in on a tearful explanation about how her boyfriend, Kip, had talked her into letting him go for a joyride in the car, but crashed it into a tree. When the cops got there they found the car was full of marijuana, about forty pounds. Now, some half-assed Cincinnati gangsters were after her to pay for the weed.
“Marijuana?” I asked. “Jesus, it’s legal in twenty states. Who kills people over marijuana?” But I guess those Cincinnati boys take their pot seriously. I looked over at Gertrude and saw that she was still crying. “Jesus, would you stop that!”
“What are we gonna do?”
The first thing to do was call my gangster friends here in Vegas and see how serious these guys from Cincinnati really were. We made our way over to an office on the north side of town to see Igor Ivanov. He’d been in town setting up his casino for the past few months and he owed me a favor. After an hour-long wait while he was in a meeting, we were let in to speak with him. He was happy to see me.
“What is the matter, Mr Monroe? Did I not give you enough money the last two times I saw you?” Ivanov quipped. “And who is this, your ugly daughter?”
“Yes and yes. I just had a problem and I was hoping you would have some perspective on the situation.”
“Ah, perspective… what a wonderfully expensive sounding word. I love your language, Mr Monroe.”
That’s when Gertrude stepped in and changed my opinion of her. She sat down in a chair in front of Ivanov’s desk and didn’t say a word. She let us talk and never interrupted. I’ve never seen a woman be so quiet. I filled Ivanov in on the situation. It turned out he had heard of the Cincinnati syndicate that Gerty had gotten involved with. They were small time, but dangerous, like an angry chihuahua.
“I think,” Ivanov said, “that the best way for you to proceed would be to use the Wallowitz procedure on them.”
I smiled and nodded. Wallowitz was exactly what the situation called for.
“Dad?” Gertrude said when we were outside again.
“Don’t call me that!” I snapped.
“Fine, Gene! I just wanted to know what the Wallowitz procedure is.”
“Well,” I began, “it goes like this, you give all your plans away to some goon you just met and let her sell you out to some gay Cincinnati gangsters for probably a few thousand at most."
"Why would I sell you out?"
"You've got nothing to lose, that makes you dangerous. Also you're a teenager and well on your way to becoming a woman. That's three strikes."
"So you're going to leave me to deal with these guys on my own?" She asked with a tear in her eye.
"Yes. But first I have to make sure I'm in the clear." I could see the horror build up in her face. I was lying. The Wallowitz Procedure was a bait and switch maneuver. She was my bait.
She got out of my car slowly; in complete disbelief. I gave her a hundred bucks and drove around the block. I followed her on foot from there. I didn’t have to wait long, a few blocks later, the black Escalade pulled up alongside her, it had one of those cop things on the front for ramming, so it wasn’t too damaged. I figured the guys would grab Gerty and take her to their hideout. She was ugly, so they’d probably only rape her a little bit.
A large black man in a black suit with a black turtleneck and white penny loafers stepped out of the passenger side door. Gertrude greeted him with a smile and the two of them proceeded to make out, right there on the street.
“That little bitch,” I muttered to myself. She was playing me. My years of experience told me that the best course of action would be to pull my piece and blow them both away right there, let Jesus sort ‘em out. I resisted the urge. After all, she was family. I guess I could at least find out what her game was before I murdered her in the street.
Gerty got into the SUV and I got into a cab. I gave the driver a ten and told him to follow them. He looked at me like I was crazy. Greedy bastard! I gave him a fifty and set off after the Escalade.
I followed them to The Rio. They left the valet and made their way through the casino to the elevators. I ran back through the casino to the valet parking lot. I found the Escalade unlocked and jumped in. The cigarette smell was harsh, even for me. It was a rental and these bastards are smoking in it. The signs all pointed to a scam.
Looking through the vehicle, I found a bag of weed and a cheesy, metal pipe. There was a map of Nevada. There were no fucking clues. I knew I’d have to wait.
I paid the valet to call me when they leave and with the direction they go. I went back to my car, then for a quick bite to eat, then back to the office for a nap. It was seven pm by then.
At 9:30 I got the call, they were headed my way. I finished off the bottle and turned on the TV. She must’ve walked the last couple blocks because I never saw the Escalade. She knocked very quietly. I answered and tried to look shocked to see her. “Damn it. What now?”
I listened, stone-faced, as she explained that she had nowhere else to go, and that she was afraid the gangsters would find her. I waited for the other shoe to drop. “I was thinking,” she began (Here we go, I thought) “Maybe we could get some money and just pay them off.”
“I got good news kid. While you were gone I got a line on our friends in the Escalade. One of my contacts saw it at the Rio.”
She looked worried. “What are we gonna do?”
“Come on,” I said taking her by the arm, “We’ll handle this shit right now.”
At the Rio, I bribed a bellhop to get Pennyloafer’s room number. We headed up to the eighth floor, room 817. I knocked gently. When he opened the door, I kicked him in the balls and shoved him into the room. I pulled out the colt and blew his brains all over the floor.
Gerty’s jaw dropped and she started making incomplete words like, “Uh… Ah… eh….” She went on like that as I went through his pockets and took his money and jewelry.
“It’s okay,” I said, “You’re safe now.” She just stood there staring at her dead boyfriend. I didn’t know how much she loved him, but I hoped it was a lot. Nothing makes you stronger than watching your father murder someone you love, a lesson I learned early in life.
Back at my office, I tossed Gertrude the keys to the Buick, it was a piece of shit anyway. “Don’t say I never gave you anything. Now get the fuck out of here, and don’t come back.”
She was crying as she drove away. You know what, I think I like being a father.
.
