Noir Style Pulp Adventure Short Story- You're Welcome, Ralph by Nathanael Hummel

I opened the door to the hotel room abruptly and stepped in. Three pairs of eyes immediately shifted my way. Two of the men sat at a table ten paces away lighting cigars in-between poker hands. The third man was a mere six feet away making drinks. He was a big guy, five inches taller than my 5'11 and he had to be at least 60 pounds heavier than my well muscled 180. I counted five guns in sight between the three men. Six eyes, three goons, five guns, and a lot of angry muscle added up to a predicament. It must have been a similar predicament to the one that Ralph Allen had found himself in shortly before I found his bloodied body in my office earlier in the day.

----

As soon as I had unlocked the door, I could sense something was wrong and my Beretta was out of its comfortable home in my shoulder holster and in my hand almost before I even knew it. Around clouds of smoke from the bowl of my pipe I saw Ralph slouched behind my desk.

He had managed a pained grin and a mumbled "Hiya, Nate," before the bloody cough cut him off. I rushed over and he latched onto me.

"Things aren't looking good, pal."

"What the devil happened, Ralph?"

"Collection... Agents for the Bianchi racket."

"You don't owe them, they answer to me for your protection, what the hell caused--"

"They said they're taking a new, aggressive approach, and no one is covered by any previous

arrang... Nate I'm not gonna make it."

"Where are they?"

Ralph was getting paler and paler and I could tell he wasn't going to be forming many more

words. He reached for his chest pocket but his hand fell short.

"Nate. Thanks."

I don't know why he thanked me. But I was going to try my damnedest to give that thanks

validation. I reached into his pocket and pulled out a bloody match book. It read "The Blue

Lagoon."

----

A half hour's time found me standing in front of a shady dive with a neon sign that had a wave crashing onto a cliff face with "The Blue Lagoon" appearing on the white cap of the wave. I shook my head, tossed my cigar butt into the gutter, felt for the Beretta, and the holdout pistol on my hip and walked in.

A hectic jazz riff cut through the smoke and scent of stale alcohol and a hefty bouncer nodded at me, taking in my checkered sport coat, turtleneck, and slacks. I guess I met the dress requirements, since he let me pass.

As I stepped up to the bar I took it all in. Lowlifes dodged each other as they drank more than their fill and cat-called the remotely attractive waitresses that moved at a fast clip to avoid the even faster hands trying to find a way into their clothes. The bar was mostly abandoned, as the ne'er-do-wells were focused more on the waitresses and the jazz band led by a pretty woman singing in sultry tones, than anything the bar had to offer.

A matchbook is a lead, and I bill for private investigation, even though it isn't what I'm best at and I personally think of myself as more of an adventurer. But it was time to clock in to the

investigation, if only for Ralph's sake. I held up the bloody book and showed it to the half-blasted bartender.

"Looks like you got one hell of a recommendation to come here, huh, dude?"

"A friend of mine sent me this way."

"Tell him bandages stop blood better than matches."

My hand was around the man's skinny neck before either of us had realized it, and I growled at him.

"Where do the Bianchi racket bastards hole up, dude?"

I felt his Adam's apple shift under my hand, as he fumbled around for words.

"Bianchi-- who? I, I... I can't breathe man."

"That's the point, buddy boy."

I heard something, other than the barkeep fumbling for words and turned to see Hefty, the

bouncer, moving at quite a clip, with a blackjack raised in his hand. Unless there was a hell of a fight going on behind me, and I was pretty sure there wasn't, it looked like he was coming for me.

As he closed the gap, I yanked all 126 pounds of barkeep right over the bar and into the way of that bouncer's sap. It was a good thing I let go of his neck because otherwise Hefty might have broken my hand and not the barkeep's neck. As his body fell at my feet, I locked eyes with the bouncer. His eyes flitted down to the man he hadn't meant to kill, and as they came back up they had the chance to familiarize themselves with the rugged beauty of four of my knuckles, just before they broke his nose.

He stumbled back, and I came in fast. A left to his stomach persuaded him to let go of the sap and a right to his throat cut off any sort of cry for help. Luckily for him, he was tough, so my next right didn't quite make it to the target, since a ham hock of a forearm cut it off at the pass. And then I was eating a knuckle sandwich and promptly coughing it back up after his other ham hand landed in my gut. I stepped under the next punch and feinted a left jab that opened him up for a right cross. As he stepped back he swung a heavy left that I caught below my right wrist. Brushing off the punch, my right traveled four inches to his jaw. And what do you know, sometimes four inches can be a lot. It was for him.

I dragged his heavy body off the ground and dropped him into a seat.

"Bianchi's protection boys. Now."

His lips worked their way out from between his teeth to mutter, "Hoskin's Hotel. Room 879."

----

The Hoskin's was a nice place, but the occupants of Room 879 wouldn't know nice, if it was

making them drinks. I don't know what the guy making them drinks was, but he was certainly

not nice.

I knew I had enough bullets for each of them to have a healthy dose of lead poisoning, but it

looked like they might be up to date on their immunizations. The tension was loud enough that I could have used some ear muffs. No one moved a muscle, and then one of the card players spoke.

"You better have a damned good reason to be here, fella, and it better not be to deliver room service."

"Ralph was outside of your protection racket."

"Oh." All three men laughed.

"Mr. Bianchi needed a little reminder that we don't let half rate private dicks make deals with the family. Ralph had to go."

"Ralph was a good man."

"Good men die hard. Ralph died easy."

"I guess I'll have to tell Bianchi myself then, that half rate private dicks make things deadly for people who don't honor their deals."

"Bianchi answers to us now."

"Not for long."

Just like that it seemed we were all moving. My right hand had reached down to the holdout on my right hip, while my left brushed aside the jacket and found the grip of the Beretta under my left arm, an inconvenient way to draw a gun if you didn't practice. I practiced. Both guns came level at about the same time that the two card players' hands had reached their pieces. Then I triggered both guns twice and caught the men two times each, and unfortunately, I didn't have time to notice where.

The big guy who had been making drinks had been close enough that he was now holding my right hand in his left and his pistol was coming up from his belt towards my stomach. My left hand, gun still in it, flashed out and caught his pistol arm above the wrist. As I had moved to stop his gun, I had lifted my left leg and stepped back. Not a second too soon either, for as I had reached his pistol, his gun discharged and a bullet plowed the floor where my foot had been, moments earlier. The speed and force of our two hands colliding caused both guns to rattle to the hotel floor. He swore and swung his huge right toward my face. I rolled with the punch as it hit and tried to spin around ready to swing my own right in a deadly blow with the full force of the rotation. That didn't quite come to fruition as he was still holding onto my wrist and yanked me back into a second, even heavier punch that floored me.

I lay there, gun in hand, but useless, held in the grip of this hulking man. He reached down and his fingers became more familiar with my throat than I ever would have liked. With what seemed to be no effort he lifted me into the air and slammed my back into the wall. I sputtered and he chuckled. A smart guy, he had made sure to keep my gun pointed away from his body. But I was running out of ideas, so without further adieu I commenced to blasting. As the gun bucked, it seemed to startle the big guy. His head jerked down to the sound of the shots and that gave me the little bit of traction I needed. As his head moved he brought me just a might closer to him and my left rocketed from my knees and directly into his ear.

As his ear split, and blossomed red, he lost his hold on my throat. I stepped in under his huge arm and brought the left up, again from my knees and straight to the underside of his chin. His head snapped back and his grip loosened enough and I ripped free and shoved him away.

As he fell to the floor, I saw the second card player reaching for a gun that lay a foot away from his lifeless companion. I leveled the holdout and fired the last two shots into the man's chest. He crumpled. He wasn't going to get the chance to check out of the hotel. I looked back at the big guy. He was crawling toward the dead men and had just reached the butt of a 1911. I swore as I dove for the Beretta. I caught it up and allowed my momentum to carry me through a roll. As I came up, I spun around and fired. The first shot shattered the window a foot above the man's head. The second caught him in the windpipe as he leveled the 1911. The third caught his arm and the pistol dropped to the floor.

I slumped against the wall. I dropped the mag from my pistol and slid another into place. I kept it leveled at the dead bodies as I gingerly pulled a pipe from my jacket pocket, deliberately clenched it between my teeth, pulled out my lighter, and lit it. Bianchi, or whoever he answered to now, would not welch on a deal again any time soon.

"You're welcome, Ralph."