typetrigger serial 2: detective story.

wish i had gone:

For Christmas she gave me a new hat, a dinosaur ornament, and a card filled with lies. I got her a .38 special.
When I woke up with the barrel of the .38 lodged in my right nostril I realized I pry shoulda taken that New Year's Cruise with Sally. She'd bought her boy an extra ticket anyhow, hadn't given mine away. Apparently that woulda been too much. Said she knew I needed a break and going on that cruise with 'em would prove we could still work together, we could still be friends. She said it'd mean the world to 'er Johnny.
Her and I made a decent team, but we sure in the hell don't make good friends, and the only thing I owe Johnny is precisely one cheap whiskey and one left hook, not in that order.
I ain't never been a very lucky guy anyhow.
Dad was a mean ol' lug liked to slap my mom around, and Mom liked taking it, 'til the day she didn't. She put five slugs into his brain and one into his balls. Then she reloaded and put five in his balls and one in his brain. Seems inefficient to me, but that's a thing I guess broads are known for. Kicked around foster homes 'fore endin' up with my uncle Sam, a hero cop turned two-bit hood turned cheap P.I. when he realized tailin' around rich wives of richer cuckolds could keep him in rye. I've never been a big drinker, so I can afford to be a little more discerning, thus my confusion at Sally's .38 makin' it's way from my nostril to my eye while I try blinkin' away my scotch hangover.

they improvised:

The hand holdin' the 38 was attached to the biggest lug I ever seen. Guy musta been Samoan or somethin'. Wasn't sure. So I asked him. "You Samoan?"
"Only sometimes," he said.
You're gonna wanna shut up," he said.
People are never up for a good conversation this early in the morning.
"You're crushin' my legs," I said.
"You're about to be dead," he replied, "so you just need to live with it for a bit."
"That ain't your .38."
I know Sally pretty well so I'm pretty sure this guy don't have her gun without being damn persuasive and I sure doubt she gave it to him for this.
Last New Years Day before she left with Johnny for good, Sally showed up drunk at the office. Collapsed at the doorway, crawled her way inside to my desk and before she passed out told me she I was all she thought about, that she was in love with me, that Johnny knew and couldn't handle it, but she was so in love with me that it scared her and she had to leave with Johnny to get away from it, to escape. A few months ago she came by to apologize, said she was mad I took her name down offa the office's masthead, said she wanted revenge and what she told me that day was the best she improvise with short notice.
Sally wants me dead the last thing she needs is to send a Samoan with her .38.
So color me worried 'bout 'er.
The Samoan could see my wheels turnin', I guess, so he whacked me once in the head.
"Easy," I said. "That's an expensive piece of hardware."