Four grand in cash, a lethal dame, and a bullet through the front door—just another Tuesday for private eye Jack Bennet
Writer’s Prompt
The Shadows of Dallas
Jack Bennett leaned back in his chair, put his feet up on his desk, took the receiver off the phone, and laid back in his chair, tipping his fedora over his eyes. Bennett’s adventure in dreamland was interrupted by a banging on his door. He stuffed his forefingers in his ears and bellowed, “I’m busy, come back in a month.”
Nona Welch didn’t wait a month. She didn’t wait a second. The door opened with a thud against the wall. Bennett tipped his fedora back a bit and took in the hourglass-figured beauty in a low-cut dress that accentuated all her positive attributes.
“Yah?” Bennett said.
“Mike Hammer told me you were the best in Dallas.”
“What does Hammer know about Dallas? He walks the streets of the Lower East Side.”
Nona moved closer, putting her hands on the desk and leaning in.
“I don’t know who you are. That move may impress some twenty-year-old kid, but it doesn’t impress me. You got sixty seconds to make your pitch,” Bennett said.
“Tam Peters is trying to kill me. I want you to protect me for two weeks. It’s worth two grand a week plus expenses.”
Bennett spat his toothpick into the wastebasket. Four grand was a lot of cash in Texas, but Tam Peters wasn’t a name you played with—he owned half the city council and all the shadows in between.
Before Bennett could answer, the glass pane of his office door shattered into a hundred jagged diamonds. A silenced round thudded into the mahogany desk, two inches from Nona’s left hand.
She didn’t scream. Instead, she reached under her skirt, pulled a snub-nosed .38 from a thigh holster, and slid it across the desk to Bennett. Outside, heavy boots echoed down the marble hallway.
“Is that Peters?” Bennett growled, flicking the safety off.
Nona smiled, cold as a tombstone. “Or my husband. Time to choose, Bennett.”
Over to You: How does Jack Bennett survive the next ten seconds? Does he fire back, dive through the window, or discover Nona set him up? Write the ending in the comments below!
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