A Quick Draw (Pulp 04)

"It was time to get some answers, and I had an idea where a few might be roosting. It was time to visit 8th Street, and Madame Venga's.
"Only I hadn't gotten more than a few feet from the office door before the girl in the uncomfortable heels grabbed me by the arm. My right arm. My gun arm.

"I spun around like I was doing a veronica and ducked my shoulder down to break her grip. I twisted my left hand and managed to drag the piece out of its shoulder holster and put it into a close approximation of the ready position, but then I stopped.
"She was looking at me with eyes the size of truck-stop pancakes, sheet-white and motionless as a garden gnome at rest. Then she broke and ran, kicking off the heels as she went and screaming like mad.

"Poor kid, probably wanted a light or something. Well, it was a lesson for her, to never grab someone like that. Why, she could've been killed! I switched hands with the piece and put it away, then rubbed my left wrist. That twist had pinched something, I thought, and as I walked away, for good this time, the building behind me belched smoke and flames as the fire finally found the cabinets of old film reels that the last tenant had left there when he was evicted.

"Guess I didn't have to worry about paying my back rent."