A Shot Put Right

BLAM!

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the sound of a .45 calibre revolver sending somebody a present – a small, hard, and damned fast present that’ll kill you if you’re not careful. Hot damn, you’d think it was Christmas around here so many people were in the spirit of givin’. And in that case, hell, I guess you could call me big ol’ fuckin’ Santa Clause himself.

I’m trapped in a warehouse, caught in a gunfight with a bunch of punks who weren’t supposed to be there. None of this was part of the job – it was supposed to be quick and quiet, with two, maybe three bodyguards to take care of at most; not twenty of the fuckers!

My chain of thought is snapped like a twig when yet another son of a bitch tries to be a hero, charging at me with guns blazing. He’s running so fast that all his shots miss – not by much, mind you – and before he makes it halfway he’s out. I smile a little, knowing I shouldn’t spare the guy any mercy, so I raise my Colt revolver to blast a new hole between his eyes. I squeeze the trigger and wait for the kick, but nothing happens; the sound of the hammer hitting lead is all I get.
“Son of a bitch!” I yell, watching the previously eager punk scramble back to his hiding spot.

So it’s come to this, eh? I search my pockets for more ammo, but I know there’s nothing there. Always bring extra, you never know when you may need it. My own goddamn words, and here I am without that spare package hanging at my side. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I stand up to look for a way out when suddenly I hear the soft, scary sound of a hammer being cocked right behind my ear.
“Don’t move,” commands a familiar voice. The hair on the back of my neck stands up at the sound of it, and suddenly I find myself spinning around and staring into his face despite the order.
“Son of a…”
“Heh heh heh,” he cackles over my cursing, smiling that damn slick smile of his.
“The great John Ricker, held up from behind! I bet you would never have thought it possible, would you? Then again, I was surprised when you took the job; normally you’re a bit more…cautious.”

I curse, and spit. The bastard’s just playing with me.
“Finish me off already, I don’t have all goddamn day,” I say firmly, clenching my fists in anticipation. He just keeps on smiling, the gun in his hand not even shaking. This guy’s good. Ah hell, I should’ve never taken the job.

All thought is blasted from my head as the bullet tears through my skull, ripping a violent path through my bone and flesh until it exits just as brutally; the hole is about the size of a nickel.

I’m on the floor, blood pooling around me, with the sonofabitch’s laughter ringing in my ears. Come on, get up; you’re tougher than that. I struggle to keep my eyes on his cocky face, but my vision blurs and soon everything goes dark.

Silence…

Dammit, now I’ve gone and died when I promised Val I’d be careful.

***

This whole mess started a day or so ago when I was visiting her at her apartment. Me n’ Val, y’see, have been friends since the stone age. And with her being a whore, it makes our relationship a little more…intimate, you’d say, than most friendships would be. In any case, she’s just about the only person I can trust in this whole damn city; she’s always been kind to me even knowing what I do and all.

Anyways, I’m having a beer and cigarette after a particularly intense session with Val when my cell rings. I hit the talk button and before I can even ask why somebody would be calling me at this hour and explain that I’m only available in the daytime, a man’s deep, threatening voice announces he’s got work for me and that I’d best get to it right away. Now, normally I’d tell the bastard just to fuck off and never to call again, but the sum he was offering was quite considerable. I tell him I’ll consider it, take his number down, and hang up the phone.
“Another one?” Val asks, taking a long draw of her own cigarette as she stretches out those long, sexy legs across the bed. I stare at her naked figure for a minute, eyeing all the goodies before I take a swig of my brew.
“Yeah. Lotta money this time,” I say, thinking hard about it. I’d dealt with cocky assholes before, but none so…well, scary. Just from the way he sounded, I could tell the man was a killer. He had that distant, uncaring tone of someone who thinks nothing of everyone but himself; that killing is perfectly natural and shouldn’t be fussed about. I’ve killed people, hell, I’ve killed a lot of people, but I’ve never thought of them as nothing. For most, it feels like you lose a bit of yourself the first time you kill a man. For others, killing fills them with so much satisfaction it's better than sex. That’s what this guy was. A stone-cold killer.
“Hun, you look worried. Is something wrong?” she asks me, sitting up and looking me right in the face. I smile a little. What a girl – after all that life’s done to her she still worries about others like…well, like a mother.
“It’s alright, Val. I’m just tired is all.”

Truth is, I didn’t sleep well that night; I was too damn busy staring at the ceiling with my thoughts focused on the job ahead. I was supposed to pick up the information on the target at a bus station, follow him to his workplace and finish the job quiet-like. The money I’m owed will be given after I return to them with a souvenir. Val stirs a little beside me, shifting a little uneasily in her sleep. Rough day, I guess. Her purse catches my eye, sitting on the stool acting as the night table with the remains of a few cigarettes and a beer. I know full well what’s in there: her day’s earnings, some make-up, an assortment of condoms, and her tiny 5-shot Taurus revolver. The damn thing’s so small I could hold it in my hand and it would be difficult for someone to tell I had it from a short distance.
I look over at her, at her shoulder-length, chestnut brown hair, smooth lips and big eyes, now closed. So beautiful, yet so scarily deadly. She and the other hookers in the District rule the streets with an iron fist. Even the cops don’t dare venture in there; short of making it a full-scale war they wouldn’t be able to wipe the girls out. The girls administer their own law the way they see fit - no pimps, no gangsters. It's just them and whoever the hell is getting punished.

Sleep finally comes to me a few hours later.

Daybreak. It's showtime. I gather my things – knife, silenced 9mm, wire, sunglasses, gloves, miniature tool kit, watch, twin Colt revolvers (Betty and Vanessa, just in case things get bad), wallet and cell phone. All this I manage to store in my trusty trenchcoat; damn thing’s so useful I couldn’t imagine doing business without it. I thought about taking extra ammunition, but seeing as there was only one target I didn’t think it was necessary.

As I make my way out the door, Val stops and hugs me as she always does. This time, however, she’s shaking.
“You alright, Val?” I ask her. She’s never been this scared before. She smiles weakly at me, hugs me again and slips something into my hidden coat pocket.
“Just be careful, okay? I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” she says. I try to tell her everything’s alright, that I’ll be okay and I’ll come back at the end of the day, but instead I find myself unable to speak. I finally break the silence by saying what I always do. She smiles again and walks off, a little more bounce in her step. I stare after her, my emotions twisting and churning like a massive ball of snakes, but then I come to my senses and shrug it all off. It’s time to get down to business.

I go to exactly where I was told to, and sure enough, I find a rather inconspicuous-looking briefcase, which, I later discover on the bus, contains all the information I’d need to make the kill. I’ve got photographs, addresses schedules, business information, even blueprints of the warehouses this guy owns. Seems in the shipping business, or something like that. Doesn’t matter anyways. I find a note that says he’ll be at the warehouses around three o’clock that day. I make sure to memorize the blueprint of the complex of the warehouses before taking a closer look at my target. The guy has to be mid-twenties, maybe even early thirties, with a smart business-like air to him. Some pictures actually feature him flashing a cocky, carefree smile. He didn’t look like type who would likely be targeted and taken out by guys like me. Who were you, and who wanted you dead?

I shake my head, tossing away my curiosity. I wasn’t hired to wonder why – I was being paid to kill, and kill I will. I study the photographs one more time, and decide my souvenir would be his left middle finger, whereupon he wore a small grey ring. That, and his wallet. Always take the wallet, I say.

I arrive at the warehouses at two forty-five, just fifteen minutes to get my bearings and prepare for the killing. I choose to hide amongst the various crates lying about, giving me both cover and, from the spot I’d chosen, an excellent view of the parking lot.

He arrives in a black sedan, and I check my watch. Three o’clock on the dot. Punctual, eh? I see him exit the vehicle yapping on a cell phone, flanked by a single bodyguard; both were immaculately dressed in black suits. Almost as if following my exact plan, he decides to head into the warehouse nearest to me, and I follow him and his subordinate at a distance. This is too easy - a quick, clean kill and then it’s all done.

I enter the warehouse and suddenly I’m feeling all sorts of dread. It was too easy. I’d walked into a trap and I didn’t even realize it. Damn man, your skills are slipping.

Then everything went wrong.

***

Voices, low and muffled. My head is pounding like hell, as if there was a fucking war going on inside my skull. I reach up slowly to feel the wound. Son of a bitch. The damn bullet struck my temple and blew a bit of bone off. I won’t be as pretty anymore, sure, but hell – it’s just a fucking flesh wound. And I collapsed from this? Damn I must be getting old.
“What should we do with him?”  asked the Hero from before, still gripping his weapon, now reloaded. The slick businessman smiled and said, “Toss him in the river. They might find him, they might not. Either way. nobody’s going to miss a hit man. He’ll just be another corpse in the mortuary.”

Not wanting to give away the fact that I was, in fact, still alive, I glance around the place with my eyes. I saw most of the other guys filing out, their jobs complete. Only two punks remained, along with Mr. Slick and his bodyguard. Slick waved his hand in dismissal, and sauntered off down a passageway leading to the other end of the warehouse. I recalled the blueprint and surmised that the exit to which he was heading to opened out onto the harbour where most of his business was conducted. These houses stored all the goods dropped off by trade ships.

I hear footsteps and realize my time to act is running out, I subtly yet frantically search my pockets for any kind of weapon and find my knife. Not good enough – I’ll only be able to take out one while the other blasts me away for good this time. Then I remembered something Val did…

I reach into my hidden coat pocket and find the Taurus in my grip. Val, I love you.

“Alright, time to heave this fucker-“

The shots are quick and sharp, taking both punks cleanly in the throat. One dies instantly, whereas the other, the Hero, goes down spurting. I silence him quickly with my knife, not wanting to waste the last three precious shots.

I begin to silently make my way after Mr. Slick when I suddenly realize he would’ve heard the shots and would’ve sent his bodyguard to investigate. I crouch down behind a stack of shelves, hidden in the darkness, waiting for the guard to discover the bodies. I heard a muffled groan of something like displeasure, and suddenly see him before me, bending over the corpses. Idiot – doesn’t know how to check his surroundings. I plug two shots into him before he knows what’s happening. He’s down and out.

I suddenly hear a door swing open frantically, and stand up to see that Mr. Slick has tried to flee. No point in playing it quiet now. I race towards the exit and wrench open the door, only to be greeted by a barrage of bullets. They tear into me, ripping and shredding at what seemed like everything. My legs give way and suddenly I’m on my knees, blood pouring from a dozen wounds. My head sags for a second, then I hear ragged breathing in front of me and look up. Mr. Slick is standing there with his pistol still aimed at me, all its rounds spent.
“Why…won’t…you…just…DIE?!” he roared, squeezing the trigger a few more times. I chuckle and smile at him, bloody as it may be.
“You’re not the guy who hired me. Just somebody with the same damn voice, I reckon. The guy who called me sounded like a pro, like a cold-blooded killer. You’re just a squirrelly amateur,” I cackle, standing up. “And I won’t just ‘die’, kid, because, like I always say,” the image of Val that morning flashed in front of my eyes for a moment, “I sure as hell ain’t gonna die unless I go out with a BANG.”

My shot echoed across the harbour like the shriek of a banshee, startling birds into flight and terrifying the unfortunates who happened to be within earshot.

The two of us, Mr. Slick and I, slump to the floor. My eyesight once again blurs and darkens, but just before the silence takes me, an image of Val, naked and beautiful, floats before me like a ghostly apparition. I smile and try to reach out to her, but my arms won’t move; it’s like their made of lead. Oh Val, I’m sorry – heh, again. This time it’s for real, though, so I close my eyes and wait for the end to come.

Sirens in the distance…