by Tony Masero
‘How’d you know what we made in a year?’ I asked, the suspicion already there and now taking a firmer hold.
He rested his ass back against the office desk and folded his arms, ‘You’ve got a ready-made setup and I want it, Smoke. It’s real simple, you either move aside or you disappear. In fact, knowing you, you won’t leave it and I’d be watching over my shoulder for the rest of my life.’
‘You can bet on it,’ I growled.
‘I thought so,’ he nodded. ‘Same old Smoke, never see what’s staring you in the face. I tried to warn you. Had Gonzales put down to let you know what was coming but in my heart I knew it would come to this.’
‘Where’s Annie May and Mouse?’
‘Close to hand, so don’t try anything or it’s all over for them.’
‘Geez! I can’t believe you, Ace. What the hell have you become?’
‘Pragmatic, buddy. That’s all, just practical and realistic. I ain’t getting any younger and can’t go chasing the country along with these hard-nosed guys forever. Time to take a step sideways and there you are with all the options.’
Pragmatic! Where did Ace get a word like that? He didn’t have the brains for this surely.
‘So, how you going to do it?’ I asked. ‘Like them sheriff’s men in Paloma Springs, bullet in the back of the head from behind. That’s your style now, ain’t it? Coming up behind like some cock-sucking ass reamer. You get a taste for it in the Pen, did you?’
I knew that was a tender subject with Ace. He never liked to talk about his time inside and I guessed he suffered at the hands of the big tail-wagger in his cell. We never said anything about it but I could see his face puffing up with anger now.
I stirred the pot some more, ‘Come to think of it, I never see you with a woman these days. I reckon you’ve left off the straight way, haven’t you? You kind of like the company of big rough old boys, don’t you? Get you all excited, does it?’
He lunged. With a roar of anger he went for my throat and the pair of us tumbled to the floor as the chair tipped over underneath me.
‘I ain’t that way!’ he was screaming, covering me in a flurry of blows and I knew I’d hit a raw nerve there.
He was sitting astride me and slapping away hysterically, too wildly to do much damage.
‘Your favorite position?’ I laughed up at him between smacks.
He couldn’t help himself, he had to laugh too.
‘You bastard, Smoke,’ he choked in a chuckle.
‘Got you there, didn’t I, ass-wipe?’
‘You rat bastard!’ he wheezed between laughter.
‘Get off me, before the neighbors start talking,’ I smiled.
Still laughing, he eased off and sat on the floor beside me. ‘Man,’ he wheezed. ‘Smoke, you’ll be the death of me.’
‘I thought that was the general idea,’ I said.
That started him off again, he roared in laughter and hiccupped fit to bust.
I was playing him though, just like I’d always done. I knew Ace was a stone killer at heart and laugh all he might it would still end in only one way.
Gradually, his laughter subsided, ‘I need a drink,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘You want one too?’
‘Sure,’ I said, raising myself onto my elbow.
He didn’t come back with a glass though, it was a .45 he held in his hand.
‘I’m right sorry, Smoke. You know I really am but it has to be this way.’
‘You going to let Annie May and kid go?’ I asked.
He shrugged and lifted his eyebrows at me.
‘They can’t do you no harm, you know that,’ I said.
‘They can always do me harm. Maybe not now but later when the dust has settled.’
Then he took a rather over-dramatic exaggerated pose, I thought. He stood side-on, poised, the gun held out at arm’s length and aimed down at me. Rather like some old-style gunslinger. His attitude was superior, almost haughty but he hesitated as if unsure.
‘You know you could have come in with me anytime?’ I said, to distract him. ‘All you had to do was ask, we were partners, after all, weren’t we? You do this, who you going to trust from now on?’
He cocked back the hammer and shook his head slightly, in a negative, knowing manner.
The front of his face suddenly turned into the split skin of an over-ripe tomato, the whole thing exploding in a torn gush of ripped blood and bone. I barely noticed the noise of the gunshot although it must have been deafening in the enclosed area.
Ace fell straight forward, dropping down at my feet in a heavy thunder of noise.
Behind him, wreathed in smoke stood Kennedy, a revolver held in his hand.
‘I had to, Smoke,’ he said, his voice quivering. ‘He would have killed you.’
I climbed to my feet, collecting Ace’s fallen .45 as I did so.
‘Now you’ll have to do your own dirty work, Kennedy,’ I said, pointing the .45 at him.
‘Me!’ he exclaimed, a curious look of innocence crossing his features. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I know it was you behind it all along,’ I said. ‘Had to be someone other than, Ace. He never had the smarts to put it all together. Then the blanks in the gun you gave me put the final stamp on it.’
We both stood there, each pointing his gun at the other. He sagged slightly, his lower lip trembling.
‘I had to,’ he confessed. ‘And why not? I’m the one with the brains, neither of you would have gotten anywhere without me. Why shouldn’t I have something for myself?’
I shot him in the shoulder then. A single shot that spun him to one side. He yipped in pain and forgot he was holding a pistol as he reached up for his wounded arm. So I shot him in the other arm. He screamed this time and dropped his pistol.
‘Reason is,’ I said, waving my gun at each of his wounds. ‘Is that you can’t do that. You never could, unless it was in the back. You didn’t had the brass, Kennedy and that’s why you needed us.’
He was folded over at the waist, still standing but weeping in pain and anger. Snot was running from his nose and dribble from his mouth in a long stream.
‘Look at me,’ I said and he turned a pale face in my direction. There was only white emptiness there, an almost begging, pleading look. Whether he wanted pity or had the expectation of forgiveness, I could not say.
‘Where are the other men?’ I asked, nodding towards the outside.
‘I sent them away,’ he managed to mumble.
‘And Annie May?’
‘She’s here, they’re both fine. I never would have let anything happen to them. I swear it, Smoke. Really it was never about that, honestly.’
I didn’t need to aim. It was a shot born in a prison cell many years before. All it left was a black hole where Kennedy’s left eye had been. Behind him a corona of brains sprayed in a halo and he rocked on his heels before falling back as if he were an old man in a rocking chair.
‘Son-of-a-bitch!’ I muttered, the breath coming out raw and jagged as the tremble in my limbs subsided.
Never hesitate. Put it where it counts and be the first to do it.
That was Left-Eye’s advice to me when we parted and now they were Kennedy’s epitaph. It was the last shot ever fired by the Left-Eye Gang.
I went outside to go find my wife and child.
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
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