by John O'Brien
Though the passenger door was already open Miles walked up to the driver’s door and inserted the key into the lock-the only way to open it, despite the fact that the window was shattered. He eased the door open, and safety glass rained onto the pavement. In fact there was glass all over the seat, so much that he couldn’t safely sit in it as he’d planned. He found a clear place to rest his palm and leaned into the car to access the console, knowing before he opened it that it would be empty. It was. Except for some gum wrappers (Trident Freshmint) and small sample vials of men’s colognes (Aram is, Krizia Umo, which Miles always called Curious Homo, and a Calvin Klein, which was missing its promotional folder so he wasn’t sure which fragrance but was pretty sure it was Calvin Klein though it wasn’t worth reading the tiny type on the vial to find out, not now anyway), it was empty. Fuck, he thought, so now when I run out I’ll have to use that peashooter of Langston’s. A car alarm chirped down the street. Osmond, thought Miles absently, but he didn’t look up and he didn’t think about it again.
The hot dog rolled out of its bun and pleated-paper tray across half of Fenton’s Lexus’s roof, leaving mustard kisses at intervals of (approximately) πH - M/2, where H represents the diameter of the hot dog and M the width of the mustard dollop. Such a tiny little nudge-a tap really, barely made contact with the little fucker. Fenton stood there and tried to get over his frustration at himself. He knew it was insignificant, this hot dog incident, and he tried to get over it. Past it. Over. Move along. This wasn’t like him at all, and he knew that the whole situation of being in Tony’s and what was going on outside was getting to him. He was cracking maybe, and this made him even angrier. Just then he heard an alarm chirp off, and it shook him back to reality, back to the street at least. Fenton looked down the street and saw Osmond standing some ways off on the other side, addressing his red Nissan with his remote. Well big deal. Nobody really could expect that buffoon to follow orders anyway, not even Rudd. It was dead out here, no one around to notice an alarm chirp off. A tree falling in the woods: for all intents and purposes it didn’t even make a noise. Spurious, he knew, but there was mustard all over his Lexus now. Fenton fingered his own remote. Fuck it, he thought and pointed it at the car. He pushed the button-chirp-like an echo.
For the second time in less than a minute Cash and Cards were surprised by an improbable sound.
“What The Fuck!” said Cash.
Cards decided, “Oh. Oh, wait a minute. Somebody’s fucking around.” But he didn’t look very convinced. In fact he looked a little frightened, or at least ill-prepared for such a contingency. “I say we forget it,” he added while pulling the knife out of the back of the man they had killed.
The man groaned and the knife made a slurping noise.
“Hoo hoo hoo hooo,” wowed the men in unison, wide-eyed and full of wonderment.
“Now that’s the sound I was talkin’ about,” said Cash. He took a beat to enjoy his moment. Then: “Let’s go check this shit out. It sounds like a fucking CA meeting letting out.”
Cards laughed, but he didn’t get it.
Osmond felt the two-sided discomfort of his twin Smiths as he lowered himself into the driver’s seat of Z. The guns pinched into him under the hug of the custom seat against his bulk, so much so that he usually removed them for driving. He wouldn’t be here long though, so he put up with the press of steel and reached under the driver’s seat for the four boxes of forty-four-mag rounds he kept there. He managed to wiggle out three of the boxes in fairly short order, but the fourth gave him some trouble and ended up requiring the full and variform suite of Osmond’s capabilities before finally yielding to a simultaneous grunt and groin thrust backed with a sweat-lubricated hand held as horizontally as possible. The box joined the others in his lap. Osmond went Whew. He looked up, like waiting at a red light maybe. Two men stood watching him, not four feet from his startled nose.
Cash and Cards looked at this fat white fuck as if he were the best pork roast in the whole meat counter. He was so big and stupid looking that neither man had bothered to draw his gun, though Cards still held the bloody steak knife he’d extracted from his previous encounter with a not-so-fat white fuck.
“Let’s just gut him,” he said to his companion.
They glanced at each other, Cash and Cards did, because it felt like the right time to giggle and put a little sporty spin on the situation. But in truth they simply felt a bad vibe and needed the companionship. When their eyes met they knew that something was off, very wrong in fact. Then a tremendous crash stunned everybody as Osmond fired three shots from each revolver through the windshield of Z.
When Osmond opened his eyes the men were gone, and when he rose from Z he saw the men were on the ground. One was way dead shot through the head. The other was seriously fucked up, his belly all bloody and breathing quick and hard like some pre-D.O.A. on America’s Most Videoed Home Eviscerations.
He shot that man once through the head. Then he holstered his weapons, retrieved the four boxes of ammo from the floor of Z, and began walking back to Tony’s. Then he ran.
Fenton knew he was fucking up during the infinitesimal interval between the moment his finger was committed to depressing the alarm remote button and the moment the remote button could actually be described as pressed. Then it was done and there was no going back so the only thing to do was to go forward and, hopefully, fail to fuck up again. The one hundred spare rounds of forty-caliber ammunition he carried were in two boxes in an emergency road repair kit in the trunk of the Lexus, right in the hollow of an orange reflective triangle and concealed from casual inspection by a Need Help Call Police fold-out dashboard sun protector that always made Fenton think of the back cover of Mad magazine (though Rudd appeared downright dimwitted when Fenton tried to explain this to him, as if the man had never handled a Mad magazine). And now with the mustard. Not that that was Rudd’s fault or even had anything to do with him, but still it rankled. He opened his trunk and popped the lid off the emergency road repair kit, dug out the ammo and put a box in each of his jacket’s side pockets, and lowered the lid of the Lexus’s trunk. He heard shots, which at first didn’t register as something that required his attention, so quickly had he become inured to the sounds of the civil unrest (or were they simply sounds of civil unrest now, as in all?). Then there was that feeling that too had become a fact of life, that feeling that there was a problem at hand, and he moved up midway against the side of his car. Then Osmond was running toward, if not at, him, running hell-bent for election back to Tony’s.
“Osmond!” yelled Fenton, “What is it?”
Osmond looked at him, made a frantic gesture with his arms that could have been interpreted as hurry up and follow me if it weren’t so ridiculously cartoonish, and ran on.
Then there was another figure-Miles, it turned out to be-running toward them, away from Tony’s.
“Cover Me!” he screamed, waving his Colt in the air as if this were the universal sign for Cover Me!
Fenton obligingly looked around for something to shoot at. Osmond took a few more steps before freezing in his tracks. Miles spun around and ducked in between two cars. Taking up position, was the phrase that sprang into Fenton’s head as he watched Miles squat down and aim his weapon in the direction from which he had come. Osmond did what Miles did, only between Fenton’s Lexus and the car behind it. Fenton dithered a moment before following suit by squatting in front of his Lexus as opposed to behind it next to Osmond. This felt like the more military-if arbitrary-course of action.
Stepped away from his Caddy, Rudd did. Cocked his head. Heard another chirp. Paused. That would be two then, two chirps, two more than there was supposed to be. Well fuck, he thought, sounds like Osmond remembered too late that he wasn’t supposed to turn off his alarm so he turned it back on again. Rudd chuckled at this as he stood in the lot behind Tony’s, chuckled and chuckled more, not so much because it was funny but because the chuckling felt good, was a way to relieve the tension and make him
forget what was going on all around him, corpses in the freezer and earshot executions, chuckle feel like cool air like insideofmycar. So cool, his eyes shimmered shut, and with his hand he pushed back his hair. He even swayed a little, back, forth. He heard the shots, Osmond killing those men, Cash and Cards, but Rudd didn’t know that yet. He jammed the ammo boxes into his pockets and drew his Walther. The shots came from the street. The men were in the street. Rudd headed into the alley. The alley led to the street. He went there, feeling cold, went out to the street, his balls rising, tight in his Calvins.
Rudd came under fire as he sprang out of the alley and into the street, but it was unpracticed fire and he wasn’t hit. He skidded onto his side and scrambled back into the alley for the cover of the corner of Tony’s. With no time lost he peeked back around the corner and acquired his targets, eight or ten men running down the street. Rudd emptied a clip into the small group, dropping at least two men and causing the rest to rethink their advance. This was all Fenton needed, and with wonderful ease he stood to his full height and got off four shots, dropping a man for himself and likely wounding at least one other. As Fenton was firing Miles sprang from his position between cars and ran full-on for the alley where Rudd stood. He fired wildly during the run, his attention being more focused on his destination than on making any significant contribution to the odds, but did manage to hit one man in the arm, and that man’s gun flew from his hand and slid under a parked car; he ran off, disarmed and frightened. Miles made the alley unharmed and threw his body against the brick wall next to Rudd. The move looked straight out of a seventies television program like Starsky and Hutch or maybe Baretta, very practiced though that was unlikely, and Rudd was impressed.
“Shit!” said Miles. “I’ve only got two and half clips left. My fucking backup ammo was stolen. You should see my car! It’s a fucking mess! I’m gonna need Langston’s gun.”
All the while bullets were striking and chipping the brick corner of their protection, return fire from the assaulting gang, which had taken positions between parked cars and, in one case, a doorway.
“We’ll deal with that later,” said Rudd. “Right now we’ve got to get Fenton and Osmond back here and get inside.” He paused. He knew what to do, but he felt it best to appear reflective for a moment so that Miles would be less likely to argue with him. “Put a full clip in your Colt.”
Miles looked at him but just did it. “Now what,” he said when he was finished and waiting for Rudd to reload his Walther.
“Now we step out and fire like hell. Hopefully Fenton and Osmond will use the opportunity to make a break.”
Miles held up his hand. “Wait a second. What if they don’t? We’ll waste all this ammo for nothing.”
“So aim at something,” Rudd told him. “On three.”
And they pivoted out from the corner mellifluously, like two bronze gargoyles on a well-oiled iron gate, their weapons ablaze with anger and caprice, the ebullience of youth, money, and guns.
Rudd almost wanted to laugh, and would have had it not been so inappropriate. He wasn’t afraid at all, he realized much to his satisfaction and chagrin. Money he had but money may not mean much in a world where the firing line had moved from the alleys and boom cars out into the streets, and upscale restaurants became fortresses. The mirth of open season took him back to snowball fights and forts; it also reminded him of how far he’d come. He felt old. Miles was doing okay, thought Rudd. Bang bang bang, follow my lead.
Miles was afraid, but it was a hell of a kick. C’mon, fat old Osmond, get your ass over here, he thought of his maladjusted friend, and of himself.
Fenton, certain that Rudd would provide it, had been waiting for this opportunity; such were the benefits to be gleaned by spending too much time in the company of the same man. When it came he was ready. He knew it would take a lot to get Osmond to abandon his cover-mere words wouldn’t cut it-so he began by running up to where Osmond crouched and leaving himself fully exposed to the hostile fire. Doing this, Fenton hoped, would give Osmond the illusion that it was somehow okay to step out and run alongside him. Fenton wasn’t much of a man, his dad once told him during one of that man’s many drunken binges, but he knew a follower when he met one. Bullets whispered about like a restless audience under the drum beat of many many percussions. Fenton stopped next to Osmond and watched a man die under fire from his Glock. It felt bad and good, terrible, horrific. He felt the stirrings of an erection.
“Let’s go!” he yelled at Osmond. “Follow me!”
But Fenton waited, knowing that it would be unwise to be between the panicky Osmond and his target. Indeed, Osmond came dashing from his cover, screaming under a burst of fire from his twin forty-fours; serious lead being directed by a less-than-skillful hand (though his earlier performance had been rather impressive). These were men building body counts; they had little time for finesse.
Rudd waxed proud when he heard the advance of Fenton and Osmond from behind, heard Osmond’s Smiths more than anything. Down the street another man dropped under Rudd’s fire, and Rudd hoped it was his fire and not some wild shot of Osmond’s or Miles’s. Fenton’s Glock had a distinctive report, and Rudd was happy to see another man take a direct hit from it. Rudd finished off his clip. Miles followed. They fell back around to their cover just as Fenton and Osmond came barreling in behind them. The men stood gasping for air and surveying each other for damage. The group beyond rallied, evidenced by their advancing firepower, and Rudd reached for his own Glock. It occurred to him that he might have favored this gun a moment earlier for its superior clip capacity. But he always preferred the Walther, and now was no time to back away from a quality experience. He was glad that he’d killed his first man with his Walther. The Glock, that was more for maintenance.
“Go! You guys go while I give ’em another blast!” Rudd commanded the others. “It’ll only take a second,” he added in an effort to preempt any remonstrance, or as a way not to have to be sure that none would be offered.
Fenton nodded and led Miles and Osmond down the alley to the lot behind Tony’s. Rudd readied his Glock and fired twice blindly around the corner before stepping out and emptying his clip. He saw one more man fall; then he ran down the alley in the footsteps of his men. In the back Langston stood guarding the door. All this time, he did nothing but listen. Amazing discipline, maximum efficacy.
As soon as he had a clear view of the back lot and saw that it was safe, Fenton yelled, “It’s us, Langston!”
“Open the door! Open the door!” screamed Osmond, though the door was plainly open.
Langston had heard them running toward him and hoped that Fenton would think ahead to identify himself. If he hadn’t Langston would have been forced to close the door for the protection of Jill and the busboy, though the latter could probably survive out here better than any of them. Langston was fully prepared to defend the door to the best of his abilities. He was certain he could do it, and now he wouldn’t have to. He cleared out of the way as the three men filed in, brushing past him like so many Kmart shoppers through a turnstile: Langston could smell it, there would be coupons presented and discounts taken during the ensuing days as a result of this excursion.
“Rudd’s on his way,” Fenton told Langston.
“Good,” said Langston, and had he been able to see he would have appreciated the look that Fenton returned. Though not friends these men were close.
Rudd came in and the men saw that the door was secure, and they went back to the bar and resumed drinking and it felt like they’d never left. Osmond had his vodka martini and Miles his Cutty Sark; Rudd and Fenton drank J&B, Langston the Glenlivet. Jill and the busboy did not drink, but Jill did try to stay involved in the conversation. The busboy tried to stay in the kitchen. And in truth, he drank from a jug of red wine he’d found in there, but surreptitiously from a coffee cup.
Rudd was good and drunk and that was good, depending how one looked at such things, as they all were often drunk (and good occasionall
y) men, these seated here in this bar.
“Not bad for a mouse gun!” he roared through the scotch, Rudd did. “Hey, Miles!”
“What’s that you’re crowing about?”
“My little mouse gun blew away some major ass out there this morning.”
“Could’ve done more with a forty-five.”
“Like you? Hah!”
“I was short on ammo.”
“My point exactly!” exclaimed Rudd, but then his head dropped a notch.
Miles merely grunted, not following but not being in top debating form himself. The thing fizzled out, but Fenton knew how it was: the guys who were into guns tended to have gun mentalities, and all the penis envy that goes with that. That’s why the gun magazines editorialized themselves and every guy who ever worked in any gun shop sold himself into stereotype hell with the spurious Kill Power argument. They all were searching for surrogate dicks with big bullets. Nobody would admit that a twenty-two is every bit as lethal as a forty-five. Fenton thought about the weight lifters at his gym, how they’d all apparently made some secret unspoken agreement about wearing the big leather belts all the time, whether lifting or not. As long as we all do this all the time then everybody will think we have a good reason.
“What about that plastic piece of shit?” demanded Miles out of nowhere, but evidently conceding the first point.
Before Rudd could rise to response he was preempted by Fenton, who said quite gravely, “Polymer, Miles. The Glocks we carry have a polymer frame. Not plastic.”
Everybody respected this of course. That point was won. And way.
“Yeah, well at least yours has some bite to it. A forty you could carry with pride. Hell, I’d carry a forty if I had to. Forty’s not a nine,” grumbled Miles, looping back.
