Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

CONALL WARNER

"So, how's it look?" I asked.

"Meaning, do I see it?"

"Yes." I turned around to the virtuoso of firearms, sitting on the bed and smoking a cigarette. "Do you see it?" He nodded. I swivelled back to the mirror.

"Any lawman worth his salt is gonna spot that, yeah. Maybe wear a raincoat. But try it on with this." He stood up and fetched a holster from his luggage showcase of guns.

Automatic, manual, long, small, compact, heavy, light, one-round, fifty magazines, clips, carbon, suppressors, shotties, rifles, handguns, armour piercing, hollow point, flashlights, scopes, grips, barrels - this supplier had it all.

Back at Hotel Brownwood in Texas, there were always clandestine suppliers of different addictions and sins, criminally illegal or illegally criminal. They came in, stayed for a day, barked up the wrong trees and checked out.

Flashes of the hotel would always make their way back to my mind, no matter how locked up they were. And there wasn't a particular way to get rid of them other than refocusing on events past, not the emotions evoked by them. 36 goddamn years ago...

☀                           ☀                      ☀                     ☀

I drove the police car, speeding along a road adjacent to cornfields blistered by the crispness of the early morning sun. The ambulance was heading in the other direction. I could see for a split second as our two vehicles passed each other, that Yaegar was driving the ambulance.

He jumped into alarm, as did I - our sirens blaring over each other and oftentimes synchronising in a melodic and hypnotic rhythm. I drifted into a boundless U-turn, desperate to catch up with the ambulance.

I couldn't draw too close as Bimbo was shooting at me with my Glock that he had confiscated as "evidence". Spraying and praying like a madman with the few bullets left in the clip that Yaegar hadn't wasted.

What a long night it had been, I had thought then and still think, but the long day was to come ahead.

High octane police chasing police at dawn. Bullets shattering windscreens and denting matte. He was driving back to the hotel, but for a reason not suspected at the time.

Blood pulsed out of my right shoulder and smelt like pure iron. I had to stop the car. I just had to stop the car.

There was a first aid kit in the glove box which I patched myself up with. But I had taken too long.

I drove quickly back to the hotel with one steering arm. The kids were gone from the curbside. Suparto's horse snorted and pranced around the signpost in which it had been leashed, almost agitated.

The bullet in my rib was hurtled into pain territory. My appendix had settled down. My clothes were unwashed; I was unwashed of the red coat of blood. Pastel scratches of dog shit were still stuck under my cowboy boots.

I persevered nonetheless, taking the shotgun out of the trunk and searching for the ambulance which was not in the parking lot. But by the Hotel Brownwood neon sign...

By the fucking sign...

Was the girl...

From room 14. Sprawled out in a circle of blood. Unkempt hair soaked in red blood cells floating in a river of white blood cells. I turned her over. Hole in the back. Slug in the river. Shot from my gun.

I left her in peace and stumbled towards my motel room, nauseated by the sight. My sweaty palms barely gripped the shotgun. The door had been breached. The doorknob had been blasted by bullets and the door kicked open.

At this point in memory, I don't want to recall. Another body, that is all I could say. Slumped against the wall I had patched up with black duct tape and framed scenery. The victim's blood splattered on those cheap pictures of old rustic canyons and deep green valleys, and who could miss, river streams running off into waterfalls. He was too young. I would love to tell him that. But I can't.

Too young to mourn for. I mourn for the old. Old enough that I knew them for long years. Old enough that they've lived for a long time. Not young, where I haven't been with them for long and their lives are shorter than...

Smokes. The store-brand kind. The gas station packs. Tobacco is hard to get rid of, just like these gosh darn memories. Sometimes I hit and slap my cheek. The pinkness of my skin in the aftermath of breakdowns helps me refocus on the subject at hand or the objective on deck.

This time, they stole all of my prize money from the contest. I had forgotten to change the safe code so it was much easier for them to get to it. Bimbo had also killed his partner and the paramedics that were transporting them, leaving their bodies in the cornfields.

Yaegar Woods and Bimbo (last name unknown). The police couldn't find the ambulance. Off radar until recently. I tracked them to Philadelphia after thirty odd years of resentment and animosity surging through my veins.

What happened could have been avoided if only the other resident at Hotel Brownwood hadn't been caught by me for spying on little girls. The old harridan, Picard the paedophile, must have been enjoying a nice prison cell while I suffered for nothing. Maybe the sick are better left to roam free. Means more eyes on the sickening; the irredeemable, those that should truly be hung on death row by me - who is judge, jury and EXECUTIONER!

☀                        ☀                     ☀                    ☀

I moved to Philly, not long after I found out that Yaegar ran a machinery maintenance business. What I suspect is that Yaegar paid a guy who made fake credentials using my competition money and my wife's drug money to set this business up under a new name. Then they funded it and are now laundering the rest of the money through it. I began work at his business a day ago. Yaegar had been on a business venture and was returning today to see his new workers.

I had purchased the heavy revolver from the gun dealer, IWB and .44 rounds included. No cops were involved. Reason was probably that they had shelved this case under the lost causes and weren't looking to reopen the investigation after 36 years of dead ends.

Anyways, as I said before, I was the law in physicality and I would end both of their lives with one gun. The same way Bimbo had murdered with my Glock.