The Quick and the Dead

I didn’t have a choice. I had to break his wrist. He got that gun out fast. He must have practiced his draw. Smooth.Fast. Economy of motion. He had me, and that’s not easy to do. I did what I do best-neutralize the threat…or target. There is no thought, just action.

I moved to his right, offline, while cupping the gun and his trapped hand, my right hand on top and my left hand on the bottom. My motion forward and the adrenaline added to the effect of the next part. I quickly jerked the gun into my right side, then with a whip-like motion, thrust his hand and the gun back toward him, ending with both on the inside of his own right forearm. When I heard the pop like someone cracking their knuckles, I knew it was done.

In the Army we would say there are the quick and the dead.Pick one. I picked the quick in the Army, the quick as a cop, and the quick then, as a…a…what was I? Well, I did what I had to. I did what had to be done.

This guy didn’t need to die. Hell, I didn’t even want to hurt him. I just needed information. After that pop, he gave me most of what I wanted, plus a Glock 43. That would come in handy later.

He knew where the target was. The target was lying low. He needed time to come up with a plan. He knew people would be looking for him. A not guilty verdict doesn’t mean you’re innocent.

The former owner of the Glock 43 told me, in-between his labored, rapid breaths, that the target was staying with his sister, Evelyn. I asked him what Evelyn’s last name was.

“How should I know…you…you…broke my wrist, you crazy old man!”

That’s when I stomped the heel of my boot on top of his foot.Pretty sure I felt the bones giving way under soft flesh, but his scream distracted me. Still no name. He must not have been lying.

It’s easy to find someone these days. You google a name and you get possible phone numbers, addresses, relatives’ names, etc. Evelyn was no exception. She had the same last name as the target. The search also gave me her most likely address and cell phone number and the target was listed as a possible relative.

I drove by Evelyn’s likely little terracotta brick house, on a street lined with little terracotta brick houses. It didn’t look like anyone was home, but I couldn’t tell if there was a car in the attached garage. The clock was always ticking, the targets could be gone in a minute if they got nervous.I walked up to the front porch and grabbed a piece of mail out of the mailbox. It was a power bill addressed to Evelyn. Bingo!

“Who the hell are you,” came a woman’s voice from the driveway.

“Oh…I’m so sorry. I promised a lady friend from church I would check on her house and collect her mail while she was away visiting her grand kids. I can see now that this is the wrong address. I’m so sorry.”

“Well, whatever. You need to get the hell off my property! That’s what I’m saying.”

“Absolutely. Again, I apologize, ma’am.”

And away I went. I had a few lines like this ready to go if I got caught doing something suspicious. I always played the confused senior citizen. That and my slim build, average height, and a baseball cap that said Veteran on it, never failed to lower guards. Sunglasses were enough to cover my face and true identity.

As I drove away I thought that that had to have been Evelyn.She fit the age range and had some similar features to the target-dark brown hair, light white skin. Judging by her big sun hat, gardening gloves, and shining, sweaty face, she had been tending a garden bed around the corner.

That clock was still ticking. I didn’t know if my threat toward the former owner of the Glock 43 would last long or at all. I knew he had a wife. I told him I knew where they lived and also where she worked. I told him she would have to pay for his mistakes. If the target got away, she would get what the target’s victim got. That would be fair, an eye for an eye.

“That ain’t right man…I mean…that ain’t right, bringing her into this.”

Seemed like I could get a couple days out of that. I wouldn’t take the chance. Not for the woman I loved. I would die a thousand brutal deaths for Connie. Plus, the target was scum. Cousin or not, he wasn’t worth the risk.

I went back to the hotel and put my jogging outfit on. The pants and jacket were a size too big.That made me look a little bigger.The jogging hat, a lightweight, quick drying baseball cap was bright yellow. This caught the eye, taking attention from my face.

At sunset, I ran by the house on the sidewalk across the street.There were lights on inside.Through the kitchen window, I just caught a glimpse of a man with light white skin and dark brown hair. The height seemed to be about right too. I thought this was likely him, but I would have liked more. Decisions.If that was him, I could get him that night. If I waited for confirmation, I risked not seeing him again.

I decided to run another mile or two. It would clear my head. My thoughts went to Connie, like they so often did. After all those years, I still wanted her. I understood the psychology of it. I was a bastard child my mother didn’t want. She never told me she loved me and never gave me affection. I saw my father twice. I barely remembered him. I know I looked like him. Don’t think that helped my relationship with my mother. So, I chose women that were cold and distant. I sought their approval, their love. You can know somethings, but you still can’t change them.An alcoholic knows the booze will kill him, but he still reaches for the bottle seeking comfort in it.

This job. Why did I still do it? Sure, it gave me purpose. It felt good eliminating rapists and child molesters. Scum of the earth. But, I really did it for Connie. Each one I took out gave her relief from her pain.

“I’ll always love you, Joe. I just can’t be…loving…I’m broken. I’m so sorry. You deserve a woman who is whole,” Connie said to me the night she left.

Enough of that diggin’ up the past, I thought. I had to move on the target. I had to go that night. Best time was between 0300 and 0500. People were most likely to be in REM sleep. I went back to the hotel, set the alarm for 0200, and got some sleep.

I woke ten minutes before the alarm went off. I got out of bed, stiff and tired. I gave myself a few minutes to stretch. I put on my punisher outfit. It was all black, light and durable. My knit cap rolled down into a balaclava. And just in case I needed to change my appearance on the fly, I wore a red shirt under my coat. I also had an olive green army style boonie cap smashed into the cargo pocket on the side of my pants. Most importantly, I put the Glock 43 in a slick new holster I bought at a gun shop on the other side of town. Slathered on some Bengay, put on a Smith and Wesson Cap pulled down so low in bent my ears, and set cheaters on the end of my nose. Paid cash. I’d like to see the BOL on that guy.

At 0245, I parked at a Walmart that was a fifteen minute walk to Evelyn’s house. My heart was racing, my palms were sweaty, and my face was flushed. This was the last job. The District Attorney was retiring. This would be the end of the names delivered to me by a city cop. It was always a different one. He or she would just give me a name. Nothing was ever written down. No calls or texts or emails. Everything could be denied.

Scenes from war movies flashed through my head. The one’s where the short-timer goes on patrol, after being warned not to, and gets killed in some dramatic way. This is the real world, I thought. I gotta move on this. Clock is ticking. I slapped myself in the cheeks a couple of times and took in a big deep breath, just like I always did, and headed to the job.

I went through the side door of the attached garage. It wasn’t locked. People rarely secured their garages like they did their homes.No dog, no motion detector lights.Everything was quiet. And better still, the door into the house had a lock on the doorknob that could be defeated by pushing and turning a small screwdriver through a hole. My multipurpose tool took care of that.

I was in the kitchen. Still quiet. I moved toward the living room. To my left I saw a hallway with three doors. At the end the bathroom door was partially open, so I could just see a bit of the toilet. The other two doors would have to be the bedrooms. One for Evelyn and one for the target. I moved into the living room toward the couch. Medium length shag carpet cushioned my steps.

“Freeze, or I’ll blow you away,” yelled the target from behind the couch, a shotgun in his hands.

“I’m not movin’.”

“Damn right you’re not. Got ‘em, cousin. Just like you said.”

“Well, well, if it ain’t the Grim Reaper,” said the man missing his Glock 43, as he limped into the room.

Cousin was on my left and the target was on my right. It was still dark. No one had turned on the lights. I thought about running, but that would just take me down a hallway where I would be shot in the back. No, I decided to wait for one of them to get closer to me and see what I could do from there.

“Search ‘em cousin. And put those zip tie cuffs on ‘em,” said the target.

“I will, I will. Just keep that scatter gun on him. He’s faster than he looks.”

“I’m on him. We got a nice quiet spot in the woods picked out for you, Grim Reaper. End of the line.”

The quick and the dead. The quick and the dead.

I kept running this through my head when it came to me, in action, as fast as thought.

I dropped to my right knee, drawing the Glock as I did.I shot the target before he could react.The round hit him in the torso and rolled him back on his heels. I heard an ahh sound and then a blaring boom. Sparks flew over my head. The room smelled of gun powder. My ears rang.Then nothing. Nothing happened.

I looked to my right. The target was gone. He’s down behind the couch, I thought. I looked to my left. Cousin was on the floor, gasping for air, rolling side to side. He took that shotgun blast right in the chest. He died in seconds.

I walked around the couch, Glock still drawn. The target was on his knees, struggling to reload his pump action shotgun, but he couldn’t get the slide forward. He didn’t even see me. He was in shock. I slid back around to the front of the couch.

“Hey! Hey!Yeah, you. This is from the D.A.”

I shot him in the chest. He tried to stand, but fell over on his back, shotgun still in his hands.I checked him. Dead.

I put the Glock 43 in cousin’s left hand, the one without the cast wrapped around it. It was only right to give him back his gun.

A week later, back at home, lying low, there was a knock at my door. I was still a little on edge. My snub-nose 38 was in my pocket holster. I pulled it out and stepped towards the door, but from the left side. I slowly bent over to look through the peephole.It was the D.A. Was she going to give me a name in person? She had retired. Was she there to warn me that they had evidence on me from one of my jobs?

“Joe…Joe, I can hear you moving around in there, old man.Open the door,” Connie said.

“What are you doing here,” I said as I opened the door.“You can’t be seen here.”

“Joe, first, close your mouth before the flies get in.Second, let me in and shut the door.”

“Right…come on in.”

Connie was straight lipped and she looked down as she talked.

“You’ve got bad news for me,” I said.

“No…No, it’s not that. That job couldn’t have ended better. You’ll have to tell me how you pulled it off.”

“It was the quick and the dead. The quick and the dead. And some luck.”

“The quick and the dead?”

“Yeah…It doesn’t matter.Really, it doesn't anymore. Why are you here. You need help?”

“Yes, I suppose I do. I’ve been thinking about my retirement. I’m already lonely and I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m not good at free time. Not sure I’ve ever tried. And I’ve pushed everyone away, even you, the only one who really understands me. All I had was work, but I can’t do it anymore. So, I was wondering…I wanted to ask you if you would consider giving us another chance?This all sounds so pitiful when I hear myself say it. Worse than I thought it would. I know this will be a hard choice for you to make. Do you want to think it over?”

“It’s not a hard choice. Actually, it couldn’t be easier. From the beginning, Connie, when it came to loving you, I didn’t have a choice.”