Tigress Ruby and Cold Al

While he was in prison, Cold Al has added more muscles to his already hefty bulk and now they were useful to pull him up the cargo container. As he peeked over the edge, a gun blasted, a bullet ricocheted inches from his hairy fingers and he slumped back to safety of the grimy floor.

The bitch was already holding the high ground.

Squeezing the gun, Al scanned the passages among the piles of crates in the warehouse. The light was dim and he could...

"Al?"

The sound. Al poked himself in the thigh with a gun barrel to snap out.

He must kill that voice.

Icy pain rolled through his stomach.

"Yes?"

"I see that box clearly. You try a move, I blast you to hell."

She would. Al taught her to shoot. Tigress Ruby was the best shot in the gang.

But the gang was no more.

"I cover both exits," said Al. "You can't leave, Ruby. Your ass is mine."

Silence.

Minutes crept by. Al listened, but she kept her position.

"We can't stay like this," said he. "Cops will come."

Nothing.

He let more minutes pass. Still no movement. A couple of strange sounds, like someone sighing. Could it be... No.

"Ruby? Are you crying?"

A shot pierced aluminum right above his head.

"You wish, you bastard. Just show yourself and I'll..."

Right. Stupid him, Tigress Ruby would rather cut her tongue out.

Still, the voice... It was not the right color, somehow.

The stomach pain doubled. If this sewer of the world was right, Cold Al would stand and protect her with his life. And he would, except...

"Ruby?"

"What?"

"Why did you betray me?"

Odd breath again.

"Al, I saved you. The guys would kill you if I didn't lead the hottest clods away. I saved your stinking skin."

"Planting me six years in a slammer. Oh, thank you."

"I did four. Thanks to you betraying me."

"I should've killed you. Which I am going to correct now."

"Idiot, if I had told them what I knew, you'd get... They'd roast you like a mad boar you are! I gave the cops a little something to show! Do you really think I couldn't have said more?"

That was not the point. She didn't understand...

"I was the boss. You betrayed me and split the gang and squealed to cops. I will kill you. That is the story."

"Well. I'm glad to see you too."

"Yeah. Me too."

Hell. Was he?

"Maybe," said Al, "the Yellow Frank was the first traitor, I think. After I finish..."

The pain cut his breath. What's wrong with him? Has he eaten something?

"Afterwards, I'll kill him."

"Do you hear yourself, Al?"

His insides on fire, hands and the gun somehow sticky. He refused what her voice was trying to wake in him.

More silent minutes passed.

"Ruby?"

Nothing.

"How come we never had any children?"

Unmistakably, the strange sound again.

"You madman, can you imagine us with children? Why, you have never told me... if you loved me! 'Cause you probably didn't! You bastard, you! I hate you!"

She didn't sound straight. She knew Cold Al doesn't talk that crap.

"You never have said it either. Not something Tigress Ruby would have said, no."

The scorching gut ache morphed into an image, a growing vision of the ruin and chasm before him, at the center of which only the black gun was solid. He panicked and hung on to it with both his hands.

"I have nothing else, Ruby. This is all I have."

There was nothing more to say.

#

Later, Al snapped from his stupor. There was a sound of movement in the corridor on one side.

He was not ready.

"Ruby?"

"Al, cops will come. I have a proposal."

"Speak." Yes, she was in the passage over there.

From nowhere jumped a treacherous impulse to hug her.

"I will come from your left, with my gun by my side. We meet in the open, like cowboys. Who remains standing, leaves. Do you have the guts?"

Through the fog, Al's mind echoed with alarms. This was wrong. Something was wrong. If nothing, she knew he would never, have never, refused a challenge. He was Cold Al, he don't run from a fight. What was she thinking?

"OK, Ruby. I'm waiting."

Tigress Ruby stepped from behind the crate. She looked him straight in the eye, her arm down, gun sideways, her inner wrist forward as was her habit. From there she would move and shoot in one fast motion, never missing. The last sight for quite a few. Cold Al has always been so proud of his wife.

Ruby was built like a kitchen cupboard, with properly strong neck and jaws. When dressed in a drab raincoat, like now, she resembled the crates in the warehouse.

That precisely made Al know he loved her. Unlike other women in his life, who partially earned him nickname Cold, Ruby stopped Al on sight. Her safe clear eyes and open face were a rock in a swamp of blood and iron, her calming voice a quiet spell in a din of curses and gun blasting.

Of course, he could never tell her.

"Hello Algernon."

"Hello Ruby."

That's it!

Ruby's hand flashed up and her gun clanked on empty. Al did not react.

She lowered the weapon slowly. Her eyes grew wet. She started to say something, but bit her lip.

The pain was burning holes in Al's belly now.

"There is no magazine in your gun, Ruby," said Al. "What are you up to?"

"You bastard."

He waited. Her tears now flowed openly, her not caring about them.

"I am ill," said Ruby. "A big one. Soon it will hurt unbearably." She swallowed. "I need you to end me."

Cold Al's mind cleared, the pain disappeared and the huge raw murderer stepped forward to protect his wench. Retreating, Tigress Ruby pulled a magazine of bullets, slammed it into her gun and reloaded.

Al loved the swift play of her hands.

"Too late now, Al. If you don't help me, I swear I'll down you and go to die somewhere else. I promise you. You know me."

And she would. His Tigress, she would.

He and her, they were like that.

"I never told you, Ruby. But you knew. Damn you, you knew."

"Of course. We both did. No time for such bullshit. Now, Al. Please."

He took another step, glaring.

"You can't ask that of me."

"Idiot, you came to kill me!"

"That's different. Before we... you..."

Ruby rolled teary eyes and wiped nose on a sleeve.

"Please, Al." She stressed every word. "I do not beg often. I count to three. Three..."

#

Shorter Leon sat behind the wheel certain the last moment to get away has long passed. Yellow Frank had crept after Tigress and Cold Al into the warehouse yard an endless half hour ago. Shots were fired immediately, and nothing was happening since.

If cops' sirens wail, Leon would so disappear, Yellow Frank or not.

"Bang!"

Shorter jumped, hurting his hand on the steering wheel.

Then a silence.

"Bang!"

Time for beating it. Leon revved the engine. A second after, a tall blonde man with ugly triangular face stepped from the warehouse yard. He looked left and right and hurried towards the car.

The car turned its back to the ferry terminal and headed towards the Market Gardens. Shorter examined Yellow's face in the rear view mirror. His boss looked pale and confused.

"Yellow, is everything all right? Did you get them?"

"What did you say?"

"Er, sorry. Frank, sir."

Yellow stared out of the window, frowning through his curls.

"Life is strange. Sometimes you win and still you feel somehow you have been tricked."

"How's that? Did you get them both?"

"No." Yellow paused. "They did each other. Sort of."

"But... Two separate shots, how?"

"Just shut up and drive."