Saint Oswald by Jay Bonansinga (always you kirsty moseley .txt) 📗

“Calm down, Bernie, we’ll have you outta there in a just a sec,” the Indian assures him. “All you gotta do is listen first.”

“Hhhmmm!”

The heavy-jowled face of the Indian slowly comes into focus, staring down at Wachowski. “Bernie, I’ll be honest with you—I was tempted to just tag you back there and be done with it.”

“Ozzy—” The girl gives the big man a little nudge in the ribs.

“Sorry, sorry.” Oswald raises his hands in surrender. “Go ahead and give him the literature, and let’s get the fuck outta here.”

“Can you sit him up?”

“Oh yeah.” Oswald reaches down into the trunk, grabs Wachowski by the lapels of his crumpled Armani jacket, and yanks him out of the container. It feels to Wachowski like he’s being wrenched up by a crane. “Have a seat for a second, Bernie, and listen up.”

Dizziness courses through the Russian as he is plopped down on the end of the tailgate like a rag doll. He blinks and blinks. He smells manure and clover and fresh-cut grass, and he hears crows rioting in the trees. Through his bleary vision, he sees they are idling on the edge of a parking lot in some rural outpost surrounded by cornfields.

To his right, a stone path leads up to a massive brick edifice with soot-charred chimneys, barred windows, and moss-eaten turrets.

“You gonna take the tape off or what?” the girl asks.

Oswald rips the duct tape off the Russian’s mouth, causing a sudden burning agony across his lower face. Wachowski refuses to succumb. He knows he is about to be put down like a lame horse, but he refuses to surrender to this boob.

He looks up at the Indian with deadpan sincerity, and speaks in a hoarse voice. “You had better make sure that you shoot straight, Red-Man.”

Oswald gives him a quizzical look. “Huh?”

“Vhen you bump me off, you must be certain that you vill complete the task, because I vill hunt you down for the rest of your life.”

Oswald tries to stifle a smirk. “Cool your pits, Bernie. Nobody’s gonna bump anybody off.” He nods at his skinny accomplice. “Make the call, and let’s give him the stuff and get outta here.”

The girl is thumbing a number into her cell phone as she talks. “Mr. Wachowski, I would appreciate it if you would try to just listen, and not talk.” She puts the phone to her ear, covering the mouthpiece and adding, “And try to listen with an open mind.”

Then she speaks into the phone: “Yes, we have a Mr. Wachowski here. Yes, that’s right, a Mr. Bernard Wachowski. We’re out front. Thank you, that would be fantastic.” She snaps the phone shut and turns back to the Russian. “Mr. Wachowski, are you familiar with the word intervention?”

Wachowski blinks and searches for words. He notices two figures in the distance, coming down the front stone steps of the institution. Both male, middle-aged, burly, and wearing white coats with laminated ID tags around their necks, they look like orderlies.

“Just give him the stuff, Gerbil. We don’t have time for this shit.”

She gives the Indian an irritated glance. “Do you mind? There’s a certain way you’re supposed to do this.”

“How would you know?”

“They put me through one of these at the coffee shop once.”

“You’re shitting me. They had an intervention for you? For what?”

“Pot-smoking—whattya think?

Oswald sighs. “Just get on with it so we can get the fuck outta here.”

The orderlies are coming down the walk, approaching with bored expressions.

Gerbil digs in a crocheted knapsack that hangs off her bony shoulder. She fishes around in it for a second. “Mr. Wachowski, you’ve hurt a lot of people over the years with your anger problems. Do you have somebody that loves you?”

The Russian stares.

Oswald grabs him by the nape and shakes him. “Answer the lady!”

“Yes—I mean no—”

“Never mind,” Gerbil says, pulling a pamphlet out of her bag, a glossy chapbook with a crucifix on the front next to a Hallmark card photo of a man smiling at a sunset. The words OWNING YOUR ANGER are etched in flowery script across the top. “I’m sure there’s somebody, Mr. Wachowski.” She stuffs the pamphlet into the Russian’s lapel pocket. “Maybe a whore, maybe a drug dealer, an ex-wife—somebody who cares about you.”

“Let’s go, c’mon,” Oswald says, grabbing the assassin by the bicep and yanking him off the tailgate.

The orderlies arrive. They pause at the curb with studied calm, like lion tamers, and look at Wachowski and then at Oswald. “This the gentleman?”

“This is the man of the hour.” Oswald hands over the still-shackled Russian to the orderlies. “Keep an eye on him, boys, he’s got major issues.”

“Will do,” says the older orderly, a guy with a Marine haircut.

They turn and usher the Russian back up the walk toward the building.

Wachowski, shuffling compliantly along with them, glances over his shoulder with a bewildered expression.

Oswald and Gerbil are already climbing back into the S-10, their doors banging shut behind them.

Slamming the truck into gear, Oswald steps on it and peels away, making a quick, screeching U-turn around the cul-de-sac at the end of the lot, and then heading back the way he came in a thunderhead of exhaust. He rolls down his window—as they pass out of view—his voice just loud enough for the Russian to hear. “Good luck, Bernie, we’re rooting for you!”

They get back to Gerbil’s Wicker Park flat at dusk, exhausted and famished. Oswald pops a few codeine tablets and then checks his email, and among the dozens of penis enlargement ads and interest-free loan scams, he finds a message waiting for him from the low-rent private investigator whom he hired two weeks ago to keep an eye on suicide prevention lines and mental health clinics:

Something Interesting Through The Grapevine

Joe Poovey to you—yesterday

Chief—

How ya hanging in there? I heard about your wife. Justine told me. Sad sad thing. Just checking in and wondering how everything is going, and also wondering when you think you’re going to be getting me that