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

He feels feverish. Dizzy. “Okay, okay, look... look. The ones you’re questioning are the kid in the tree with the sniper rifle and the Candy Man, right?”

The woman nods. “That’s right. Those two are definitely grey areas.”

Oswald takes a breath. “Look... gimme a break here. They put a cap in my ass. Whattya expect?”

Matilda seems to be pondering the issue.

Oswald wipes his mouth. “What I’m saying is, your average shooter would have been all over those assholes.”

“If I may interject,” a voice chimes in from behind Oswald. “The man does have a point.”

Oswald glances over his shoulder.

The dead accountant is wringing his hands nervously, his eye twitching behind his broken eyeglasses, as he respectfully addresses the ghost of Matilda. “If you’ll pardon the impertinence, ma’am, the Indian did show a modicum of self-control.”

“Shut up, Murray!” barks the Head-Wound Guy. “This is none of our business.”

“The accountant’s right,” the dead drug dealer speaks up. “Maybe the big guy deserves, like, a little credit here. I mean, people change. Right?”

“This is ridiculous,” grumbles the Head-Wound Guy, looking away.

Matilda finally speaks up. “Okay, everybody just relax. Take some deep breaths. I’m going to have to get a ruling. Just sit tight for a second.”

Oswald’s mind is swimming. “Huh?”

Something is wrong. Crouching in the shadows of a spindly poplar tree out in front of Bungalow 12-A, Gerbil feels it in her marrow. Oswald should be in there by now.

Gerbil can hear muffled giggling behind the door, and the intermittent clunk of metal, but no sign of any intervention from Oswald. Where the hell is he? It’s already after 5 o’clock. The sun is starting to set, and the shadows are deepening across the rear siding of the bungalow.

How long has she been waiting? Ten minutes? Fifteen? The longer she huddles out there in the open, the more likely it is that somebody—a maintenance guy, a maid, a cheating husband—will see her and maybe call the cops. Or worse than that, the lovebirds are going to finish up, pack up their whips and chains, and go home.

She feels like she should do something. The .38 is burning a hole in her left sock, wedged down into the top of her jackboot. Does she have the walnuts to fire the thing? Or is she kidding herself?

At last, she rises up and creeps around the side of the building.

Pushing her way through the foliage, she nearly slips on a wet carpet of leaves. She holds onto a tree for purchase, bats away a cloud of gnats in her face, and then continues on.

When she clears the rear corner of the bungalow, she sees Oswald’s body.

Lying near the service door, he appears dead, his flesh as pale as wallpaper paste.

27.

“Ozzy!”

Gerbil rushes over to the big man, dropping the revolver in the weeds and kneeling down. She cradles his head. “Ozzy? Ozzy? Can you hear me?”

Oswald lies on his back on the threshold, his stocking cap askew, his hair in his eyes. His huge head rests on the sun-faded welcome mat.

“OZZY!”

Gerbil feels the man’s big, bullish neck for a pulse, but she can’t feel anything. Her hands are shaking. He feels cold, and he looks dead. Is he dead? Oh God, is he dead? How can a person tell for sure? Gerbil racks her brain. How do they do it in the movies?

“Fuck the movies!” she mutters and pinches his nose, and after an endless, agonizing second, she feels a weak puff of air bursting out. “Oh thank God, thank God,” she murmurs, hugging his gigantic wounded head to her narrow chest. “Thank God, thank God, thank God.”

Inside the bungalow, the sound of a woman’s laughter rings out.

“You fucking asshole, Ozzy!” Gerbil shakes him, and slaps his cold whiskered cheek, and pokes his ribs. “Ozzy, wake up! Ozzy! OZZY!”

In the netherworld, Oswald is sitting by the fire, waiting for the Great Spirit Matilda the Ball Buster of wWest Chicago to make her decision, watching the flames dance and lick up through the air, when he hears a faint, echoing voice.

Ozzzzzzzeeeee.

OZZEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

The voice seems to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. Like a distant, lonely wind. Oswald looks around the sweat lodge at the others. The spirit-elders are gathered in one corner, clucking and murmuring in their complex ancient language.

Along the opposite wall, the ghosts of the dead are lined up, all of them sitting “Indian-style,” with their legs crossed, waiting silently, occasionally giving Oswald encouraging looks like a Greek chorus of aunts and uncles hoping for the best. All of them seem to be on his side except for the Head-Wound Guy.

The Head-Wound Guy just can’t get past the fact that half his face is missing because of Oswald.

AAAHHHHHHZZZZZZZZEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

The ethereal voice penetrates the walls of the sweat lodge, vibrating the air, making Oswald’s stomach clench. He is about to remark on it when he feels a cold hand on the nape of his neck. It feels like a fish-belly on his skin, and he twists around and looks up into the mournful face of Alberta Goldstein, the dead lady of the night, with her charred wig and her eye darkened by an eight-ball hemorrhage. “It doesn’t really matter how many lives you save,” she says.

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” Oswald feels a twinge of dread in the pit of his guts. “I got this one chance.”

“Only one road to redemption in this world,” the ghost tells him. “And that’s love.”

“Are you serious?”

“Giving it and receiving it.”

Oswald’s eyes are stinging. “That’s rich, coming from a street walker.”

“You can say what you want about me, but you know what I’m talking about.”

“I have no fucking idea what the fuck you’re talking about—love?—how do I do that? Matilda’s gone. It ain’t a part of the equation anymore.”

The ghost looks into his eyes. “You haven’t told her yet, have you? The most important part.”

“Whattya mean—Gerbil?—I told her everything.”

AAAHHHHHHHHHHHZZZZZZZZZZZZZEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

The ghost lets out a sad little laugh. “You haven’t told her the one thing