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

hushing the passing jalopies in an endless drone of hissing white noise. The air smells of mold and burning iron from the foundries down in Hammond, and the clammy crackle of tension brushes up against the back of Oswald’s neck as he dodges a passing taxi and then hobbles across ancient fossilized trolley tracks embedded in the antediluvian pavement.

As he approaches the mouth of the alley, he slows down to a casual walk. His hand clutches the pistol-grip inside his belt. His heart hammers. His vision blurs. But the worst part is his stomach. The cramps and searing nausea from another day of rotgut, bad coffee, and junk food grip his insides. Tendrils of indigestion flame up his gorge and keep erupting in massive belches.

He locates the dickhead’s BMW, parked at the exact spot the Candy Man had described. Cold silver vapor light gleams down on the buffed-blue sunroof and spangles off the chrome and window glass. Cinders crunch under Oswald’s huge work boots as he circles around the car and then makes his way along the south wall of the alley toward a row of dumpsters.

“Hey, Oz. Come in—”

Oswald grabs the two-way, which is squawking in his back pocket, and he quickly thumbs the volume down. He crouches down in the shadows behind a dumpster. “Ssshhhhh, keep it down,” he hisses into the little plastic ingot.

“You told me to tell you when the—whattyacallit—the caribou—when it reaches the cave.”

“I understand, so is he there? Is he there now?”

Static crackles: “He was there a second ago. Can you hear me? Hello?”

The voice echoes faintly across the alley. Oswald turns the volume down even further. “Maybe you oughtta whisper. What do you mean he was there? Is he there or isn’t he?”

Through the speaker: “If I whisper, you’re not going to hear me.”

“Well, speak under your breath at least.”

“How’s this?”

Oswald rolls his eyes. “Fine, fine, fine, that’s fine.” He pulls the .44 Bulldog from inside his belt and starts screwing the silencer onto the muzzle in the dark. “So where is he? Where’s the fucking gerbil?—I mean the caribou!—Where is the goddamn target?”

The silencer slips out of his grasp and falls to the ground, clanging noisily in the silence with the volume of a gong being struck. Oswald cringes.

“Dude!” Gerbil’s voice crackles. “He’s coming your way—the dickweed—I mean the caribou—!”

Oswald frantically scoops up the silencer and screws it onto the muzzle with the dexterity of a drunkard, his grip slick and oily with sweat. Gas pains flare in his gut. He lets out a silent, acrid burp.

Gerbil’s voice crackles: “He’s like halfway there—I mean—the caribou has entered the—fuck!—what’s the code word—the cave!—yeah, that’s it!”

“Calm down, Gerbil,” Oswald whispers. “I got it under control, and stay off the air now.”

Oswald thumbs the dial down even further because the sound of it is going to give him away, and also because it’s driving him loony-tunes, and also because Oswald can hear footsteps coming down the alley now—slow, steady footsteps—echoing in the near distance, crunching in the cinder dust of ancient hackneys and turn-of-the-century grit. About fifty yards away now, steadily closing the distance, the footsteps echo and bounce off crumbling brick flanks. But for some reason, they sound all wrong to Oswald. They sound tentative and nervous and arrhythmic, pregnant with jitters.

And the guy is whistling.

This last realization irritates the hell out of Oswald, especially since he recognizes the tune. It’s a jingle, for God’s sake, a jingle for a dog-grooming service, the most annoying, cheap local commercial currently polluting the airwaves: A snip-snip here, a brush-brush there, your pet will shine at The Animal Fair!”

Oswald thumbs the hammer back on the Bulldog, the cylinder clicking a round into the chamber. The click echoes. Oswald holds his breath, crouching behind that dumpster, his knees screaming in pain, his stomach smoldering with nausea and gas. He gets very still as the footsteps approach.

The dick’s shadow—elongated by the streetlamp—seeps across the cracked macadam near the dumpster like an oil-slick. Oswald bites his lip as he watches the shadow slide past him and climb up an adjacent brick wall. Index finger on the trigger pad, Oswald waits.

Not yet.

The asshole comes within inches of the dumpster, and Oswald finally gets a good look at the velour-garbed man. A halo of vapor light shines down off the lawyer’s blonde hair as he lopes toward his car with that weird, tentative gait, oblivious to the hit man lurking only inches away.

Approaching the Beamer, the butt-head shoves his hands in the pockets of his skinny jeans in a very wooden, unnatural way, like he’s itching himself. Oswald gets one look at those thousand-dollar sneakers and that high-fashion haircut, and he feels a pang of something deep inside him, something like class envy.

And then a pang of something earthier and more elemental wells up inside Oswald.

And he farts.

Loudly.

Once in a while, a burst of intestinal gas can be inexorable—one of those spontaneous eruptions of flatulence that follow surgery or maybe a weekend in Tijuana—and tonight it cracks open the stillness of that alley like a balloon popping inside Oswald’s ass. The unexpected raspberry makes him jerk against the side of the dumpster, and make the hinges rattle, and Oswald knows, he knows instantly, he has blown his cover and he better get off a head-shot before the dickhead has a chance to flee.

Oswald starts rising up behind the dumpster when the douchebag fires at him.

The blast comes from the general vicinity of the BMW, and it lights up the night with a streak of silver tinsel. Oswald ducks. The bullet chews through the corner of the dumpster in a geyser of sparks, missing Oswald’s shoulder only by an inch or two.

Ears ringing, Oswald hunches down behind the dumpster with the Bulldog gripped in both hands now, the panic streaming through his brain, making him woozy. That fucking asshole has a piece on him! Goddamn it to hell, the dickhead is packing! Now Oswald has to finish this thing as soon as possible