almost okay

SEVERAL DEATHS IN
THE FAMILY
Chapter Two: A Shot, A Beer & A Flesh Wound

I inspected the cut and doused it with alcohol. It wasn't as bad as it looked or even as bad as it felt, but still plenty bad enough. It probably could have used some stitches, but the butterfly bandages I'd bought at Rite Aid would have to do. The wound was about four inches long running horizontally across the left side of my chest, right below the nipple and way too close to my heart for comfort. I peeled the bandages out of their wrappers, held the cut together with my left hand while I stuck four of them across the span with my right, careful to keep pressure to the center and prevent the wound from opening any further. The gash was deep enough to expose a gory bit of fat, but luckily, the knife hadn't sliced into the muscle. I covered the whole thing with a wide strip of gauze and taped it down.

Then I grabbed another Tecate and tried to figure out exactly what had gone wrong...

I had parked my rental car in the gravel lot of the bar where I was supposed to find my first target. It was happy hour and I'd just finished a nap at the Days Inn on Marietta Parkway, just west of I-75. Despite being anxious to get the first one under my belt, I was able to put in a good two hours of sleep and woke up a little after four, refreshed, focused and fearless. With the help of a Yahoo map, I was on site in a matter of minutes.

There were only a handful of vehicles in the lot and I quickly spied the gold Escalade that I was told would be there parked around the side and near a pair of well-traveled choppers. The plate matched the number I'd been provided. A piece of cake, I thought. Casually I walked over to the car, dropped to the ground and slid underneath, careful not to bump into it just in case the alarm had been set. I inched my way back to the right rear wheel and cut the brake line with a pair of side cutters, pinched the severed end that connected to the brake, then wrapped the end that went to the master cylinder with duct tape to delay the loss of brake fluid. Then I cut the cable to the emergency brake. The idea was for the brakes to fail after the vehicle had been driven for a while, the fluid acting as a solvent for the glue on the tape and eventually allowing enough to be pumped out so that at some point, hopefully while the driver was speeding up to a stop sign or coming off a freeway exit ramp, the peddle would go all the way to the floor and the car would crash.

According to the boss, it was okay if the accident didn't kill him, or anybody else for that matter. It was just a warning, “...kinda like that time the Godfather put that horse's head in bed with that guy,” he'd said. “Ha, ha! Remember that?” If somebody did die, so be it. If not, the message would still be sent, loud and clear. I really didn't give two shits either way.

It was a beautiful afternoon. The sun was blazing and it felt every bit of the eighty-six degrees they had predicted for the day's high. I was thirsty and figured a cold one was in order, so I dusted myself off and walked inside, proud of my handiwork.

The place was a dump. It was dark as a cave and reeked of cigarettes, bleach and vomit. As I passed the bar I waved to the bartender and ordered. “Tecate and Don Julio, my man. I just have to freshen up.” Half way down the bar sat a group of tattooed Mexicans drinking beer and watching rodeo on a small television suspended from the ceiling in the back corner of the room. A couple more Mexicans were playing pool. According to my stat sheet, the taller one was the target, the owner of the Escalade I'd just rigged. None of them seemed to pay me any attention. “Restroom?” The bartender pointed to the back, just around the pool table. My hands were a little dirty from the brake fluid and my bladder was badly in need of emptying, so I headed straight back.

Once inside the men's room, I saw that the urinal was clogged and filled to the point of overflowing with piss, so I stepped around the puddle beneath it to get to the toilet stall. Inside the bowl floated wads of toilet paper and some foul-looking chunks of crap. I made a game of trying to cut the paper in half with my stream, tried to read the graffiti, but gave up because most of it was in Spanish. After adding my bladderful to the mess, I zipped up and noticed a shadow on the side of the stall to my right. Instinct took over and I spun quickly, only to be met by one of the Mexicans I'd passed on the way in. It turned out to be none other than the target himself, and he moved like a cat, slashed at me with a roundhouse right while holding in his fist a six inch blade that had my name written all over it. I jumped back into the corner as the blade swept over my chest, cutting through the bottom of my shirt pocket causing the rental car keys to fall directly into the filthy toilet. The Mexican slashed again and I ducked. He lunged at me blade first and when I moved aside the point penetrated the metal panel of the toilet stall, getting stuck momentarily and giving me time to act as he twisted it around in an attempt to wrench it free.

I threw my right arm over his wrist and kicked up with my left knee against the back of his elbow. The joint gave way with a sickening crack and he groaned, but kept pawing at me. I drove stiff fingers into his throat, two swift jabs and he dropped to his knees, choking. With his good hand he reached for the knife, which was still lodged in the wall, but I got there first, pulling it out and slashing it across his face in a single motion, his cheeks turning instantly to gory flaps of flesh, blood spurting from his face and mouth. He reached up one last time and I plunged the blade into his chest. With his last breath, the Mexican pulled the handle on the toilet and I helplessly watched as the water swirled... the wads of toilet paper, the shit, my keys... all disappeared down the drain with a gurgling belch.

I checked his pockets and found the keys to the Escalade, punched the prick hard in the nuts hoping he could feel one more last bit of pain before he died for flushing away my goddamn car keys, then did a quick rinse in the sink, calmed my breathing and hightailed it towards the exit. The guys at the bar were still intent on the rodeo and the dead Mexican's pool partner was standing behind them leaning on his cue. My shirt was slashed and spattered with blood, but I was banking that nobody would notice in the cave-like darkness if I just stayed cool.

I walked to the front where my beer and shot sat, dropped a twenty on the bar. “Keep the change,” I said as I dumped the tequila down then chugged the beer. “Gotta run,” I said. “Hot date.” I managed to smile as I walked out the door, but knew I only had seconds to make my getaway before one of the Neanderthals realized what had happened.

Once I was in the parking lot, I tipped over the choppers, then fired up the Cadillac. By the time I roared out onto the street throwing gravel behind me with all four wheels, I could see the Mexicans running at me in the rear-view. One of them was brandishing a pistol. Holding my breath and keeping my fingers crossed that the brakes would last until I was safe, I sped down the road towards my hotel.

The bar was only a mile or so from the Days Inn, but by the time I got to the hotel, the brakes were shot, the pedal squishing all the way to the floor as I rolled down the steep driveway, then squealed around the corner to the back of the building, eventually bumping into a dumpster in order to come to a stop. I turned my head and closed my eyes on impact in case the air bag went off, but got lucky.

After cleaning up and putting on a fresh shirt, I checked out and called a cab. The driver took me to a Rite Aid, a liquor store, then deposited me at the Sundowner Motel, just a stone's throw down Marietta Parkway on the other side of the freeway. I tipped him forty bucks and told him to forget he'd ever seen me. He smiled and nodded, showing off a big gold tooth right up front and assuring me that I could trust him. I really wanted to, but at the moment I was pretty short on that commodity.

Why had that Mexican attacked me at the bar? It didn't make any sense. I drank my fifth can of Tecate and watched the sun go down over the power lines and the billboards outside the window of my new room. It could have been random, I told myself, but it just didn't feel like that. No, somehow he had been expecting me. And if this guy knew I was coming, odds are targets two through five would be ready and waiting for me, too.

There were still a lot of unanswered questions, but one thing was for damn sure: I'd been made. And if I couldn't figure out the how and why, I'd probably never live to sleep in my own bed again.