The Trouble Boys
Page 25
“Her mother paid that babysitter a good amount of money to watch her. Let’s go to a bar and relax.”
Colin nodded but he quietly wondered why Max was now being less protective of Catherine and Violet.
“Did Sean really say Cathy could go in on her own?” he asked.
“Of course he did,” Max replied. “Why would I lie?”
True, Max had no reason to lie.
“I heard of this place down the street,” Max said. “It’s supposed to be a real pub. You look like you could use a pick-me-up.”
The sidewalks in Los Angeles were quiet and clean compared to New York. Everyone drove in L.A.
“Colin, did I ever show you my new gun?”
“I don’t believe you did.”
“Sean got it for me. He told me that when we return he’s going to buy you one, too. It’s a very decent piece. Let me show you.”
“You want to show me right here in the street?”
“Why not?”
“We’re in the middle of the street, that’s why.”
“No one’s around. No one’s going to notice.” Max removed the gun from his coat pocket. “Isn’t she a beauty?”
Colin stroked the cool, black gun. “She’s very nice.”
Bang. Bang.
The gunshots echoed in the streets and bounced off the buildings. Max had dropped the black gun to the ground and shot at Colin’s chest with a small gold pistol. He must have had a secret pocket on the inside of his suit jacket. Colin took out his gun and managed to hit Max once in the shoulder, but he fell to the ground when a third shot pierced his heart.
Colin wanted to ask “Why?” as his back met the sidewalk. He had hit his head when he fell and he could feel it bleeding onto the street. He moved his lips but his voice didn’t seem to work. The more he bled, the more his mind seemed to fade. Soon he became drowsy. But he wasn’t going to lie to himself. It hurt. It hurt a lot. Getting shot hurt like hell. Right then he would have traded places with an ordinary man and given up the years he had lived in glory as a gangster in New York City. It hurt so bad he would have traded places with a Bowery vagrant.
Max glanced at him. He didn’t talk but the glance said everything. Now that McCarthy had gotten what he wanted, and Tom and the rest of his men were gone, he didn’t need Colin anymore. Was Max sympathetic? Colin couldn’t tell.
A blue car pulled up alongside the sidewalk and Max hurried inside with his hand pressed to his bleeding shoulder. A young woman with long, dark hair drove off. Catherine. There was no audition.
Colin lay sprawled on the warm Los Angeles sidewalk, blood pooling around his body. Looking up at the clear blue sky he thought about his life as he embraced death. How his father had cut his own life short because he couldn’t handle the grim existence that had been handed down to him. Of his childhood friend whom he had once loved like a brother yet hadn’t saved, a friend who had tried to warn Colin about his own fate. How Sean McCarthy had ended everything for him, and his beautiful daughter had helped. Of Sheila, who’d told him every day that she loved him, and Camille—who would take care of them now? He wondered what Sheila would think when she found Lucille’s rosary beads in his dresser.
He didn’t want to stop seeing that clear blue sky, and so he forced his eyes open every so often as he bled. A crowd gathered.
“Someone call an ambulance.” The man in a tan coat and black hat bent down and looked over Colin’s face and wounds. “He’s dying!”
“There’s a phone in the diner up the street,” said a plump woman wearing a green dress with white pearls.
Colin smiled. Things had turned out for him the way they had to. Some don’t have choices, and he knew this firsthand. Some are born into the life they will lead forever. Colin’s eyes felt warm and wet, and when he touched them he saw blood on his fingertips. He left this earth with sirens approaching and a newsman with a camera snapping his picture. He closed his eyes for the final time. Even Colin knew what a terrific headline his death would make.
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About the Author
The Trouble Trilogy
Book 1: The Trouble Boys
Book 2: The Trouble Girls
Book 3: The Trouble Legacy
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Best-selling author E.R. Fallon knows well the gritty city streets of which she writes and has understanding of the localized crime world.