Clutching at Straws

by J. L. Abramo

  “Nonsense,” he bellowed. “I ain’t unlocking the pump ’til you hold this here gun in your hand. Careful, though—it’s loaded.”

  “Uh, that’s okay. Really…no. No, thanks.”

  “You want gas or don’t ya? Take it. Go on. Take it I say. It’ll change your life.”

  Vinny thought about the Caddy’s empty gas tank and the prospect of getting stranded in the middle of nowhere. “All right…but just for a minute.” He reluctantly accepted the weapon and considered the substantial piece of ordnance as he weighed it in his hand.

  “How’s that feel?” Buck asked with a grin. “Tell me that ain’t a better solution than a room full of slippery-tongued lawyers.”

  “Still, you really think everyone should have a gun?”

  “Damn right. Gun control ain’t nothin’ more than political horseshit. You show me a shootin’ and I’ll show you a criminal with a stolen gun. It ain’t the law-abiding types that are killin’ folks.”

  Buck’s backwoods way of thinking was getting Vinny riled up. He considered keeping quiet, but once again, he just couldn’t. “Wait a minute. What about all those poor innocent kids that got killed at the elementary school shooting? Are you trying to tell me that’s not a valid argument for gun control?”

  “Look stranger.” He seemed to be growing hot as he stuffed another chunk of steak into his mouth. A loud burp came out that made him grimace. “I don’t mind you being from up north and all, but no one’s gonna walk into my place of business and tell me who can and who can’t—” His eyes bulged and his cheeks ballooned.

  Jozelle panicked—she rushed to Buck’s side as he keeled over face-first into his plate of chicken-fried steak and gravy. “Buck! Oh my God. Oh my God.”

  “Shit. Call nine-one-one!” Vinny hollered, still holding Buck’s gun in his hand.

  Just then the sound of a gun being cocked registered in his ears and a hostile southern voice shouted, “Freeze!”

  ***

  Vinny felt his legs being swept out from under him. He barely had time to process what was going on when he slammed face-down onto the floor with a knee embedded dead center in his back. “Excuse me,” Vinny said, “there’s been a misunderstanding. You see, I’m a lawyer and—” He felt handcuffs ratcheting over his wrists. “Hey! What did I just—”

  “Shut your trap, mister.” Squawk from a handheld radio filled the air. “This is Deputy Ty Bembrey over at Buck’s fillin’ station. Better send an ambulance quick.”

  Jozelle blurted. “Buck ain’t shot. He’s choking.”

  “He’s what?” Ty asked.

  “He’s choking, Ty. Can’t you do the Heineken or somethin’?”

  The deputy raced around the counter. Standing behind Buck he extended his arms as far as they would go, somehow managing to lock his fingers just below Buck’s diaphragm. He grunted and his face turned red as he administered the Heimlich, repeatedly jerking him upward with all his strength.

  Jozelle burst into tears. “The dern fool—I always tell him he don’t chew his food.”

  Vinny managed to lift his torso off the floor and attempted to crane his neck to see what was going on. His eye level had risen just enough for him to see a slab of steak come flying out of Buck’s mouth. He tried to dodge it but it smacked him squarely in the face.

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  Here is a preview from A Brutal Bunch of Heartbroken Saps, the first Love & Bullets Hookup by Nick Kolakowski…

  1.

  Listen.

  At some point, a poor sap will look at you and say, “This is the worst day of my life.”

  But as long as you have breath in your lungs to say those words, you’re not having your worst day. You haven’t even hit rock bottom, much less started to dig. You can still come back from a car wreck, or that terrifying shadow on your lung X-ray, or finding your wife in bed with the well-hung quarterback from the local high school. Sometimes all you need to solve your supposedly world-ending problems is time and care, or some cash, or a shovel and a couple of garbage bags.

  If you see me coming, on the other hand, I guarantee you’re having your worst day. Not to mention your last.

  Let me show you how bad it can get. How deep the hole goes. And the next time your idiot friend says something about worst days, as the two of you stand there watching his house burn down with his pets and one-of-a-kind porn collection inside, you can tell him this story. It might even shut him up.

  Let me tell you about Bill, my last client.

  2.

  Bill awoke, as one sometimes does, dangling upside-down over a pit, ankles wrapped in heavy chains, sweat stinging his eyes, head throbbing like a dying tooth. He heard a dog bark in the night, and the muted roar of what he guessed was the Interstate, but the only light came from a bare yellow bulb bolted to a corrugated-metal shed far below.

  Had he ever woken up in a more dangerous position? Bill racked his brain, recalling maybe five years ago when he’d opened his eyes to find both barrels of a 12-gauge shotgun staring back, the trembling weapon brandished by a cuckolded husband. (Only Bill’s incredible gift for gab had gotten him out of that situation with his guts lead-free.) Or the time he dozed off behind the wheel and his car plowed into a ditch, the crunch of metal waking him up long enough for the steering wheel to whack him unconscious. He still had the scar on his chin from that one.

  Even so, his current situation was a gold-medal contender for Crappiest Ever. His arms, twisted hard behind his back and bound at the wrists, tingled from lack of blood. They had secured the chain around his ankles with a jumbo padlock, hard to pick even if he had the tools, or could bend upwards enough to reach it.

  He turned his head away from the bulb, letting his eyes adjust to the dark. Forty feet below, the pit bristled with huge shapes, hard angles; the faint moon glinted silver on the curve of a car windshield. If he fell down there, some piece of rusted-out machinery would turn him into a bit of raw meat on a shish-kabob.

  “At least I still have my clothes on,” he muttered into the breeze.

  “Not for long,” came a familiar voice, followed by a high-pitched squeal of laughter. The bartender. Of course. Bill shook his head like a Magic 8-Ball, hard, until memories of the recent past floated to the surface.

  3.

  What does three million dollars buy you?

  A Ferrari for every day of the week.

  A house so big, you would need a megaphone to yell across the living room, unless you lived in New York City or San Francisco, in which case that money might only buy you a luxurious closet in a building with a doorman.

  A life of first-class airplane tickets, champagne by the bucketful, steaks carved from cattle massaged and pampered better than a trophy wife.

  Freedom, in other words.

  When Bill stole those millions from the Rockaway Mob, he thought it would buy him liberation so complete, it would eliminate every concern from his mind, forever. Instead he found himself gripped by a fear so pure, it soaked his shirt with a constant ooze of sweat.

  The only thing standing between him and a gruesome death was his spectacularly anal-retentive escape plan. Any enforcer who kicked in the door of his apartment, ready to yank Bill’s tongue through a new hole in his neck, would find empty rooms. Bill’s Lexus would stay parked on Ocean Avenue until the city towed it away. Not even his girlfriend had any idea he left.

  Bill drove southwest in a secondhand lime-green convertible purchased for cash, with a couple of stolen identities in his wallet and a black canvas duffel bag stuffed with twenty-dollar bills in the trunk. The folding money would cover his expenses until he settled down in his new home in the tropics. The nest egg was safe in an online account.

  For the first two days on the road he stopped for nothing except gas and energy drinks that tasted like robot piss. He traded his everyday uniform of expensive suits and designer shoes for a forgettable outfit of faded jeans and a g
ray T-shirt, although he kept his favorite pair of boots, calfskin leather and suede with tone-on-tone stitching. He had walked a lot of good miles in that thousand-dollar footwear, and he thought it might help him trod a few more.

  He also refused to give up his favorite Piaget Altiplano, telling himself the watch would convert to currency if things went sideways on the trip south. It glimmered on his wrist as he drove, every tick of its second hand a blessing. For the first time in his rough life, he had a shot at hours, days, years of peace.

  That is, if he lived through this little cross-country drive.

  On the second night, finally needing to sleep for a few hours, he paid for a cheap motel room in cash and shoved a chair under the doorknob, caught some shuteye in the bathtub with his pearl-handled revolver within arm’s reach.

  Once he made it to Texas, he would link up with his contact, El Rey, who would escort him south to Galveston and put him on a fishing boat bound for the Caribbean. A crew down there would give him protection for a nominal fee, all pre-arranged.

  On the evening of the third day, with the faint lights of Tulsa in his rearview mirror, Bill reviewed his mental checklist: arrive in Austin, strip the license plates from the car and dump it, and meet El Rey in a barbeque joint a block south of the convention center.

  That was the plan, at least. His car had other ideas. As Bill accelerated to seventy, it began shimmying and bucking like a spooked horse, the dashboard dials swinging red. Cursing, slamming his fist against the steering wheel, Bill looked around for a place to turn off.

  As if summoned by his panic, a billboard loomed out of the dark. “Eat this 72-OUNCE MONSTER in ONE HOUR,” read the red words overlaying a truck-sized hunk of sizzling beef, “and it’s FREE at SHARTLEY’S. Take Next Exit.”

  Roadside restaurants usually have garages or service stations nearby, Bill thought. If all those are closed, I’ll grab something to eat, hope the car cools down or whatever. I only need these wheels for another four hundred miles.

  To his dismay, the bottom of the exit ramp offered a fat load of nothing. On his left stood a couple of crumbling farmhouses and a boarded-up box store. On his right, in the distance, the glowing speck of the restaurant. At least the car’s rodeo leaps had settled down to a steel-rattling tremor.

  As Bill eased the car toward the restaurant, his phone rang. That was odd: the device was a burner, purchased for cash in a drugstore near the Holland Tunnel, and the one person who knew the number also knew not to call for another few days. His throat tight, Bill answered: “Yo.”

  “Surprised?” asked a gravelly voice.

  Bill swerved, almost barreling off the road.

  “Bill, Bill, Bill.” A chuckle like a meat grinder on a low setting. “You really thought you were going to get away with it, didn’t you? Dear boy, you’re not as slick as you think you are.”

  “What happened to Jimmy?” And the money Jimmy laundered for me, Bill almost asked.

  “Gee, I don’t know. He disappeared, I guess. Who knows if we’ll hear from him again?”

  Jimmy used to joke that one day he would end up swimming with the fishes, but the Rockaway Mob’s favorite dumping ground was a weedy stretch of nothing that everybody called The Hole. If you were lucky, the cops found your body before the stray dogs did.

  “Tell me why I’m not hanging up,” Bill said.

  “Pop’s pretty wounded.” A theatrical sigh. “You know how much it hurts him, you doing something like this? He’s blinking something fierce. He put a lot of trust in you.”

  Just ahead, a red neon sign on a tall pole announced ‘SHARTLEY’S.’ Below the lettering, a bright yellow arrow pointed out a driveway. Bill turned into it. “I’m hurt that he’s hurt,” he said. “Maybe it’ll help if he considers it a gift to me. For services rendered.”

  The rough voice broke into rougher laughter: “You think you still have the money? Champ, we got the money. And we got Jimmy, too.”

  “You’re lying,” Bill piloted the beast into the nearest parking spot and shut down the stuttering engine, his fingers so numb it took three tries to twist the ignition off.

  “I’m not.” That laughter again. “It was a big mess. Get ready.”

  “You won’t find me,” Bill said, thinking of his trunk with its duffel bag full of money, along with the pistol.

  “You’re wrong about that one,” the voice said, and clicked off.

  Bill stared through the windshield at the greasy temple of Shartley’s, its neon trim staining the pavement bloody. Through the restaurant’s steamed-up windows, he spied the elements of a true dive: the walls covered with battered license plates and beer signs, the booths full of heads-down truckers shoveling food. It looked like the perfect place for cool beer, which he needed in gallons at the moment.

  “I’m so sorry, Jimmy,” Bill said to the night, and exited the car. From the trunk he retrieved a linen jacket, which he slipped on before unzipping the side pocket of the duffel bag, removing the pistol. After checking the clip, he stuffed the weapon down the back of his jeans, the grip hidden by the edge of the jacket. If they corner you, he thought, save the last bullet for your brain. No way you let them tear you apart.

  4.

  I’ve always hated the word “killer.”

  And don’t get me started on “hitman.”

  A few months before we divorced, my now ex-wife asked how I could live with myself. How I could fire a bullet, or press a button, or toss a radio into a bathtub, and end somebody’s existence.

  If not me, I told her, then something else would have terminated those people: a heart attack, or cancer, or maybe a nice fiery car crash. I’m just the vessel, a way for the natural order of things to express itself. “I don’t worry whether I’m a bad man,” I added, “any more than a hurricane worries about the damage it causes.”

  I would have added a little something about the ultimate meaninglessness of existence, except I noticed she’d already fallen asleep. The story of our marriage, in one priceless interaction.

  In those corny action movies that play on cable in the wee hours, the killers dress in black suits and carry violin cases heavy with rifle parts. I always preferred to look as messy and forgettable as possible when out on a job, meaning a standard uniform of faded baggy jeans, a flannel button-down over an old T-shirt with a funny but inoffensive slogan, and a pair of thick glasses. I let my hair grow long, but not rocker-long: just a couple of scraggly inches to suggest a total lack of care.

  “If you were interested at all in preserving our marriage,” my wife said, toward the end, “you’d spend more time looking presentable. And would it kill you to work out a bit?”

  I had spent the previous night in The Hole, dealing with one of my employer’s accountants. The man wanted to live, but I had other ideas. Even after I pumped four bullets in his back, he kept crawling through the weeds, as if he had a chance of reaching the road at the end of the field. My fifth bullet won that race.

  “Hey, I get exercise,” I told her.

  She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. You do reps with a vodka bottle, is how you exercise.”

  A week later, she left me. One of my colleagues joked about finishing her off (“How do hitmen get divorced?” he asked, slapping my back. “With a hacksaw!”), but I had no intention of ending her existence on this miserable rock. What was the point? If she told the world what I did to make ends meet, she would need to explain how she lived with me for so many years without running to the police, and that would make every Thanksgiving really, really awkward for the rest of her life.

  I took her departure hard. On a recent morning, while cleaning my guns in the garage, I shoved my newly reassembled .44-caliber revolver in my mouth, loaded, just to see how the barrel tasted as it rubbed against my palate. The gunmetal thick on my tongue, I felt a little tingle of fear in my gut, and that was good. It meant I wanted to live, rather than practice Russian Roulette after breakfast every morning.

  As I pulled the pistol out of my mou
th, my phone rang. I placed the weapon on the bench beside me and answered it. “Yeah?”

  The voice was rocky as ten miles of dirt road: “You available for some tax work?”

  “Not for another two months,” I said.

  “Sorry, wrong number.” Click.

  I put away my gun-cleaning kit and drove over to Long Island City, at the edge of the East River, where the industrial yards and ratty Irish bars of my youth had given way to gleaming glass condos and overpriced gastro-pubs. I headed into the Pot O’ Gold, the last true bit of scum on this particular toilet bowl, and found a seat across from the Dean, dressed as usual in one of his natty three-piece suits. On the table sat a large plate of shucked oysters, half of them already eaten. I had to hand it to the man: why bother trying to prove your courage in a shootout when you can order the shellfish in an establishment where the cockroaches are big enough to work an NFL defensive line?

  “How goes it?” The Dean always sounded like he swallowed a wad of sandpaper every morning, his syllables rough yet velvety.

  “Oh, you know, divorced, drinking too much, can’t sleep. The usual.”

  The Dean was not in a joking mood. “Are you becoming a problem?”

  “Just to myself,” I said. “So what’s next? Jimmy’s settled.”

  His eyebrows arched. “Um, Bill’s still drawing breath, when last I checked.”

  “I prefer if you used someone else for that one,” I said, and meant it. I’d always admired Bill’s disregard for keeping a low profile. You needed a pair of shiny brass ones to go out the door every morning and rip people off while dressed like a magazine model.

  The Dean shrugged. “Jimmy tell you what they did?”

  “All Jimmy said to me was ‘no’ and ‘I don’t want to die.’ Like he had a choice. From what you told me before, I know they took some money.”