by Greg Barth
I raised the shotgun and pressed the butt of the hardwood stock tight against my shoulder. I turned the corner of the doorway.
Several men seated at the table. A waitress stood over them pouring wine into one man’s glass.
I looked down the barrel of the shotgun, trying to find Faranacci in the crowd. I caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye. Quick movement closer to me. I covered that spot with my shotgun.
“What the fuck?” one of the men said.
A man to my right got up and moved in my direction. I pivoted the barrel his way until the bead lined up with his face. I pulled the trigger and saw his face absorb the impact of the buckshot as the stock kicked the hell out of my shoulder. Pain exploded across my chest as I absorbed the recoil.
It was worse for the man I shot. His face was ripped to shreds, his skin flapping in ragged tatters. He dropped to the floor. The acrid smell of burnt gunpowder filled the air.
Screams erupted throughout the restaurant.
I turned the barrel, trying to find Faranacci among the panicked group inside the small room.
A man in a business suit near me jumped up from his chair. I turned to him, but he ran at me too fast. He grabbed the barrel of the shotgun and pushed it to the side. I turned in the same direction with him and pulled him along with the shotgun. He was expecting resistance, so he was caught off guard. His momentum carried him through the door. I put out my leg and tripped him. He went down hard, face down on the hallway floor. He lost his grip on the shotgun barrel. I pointed the gun at him and shot him in the back.
Pistol shots erupted. The doorframe near my head exploded in splinters. I jumped back and fled up the hallway. Bullet holes dotted the wall in my wake.
I ran into the dining room. People screamed, fled their tables and ran for the door, mobile phones pressed to their ears.
I ducked behind a register stand and broke open the shotgun. I removed the spent shells and reloaded. I poked my head around the stand. Shadows in the hallway. I had no idea who was who. I hoped that the waitress was smart enough to have her head down. I jumped out and fired both barrels of my shotgun. I saw the back door open and two men run out the back. One of them was Faranacci.
Fuck!
I ran across the dining room to the front of the restaurant. I burst through the door. A long black Town Car came around the corner from the back. It sped across the lot, causing the restaurant patrons to scramble out of the way. I reloaded my shotgun.
The car came up to the parking lot entrance. I fired both barrels into the driver’s side glass as it sped by.
The car exited the parking lot and sped off down the road into the night.
I reloaded the shotgun and climbed into the truck cab. I pulled out of the lot and accelerated onto the road. I had them in sight. I pushed the throttle flat to the floor. The truck lurched and sputtered, but the cylinders began to fire and the truck picked up speed.
I caught up with them in less than a mile. The car moved erratically, crossing the double line and bounding off the curb on the right. I was certain I had injured the driver.
I sped up alongside the car. I brought the shotgun up with one hand and pointed it out the passenger side window of the truck. I fired one barrel into the car. I recovered my aim and fired the second. I turned the wheel hard to the right and bumped against the car, forcing it off the road.
I braked and brought the truck to a stop. I put it in park. I broke open the breech, removed the spent shells, and fished around in my coat pocket for fresh loads. My hand came out empty. I had no shotgun shells left.
I had left my bow behind the restaurant along the edge of the parking lot.
“Fuck,” I said. “This has to end now.”
I got out of the truck. I stood at the open door and felt behind the driver’s seat to see if Frankie had anything stashed back there that would be helpful. All I could find was a long, L-shaped metal tire tool. I grabbed it.
I walked around the truck. The car had left the road and traveled about fifty yards into an open field. It came to rest against a tree stump. I walked through the field and up to the car. My tall boots kept my legs warm, but my thighs were cold between the boot tops and the shorts.
I looked inside the shattered driver’s side window and saw the driver. He was leaning over the steering wheel, his hands pressed to his chest. His white shirt was soaked with red blood. Blood ran down from his mouth.
I looked to the passenger side and back seats. No one else in the car. The passenger side door was open. There was blood on the seat.
“I’m right back here, buttercup,” a deep voice said from behind me.
TWENTY-SIX
SELENA
Large, fat snowflakes fell from the ink-black sky.
I turned to face Faranacci. He was as I remembered him—tall, big, strong. He wasn’t carrying a weapon. It didn’t matter. He could kill me with his bare hands. The man looked like a giant.
“How did you get out of that room?” he said.
I didn’t respond.
I noticed that he was holding his side with one hand.
“Yeah, you clipped me a little,” he said.
I held up the tire tool.
He rushed at me.
I thrust the sharp end of the tool at his gut. I felt it puncture his shirt and skin. Before I could thrust it in deeper, he clipped me across the chin with a hard right hook. I saw stars.
Stunned, I jumped back to put distance between us while I recovered.
He stood there, one hand pressed to his stomach where I had poked him. Maybe I had hurt him worse than I thought.
I stepped up to him and swung the tire tool up at his face. He caught the length of it in the palm of his hand and wrenched it out of my grip. He thrust the sharp end of the tool at my chest. I stepped out of the way just in time. He recovered and swung the bar at me. I put up my hand to block, and he caught me across the knuckles with it. My fingers burned from the impact.
I stepped up to him and kicked his kneecap hard with my boot. He grunted. I followed up with a kick to his groin. He pivoted away at the last second.
He came around with the tire tool and caught me across the ear with it. My ear exploded with pain. I dropped to the ground. A loud ringing sound filled the side of my head.
He was on me then. He straddled my stomach and leaned over me. He gripped my throat with his hands and squeezed.
My field of vision grew narrow. I couldn’t breathe.
“Good night buttercup,” he said.
I reached up for his face, hoping that I could gouge one of his eyes. His arms were much longer than mine. He leaned his head back, and I couldn’t reach him.
“Don’t fight,” he said. “Just let it take you. Trust me. This is the best way. This is better for you than what I had planned. Just fade out now.”
I reached out with my hand and patted the cold grass to my side. I was feeling for a rock or a stick or something to use. I was fading fast.
I felt cold steel under my fingers. The tire tool. I gripped it. I brought it forward and plunged the sharp end of it into his side with all my might. I pushed it in as deep as I could.
I felt his grip on my throat loosen. He grunted and fell away.
I rolled over and recovered my breath. I reached over and pulled the tire tool free from his side.
I heard sirens in the distance.
I got on my knees. My ear and head hurt. My throat felt as though something was damaged inside, making it hard for me to draw breath.
I got my feet under me and stood.
I looked down at Faranacci on the ground.
I pushed the point of the tire tool against the base of his throat.
“Don’t do it,” he said. “Don’t fucking do it.”
He gripped the steel shaft with both hands. He was strong, but his hands were bloody. I leaned forward, pressing down with my full weight.
“No. No. Just wait. Wait,” he said. The point of the tool punctured his thr
oat and the rest of his words were reduced to bloody gurgles.
He choked and coughed on the blood. He relaxed his grip. I withdrew the tire tool from his throat and plunged it down again. I repeated this until his throat was a blackened pit of blood and gore and no life resided in him anymore.
When I was finished, I dropped the tire tool in the grass by his side and turned back to the road.
Everything in the night turned to blue flashing lights. A man in uniform in front of me, pointing a pistol at me. He was speaking to me, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. My ear was ringing too loud.
I fell to my knees in the grass and looked up at the sky. Large, white snowflakes drifted down from the darkness.
EPILOGUE
SELENA
When I came up to the booth, Jack was sitting on the other side of the glass. He had a phone pressed up to his ear. He wasn’t wearing his boondocker hat.
I picked up the phone on my side of the glass and put it up to my good ear.
“Hi sexy,” he said.
“Hi, yourself.” My voice was a coarse whisper.
“When you getting out?” he said.
“Oh well, let’s see. If I get F. Lee Bailey as counsel and a jury of twelve drug-addicted prostitutes, I’ll probably get out in about thirty years.”
“Let’s see to it then,” he said.
I loved his big grin.
“Jack, my dog…”
“Max is fine, darling. He misses you. I went up and got him as soon as I heard what happened. You sure know how to make the headlines.”
“Todd?”
“Our boy is going to be okay. He’s in the hospital. Mental hospital. He’s getting his meds lined up.”
“Tell him…tell him that I am so sorry.”
“Actually he told me to tell you not to apologize. He wants you to feel no guilt. He enjoyed his time with you. This is just something he has to deal with that doesn’t have anything to do with you. He needs to get this behind him.”
I nodded and looked down.
“How are they treating you in here?”
I chuckled. “It’s not bad, Jack. I didn’t come from anywhere, you know? And I didn’t get far. I never thought that highly of myself. I never had that moral compass that most people seem to be born with. I know I’ve done some bad things. I’m okay with being where I am. The only thing I miss is my mother’s cooking. My only regrets are the friends I’ve lost along the way.”
“You want me to call your mom for you? Bring her by?”
I shook my head. “She died when I was young.”
We looked at each other in silence through the glass.
“I saw on the sign-up sheet that you had another visitor today. Pete Malucci?”
“Yeah. So?”
“You know who that is, I take it?”
“Sure. He runs things,” I said.
COMING SOON…
Watch for Selena’s return in two more novellas:
DIESEL THERAPY – Cooling her heels in Federal Prison, Selena is an unwilling pawn in a deadly game played by powers beyond her understanding—her enemies are not finished hurting her. While incarcerated, she is completely under their control, and finds herself subjected to the cruelest form of punishment known to the Federal Prison System. When presented with an unexpected opportunity to right old wrongs, Selena chooses her own course—and to hell with the powers that be. But freeing herself from prison will prove to be the hardest challenge she’s faced yet. As her course twists and turns, Selena takes on the unlikeliest ally of all. She enlists hell's own soldier as she commands her own reckoning against those that have wronged her. Due from All Due Respect Books in early 2016.
SUICIDE LOUNGE – Having been promoted to a leadership position in the crime syndicate formerly decimated by her own hand, Selena is unimpressed with life as a crime boss and falls back into old habits. When a new enemy raises its sadistic head and launches an aggressive strike for Selena’s territory of control, loyalties are tested and relationships are strained. As the stakes are raised and the betrayals stack up, the only question is whether her new enemies, weak alliances, old rivals, or her oldest enemy of all—her own self-loathing and bent toward self-destruction—destroy her first. All enemies are aligned against Selena in the Suicide Lounge where she gladly puts all chips on the table and lets the dice fly. After all, Selena is a woman that believes all stories are tragedies in the end.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Greg Barth is the author of Bona Fide Jobs, Where Moth and Rust Corrupt, as well as Selena and two upcoming follow-ups, Diesel Therapy and Suicide Lounge. He lives and writes in Bowling Green, Kentucky.