Reed Coleman - They Don't Play Stickball in Milwaukee

“That’s on your head, Mr. Klein. If you had spent more time looking for your nephew and less time chasing a piece of skirt, your friend would still be drawing breath. It was you who presented us with the opportunity. We simply took it.”

No matter the situation, chatting reduces the level of tension in a room. That’s how I managed to get my fist into Dallenbach’s teeth without interference. Some of his teeth splintered. Normally, I might have felt some of the jagged enamel dig into the skin of my knuckles, but I was way too preoccupied with the bullet ripping through the top of my left shoulder to notice pieces of broken teeth. Christ, it burned like acid on fire inside me. The floor reached up and yanked me down hard. I forgot how to breathe and why. The shot’s report rang in my ears.

“Not in here!” Dallenbach screamed, spitting out blood and bits of his teeth. “You nearly shot me, you fool!”

George enjoyed being called a fool almost as much as he liked being called a type.

“I just clipped him,” George did speak. “And I didn’t come close to hitting you.”

Zak and MacClough, his hands still cuffed, came to attend to me.

“Leave him!” Dallenbach had completely lost his sense of humor. “We’ve wasted enough time, Mr. MacClough. Where’s the disc?”

“Fuck you, asshole! There is no disc.”

I winced for MacClough, expecting George to punish him for his delightful use of the English language. But George wasn’t smiling, flashing his fists, nor pistol-whipping anyone just now.

“Oh, God, not that again. I warn you, my patience is at low ebb.”

“It wouldn’t matter if your patience were at neap tide,” MacClough laughed, “there is no disc.”

“If you’re stalling for time, Mr. MacClough,” Dallenbach said, grabbing the 9mm out of George’s hand, “you needn’t bother. The cavalry isn’t coming. I’m afraid that DEA agent who’s been following Mr. Klein about had a rather nasty accident in the fire at Cyclone Ridge. Unless you’ve got an in with Ezekiel, and can conjure up charred bones, no one’s coming to your rescue.” Dallenbach ejected a bullet from the gun’s chamber for dramatic purposes, pointed it at Johnny’s heart and began counting backwards from ten: “Ten. . nine. . eight. . seven. . six. . five. . four. . three. . two-”

The spring-loaded door flew open, clanging against the wall. Zak and John jumped. I was already so wired that I barely reacted. Dallenbach, however, and his two boys seemed unfazed. I thought I saw Dallenbach check his watch. Two men-one dressed in a loose-fitting trench coat, the other in a full-length vicuna coat-came into the tunnel.

“You’re late,” Dallenbach tapped his wrist.

“Fuck you!” vicuna coat said, “these fuckin’ tunnels get me all whacky. It’s like a fuckin’ sci-fi movie down here, people livin’ in tunnels and shit. Hey,” he screwed up his face, “what the fuck happened to your face, you suckin’ on concrete lollipops or what?”

“One of your partners?” John surmised.

“Actually, Mr. Lippo’s one of their representatives. How ever did you guess?” Dallenbach wondered, tongue in cheek.

“With that vocabulary it had to be a toss-up between a wise-guy and Werner Von Braun. Since Von Braun’s dead. .”

“Shut the fuck up!” Lippo ordered. “These the guys?”

“Those three, yes,” Dallenbach confirmed, “but not yet. They have some information I need.”

“Bullshit! The boss says I gotta whack ‘em, I whack ‘em. He didn’t say nothin’ about waitin’ time. And you,” he glared at Dallenbach, “I’m supposed to teach you a lesson.”

“What,” the dean’s voice was breaking, “could you possibly teach me?”

Lippo looked at Zak, Johnny, and me. “Which one of youz girlfriend’s got whacked?”

“Me,” I said, propping myself up.

“That shouldn’t’a happened,” Lippo said. “That was sloppy like every other fuckin’ thing around here.”

“Thanks for the sympathy.”

“Gino!” Lippo snapped his fingers and held out his hand. Gino placed a.38 police special in Lippo’s hand. “Here!” Lippo held the gun out to me. “Go ahead, kill either one a those two pricks. And don’t get no ideas. Gino boy’ll cut you down before you fart the wrong way.”

Suddenly, my left shoulder didn’t hurt so much. I took the gun and swung the tip of the barrel between George and Jerry. George looked particularly unhappy, but not especially frightened. Jerry, on the other hand, was a whisper away from begging. I picked Jerry. Dying at my hand would have no special significance to George.

“Okay,” Dallenbach threw his hands up, “I get the point. We shall endeavor to be more careful in the future. Now take that gun away from Klein and let’s get on with this.”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Lippo puzzled. “I ain’t jokin’. Go ahead and kill the prick,” he urged me.

Dallenbach was sweating now.

“Don’t!” MacClough shouted. “Don’t do it, Klein. It’ll stay with you forever.”

I pulled the hammer back on the.38.

“They’re gonna kill us, Dylan. You’re just makin’ it easier for them to have it look like we all went down in a gun-fight between us and Dallenbach’s boys.”

“Hey, shut the fuck up,” Lippo warned MacClough.

“Don’t, Dylan!”

I began to nudge the trigger toward me. Bang! The shot went off and I went down, MacClough on top of me. The slug ricocheted off the concrete. Everyone hit the floor who wasn’t there already. A light bulb exploded, its glass sprinkling down. The.38 was out of my hand. It was a long few seconds.

“Get up!” Lippo demanded.

We obliged. But when we got up, the.38 was in Jerry’s shaking right hand. He pointed it at the spot where Lippo’s vicuna coat fell away from his heart. Lippo ignored him, brushing the concrete dust off his lavish overcoat.

“Goddammit! I just had this thing cleaned.”

And as he finished his sentence, there was a sort of muffled spitting sound, a puff of smoke, and Jerry collapsed backwards. He lay all twisted like an ill-constructed jigsaw puzzle, a look of utter surprise on his dead face. Blood pooled where his right eye used to be.

“The other one, too,” Lippo said almost too nonchalantly.

George smiled, began laughing in an odd, strangled sort of way. He was not going to go quietly into that good night. He charged. He didn’t get too far; three feet maybe. But because he had been a moving target, Gino hadn’t managed to make clean work of it. The belly of George’s skin-tight ski suit was a crimson mess. He writhed in pain on the floor, trying to hold his guts in place. Lippo calmly removed his coat, handing it to Gino, and grabbed the Glock out of Dallenbach’s fear-frozen right hand. He placed his shoe on George’s throat and pressed down hard enough to steady George’s twisting.

“Here’s dessert,” Lippo said, placing the gun barrel to George’s heart. “Prick!”

As the shot went off a wave went through George’s body. I almost expected the floor to shake. Dallenbach was white. I’m not sure whether it was fear or grieving or what.

“I really do get the lesson now,” he managed to say. “So, can we please get on with it?”

“I’m a cop,” MacClough said. “You wanna kill a cop?”

“Retired over ten years ago,” Dallenbach, feeling more his old self, retorted. “No one will send out the National Guard, if your body should turn up.”

“I don’t like whackin’ cops. My brother-in-law’s on the job. But this ain’t my headache. C’mon,” he said, waving the 9mm at us, “let’s everybody go for a nice walk.”

“What about them?” Dallenbach wondered about the late George and Jerry.