Try Harder

8:00pm

Dwayne let out a primal scream that was long, loud and full of rage. He kicked over two big pails of paint primer, spilling gallons of the white slop all over the hardwood floor. He picked up a desk lamp and flung it against the wall, punching a hole in the plaster. He was a destructive force of nature, spinning around the room like the Tasmanian Devil.

Buff didn't bother trying to calm him down. He let Dwayne throw his little tantrum, if only to get the fury out of his system. He understood the young man's anger – if he'd just been told his only brother was dead, he'd probably react the same way.

He leaned against the far wall, standing over Kane's body. After bringing it up here to the seventh floor, he dragged it out of the elevator and rolled it onto a big white painter's tarp. The bloody remains were wrapped up like an Egyptian mummy.

N-Dig sat on the floor back by the elevator, as far away from the corpse as possible.

There was a booming crash as Dwayne overturned a large desk. A flurry of papers flew up into the air and floated to the floor.

"I'll kill him!" he screamed. "I'm going to murder the bastard!"

"I know," Buff replied, calmly. "I'm going to let you."

Those words gave Dwayne pause, and he stopped his rampage momentarily. He was audibly panting, his barrel chest heaving up and down.

"You can do whatever you want to him," Buff continued, "just keep him out of our way. He's going to ruin the plan."

He walked over to Dwayne and put a sympathetic hand on the young man's shoulder, whose eyes were welling up with tears.

"Just be careful," he said. "N-Dig said this guy has a gun."

Dwayne snickered and shook off Buff's hand. He arched his back and lifted the bottom of his shirt. Neatly tucked into the waist of his pants was the small black and silver handgun Big Frank had given him. The sleek, polished barrel shimmered in the fluorescent light.

"So do I," he said, pulling it out and twirling it around his index finger like an old gunslinger. The look in his eye indicated that he wasn't afraid of using it.

"You've got a gun," Buff said, dumbstruck. He looked unhappily surprised.

"No guff," scoffed Dwayne.

"Where the hell did you get a gun?"

"Big Frank gave it to me, eh?"

"What?! Why? I said no guns."

He reached forward and tried to take the gun from Dwayne's hand, but the young man pulled away. He seemed offended.

"I don't care what you said, bud," he spat. "I'm keeping the gun. If you've got a problem with that, you take it up with Kane."

Buff knew he was beat. There were few things more futile than trying to talk a man out of his vengeance.

He was not happy about leading a team of armed men. He knew from experience that if they were caught, the mere fact that they had firearms with them would more than double their sentence. That's why he explicitly demanded no one carry any guns on this heist. He wanted to tear a strip off Big Frank for bringing weapons after he'd promised he wouldn't, but Buff was too scared of the menacing brute to challenge him. At this point, it was best to just let the boys have their dangerous toys and hope for the best.

He held up his hands and backed a few feet away from Dwayne.

"Okay, okay," he soothed, "that's fine. You keep the gun. I just don't want you to get hurt. We can't afford to lose anyone else."