Inachevé

Twelve - Colt and Glock

The cigarette danced between his ash-tinted fingers as his brother hand fanned a cluster of cards. A ladder of smoke ascended from his lips, putting a line of texture into the dimly lit room. His fingers stopped his smoking utensil and, with a victorious grunt, he slapped his cards onto the pool table. He gave the other players a challenging nod, daring them to have done better than him.

The player, opposite of him in every possible way besides sitting across the table, smirked. Setting his icy blue eyes on his dark opponent, he laid his cards out. The other players threw their cards in the center and rubbed their faces in grief. In a soft, but cocky tone of voice, the winner said, “Straight in diamonds.”

The angered competitor snorted and leaned forward onto the table. His dark chocolate skin glistened with sweat and his thick brows bent in fury. “Whose hand did you swap with, white boy?”

“No one’s. You can ask around if you’d like, Tyler,” the accused replied calmly, tilting his chair onto their back legs. He took out a fresh cigarette and lit it. Clicking the lighter shut, he breathed out a puff of smoke and said, “Put the heater away, give me the cash; all of you. It was a fair game.”

“We’re playing again, O’Conners.” Tyler threatened through his teeth.

Knox O’Conners eyes dropped to the small tension made in the man’s bicep muscle. He knew what was coming. With one foot, he shoved himself to the floor just in time to escape a bullet from under the table. The moment his hands found the cold concrete, he grabbed his own handgun buckled to his side. Taking it out, he ran over to the hiding spot he had located earlier before sitting down to play. 

“We got eyes on you, boy!” the enraged player announced, firing at the ceiling. The sound of boxes skidding across the floor and the multiple footsteps scattering about the room joined the orchestra of pandemonium. “Come on out and we won’t hurt you none!”

Without a word, but fulfilling the man’s request, Knox stood up from his hiding spot behind several crates and unlocked his Colt M1911A1, releasing from its powerful chamber a round of hollow-point ammunition. The silver bullets punctured through his attackers’ bodies, sending them shaking to the floor. The one person he left standing was his arch-enemy, Tyler ‘Wrecker’ Dawson. Releasing his empty magazine and pulling out a fresh one, Knox clutched the black and silver grip and slammed the new cartridge inside. Pulling the hammer back and aiming it at the other man’s head, Knox said through a calm voice, “Drop your gun and kick it away.”

Tyler, seeing he had been defeated a second time, dropped his handgun and kicked it away.

In a roused voice, Knox said, “Jim Bailey.”

“What?”

“Jim Bailey got messed up by your boys several months back. Since then, I haven’t seen him.” Knox stepped forward carefully, coming into close-quarters.  The tip of his handgun was now twenty-four inches from his enemy’s head. Irritated at the delay of response, he shouted, “Do you need a description?”

“No, man, I don’t need nothing like that. But if he’s the same Jim Bailey you’re talking about, then he’s dead.”

Trembling against what sounded like the possible truth, Knox rested his finger on the trigger and said softly, “A friend of mine said, ‘you can’t stop a bullet, but you can stop the man.’” And with that, his finger slammed against the curved metal, giving the man a ticket to the afterlife.

==

One man, dressed in a thick black jacket, reached down and picked up the bag, tossing it twice in the air to feel its weight. Taking a cigarette out from his pocket, he poked it in between his lips. "How much are you charging, slum?"

"Well, this isn't a $200 deal, boys, I'm talking about $800 here. My boys don't make run-of-the-mill love affair, this is some big dawg zip I'm selling. Take it or leave it." the young man slapped his knees and leaned back in his chair.

"Listen, man, we don't know you from nowhere, but seeing you know our boy, Phoenix, we'll buy your crack." The man in the black jacket took the bag and dropped it in one of his pockets. He pushed himself out of his chair and slipped into a back room.

Knox scooted to the edge of his seat and watched as the man disappeared. At the sound of the door closing, he popped up from the chair and looked under the coffee table. Just as he had expected the owner to have placed one, he unstrapped a silver Berretta 92F 9mm. Smiling at the handgun’s fine pedigree and large magazine capacity, he tucked it in the back of his pants. He returned to his seat just in time the man and a second man exited from the backroom. Throwing his hands carelessly in the air, he said, “So? Minds made up?”

“Yeah, you’re full of bacon,” the second man shouted.

Pulling his smile into a crooked one, Knox snorted and wiggled his pointer finger in disagreement. “Nah, don’t go to such extremes. I ain’t no cop. You don’t know me, man. You go around talkin’ like you know people,” his eyes dropped to where he had placed his handgun, “you’ll be disappointed.” With one movement, he pulled out his weapon and fired twice, taking the two men down. Their bodies hit the ground and the second man’s handgun rolled from his hands. With one glance, Knox saw that the gun had been ‘cocked and locked.’

Seeing that his business had been completed, Knox stood up casually and walked over to the household phone. He took the receiver down and his fingers hovered over the raised buttons. Inhaling deeply, he jabbed the first digit and the rest followed at a memorized speed. Knox leaned against the wall, smearing the blood off his face and eyeing the two dead bodies. The line on the other end opened and a deep, resonant Southern voice spoke.

“John Reagan.”

“Sorry, wrong number.” Knox hung up the phone and quickly slipped out of the house through the front door. It was dusk, hard for anyone to see him, and if they did, the present fog would confuse their memory. Tucking his handgun in the back of his jeans, he crossed the neighborhood street and then continued on the sidewalk until the world shrunk into a manmade hell. The brick walls came closer, the cement kicked up in fine power, the smell of rotting food, sewage, and sometimes the fresh smell of a killed body greeted him with a cold embrace. 

Taking out a cigarette, Knox cupped a hand around his lighter and fired up his lungs. His feet took him down a large tunnel that had been closed off and no longer used for bus transportation. Looking through shadowed brows, his eyes focused on the end of the tunnel. He walked with confidence, as he had no fear at what would meet him at the end. For what he would see would be more terrifying than any weapon or man he had ever faced. Halting, Knox leaned down and picked up the flashlight he had always kept in the corner. Flipping it on, he eyed a dark red splatter on the wall.

Tonguing his cigarette to the other side of his mouth, he took out his butterfly knife, twirled it open and then carved two lines in the brick along with a dozen more sets of tally marks. Sheathing his knife, he passed a hand over the bits loosened brick and then left.  On his way out, a shadow covered his. Knowing who it was, Knox walked by the figure, shouldering him into following him.

“Why do you keep visiting the tunnel? You do it more than I do,” the second man asked in a resonating Southern drawl. His name was Reagan Johnson, or known under his alias, John Reagan.

“I ain’t afraid to put them in their places.” Knox stopped and faced the young man with the turned-up nose and slim, boyish features. “Besides, you think anyone would miss these scumbags? Shootings happen all the time in Detroit, you should know that. I’m just picking them off until I find the king.”

“Yeah, I know,” Reagan replied quietly, hands in his pockets. “But, how do you know who’s the king? I’m just afraid you’ll kill the wrong one.”

Grinning through his large teeth, Knox slapped Reagan playfully on the cheek. “A king like the one we’re looking for ain’t going to be dopey like those fools running around like they’re playing cowboys and Indians.”

“Well, I’m heading home. I hadn’t heard from you, so I gave you that call.” Reagan gave Knox a farewell salute and disappeared into the fog.