The Colorado Option: John, Part 1

The Colorado Option: hard-boiled, low down, dirty stories of broken men, last-ditch efforts and guttered-out dreams. This is one of those stories...

John, Part 1 by Hooper McFinney

Note: Contains adult content.

***

Dreams stumbled away, and last night's revelry took their place. Last night....

It was the only thing that kept him going.

The rain battered the window and leaked in around the frame, puddling under the sill. An idle hand slapped him awake, and a voice screeched for money, where was her money. They were all the same, he thought for the hundredth time.

Eyes stuck shut with sleep and debauchery, he reached over and fumbled on the nightstand for his wallet. He pulled out a fifty. At least, he hoped it was a fifty. Didn't matter - his was an endless well of wadded up bills.

"Here, take it." At least, he meant to say that. "Huh, tuk ih" oozed out instead from between cracked, bleeding lips. Hell of a way to start a morning.

Father John found the handcuff key, undid himself and got ready for mass.

~To be continued~

Read on, faithful few!

The Colorado Option: Fool Me Once...

The Colorado Option: hard-boiled, low down, dirty stories of broken men, last-ditch efforts and guttered-out dreams. This is one of those stories...

Fool Me Once... by Buck Spidero

Warning: This depraved tale contains content intended for mature audiences.

***

I reclined in the driver’s seat of my ancient Impala. The neon sign across the street mocked me with its cheerfulness: Flagstaff Arms Apartments. It made me want to puke. I downed the last of the fifth of whiskey I’d picked up. It dulled the pain, but didn’t kill it. It still lurked inside; an itch I couldn’t scratch. Where was he?


Headlights cast a better light on the building as Rasdower’s Buick pulled into the lot. It definitely cracked my top five shittiest flophouses. I watched him walk to the front door from the street. After he was inside, I pulled into the parking lot and backed into a space a couple of doors down.

I wanted the car facing out in case I had to make a quick exit.

I took the elevator up to Rasdower’s floor. Should have taken the stairs, you broken-down, out-of-shape old man. I found his door and gave it a once-over. Not nearly as sturdy as something in a newer building, though newer buildings tend to not smell like piss. I briefly considered knocking before deciding to just kick it in. It didn’t put up much of a fight. One good kick and it flew open. I gave the room a quick look.

Empty.

Then, from the bathroom, a muffled “What the hell?”

I smiled as I headed for the hallway. Rasdower came out still pulling his pants up, and I slammed him against the doorframe, my forearm pressing against his throat.

“Spidero!” He sputtered, gasping for air. “What the fuck is this?”

I loosened my arm a bit. “Sorry, Rasdower. Couldn’t sleep. Thought I’d stop by for a chat.”

He took a swing at my head. I saw it coming but still caught part of it. Before he could take another I kneed him in the groin, followed by a punch to his kidney. He started to go down, and I turned him around, bending him over the sink. He kept struggling until I put my .38 special to the back of his head.

“I know what you did to Mary, Rasdower. Mary. That angel. Why did she have to suffer like that? We all know.”

“What’s it to you?”

I pressed the gun harder. Just get it over with. “Explain why I shouldn’t just kill you right now.”

“Fuck you!”

I cocked the hammer back. Shoot him! “Wrong answer.”

“You won’t do it. You don’t have the balls. Cops’ll be all over you.”

“They can try. I don’t exist in half the states in this country.”

“You won’t do it.”

I kicked his feet out from under him. His chin cracked on the cheap porcelain and he went down in a heap. I put the gun to his head again. “Let’s try this one more time. Were you going to cut and run once you screwed me over? Were you going to try what you tried in St. Louis?”

He coughed and spat out a tooth. “It’s not like that. Besides, you need me. You know what I can do, and you don’t have the time to find someone else.”

The problem was, the bastard was right. “You try to run, and you won’t make it fifty feet.” I slammed the gun into the side of his head, knocking him out.

I stood up and walked out of the apartment. The hallway was quiet; it didn’t seem like anyone was reacting to the scuffle. I took the stairs down, slowly, trying to calm my shattered nerves. Why do you do these things? Why do you hurt people like this? I made it outside before I started dry-heaving. Took a few deep breaths of the Arizona air and took out my phone. I dialed McFinney.

“Yeah?”

“Hoop, it’s Buck. Rasdower’s going to play ball”

"Glad to hear it. See you at the rendezvous.”

I hung up and headed for my car. Rasdower said he wouldn’t try anything, and after what I’d just put him through, I doubted he would. He'd come through. We wouldn't end up like Mary, who got a pager and her name on a clipboard. We weren't going to go out like that. The next time we dined at the Flagstaff Bar & Grille, we wouldn’t have to wait for a table.

Read on, faithful few!

The Colorado Option: The Black-Eyed Demon

The Colorado Option: hard-boiled, low down, dirty stories of broken men, last-ditch efforts and guttered-out dreams. This is one of those stories...

The Black-Eyed Demon by Hooper McFinney

***

My beeper chirps through my hangover, and I know the day is ruined. It's an emergency notification: the monkey got out of the cage. God dammit. Why can't they tell you anything straightforward?

I slap a razor across my face to look respectable for the staff. You can hide a stench with some cologne and your broken shell of a body with a tweed coat, but the eyes. My eyes. Twin drill bits of grey-blue loss, boring into your soul.

You can't cover the mire at the heart of you with a pair of Ray-Bans.

Cinching up my tie, I hear the phone ring, a jarring bray that repeats and repeats until I give in and grumble something short of a curse.

"4987 Palm Sway Drive. SOC's already there." It's the familiar voice, the same one I've been slugging back booze with since before the days when I needed drink to make it through. To breathe.

"Who's on point?"

A laugh, like a coughing dog. "Who else? Rasdower."

I hang up the phone and hurricane out to the car, holstering the gun I ache to fire one last time, a single shot to find vengeance. It's for another day, one long coming and longer off. It's hard to kill a dead man twice.

But someday...I'm gonna try.

***

Blasting through the reds, I make it to the building, ground zero of this cockeyed venture.

"Ted, c'mere." Slamming my car door, I wave that walking slur, old Ted "Buckshot" Spidero, from the front door. He's got his uniform on, as crisp as a used condom. I smell gin. "What's it look like?"

"****ing staff are near gone-" he stumbles over the curb and recovers with a drunkard's grace. "Rasdower's waiting." He lurches, maybe throwing up a little in his mouth. Bringing up what, last night's liquid dinner? His pride?

His soul?

"Hell of a tie, McFinney," he sneers.

Spidero. He'll never get it.

We push through the slack-faced gapers and into the building. The walls - even here - are a mess, stains drying to that dull brown I know so well.

I'd seen a mess like this before. Zaire, back in '42. Ugly mother. Never thought I'd face the black-eyed demon again, not on my shores. Not on my watch. We built a cage, a four-by-four box of iron pride and bars of hubris. What wretched people we were. Not to suspect- but no. Regret is for those who have time.

And there's no time in Hell.

Hulking over some pointy-nosed pencil pusher is Rasdower. If a side of beef mounted a cement mixer, you might get Rasdower. Then again, you could end up with my second wife.

"You in charge?" I pull out a 100 and light it up. Pointy-nose scowls.

"Yes, I'm Mr. McGann and would you please extinguish that filth?" I chuckle as I stub the cigarette out in the muck underfoot. McGann grunts like a put-out tabby. "We don't know if he's still here, but we need to make this all go away before it gets out."

Creaking lower to the floor on knees that struggle with a handicap ramp, I examine the horror left behind by our target. The familiar whirls, the splatter's trajectory, the footprints...memories of Zaire come rushing back. I don't want to believe it. I saw him go down. Put him in that inhuman casket with my own two hands and we - all of us - brought it here. And for what? Our amusement. Nothing could come back from that.

"It's Johnny again, isn't it." Spidero's breathing heavier, checking his kit, making double-sure no surprise goes unanswered.

I push McGann behind me. Something - a scream? - echoes in the vents. "Get outside. Seal this place down." I hand him my jacket; where we're going, it can only get messy.

McGann hesitates.

"Man, are you dumb? Go!" He turns and squeaks his way to the door, slipping just once. With him out, I light another cigarette. Pull hard on the tar and tobacco and chemical trash. Get a little of that fire in me. I cough and blink back tears.

'Buckshot' hikes up his drooping, soiled pants. "Can't believe it. No ****ing way he's still kickin'. ****. Double ****." Spidero reaches into a pocket and pulls out a gun, checking the cartridges. Rasdower and I do the same, and we move on to face down the thunder.

Damn you, Johnny Two-Hawks. This ends today.

***

Two hours later and we're hip-deep in funk. The futility gets to Rasdower first. He kicks an empty can of paint across the utility room floor.

"He's not here, McFinney!" Over the rhythmic whump whump whump of the machinery, I can barely hear Rasdower's voice. "This mess - this damn crusade of yours - none of it's worth it. This is my last time cleaning up with you two. I'm going upstairs and getting out of here. You lunatics can handle-" He stops, cocking his head.

Spidero's face goes ashen and he raises a finger so grimy, so fouled that it looks like a well-chomped on cigar. "Over...**** ****-**** in my ****ing ***...over there."

I look to where he's pointing, a far shadowed corner of the room. The furnace. Tons of outdated iron works and tubing L.A.-hot to the touch. And beneath a low return, its vent clawed open, is Johnny.

Two pistols whip up quicker than a schoolboy at a strip club and we shoot our loads right at those soulless, animal eyes. The steel-jacketed rounds go high, our quarry ducking and scampering behind the bulk of the fiery heater.

Peaking around, he spots us and I can see his hand come up. He fires. Crying out, Rasdower goes down.

"Ted, dammit, circle round - cut him off. I'll try to help..." But my voice trails off as I see Rasdower rolling on the ground, moaning and clutching his face. It's his last time with us after all. Broken and beaten. No way for this man to go down, even if he lost the Roosevelt contract.

Faintly, I hear Ted yelling out a chain of profanity that winds to the ceiling and beyond, a tirade fit for Bacchus at his lowest. It ends with a crash and a thump.

Gripping my gun tighter, I realize it won't be enough. Not against Johnny. It took ten of us to corral him in Zaire. Ten men, two gone now. One never recovered. Boors, his name was Boors, and he has a daughter. Cute little chip of his wife. Well girlie, daddy ain't hugging you no more, not after Two-Hawks. And thinking of that drop of sunshine turned to rain I can't contain my rage. Hefting Rasdower's gun, I make sure one's in the chamber and make my move.

Shouting like the beasts of the jungle, a language Johnny can understand, I charge for the furnace, dodging another onslaught, passing Spidero's prone form on the ground, a broken crate lying around his head and a weighted net in his hand

"Johnny! Johnnyyyyy!!!" I dive forward, rolling under that open return vent and there he is. Staring at me. He smiles wide and slaps me hard across the face, drawing blood.

"This is for Mary, you son of a bitch!" I let loose with both barrels, each shot finding its way into Johnny's chest.

For a minute, seeing him stumble around, I almost feel sad. He knocks the tranquilizer darts off his chest, but the damage is done. He slumps to a knee, those powerful, hairy arms keeping him upright. One last time he pierces me with those eyes.

"Oo Oo Oo," he croaks. And then he's down, unconscious.

As I drag him back to the stairs I toe Spidero in the gut.

"We got him, Ted." There are tears streaming down my face. "We got that damn dirty little ape."

Rasdower's sitting up as I pass him, wiping feces off his face. And seeing Johnny Two-Hawks...he claps. The son of a bitch claps.

I've never been prouder to be a janitor for the Scholastic Organization of Cleaners than I am now. It was tough enough bagging this zoo escapee in Zaire, Florida, a few years back. I thought I'd killed the joy in him, saw that spark of enthusiasm die in his eyes as I stabbed the tranq dart into his neck and stuffed him in his cage.

I can see it will never be over, though, not for the two of us. The dance will continue, maybe not at this elementary school where he lives as mascot. Maybe it'll be out there in the neighborhoods of West Palm Beach or Jupiter or Orlando.

I am order to his chaos. Our fates our intertwined. But that's all for another day.

Now, I've got some monkey shit to clean up.


~Fin~



But wait - there's more! McFinney, Spidero, Rasdower and the rest will return in...The Colorado Option: Fresno Promises!

Read on, faithful few!