Hit
© Bryan Beal
The mark had no idea. I mean, when you walk through life like a mushroom fed on BS, what can you expect. Tiberius Gubon Fallweather III was just such a gullible piece of over-privileged shyte that taking this job was almost a crime. So many would have done it for free. But, you know, a dude has to smoke. A dude has to eat.
Fallweather was one of the bottom dwellers of the upper-crust and that made it all just that little bit more delicious. When he ran afoul of Fred Jenkins, a nasty piece of work running all the rackets on the East Side. The word 'nasty' really doesn't describe Jenkins to the right degree. This embodiment of pure self-serving putrescence axed his own brother for hitting banks on his turf. And, yeah, I mean axed in the literal sense of the word.
Jenkins and me went back years. That is, decades. When he was dealing weed in high school, I was his right hand. Anyone needed dealing with, they fell to me. These days, rather than the fists, it tended to be the pistol. Jenkins insisted on what I used. The prat had no appreciation for the cutlass. Any self-respecting man of the world would shake their heads in dismal disapproval.
Fallweather fell across my desk. I don't really have a desk, but you know what I mean. He was a good looking guy. The well-refined looks of someone who's had the best of everything. Money. Education. The freakin' works. This dude had it all and he flushed it down the toilet to a prat like Jenkins. I'm really not sure who's the biggest moron. I'm leaning towards Fallweather.
Sipping some mint schnapps, I started to get a bit of a plan together. Wine is for Francophile snobs with more money than taste. Ok, the Germans gave us Nazism, but they also partly made up for it with decent cars and decent booze. Not that I'm saying anything could make up for the Holocaust. Burn every frickin' goose-stepping coward among them, I say. Who gives a crap if they're 105? Burn them anyway. Douchebag murderers. The punks got that right: fascists suck dogs' balls.
Fallweather Estate: a mother of all wineries. These pricks could bath in hand-pressed grape juice and use their own sweat to ferment the grapes all year round. It sickened me. The absolute privilege that these backdoor tossers took for granted made this job a joy. I didn't even know the guy, but I despised the very things he stood for. I started digging about with some relish and delight. These people always had a weak point. An Achille's Heel, if you will.
Fairweather's was the same illegal gambling pit every Saturday night. Same time and some place for a creature of habit like him. Only he could bring shame to the name of one of the worst Caesars of all time. That week, he'd dropped a quarter of a mill like it was pocket change in the back of his sofa. At least Bezos had the decency of entertaining us with a rocket shaped like a dildo to make up for all the taxes he fleeced Americans for. Fairweather had no so decency. He was a prick.
Saturday night, May 15. What a night! A flintlock in both hands, I walk into London's premier den of iniquity with a glint in my eye. You lot in the late 20th had bouncers. We had no such things. The look on his face. Two hits. Right in the chest from two .65 calibre balls. He barely had time to register the pain. His doxie ran like the wind, blood all over her dress.
He just got up. I mean, two gaping holes in his chest and it was less bother than a case of the pox. He smiled. He stood up. He even tried to brush some of the blood from his smoking jacket. The leer was something otherworldly. What could I do other than run for the four corners of the Empire?