The disk jockey announced that his ten o'clock to two AM shift was just about over. Willis announced that the next hand was to be his last. To everyone else, that fact went without saying. The stack of chips in front of the old-timer had been reduced to three whites, two reds and one blue. Max's stack was not looking much better, although there was a considerable collection of candy wrappers and beer bottles spreading out from around his chair like some junkyard halo. Bobbie was peeking out from behind perfectly arranged towers of chips. In front of the Mike brothers was a disheveled communal heap of unknown and uncounted value. Kurt and Manny had managed to retain a respectable portion of their original buy-in. The dealer announced that the final game would be Texas Hold'em with a five-dollar ante. The thirty-five-dollar pot grew to more than a hundred by the time each player had seen two hole cards. The following rounds of betting notched the amassed fortune upwards in ten, twenty, and thirty-dollar jumps. Willis had gone light to the tune of seventy-five dollars and the pot was now somewhere in the vicinity of seven-hundred. Kurt Murrelli interlaced his fingers, and outstretched his arms, palms facing outward. Hyper extension of the phalanges compressed bursa to the point that fluid was expelled at supersonic velocity. His knuckles snapped, crackled, and popped like a flamenco dancer stomping cockroaches. The last hole-card was dealt to each player. By this time of the evening, even the best of players began to lose their command of a good poker face. Around the fringes of hazy illumination there were two or three obviously dejected faces, one grimace of sheer determination, a sleepy countenance of feigned complacency, and two very copious smiles brimming with anticipation.
Kurt grunted, "The bet's to you, Willie."
"Check to the power."
"Manny?"
"Ahh, kick a buck to keep you honest."
Bobbie jumped in and virtually drilled two blue chips into the pot. "Twenty bucks!"
"Whaddya mean, twenty bucks?" Kurt inquired snidely. "Does that mean you're matching the buck and raising nineteen? Or do you really mean a twenty-buck raise, in which case you're light a buck?"
"Okay. Here's another buck." She slid a white chip into the pot so fast and so hard that it kicked-up a tiny wisp of abraded felt dust.
"That makes it twenty-one to me," Max observed. "I'll see the twenty-one and raise you another twenty."
Mike called. Mike called. Kurt saw the forty-one and raised a red. Willis went light just enough for him to make the bet. He pulled out a tooled leather wallet and slapped it on the table. The old man winked and said "If this is gonna be my last hand, I want to win, or loose everything."
Manny kicked in four more blues.
Bobbie's eyes were rabidly bright, her skin glistened through stratified layers of cigar smoke. "I'll see the twenty-five and bump another twenty-five."
Mike flipped his cards onto the table and croaked out a defeated moan. Max was going for his chips when undulating striations of visibly stagnant air sprang to life and swooshed out of the room. Smoke cleared in response to a loud rattling of the garage door, snaking upward on its serpentine stamped metal track. Before all eyes were able to focus on several uninvited guests, the side door exploded open. Panes of wire-reinforced industrial glass went instantly opaque when the door flew inside and ricocheted off the wall. Brass hinges, wrenching lose from the impact, hurtled wood screws across the room. One of the missiles struck Willis above the right eye, releasing a trickle of blood. The screws were nothing compared to what followed. White-orange plasma vomited out from the muzzle of a full-auto Kalashnikov. Impacts of copper-jacketed steel core slugs stitched an even trace across the dingy white body of the Ammana. The forty year-old icebox shuddered under the supersonic fusillade. It hissed a pathetic death-rattle as escaping Freon gas formed a ground-hugging mist over a beer and cola cocktail leaking from 30 caliber wounds. Even though they were ringing in pain from the God-awful roar of the little rifle, each and every ear heard the unmistakable sound of a pump shotgun cycling onto a full chamber. Standing in the black mouth of the rollup door were two huge thugs wearing full-length black drover's coats. Little Ed was caressing the trigger of a sawed-off 12-gauge pump gun with the two good fingers on his right hand. His equally large and comparably ugly associate balanced another scatter gun in the web of his hand. The pistol grip shotgun was suspended from a black nylon sling that disappeared into his coat.
"Any one of you pukes so-much-as twitch and I'll blast your sorry ass straight to hell," said Little Ed, barely above a whisper.
The guy at the side door hawked out a brown gob of chew and snapped another thirty-round magazine into the bottom of the smoking Kalashnikov. His beady eyes peered out from below a pronounced and scarred supra orbital ridge. He had all the characteristics of a steroid-soaked muscle head: Non-existent neck, barrel chest, lantern-jaw, and the complexion of a sausage and grease pizza. There was little doubt that he possessed a shrunken brain and an atrophied libido to match. He dipped out another mouthful from a pouch of Red Man and crammed it between tobacco-stained lips. Quasimodo then slid back two steps out the side door. He gave an all-clear nod to someone in the shadows.
A tall woman moved in from the misty void beyond the stoop light, astride athlete's legs stuffed into glossy spike heeled shoes. Her face was eclipsed by a wide-brimmed hat and she was clothed in a long dark coat. The coat was sewn of some clinging shiny synthetic. Perhaps raw silk.
A snake of blood slithered into Willis' eye causing him to involuntarily snap a shaking fist to his face. Quasimodo caught the sudden movement from the corner of his eye and unleashed a burst from his weapon. Willis slumped and fell backward onto the poker table. The three bullets that had pierced his wizened chest barely decelerated until they slammed into the still hissing refrigerator. His arthritic fingers slowly relaxed, revealing three bloody cards, perforated to match the seeping holes in a reddening sweatshirt.
Bobbie screamed hysterically and buried her gore spattered face into Max's chest. Mouth agape and blanched a deathly shade of pale, Max stared at the corpse that had once been a dear friend. Willis' body lolled to one side. His head thudded with a crack to the concrete. Two of the up-cards slid from the broken table and into an oozing puddle of coagulating blood.
"Aces and eights," Mike croaked, bile rising in his quivering throat. "It's the dead man's hand."
Shelly whipped off her hat and whacked the shooter square in the face. "Warren, you fucking brainless idiot!" He stared back incredulously, slowly shaking his head. She grabbed the muzzle of the rifle, jerked it from his wristless hands, and threw it to the concrete. A dozen 7.62 x 39 cartridges sprung out from a broken magazine and clattered about like a child's jacks. The dumb hulk shrugged his massive shoulders, palms upturned. The Prune got right in his face and cruelly kneed him in the balls. Warren huffed out a grunt, tears welling up in his tiny, deep-set eyes. He crumpled to one knee, scrabbling in the dust and grease, picking up the Kalashnikov and the rolling ammo.
"You trigger happy bastards are going to bring the cops down on us like stink on shit. Get Gustafson into the car and let's get the hell out of here." Shelly stomped over to the group of stunned poker players as Little Ed and his shadow man-handled Manny out of the garage.
A few coins dribbled out of pockets and fell into the grease pit. His heels left thin black streaks on the concrete as he was limply drug backwards out into the night.
"You slut," Shelly hissed at Bobbie, who was still sobbing and shaking in Max's arms. "I suppose that you're already fucking his brains out. Well let me tell you this, missy, you breathe one word of this to anyone and I'll set Little Ed and Warren loose on you. Little Ed will split your biscuit until you pray to God Almighty, and every devil in hell, that you die as fast as that old wino. But Warren will have his fun first. He doesn't like girls, but I've promised that he can do whatever he wants once Little Ed has his jollies. Warren will pull you apart piece-by-piece like a roast chicken. They'll eat you alive and spit out the bones, you back-stabbing bitch."
Shelly grabbed a handful of hair and yanked Bobbie's face away from Max. She clamped her hands on each side of Bobbies's face and twisted her toward Willis. "Look at him. Look!"
Bobbie doubled over in a jerking spasm and vomited. She wretched until she was dry and was hacking up foamy blood.
"Remember, not one word. And Max, you know that I'll be back as soon as I'm finished with Gustafson."
Silence returned to the inside of the garage. Less than five minutes had passed since old man Franklin had prophetically announced that the next hand was to be his last. It was probably five minutes more before the six remaining players began to regain their senses. Kurt was the first to react. He drifted over and pulled the garage door shut. Max persuaded the side door back into the door frame and temporarily reattached the upper hinge to the casement with some sixteen-penny nails. He grabbed a push broom, stepped out onto the stoop and hastily swept fragments of tempered glass back into the garage. Moments after the door was closed and bolted, the glass bricks again brightened as a sweep of headlights slowly moved down alley. A brighter spot of external illumination paused at the side door window.
"Quick! Pull that tarp back. That's a searchlight on a police cruiser. Mike, get the hood open on your car and make like your doing a tune-up or something!" Max continued to bark orders over his shoulder as he plucked spent steel cartridge cases from the floor. "Get that engine running and rev that baby up. It smells like burnt gunpowder in here"
Mike and Kurt tugged the tarpaulin screen back into place, obscuring the card table, the blood, and the body. Kurt switched off the overhead light. Bobbie wobbled into the mens room and tried to clean herself up.
"Kurt," Max shouted, "get in there with Bobbie and make sure she stays quiet! The cops will be in here asking questions any second now."
Max was slithering into a pair of coveralls, and both of the Mike brothers had their heads, hands, and shoulders under the hood of the Buick when the knocks came. It sounded like a wooden baton rapping on the outside of the side door. Instead of opening the side door, Max yanked open the rollup door on bay number 2. He was hoping that the noisy door would lure the cops away from the broken side door, at the same time averting any suspicion that there was anything to hide. Max figured that opening the big door and meeting the cops out on the apron would be less suspicious than furtive talking around the half-opened side door with fractured glass and broken hinges. He grabbed a greasy shop towel and dabbed a smudge of oil onto his forehead. Wiping his hands with the towel, he strolled out the door to meet two uniformed officers as they were turning the corner.
"Evening."
"Evening. Kind of late to be up."
"Sure is. I'm glad that I don't have your hours. But you know how these old cars are, seems they're under the wrench more time than they're on the road."
"Uh-hmmm. Doing a little repair work?"
"Oh yeah, just a little bit of tinkering. Me and the boys were planning on taking a fishing trip tomorrow--Sunday--today. Oh, you know what I mean. But things got a little out of hand."
Mike's whole body jerked spasmodically at the last remark, slamming the back of his head into the 12-gauge sheet metal of the Buick's hood. The cop glanced in his direction in response to the clang of a dropped Crescent wrench and stifled curses. Max visibly tensed at the clatter. Straining to avert his gaze, he continued as calmly as humanly possible.
"We can't seem to get the rough spots out of her," Max squeaked. He nodded furtively over his shoulder to where the Mike brothers were blipping the engine, performing unseen adjustments under the hood. "What can I do for you officers?"
"We got a 911 call reporting gunfire in the area. You seem to be the only ones around with lights on."
Max did his best to appear humble and apologetic. "Oh, man, I'm sorry if we disturbed anyone, but I guess I just lost track of time."
Mike, listening as closely as possible, picked-up on the gunfire report. He revved the big V-8 up to nearly the breaking point and slapped both hands over the carburetor throat. Starved for air, the engine choked, stumbled, and dropped thousands of revs in an instant. Pulling his hands away from the suction, the engine caught up with itself. The rich fuel-air mixture that had been pumping unburned through the cylinders, erupted into a half a dozen explosive backfires. Max and the cops jumped at the explosions and coughed in a cloud of noxious soot and exhaust belching out of the tailpipe.
"Jesus Christ mister, you're going to have to cease and desist or I'm writing you up for disturbing the peace!" the younger officer, croaked. He coughed again at the blue-black cloud of Buick fumes.
"Oh God, I'm really sorry!" Max groveled, "Mike, shut that damn thing off. Were outta here for the rest of the night. Officers, I promise, well be gone home in ten minutes. It's too late for this crap anyway. And we really are sorry if we caused any trouble. It won't happen again."
"That's for goddamned sure." The mumbled curse resonated from beneath the Buick's huge domed hood.
"Well, okay, no use in getting all upset over nothing." The senior officer, pot-bellied and balding, looked askance at his rookie partner. "Have a pleasant evening, or at least what's left of it." The two cops holstered their night sticks as they walked out to their idling black-and-white.
The Mike brothers extricated themselves from the engine compartment and stood staring at each other for a moment. Faint sounds from the police cruiser as it dropped into gear and nudged away down the alley was a cue for everyone to dash to a window for a clandestine peek. The three men pressed their noses to grimy panes like schoolboys gazing at a Christmas toy display in a department store window. Eyes shaded beneath cupped fingers, scrutinized the fuzzy red taillights as they shrank to pinpoints, and slowly disappeared into the thickening 2:00 AM fog.
Silhouettes of buildings and trees were beginning to brighten to the east before the bedraggled troupe returned to the Franklin Building from their macabre doings.
Upon the departure of the constabulary, there were decisions to be made and actions to be taken. Although not palatable to anyone, the disposition of the old-man's corpse had to be dealt with. It seemed that there were only two available choices. They could call the cops back in and suffer the wrath of the law in the course of explaining the situation. A situation unanimously appraised as being so implausible that the bizarre truth could not, and would not, be believed. Choice number two was to wash themselves of any association with the two-hundred pounds of cooling flesh that used to be Willis Franklin. Option number one would most certainly land them in the slammer for the rest of their natural lives. Option number two could easily be seen to have an identical outcome, with one exception. They had to be caught first.
In the course of the past few hours, the corpse had been stripped of all clothing, jewelry, and identification. The shoes, clothing, wallet, and ID, were incinerated in the waste oil furnace used to heat the garage. Watch, eyeglasses, wedding ring, hearing aid, dentures, and keys were melted and burned into slag in the six-thousand degree flame of an oxy-acetylene cutting torch. Willis' fingerprints went the way of his keys.
From a fetid, grey, and quickly desiccating mouth, the few remaining eighty-year old teeth were wrenched free between the hardened-steel jaws Vise-Grip pliers. Yellow, tobacco-stained teeth, fillings and all, were pulverized into dust between a ball peen mechanic's hammer and a section of eighty-pound railroad track. The cadaver itself was washed down with a black rubber hose. Clotted red evidence swirled, trickled, and gurgled down into the floor drain beneath the lube-rack. Max inspected the naked and hopefully anonymous body. The number of nearly invisible entry holes matched the jagged and slightly larger exit wounds.
He couldn't stop himself from thinking of Franklin's pituitary and pineal bodies. Perhaps the now nameless corpse would yet be able to make a contribution.
What remained of old man Franklin was wrapped in a canvas tarp and unceremoniously dumped into the Buick's cavernous trunk. Inside of twenty minutes, Max and the Mike brothers unloaded their gory cargo in a flickering puddle of orange neon dribbling out of a south side tavern. With any luck, the cops would be alerted to their deposit before morning.
"Do you think they've found him by now?" Max asked of no one in particular. Both of the Mike brothers were alternately staring into their coffee cups and toward the lightening East. Her lips slightly agape, and chin quivering, Bobbie was nearly catatonic. She was constantly brushing a tangle of hair that fell across the oily sheen of her forehead.
"Probably," Mike answered.
Mike absently nodded in agreement.
Kurt had gone back to his apartment, expressing the wish that this had all been a nightmare. A vision never again to be recalled upon awakening from a much needed sleep. A sleep that he hoped, but did not believe, would come easily.
Oblivious to the torments of his master and the others in the apartment, Bruno had one thing one his pea-sized brain. Well, actually two, but he was always hungry and that really didn't count. He recognized the Mike brothers. One of them could always be depended upon to scratch his ears, just so, for as long as he stood within reach. The other Mike was very wary of the tautly muscled beast and would attempt to keep him at bay with whatever tasty morsels were close at hand. True to form, Bruno had been howling, whining and whimpering incessantly for the past hour. He was managing to present his most forlorn and pitiful appearance this morning. The air outside was still and cool. Bruno was churning and warm, a combination that produced a faint shroud of vapor to rise from his back and head. Combined with his classic shivering act, Bruno did indeed look his pathetic best.
"For Christ's sake, Max, shut that mut up, or let him in," Mike demanded.
"No! Max, please, keep it outside. He scares the shit outta me, you know that," begged Mike.
"Bruno is not an 'it'--" Max corrected, well maybe in the purest sense he is, but he doesn't know it."
Even through the thick glass, Bruno heard his master utter his name. Since he wasn't aware that he was doing anything wrong at the moment, he assumed that it must be a good thing. That usually meant he was about to be fed, was going for a walk, or he might even get to come in and play with the Mike brothers. Max motioned to the doggie door release button. Mike smiled and hit the switch. Bruno was in mid-stride for another attempt at forced entry. Instead of bashing his thick skull against the unyielding plexiglass door, he blasted through in a frenetic flurry of steaming malodorous delirium. Bruno's feet splayed out from beneath him when he contacted the smooth linoleum tile. He slid across the kitchen at a high rate of speed in a madly scrambling blur of fur, claws, and slobber. Bruno made a beeline for Mike's outstretched hand in hopes of locating a juicy morsel. All that he found were empty fingers offered as ear scratchers, not food holders. Bruno sniffed and snuffled, rapidly shooting his dripping snout between each of Mikes hands. He snorted out a huff of breath along with a partial load of slobbery saliva that spattered Mike's fingers and wet his shirt sleeve. The big dog jerked his head and zeroed-in on the other Mike. Massive paws landed on Mike's upper thighs as he probed about for food. He knew it was there somewhere. This Mike was the one that always managed to produce food.
Repulsed from the ravenous beast, Mike's arms frantically searched for a purchase on the slick Formica counter top behind him. With a hundred pounds of canine energy pressing and pushing closer to his vitals, Mike's pupils contracted into black periods of terror. Peripheral vision, heightened by innate primordial fear, detected a half-empty bag of fig newtons laying on the counter next to the coffee maker. Sludge-lined fingernails scratched and scrabbled across the counter and snared the squarish blocks of salvation. Crinkling cellophane mercifully distracted Bruno and his unrelenting nose probing unceremoniously and uncomfortably hard into Mike's crotch. Held aloft in trembling fingers, the first newton proffered for Bruno's consideration was dispatched along with a sharp inhalation of air and a guttural grunt of satisfaction. Newton number two was barely out of the bag when Bruno lunged. The cookie vanished along with a tear of cellophane. This time the beast made a token attempt at mastication. A smallish fragment made an unsuccessful bid for escape, but glistening incisors snapped it from the ether before gravity sucked it to the linoleum. In this split second of uncharacteristic eating inefficiency, Mike was able to produce newton number three and lob it behind Bruno. The dog was dangerously close to entering his feeding frenzy mode when sight of lofted goodies telegraphed irresistible commands to his now tensed and rippling propulsion system. Completely oblivious to his immediate surroundings, Bruno spun around in frenetic pursuit of his airborne quarry. Bruno's body followed his pointy head, drug so forcefully by the powerful neck that his front paws left the ground. Newton number three was sucked into his maw as if it was inexorably gripped by a tractor beam from the Starship Enterprise. Returning to Earth, he slammed into the wooden bar stool upon which a still mesmerized Bobbie was perched. The stool ricocheted across kitchen tiles and into the dishwasher. Deprived of her means of support, Bobbie seemed to be floating in space for the shortest of moments. Arms and legs splayed apart, she descended in a free fall, buns-first trajectory, square onto Bruno's rib cage. As we learned from the cookie's namesake; for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The impact of her descending posterior reacted with Bruno's over-fed carcass, resulting in the ejection of the half-swallowed and unchewed fig newton. The confectionery projectile hurtled across the room missing Max due only to a quick and opportune jerk of his head. Mike, unfortunately, was not so lucky. Still somewhat rattled at being pawed by Bruno, he failed to avoid the now ballistic, and thoroughly goo-encrusted, cake-wad. The impact left a gelatinous splotch of fig jam right above the bridge of his nose. As if to add insult to injury, the spent missile plopped into his lap. Fully recovered and still ravenous, Bruno instantly pounced into Mike's crotch, poking, snapping, slurping, and otherwise terrorizing the dobie-phobic patsy.
Flailing limbs and squeaking grunts of abject terror accompanied poor Mike as he teetered and fell from his now upturned stool. The fig newtons tightly clutched in spasmodically trembling fingers performed admirably as the ultimate Bruno-magnet. Flat on his back, in a completely vulnerable and defenseless posture, Mike resigned himself to his fate. His embarrassed whimpering was barely audible above the satisfied gobbling, gulping, and gurgling sounds, emanating from an obviously contented Doberman.
Although he may have deserved it, the prostrate Mike received not a smidgen of sympathy from his cohorts. The first sign of relief and a general return to sanity began as a small chuckle in the back of Bobbie's throat. The chuckle grew in intensity and multiplied as Max, Mike, and eventually Mike, chimed-in. Unrestrained, side-splittng laughter reduced everyone in the kitchen to teary-eyed, red faced, buffoons. The sight of Bruno slathering-up the fig newton wound from the bridge of Mikes's nose was the last straw.
Complete and utter exhaustion, released and amplified by sorely needed levity, temporarily displaced the spectacles of horror and atrocity they had each witnessed and or committed. Inside of five minutes they were all engulfed in merciful slumber. Mike's head was cradled in his arms, bent over the kitchen counter, while Max vegetated in his Lazy-Boy. Bobbie and Mike never made it up from the kitchen floor. Bruno's jowls fluttered with each expelled breath, his head resting across the legs of his favorite friend.
The last person to feed Bruno was always his favorite friend.