Short.Stories.Repairman.Jack.Quick.Fixes.2011 by Wilson F Paul

Author:Wilson, F Paul [Wilson, F Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wilsongs
Published: 0100-12-31T22:00:00+00:00

4

A little while later Jack stood in the street, on the fringe of the crowd around Costin’s. He wanted to tell the vultures to go home, that it was going to be a long night. He was about to leave for home himself when Fat Henry came out.

Costin’s front door slammed open and there he was, all three-hundred pounds of him, brandishing his shotgun and screaming like a wild man. He got off one blast that looked like it was aimed at the moon. All around Jack the crowd screamed and dove for cover, leaving him standing alone as the two-dozen cops out front opened up.

The fusillade slammed Fat Henry back against the doorframe, his sawed-off went spinning, and then he was turning and falling and rolling down the steps. It was over in seconds. No Peckinpah slo-mo. No ballet-like turns. Quick, graceless, ugly, and red. He hit the sidewalk face first and never moved again.

Fat Henry Thompson had finally stood up. And he’d got his wish: He wouldn’t be going back to Attica.

Jack turned and walked away, stepping over the prone onlookers as they peeked between their fingers and made horrified noises. As he headed home he tried to put his finger on the feelings massed in his chest like a softball-sized lump of putty – cold putty. Not sadness, certainly not glee or satisfaction. More a bleakness. A dark despair for all the hardcore losers in this city, the ones it created and the others it attracted.

He passed a corner litter basket and gave it a hard kick, adding an especially deep dent to its already bruised flanks.

A waste. A damn stupid fruitless futile ass-brained waste.

When he got to his door he realized he didn’t have his beer. The six-pack he’d gone out for earlier in the evening was long gone from where he’d left it sitting on the curb. He could really have used a Rock about now. And he could probably find an all-night deli to where he could buy some.

Nah.

Jack stepped inside and locked the door behind him.

He couldn’t risk it. The way things were going tonight, he might not make it home again.

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