We bring the bats down on Jerry a couple more times before he wises up and stops moving. Shanahan's already sweating and breathing hard. He'll be easy when the time comes, and I'm sure it will. He might know it too, but he's not telling.
The basement's wood paneled, with a dinky little bar in the corner. It's a little early for me, but Wilkes is already working on his third. It's not that he doesn't have the stomach for this- well it's not just that he doesn't have the stomach for this, because he doesn't, but he's got himself a weakness. He'd be easy too, but I don't think that'll ever fall to me. Something about him says he'll handle things himself, nice and tidy. Either way, we got time: Jerry's lady's at the grocery, picking up lamb shanks and asparagus for Sunday dinner. Must be nice. This idiot can't do anything right, can't even keep his mouth shut, and he's got all this. Meanwhile I do what I'm told and do it quiet and I'm sleeping on a mattress on the floor and eating takeout every night. I tell you, there's no justice.
Shanahan's giving Jerry an earful, wheezing as he does it, and I take the opportunity to stroll around the basement, giving my back a stretch. He's got some of those neon beer signs hanging here and there. Pretty tacky, I always thought, but then again I'm not the type to buy a ranch house in the tree streets, so what the hell do I know about it? The dart board I don't mind, but there's more holes in the wall than in the cork, and that gets to me. You'd think he'd get good eventually, but I guess that's just not him.
I grab a mug and fill it with water, taking a seat at the bar. I take a sip and swish the water around in my mouth, trying to get rid of the taste of blood. I bit my tongue roughhousing with Jerry when we came in, trying to get him down into the basement. By the time we got him down here Wilkes had the radio on loud enough to keep our little encounter from the neighbors. Ask me, they'd have to be idiots to not know something was up, but if you ask me most everybody's idiots as it is, so there you go.
Jerry's whimpering on the floor, bleeding out his mouth into the carpet. The Ames Brothers come on and I guess Shanahan feels like he's made his point, so it's time to go. I finish my water and put the mug from some shitty little fishing town in Wisconsin back on the bar. I head up the steps with Wilkes on my heels. Shanahan gives Jerry one more shot in the ribs and tells him we don't want to have to come back out here, which is true, and he climbs the steps after us.
We're at the front door when we see that Wilkes left his bat downstairs and Shanahan sends him back down there to get it. Something tells me he did it on purpose, but before I'm halfway down the front steps I hear him yell and a shot rings out. I turn around and try to get back inside but Shanahan, that lump, is halfway in the doorway and halfway out and about the slowest moving human being I've ever encountered. By the time he's turned and headed back into the house Jerry's there with his .38, putting three into Shanahan's chest. He falls forward and I follow him into the house, taking a wild swing at Jerry on my way to the floor.
I connect with Jerry's face right below the cheekbone and I can hear everything break. His eyes went wide when he saw the swing coming, but there wasn't a whole hell of a lot he could do at that point, except for watch it happen. Jerry drops and the piece falls through the glass end table where he was standing. I pick myself up and he's already trying to drag himself away, one hand holding his jaw together, the other scrabbling at the carpet. I stand over him and put my foot on his leg to keep him steady. I aim for the base of his spine the first time, and it's effective. His legs kick a little with each swing, but he's not going anywhere now.
Jerry put one bloody hand up, some feeble attempt to wave me off, but my next swing connects just below the elbow and I guess he decides it was a bad idea because he folds back up, gurgling. He's not the only one gurgling though, and I look over to see Shanahan roll himself over onto his back, coughing up blood and whatever he had for breakfast. Maybe he's going to make it after all.
I turn back to Jerry and take another swing as Shanahan says "Get me out of here", gargling on the words.
I'm going to have to drag him back to the car and get him patched up, and me with a bad back. I bring the bat down. I tell you, there's no justice.
8 April 2012
