Sluggs McKutcheon was huddled in the corner, bleeding out.
To me, this seemed as good a time as any to get into the whole Lumpy McKenna situation.
“Okay, pal. You played yer hand and ya came up bust. Now, let’s you and me have a chat about Lumpy McKenna…” I started, staring him down all ice-like with my frosty baby blues.
“Go shake, Sandy! You can’t scare a dead man.”
Sluggs had his back up, but I ain’t exactly new to the game. I know puffed chest when I see one.
“Tough talker, ain’t ya? But you ain’t dead yet, is ya, Sluggs? There’s a whole lotta rope between you and the gallows, and the way I see it you can go gentle-like, or you can go real rough. Now it don’t make a shiny dime either way as far as I’m concerned. But for your own sake, you might want to have another think over things…”
Sluggs coughed up a little bit of the red stuff. At this point, there was more on the outs than there was on the inside. Whatever life Sluggs had left in him wasn’t much at all.
Time enough, I reckoned, for one last good deed. The only question was, would ‘Ol Sluggs see it that way?
“Ahh, this is it, ain’t it? I’m really dyin’ this time, ain’t I?”
“‘Fraid so, Sluggs.”
“Well, ain’t that just the desserts I been expectin’…?”
He seemed to say this almost to himself. He paused a moment, to take in the sheer amount of blood now covering the ground around him.
“Take a gander, friend. This is the fate at the end of the avenue for all us ruthless criminal types. Today it’s me, tomorrow…”
His musings were cut off by another coughing fit.
“Yeah, yeah; we’re all just tombstones waiting to happen!” I snapped, accidentally betraying my lack of patience. “But it’s not too late for you to earn yourself some extra points with the mna upstairs. Tell me where Lumpy McKenna is!”
Sluggs stated laughing, which turned into yet another coughing jag. Man, was he ever in a bad way, I thought. Why, I might even feel for him a little, if only I didn’t know him so well…
“After all this time, you’re still all fired up about Lumpy McKenna? Well, I got a bit of bad news for ya, pal. McKenna died years ago…”
“You’re lying!”
“Got no reason to do that, do I now? It’s true, the poor bastard caught a bullet in Takoma. I was even at the funeral.”
I searched Sluggs’ eye, lookin’ for even a hint of deceit, and came up empty.
The damned fool was telling the truth.
“All this for nothing…” I sighed, defeated.
“Yeah, well… that’s life, ain’t it?”
And with that, Sluggs breathed his last. I hid the body under some stray garbage, the kind of burial a guy like that deserved.
In the end, we all get what we deserve…
Pryorball. 