-=+Fiction3+=-
"I tried to get all the pieces to fit together in my head, but it was no use. They just sat, unconnected, like strangers in a dim and smoky bar. There was the Wide Man, and his dark-haired female accomplice, sipping Scotch on the rocks at a mahogany table. There was Antonio Rosseli, and the shiny gleam of a knife as he sliced lemons behind the bar. There was the fraudulent Madame Venga of the Three Veils and her enormous manservant Bobby, who I had watched crush a heavy bar glass in one hand without suffering injury. There was the Smiling Man - Peter Lawrence Reading, who had more passports than a stripper had dollar bills on a good night, tossing peanuts into a glass from ten feet away and never missing. And sitting in his own secluded corner was the man from the dump, eating a bowl of rat stew.
"Finally, there was a huge mural painting of the gunfight this morning, and the nine bodies left behind, and the three that walked away, of which I was one. Somehow I even managed to look confused as I walked towards the streetlight.
"I got up and walked out of the dump. There was nothing I was going to figure out here, and the smell was getting to me. Besides, the dump was near the docks, and I had a man to see about some fish...
"It was just after dark when I got back to my office, and there was a dame leaning against the wall outside in the rain, wearing trashy makeup and a black mini and tank-top. The heels looked uncomfortably tall for such a short girl, but it was none of my business.
"I went to unlock the door but found it was already open, and the smell of cigars was harsh and annoying. I checked the piece to make sure it was loaded and cocked it before I went inside.
"It was the Wide Man, and he wouldn't be sipping anything ever again. He had a hole in one temple the size of a dime, and it looked like the whole carnival had waltzed out the other. It wasn't pretty, but there was no matching circus debris on my wall. Apparantly he had been carted in special, just to make a point. I walked over to the body and tugged at the big handlebar moustache: It didn't move - I had always wondered if it was fake. Then I closed his remaining eye and said goodbye. I grabbed the whiskey out of my desk drawer and poured a hefty slug on the table for him, and as I left a tossed a match at the puddle. It lit with a whoosh and I walked out. There was nothing there that I needed anymore, and it was a fitting tribute for a man who had lived true to the old blood he was born to, in the land of the midnight sun.
"I would see what I could do to send him an escort, if I didn't die first..."
Lucael
"Finally, there was a huge mural painting of the gunfight this morning, and the nine bodies left behind, and the three that walked away, of which I was one. Somehow I even managed to look confused as I walked towards the streetlight.
"I got up and walked out of the dump. There was nothing I was going to figure out here, and the smell was getting to me. Besides, the dump was near the docks, and I had a man to see about some fish...
"It was just after dark when I got back to my office, and there was a dame leaning against the wall outside in the rain, wearing trashy makeup and a black mini and tank-top. The heels looked uncomfortably tall for such a short girl, but it was none of my business.
"I went to unlock the door but found it was already open, and the smell of cigars was harsh and annoying. I checked the piece to make sure it was loaded and cocked it before I went inside.
"It was the Wide Man, and he wouldn't be sipping anything ever again. He had a hole in one temple the size of a dime, and it looked like the whole carnival had waltzed out the other. It wasn't pretty, but there was no matching circus debris on my wall. Apparantly he had been carted in special, just to make a point. I walked over to the body and tugged at the big handlebar moustache: It didn't move - I had always wondered if it was fake. Then I closed his remaining eye and said goodbye. I grabbed the whiskey out of my desk drawer and poured a hefty slug on the table for him, and as I left a tossed a match at the puddle. It lit with a whoosh and I walked out. There was nothing there that I needed anymore, and it was a fitting tribute for a man who had lived true to the old blood he was born to, in the land of the midnight sun.
"I would see what I could do to send him an escort, if I didn't die first..."
Lucael