and placed the envelope in his jacket pocket.
“You’ll bring the pics by the office?”
“As soon as I make sure he didn’t have any copies anywhere else.”
“Thanks again, Hap. You really are the best.” The man left the shop.
Hap took a bite of the ball. “Piece of cake.”
T HIS STORY WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN
S HOTGUN H ONEY.
R. Thomas Brown writes crime fiction set in Texas. His novel,
Hill Country,
was published by Snubnose Press in 2012. You can find his thoughts on fiction and other matters, as well as information on his short fiction and upcoming novels, at RThomasBrown.blogspot.com .
THUG CITY
----
----
Ken Bruen
T heir latest gig was as follows: drive at a slow speed through pedestrian areas beside, preferably, an older person, chuck a bottle of dirty water on the poor bastard, rev the engine, and then speed off, leaving the old codger on the brink of coronary.
Oh, the fun.
The rush.
The bravado.
The duo: dumb-ass so-called students of engineering at NUIG, all of nineteen years apiece, named
Dolan
Brady.
Way too fucking cool for first names. Dolan was almost a good-looking kid, if he had had an ounce of feeling, a trainee psycho who got the rush from others’ pain. Brady was just the apprentice moron, attached to any ship that provided color and beer money. Their latest wheeze was a plastic bag of red paint, handled delicately, to be lobbed at some prize suspect. The anticipation had them respectively hard.
The Red Letter Night had arrived, and they’d prepared, like
dude
, get seriously wasted first. That they spoke in quasi-American hip-hop only added to their irritating ration. EightRed Bull—yup,
Red
Bull, the irony! A bottle of cheap vodka—the working stiff’s cocaine—and a few spliffs, and they were good to
“Roll.”
And they did.
Dillon was sixty-five, a little stooped from an old gunshot wound in his lower back; that sucker still reared up. Ten years in a European jail had tamed his wilder excesses—that is, his hair-trigger temper. Tamed, as in rationed.
Sparingly.
He had hung on to a combat jacket from those wild days on the Ormeau Road, and
phew
, cruising down the falls, bullets to backside, oblivious to all but The Cause.
Walking.
Now, slow to slowest as he remembered his dead mates. Returning to Galway he wanted only some peace, some aged Jameson maybe, and three pints of the black, stretched over four hours.
Stretched over the meager euros they called a
pension.
Those walks, he’d think…
“One good jolt afore I go, to rock one more glorious time.”
He’d reached the top of Eyre Square, his daily ritual, one more kilometer before he headed for the pub and half-arsed ease.
The car was turning by the Meryck Hotel, about two minutes from him. Dolan was getting angry. Not a single person in sight. Jesus!
Everybody hanging with some other fucking body. Brady said,
“Ah shite, the paint is leaking. We got to get rid of it.”
Dolan saw the hunched man, shouted,
“An old fuck. Look, see the bollocks in the combat jacket? Move, for Christ’s sake, before he crosses the road.”
They moved.
An old woman in her fragile eighties got off the Salt Hill bus, on the blind side of the car. Dolan roared,
“Sling it.”
The bag sailing high, suspended for one glorious moment, then exploding over the lady, like a prayer gone so badly wrong. Covering like a spectrum of blood, her frail small body, a tiny cry as she collapsed in a coronary cloud.
The car desperately vying for balance, nigh losing it, then righted but straightened, then roaring off.
Dillon, momentarily stunned, then recovering, his eyes fixed on the license plate—old habit. He bent down, tended to the lady, his mind already in the cold place. A flick, a light, the years-old spark about to turn.
Burn.
To burning.
A blaze when the ambulance came. Told the guard who arrived:
Saw nothing.
Know nothing.
Thought:
The Sig.
Daily primed, like an exercise in hope.
Did go to the pub, had
“You’ll bring the pics by the office?”
“As soon as I make sure he didn’t have any copies anywhere else.”
“Thanks again, Hap. You really are the best.” The man left the shop.
Hap took a bite of the ball. “Piece of cake.”
T HIS STORY WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN
S HOTGUN H ONEY.
R. Thomas Brown writes crime fiction set in Texas. His novel,
Hill Country,
was published by Snubnose Press in 2012. You can find his thoughts on fiction and other matters, as well as information on his short fiction and upcoming novels, at RThomasBrown.blogspot.com .
THUG CITY
----
----
Ken Bruen
T heir latest gig was as follows: drive at a slow speed through pedestrian areas beside, preferably, an older person, chuck a bottle of dirty water on the poor bastard, rev the engine, and then speed off, leaving the old codger on the brink of coronary.
Oh, the fun.
The rush.
The bravado.
The duo: dumb-ass so-called students of engineering at NUIG, all of nineteen years apiece, named
Dolan
Brady.
Way too fucking cool for first names. Dolan was almost a good-looking kid, if he had had an ounce of feeling, a trainee psycho who got the rush from others’ pain. Brady was just the apprentice moron, attached to any ship that provided color and beer money. Their latest wheeze was a plastic bag of red paint, handled delicately, to be lobbed at some prize suspect. The anticipation had them respectively hard.
The Red Letter Night had arrived, and they’d prepared, like
dude
, get seriously wasted first. That they spoke in quasi-American hip-hop only added to their irritating ration. EightRed Bull—yup,
Red
Bull, the irony! A bottle of cheap vodka—the working stiff’s cocaine—and a few spliffs, and they were good to
“Roll.”
And they did.
Dillon was sixty-five, a little stooped from an old gunshot wound in his lower back; that sucker still reared up. Ten years in a European jail had tamed his wilder excesses—that is, his hair-trigger temper. Tamed, as in rationed.
Sparingly.
He had hung on to a combat jacket from those wild days on the Ormeau Road, and
phew
, cruising down the falls, bullets to backside, oblivious to all but The Cause.
Walking.
Now, slow to slowest as he remembered his dead mates. Returning to Galway he wanted only some peace, some aged Jameson maybe, and three pints of the black, stretched over four hours.
Stretched over the meager euros they called a
pension.
Those walks, he’d think…
“One good jolt afore I go, to rock one more glorious time.”
He’d reached the top of Eyre Square, his daily ritual, one more kilometer before he headed for the pub and half-arsed ease.
The car was turning by the Meryck Hotel, about two minutes from him. Dolan was getting angry. Not a single person in sight. Jesus!
Everybody hanging with some other fucking body. Brady said,
“Ah shite, the paint is leaking. We got to get rid of it.”
Dolan saw the hunched man, shouted,
“An old fuck. Look, see the bollocks in the combat jacket? Move, for Christ’s sake, before he crosses the road.”
They moved.
An old woman in her fragile eighties got off the Salt Hill bus, on the blind side of the car. Dolan roared,
“Sling it.”
The bag sailing high, suspended for one glorious moment, then exploding over the lady, like a prayer gone so badly wrong. Covering like a spectrum of blood, her frail small body, a tiny cry as she collapsed in a coronary cloud.
The car desperately vying for balance, nigh losing it, then righted but straightened, then roaring off.
Dillon, momentarily stunned, then recovering, his eyes fixed on the license plate—old habit. He bent down, tended to the lady, his mind already in the cold place. A flick, a light, the years-old spark about to turn.
Burn.
To burning.
A blaze when the ambulance came. Told the guard who arrived:
Saw nothing.
Know nothing.
Thought:
The Sig.
Daily primed, like an exercise in hope.
Did go to the pub, had
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