12 WHEN GOOD CALLIGRAPHY GOES BAD
His final fuck fucked him. Amateurs and their yakkety-yak-yak. Too many movies. Too many long-winded super villains. When my father killed, he didn’t mess with the dramatics; he killed. A slaughterhouse on two legs, he was. You don’t have to approve of his crimes to respect his work ethic.
In the breathless millisecond between the wannabe’s extended fuck and his flick of the trigger, I gave the anniversary cake a heave. Alma & Lowell took the bullet point-blank. The cookie sheet on which the cake had rested grazed my shoulder as the bullet carried it to the wall. And the cake carried forward to make an impromptu sundae of the dumbass’s dumbass face.
I hurdled the soda fountain behind us and scrambled to the corner where the drawers met the floor. I made myself small and hoped to hell he’d run. His point-blank miss should’ve been all the incentive he needed to clear the hell out. Likewise, saving my own life should have been all the incentive I needed to have barricaded myself in the freezer or, at least, gone for the kayo.
He vaulted onto the countertop, napkin dispensers, jimmy jars, and straws flying as he bounded down to where I huddled. He squatted above me, lowered the gun to my ear. I braced for the last sound I’d ever hear, and got the tinkling of a bell. Someone had entered the shop. I hoped for cops, got a best bud instead: “C’mon, Dobsie. Somebody’s coming. A car. C’mon, man. Jesus, Dobsie! What the fuck happened to your face?”
Dobsie dragged a sleeve across his face, his gun hand steady. His head was slathered in chocolate fudge and cappuccino cream, his eyes asquint in 14 percent butterfat. The Toxic Avenger and Incredible Melting Man slimed into one. “Not going anywhere,” he shouted over the thunder. “Not until I waste this fucker.”
“Jesus, dude, you crazy? Take the cash and screw. C’mon!”
“You used my name, Emory. I got no choice. He’ll squeal.”
“Listen to him,” I said, a last-ditch effort. “You don’t want to do this. It’ll ruin your life.”
“Not as much as yours, Butcherboy. You’re gonna make my rep.”
“I’m not who you think I am.”
“Whatever.” He gave a farewell salute with the gun in the same instant the lights flickered. I thought perhaps he’d just killed me, my brain dissolving to black. But then the thunder rolled over us, cannonading with a force the building shuddered to withstand. Lightning struck again, successive bolts of white and blue and green. Another clap of thunder. And Loony Scoops turned a merciful, miraculous pitch dark.
I did not waste God’s free pass. I jerked the prick’s hairy legs out from under him and swung his sorry ass off the counter before his misfire hit the ceiling. And with a move I hoped to see someday on Dancing with the Stars, I slammed the sweet spot of his Paleolithic skull into the cold ceramic floor. Like riding a bike. One never forgets.
He wasn’t quite out, wasn’t quite with it. He was under me now, scrambling on hands and knees, fingers skittering across my shoes like ten blind mice. He was frantic, desperate to locate his frigging gun. I dropped down, locked my arms around his neck, and wrenched him to his feet.
Ah, the primal pleasure, as I drove his back into the chrome of the counter, my knee up into his nuts. And with the heel of one hand rammed flat beneath his chin and the other fast upon his belt, I launched him sprawling into the sludge of the ice cream cake he had so callously forced me to trash. A waste of fine calligraphy. The guy who killed Cannibal Lecture, my ass!
I couldn’t see him, couldn’t hear him. I leaped onto the counter, squinted into the seamless murk. It was a rush, I tell you, lording it there, fists at my hips, chest defiant. Hadn’t felt this much power in years. I was hungry for more. Then the bell above the door tinkled, again. “Rob?” came the voice. “Rob?”
Lightning ripped another slice of night.
No mistaking the silhouette in the doorway.
No mistaking her ever.
No mistaking the clamor as the asshole thrashed to reach her.
“Cori!” I shouted.
I’d kill him. I’d kill him.