Stealing Spiegelman

Spelling Spiegelman had lost track of time.  Two hours
ago it had been eleven-thirty; now the cross-eyed cat
was faintly purring six.  The night was over, Violence
hadn't shown, and, Spelling realized vaguely, he was
out of cigarettes.
       Ten minutes later, he was leaning against a lamppost,
his thin frame silhouetted by the rising dawn,
dragging morosely on a Newport and shivering.
       Violence McMann was dead.  There was no other
possible explanation for his mysterious absence.  This
realization didn't sadden Spelling in the least.
Violence had been an abhorrent little shit.  Still,
the amorphous dread of encountering a familiar,
tarp-bound body in some back alley dumpster made him
uncomfortable.  He was not a compassionate man, but
death's transcendent pallor pricked even his stony
heart.
He dropped his guttering cigarette, and stubbed it out
with bitter relish.  The poor bastard had it coming,
talking to those gold-digging whores about every
goddamn thing.  He would have happily volunteered his
pin number to get a look at a nice pair of tits.
Fool.
       Violence lit another cigarette and sucked it
viciously.  He would have to break the news to Bianca.
 He closed his eyes and pictured her bemused face
staring back into his.
       "How do you know he's dead?" she would ask.
       "I just do," he heard himself reply, his eyes
avoiding hers.
Even in his mind it sounded ridiculous.  There was no
way to explain to her how he knew that Violence was
dead.  He just knew.  In fact, he was a thousand times
more certain of the cripple's fate than he was of his
own.  This irritated him and he took another spiteful
drag, coughed, and swore.
       "Fuck!"
He wasn't about to let the idiocy of some lecherous
cripple ruin six months of planning.  They would
simply have to find another yegg.
       As he stood there, mourning his predicament, a
garbage truck appeared out of the gloom, its great
mechanized jaws speckled with the refuse of thousands,
and stopped to consider a dumpster.  As if in
satisfaction, it issued a deep hissing exhalation and
parted its steel lips.  Peering into the vast, black
chasm of its belly, Spelling could just discern the
crumpled remains of a chessboard.  He stared,
transfixed, at the tiny fractured squares, until the
wafting aroma of effluence hit him full in the face,
sending a discombobulating spasm of disgust down his
throat and through his intestines.  All thoughts of
Violence were eradicated, as his mind drifted once
again to Bianca.
She, a stalwart agnostic, would never believe his
premonition in the absence of irrefutable proof.
       He swore again, and spit a smoky wad onto the curb.
The prospect of hunting down a bag of mutilated
remains was not overly appealing, nor was the thought
of lugging them back through the sticky Manhattan heat
to present, like some travesty of an engagement gift,
to his fiancé.
       He could picture her, eyebrows raised, appraising the
pulpy mess with a slightly sick indifference.
       "Good thing you found his body, I never would have
believed you otherwise."
       She had a feline demeanor, arrogant, cold and
efficient.  He would never admit it, but she
frightened him, more than anyone or anything else.
Sometimes, when he stared into her eyes, he seemed to
see himself swinging from a noose above the kitchen
table, but when he blinked, the image was gone.
       The sun had risen fully now, and with it, a heavy
heat so soft that he soon couldn't distinguish it from
the warm plumes of smoke wreathing his face.  In
sticky disgust, he flicked his half-smoked cigarette
listlessly, and watched the tiny, glowing tip erupt as
it hit the asphalt.
       How the hell was Teddly getting on, he wondered,
remembering the old man's myriad misgivings?  He made
a mental note not to mention Violence's death; it
would likely set Ted over the edge, and they needed
him ship shape if they were to have a chance in hell
at pulling this off.
       After the carcass of another cigarette lay smoldering
on the pavement, the maddening heat finally drove
Spelling back inside, to brood in the comfort of his
tiny, but air conditioned flat.  Life wasn't giving
him lemons.  Instead, it was amusing itself by
slopping a big, flaming shit right in his lap.
       Feeling demoralized, he wandered into the kitchen and
was just about to get himself a beer when the phone
rang.
       It was Lorna Lee Loose, Spelling's sister in law,
accountant, secretary and perennial concubine.  The
two had been involved on and off since the fifth
grade, and the sound of her husky hello on the other
end of the line cheered him considerably.
       " You said you'd call." She sounded a little
irritated.
       "Sorry," he said.  "Things have just been really
fucked up over here, like really, really fucked, like
Panamanian toothpaste fucked."
       There was a pause on the other end, as if she was
trying to determine whether or not he was lying.
       "What happened?" she asked slowly, curiosity taking
precedence over pride.
       "Violence is dead."
       "What! How the hell did that happen?" she asked, all
traces of irritation gone.
       "The fuck should I know," Spelling answered. "The
last time I saw him was at the Green Dragon.  He
wanted to know if he could get an advance on his cut
of the money, told me he had a timely investment he
wanted to pursue.  I told him there was no money yet
and that he fucking well knew it.  We were supposed to
meet last night at my place, but he never showed."
       "Where did they find the body?" she asked.
       "Well," Spelling hesitated, knowing what came next.
“They haven't really found the body yet.  It's just…I
got this feeling in my gut.  I know he's dead, and all
chopped up in a fucking garbage bag somewhere."
       "What the fuck Spelling! " She sounded harassed. "You
got me all exited for nothing.  The drunken little
crip probably just passed out in some hooker's tits
again."
       "I knew Bianca wouldn't believe me, but I at least
hoped I'd have your support. You’re my fucking sister
for Christ sake!  Be fucking sisterly!"  He was
exasperated, and yelling into the receiver.
       "Hello?” a dull buzzing told him she had hung up.
       "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"
That's what he got for sleeping with family, he
thought, slamming down the receiver and grabbing his
keys.  It was time to find that little bastard's body,
hopefully before the flies did.
***

       Jackapo Genofree sat nervously behind an ornate,
mahogany desk, fidgeting with his zipper and wondering
where the hell Kip had gotten off to.  They had
arranged to meet at the bank twenty minutes ago, and
her uncharacteristic tardiness had him on edge.
       Maybe Ms. Malign had her working late again.  Every
once in a while, some drunken horn-dog would stumble
into the Green Dragon right before closing, waving a
billfold, and she would have to stay put an extra few
minutes to collect.  Besides, midtown traffic could be
a killer any day of the week; she might just as easily
be stuck in gridlock, waiting for the light to turn.
All the same, her absence looked very unprofessional,
and he felt the prying eyes of his manager
scrutinizing him from across the room, obviously
wondering what was holding up his prospective new
teller.
       Jackapo shot him an obsequious smile and gave a
timid, two-finger wave.  Kip better hurry the fuck up
or the whole plan was shot.
       Just then, there was a crashing noise in reception
and screaming from the other tellers.  A fully regaled
SWAT team burst through the rotunda and surrounded
Jackapo's desk, M-16's leveled at his face.
       He experienced a momentary floating sensation, as if
he had vaporized, and was now issuing in long ribbons
of steam out of the cuffs and collar of his grey sear
sucker, before his face was slammed into the desk by
two burly police men wearing riot gear.
        Two minutes later, in the back of a squad car, he
puzzled over his bizarre capture.  How the hell had
the pigs found him out?  Spelling and he had knocked
off ten banks in two years and never so much as heard
a siren, and now, two days before the execution of
their greatest heist, a whole fucking SWAT team had
crawled right up his ass.  There was obviously a rat,
and Jackapo was pretty goddamn sure he knew who it
was.
Revenge, however, would have to wait, at least until
he beat the bacon.
       He peered through the thick mesh divider that
separated him from his captors.  The driver was an
Aryan-looking son of a bitch, with a military fade and
wrap around sunglasses.  His associate was thinner,
with short brown hair and weak shoulders.
       " Either one of you gentlemen have a cigarette?  I
need something to calm my nerves."
       Neither one of them spoke for a moment, then with a
sigh, the thinner one began to rummage in the glove
compartment.  A second later, he resurfaced with a
beat up pack of Camels.  He slid open the tiny hatch
connecting the two compartments and slipped a
cigarette between Jackapo's waiting lips.
       "Can I hab a light?" he inquired, raising his
eyebrows inquisitively.
       The cop unfastened his seat belt and fished a Zippo
out of his pants pocket.  He flicked it open and
offered it through the hatch.
       Jackapo leaned forward slowly, as if straining to
reach the flickering flame.  Impatient, the policeman
turned in his seat, and thrust the lighter forward.
       In one fluid motion, Jackapo spit out his cigarette,
and bit into the cop's exposed wrist, his filled
canines seeking out a vein.  The man shrieked in
alarm, as Jackapo yanked back violently, sending the
off balance policeman careening into his comrade.  The
startled driver jerked the wheel, and the speeding
cruiser veered dangerously into oncoming traffic.
       Jackapo released the man's wrist and braced him self
for impact.  The next second, he was flung forward
against mesh and Plexiglas, and everything went black.

       He came to in a haze.  His left eye wouldn’t open and
his once disarming smile felt a few teeth short.  He
tasted iron, he smelt charred rubber, and he saw
shattered glass.  In fact, he realized blearily, he
was lying in a veritable sea of glimmering fragments.
Looking up and to his side, he realized that the rear
window of the cruiser had broken out during the
collision.  It gapped obscenely, like an anguished
snarling mouth.
       "Get the fuck up!" it seemed to shout.  "Sing-Sing's
not for you."
       Rattling his concussed brain into action, he sought
to heed its command.  He composed his broken pieces,
ordered his aching ribs to hold his heart beat,
silenced the mutinous whining behind his eyes, willed
his wilted legs to unfurl, and with a heady rush of
desperation, scrambled over the slick leather seats
into a sweltering Manhattan afternoon.
       A little sun struck, he staggered to his feet,
wondering vaguely why the police hadn't arrived yet.
He must not have been out for very long.  The driver
of the oncoming car had apparently not been wearing
his seat belt. Jackapo looked away.  The street was a
mess of honking cars and scarred wreckage.  All around
him people were running like scared ants, away, away,
away, nowhere.
       No one had noticed him.  He looked down.  The keys to
his handcuffs were lying next to the wrecked cruiser
in a pool of fragmented glass.  He smiled.  A drink
was definitely in order, maybe even one with a little
umbrella.

***

       Violence McMann sat alone in the back of the bar,
watching a heavyset blonde grind her pelvis against a
chrome poll while horny patrons cast dollar bills and
cat calls like rose petals onto the stage.
       He was drunk.  A tiny colonnade of shot glasses
littered the table, like the icy ruins of a miniature
Roman temple.
       McMann was pleased with himself.  He felt like a
puppet master, like the grand wizard of deceit,
pulling the stings for the first time in his entire
life.  Spelling and Jackapo could rot in fucking hell
for all he cared.  They were a real pair of fuckos.
In fact, it made him smile just to imagine them taking
it up the ass in some fucko infested federal prison,
while he was free to drink beer and fuck hookers to
his hearts content.
       The only thing that bothered him was the police.  Kip
had said they would make the grab at two, but it was
coming up on seven o' clock and he hadn't heard
anything.
       Jackapo was a sneaky, cold-hearted motherfucker.
Maybe he'd gotten away.  With Jack, nothing was
impossible.
       Violence caressed the handle of a forty-five.  If the
police hadn't gotten him, then there was only one
place he would go, and Violence would be waiting for
him.
       Spelling, the nervous little shit, was much less of a
threat, barley enough spine to stand up with, but his
fiancé was nothing short of murderous.  The type of
woman who could eat a man whole, balls and all, and
not even hiccup.
       Violence killed another shot.  There was one final
loose end he had to tie up, and she was coming on
next.
       Kip O'Neil was all legs.  Five feet ten inches of
soft bronze skin and fish net stockings.  She was the
kind of woman who made men's hearts explode in their
chests, the kind of impossible, woebegone angel whose
enormous, dusty eyes held the power of promises
unfulfilable.  When she took the stage, a rush of
palpable excitement ran through the crowd like a
current.  Every man was on his feet, peering through
the smoke to get a glimpse of her.
       She started out slow, teasing the audience, drawing
up that long forgotten chill of excitement, feeding
their lust, until they shouted and moaned for more,
for faster.  Until they threw their wallets on stage
and begged her please to take them there, and she
obliged; twisting and grinding, riding the pole like
she loved every inch of it.  The crowed was wild.
Whipped to a froth, they erupted in an orgiastic
tumult of cheers and exaltations.  They came, they
climaxed, they succumbed, and it was over.
       Men began to take their seats as the room's
collective heartbeat lulled in the wake of the
dancer's spell.  Even Violence felt a flickering
palpitation as Kip's mile long legs sauntered off
stage.  It was a shame he would have to kill something
so beautiful, but she was just too much of a
liability.  A drop-dead blonde with a big mouth and
star studded aspirations; who knew what she'd let slip
to some Hollywood big shot after a few Mimosas.
Besides, she wanted a fifty-fifty split, and Violence
wasn't looking to shell out.  There was only one thing
he loved more than women, and that was booze, and
there was only one thing he loved more than booze, and
that was money.
       Draining his final shot, Violence rose, grabbed his
crutches, and hobbled through the sea of crowded
tables to the changing rooms.  Eddie, the Cro-Magnon
security guard stepped aside to let him pass.
Violence was a regular, he and Kip had been coming
here for over a year, and it was customary for him to
make private visits to her backstage abode to discuss
and plan.
       Now, with a faint pang of guilt, he realized this was
to be the last of their weekly powwows.
       With a wary look around to make sure the hollow,
curtained recesses were deserted, he drew out the
forty-five, checked the magazine and continued his
shuffle towards Kip's door.
       As he drew abreast of it, he could just make out
Billie Holiday's sultry voice issuing from within.
She seemed to beckon him forward, steeling him against
the impending seconds.  It didn't seem so strange to
die to that, to have Billie's smoky serenade become
your baleful elegy.  In fact, what better death could
a poll dancer hope for?
       His conscience momentarily placated, Violence threw
open the door and pumped six shots into the back of
Kip's chair.

***

       Teddly Thompson awoke suddenly and realized, with a
groan, that he had to pee.  Twenty years ago this
realization wouldn't have elicited so much as a sigh
from the old man, but now a days, getting to the
bathroom had become a Herculean task.  Every step,
every bend, every shift tore at his arthritic joints,
causing him searing pain, as he coaxed his sagging
decrepitude into unwilling motion.
       He might not be dead yet, he thought, clinging
uncomfortably to the cold porcelain, but the day he
needed help taking a piss would be the day he called
it quits.
       A hundred and three years of life had taught him that
one more year wasn't going to bring on a sudden,
epiphanic sense of arrival.  He remembered being told
that joy was supposed to be in the process of living,
not the result, but somehow it had always managed to
elude him.
       With a painful twist he unstuck his soft, wilting
cheeks form the toilet seat, and dismounted.
       His morning routine was slow and laborious, each sock
took two minutes to work up his calf, and his
shoelaces seemed to mock him as he quivered with rage
and palsy, unable to make a bow.  He had taken to
wearing his best suit every day, on the off chance
that a miracle would transpire and God decide to take
his immortal soul up to heaven.  He wanted to be
prepared, and yet, he highly suspected a more
sulfurous ever after awaited.
       Why shouldn't it? He had lived a sinful life (a long,
hedonistic romp, for which he was completely and
unabashedly guiltless).  Still, he felt that he too
deserved to reap the graces of eternal paradise.  Yes,
he had deviated from God's commandments (overtly
breaking all ten, more than once) but his conscience
was as clear as a priest's, possibly clearer than
those of some Catholic friars.  Besides, who was to
define morality anyway?  He had chosen to live his
life in accordance with the vaguely codified laws of
the Con game, and they had proved as good a set of
values as any other.  Why should he be punished?
       It was a question he never answered, and which he had
beat his head against for decades, until all his
youthful courage and defiance congealed into cold,
implacable bitterness.
       In recent years, as his body began to fail him, he
had even grown tired of life itself.  What was the
point?  If he went out today he would have to call
Spelling and work out the last minute logistics.  He
would end up meeting with him in some up town cafe,
listening to Spelling's frantic babble for an hour and
a half, and then taking the subway back to his
apartment.  Why not cut the trip short and not even
get up?
       The sound of a key in the lock tore him from his
existential musings.  He relaxed a little, remembering
why he dragged his ancient ass out of bed every
morning.  With the rhythmic clacking of stiletto
heels, she crested the stairs.
       "Good morning Mr. Thompson," she said in a sultry,
Russian purr, "its time for your sponge bath."
       Evan Bannanova was twenty-two--A buxom Russian
transplant with an affinity for antique Americans and
vodka.  She had attended night classes at the Helsinki
Institute for Nursing and Dental Hygiene, receiving an
honorary degree in under a year with the assistance of
a low cut blouse and an IQ of a hundred and eighty.
At twenty she moved to the states and took up
residence in a Brooklyn slum, known as little Moscow.
Her beauty, charm and flawless credentials made her a
hot commodity amongst Manhattan's affluent geriatrics,
and she was soon employed as the caretaker of one
Teddly M. Thompson, con artist extraordinaire.
       On her first visit to Mr. Thompson's austere Eastside
flat, the old man had buzzed her in and told her to
fix him a martini.  With the drink in hand, and
trepidation in her heart, she mounted the stairs to
his bedroom.
Her first impression was of pleasant surprise.  He was
certainly a somber fellow, but something in his silver
grizzle and sunken face gave him the look of a prison
camp Santa Clause.  She paused on the threshold,
waiting for him to usher her in.  After a protracted
bought of interrogative silence he drew himself up
from the wallow of besotted sheets and addressed her.
       "It's like Sartre says, every existing thing is born
without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and
dies by chance.  I'm strong.  I just haven't had my
chance yet."
He closed his eyes for a moment, to shut out the
lovely radiance of her face as it gently rebuked his
morbid sermonizing.  He usually found comfort behind
closed lids where he could lapse in to cool
contemplation without question, but somehow, the
knowledge of her angelic presence had put him off his
suffering.
       The next two weeks were just the same.  Whenever she
was present, he was visited by unwanted and unshakable
bouts of happiness, which lingered for hours, even
after the smoky scent of her perfume had altogether
vanished.  Eventually, the happiness became so
ubiquitous that he gave up trying to shake it and
simply resigned himself to riding the wave. With each
passing day of emotional convalescence, the tedium of
continued existence became a little easier to bear.
By the end of a year he was as robust and radiant as
he had been in his eighties.  He remained a practicing
cynic, particularly prone to morbidity before his
morning coffee, but his paradigm had shifted from the
realm of fatalism to that of possibility.  As long as
Evana remained he felt validated.  She was his mirror,
his crutch and his companion, if such a thing existed.
 Without her, he would simply fold inward until the
creases of his imagination became the folds of an
immense cocoon.  No metamorphosis would transpire.
Instead the illusory walls would calcify and condense
into the lining of his sarcophagus.

***

       The heady bouquet of sun-spoiled garbage reminded
Spelling of marriage.  Each time he threw back the
trash spattered lid of another dumpster, and felt the
dizzying rush blow through the back of his head, he
thought of long white dresses, scattered rice and a
four karat diamond ring.
       To make matters worse, Violence was nowhere to be
found.  Well, that wasn't entirely true, Spelling
thought.  He was somewhere, but that place, it seemed,
was infinitely far away in all directions from
wherever he himself happened to be.  This thought,
which might have been almost funny in the cool
serenity of his apartment, now chaffed infuriatingly
against his heat-addled brain.  He had been dumpster
diving for what felt like days, and not so much as a
pinky toe had surfaced.  That little shit stain owed
him a post humus redress of grievances.  Maybe he
would bill the McMann estate for his time--if such an
estate even existed.  He had long suspected that
Violence's name, like his own was simply an alias.  A
lot of people in the business donned such pseudonyms
as insurance against the inevitable fallibility of
their partners in crime.   Well, dog shit by any other
name still fucking stank, that Spelling was sure of,
and no matter whether Violence's name was Pippin or
Roul, he would always be grade A, twenty-four karat
dog shit.
       Spelling lit a cigarette with the thought of purging
the lingering essence of trash from his parched
tongue.
       He held the first drag in, relishing the smoky
reprieve, and awaited the buzz he so seldom felt
anymore.
       The show had to go on.  Nothing, not even death,
could be allowed to derail it.  To hell with Bianca,
until that golden shackle was on his finger he was no
more obligated to her than to any other transient,
floating blob of flesh that called itself humanity.
       Spelling glanced at his watch.  It was nine.  He'd
only been out for an hour.  He sighed.  Time was a
tricky son of a bitch, always coming undone or
speeding up without warning.  He could have sworn he'd
been at this shit sifting for longer than that, but
thus far in his life the clock was the only thing he'd
know that didn't lie.
       A primal groan escaped him as he exhaled another
plume of gray blue smoke.  He felt lost and tired and
strangely discombobulated.  It must of been the nearly
week long bout of insomnia, he thought.  Nothing else
could account for it.  It was as if he were living,
like a maudlin specter, between two worlds, never
fully aware of either.  Colors were dull, and
sensations, apart from the constant, aching emptiness
in his chest, somehow dampened.  Only the smoky shades
issuing from his cigarette seemed to commiserate
--circling his body, embracing and caressing him with
a gentle, ethereal warmth.  Almost like flesh.
       He placed his lips, like a kiss, on the tip of the
dirty filter and drew out a few more seconds of the
cigarette's short life to quench his sorrows.  For a
moment, the smoke pooled to fill the pit in his chest,
but then he exhaled and it was gone.  Ashes to ashes,
to dust.

***

Across town, Violence McMann was livid.  The six,
fist-sized bullet holes he had punched in Kip's chair
with the forty-five gaped into emptiness, mocking him.

Kip was gone, probably far away by now, her mile long
legs on their clear-plastic heels carrying her to
providence.
       "God damn Darwin and the PHD poll dancers his logic
has bred."
Violence kicked over Kip's bullet mangled chair, lost
his balance, and toppled to the ground. Lying there,
from that prostrate vantage point, defeated by his own
reprehensibility, he realized exactly how far he was
from the grace of God or of science.
       At age five, he had contracted the first recorded
case of polio in the US in thirty-years, which had
warped his legs like silly straws, until they were
stunted and useless.   For years he had killed time,
waiting to discover the unique gift he was sure he
would inherit in compensation. But, unlike
Toulouse-Lautrec, or any of a thousand notable
savants, he had not been blessed with any such
outstanding talent.  Instead, he had developed an
obsequious nature and a penchant for immorality, which
had eventually led him to Spelling.
        Spelling Spiegelman was an accomplished solipsist,
an art he had learned from his parents who had managed
to kiss without touching lips.  This gift, if you can
call it that, had bent him away from the outside
world, and towards a singularly selfish lifestyle.  At
the age of sixteen he had gained international
recognition--beating Russia's grandmaster and
capturing the world chess championship in a brilliant
eight move coup--however, he quickly tired of the
stagnant victories he could orchestrate on the chess
board, and of the stagnant minds of his woefully human
opponents.  By eighteen he had disappeared completely
form the competitive circuit and begun a new life
robbing banks. His unparalleled intellect led him to
immediate success, and the mystique and prowess of his
entourage discouraged competition.  By twenty he had
become the most infamous thief in history.  No bank
the world over was safe from his coercive brilliance.
Insurance companies began issuing special
Spiegelman policies, at staggering rates, while
terrified patrons abandoned Wells Fargo in favor of a
hole in the back yard and a shotgun.  At age
twenty-one he was number one on the world's most
wanted list.  Both the CIA and INTERPOL had branches
dedicated to his capture, and, in Wild West fashion, a
million dollar bounty was put on his head.  Sadly,
none of this vast international commotion did much for
Spelling.  Nothing could really penetrate his
curtained solitude.  Not the warmth of a woman's body,
nor the cold maddening power of money.  Nothing, save
for the thrill of the heist seemed to satisfy him, or
to sooth the aching void within.

***

       Jackapo Genofree sucked, with pensive grace, at the
bent end of a thin pink straw leading down to the
eviscerated belly of a pineapple.  Next to him the
sagging remains of two other fruit cocktails sat like
the festive headstones of some strange Hawaiian
graveyard.  The liquor within was disgusting--a potent
fusion of cheep rum and peach Schnapps that could have
degreased a radiator--but Jackapo didn't stop to
taste.
       He drained the pineapple with calculated efficiency
and signaled the bartender to bring him a bottle of
grey goose.  He was done celebrating.  Now it was time
for business.  He unscrewed the cap and took a long
swig of the clear spirits.  The familiar searing
sensation was oddly soothing.  No matter how
fantastically bungled the plan was, or how desperately
he loathed certain hideous, crippled, backstabbing
fuck-ups, he knew there would always be the sopifying
sanctuary of a pickled mind to see him through.
       He did a quick inventory.  His Shelby Cobra was
parked two blocks away in an abandoned lot.  In the
trunk there was a twelve gauge, two pounds of plastic
explosives, a two-day-old box of doughnuts, and a pair
of rubber gloves.
       He took another swig.  Violence McMann was not long
for this world.  It was a ten-minute drive from the
Tiki bar to the Green Dragon, two minutes more to
park, and another thirty seconds to locate and
exterminate the ass canker who had so nearly cost him
everything.
       He hardly felt the Vodka go down this time.  What was
Violence doing in his last twelve and a half minutes
of life?  Maybe writing a Haiku, or taking a bubble
bath?  Sad little hiccup of time in which to try and
rectify a lifetime of worthlessness.
       Jackapo stood, slapped a few bills on the bar and
staggered out the door.

***

       Kip Leon sat, rosy-cheeked and reticent, at the
business end of an interrogation table.  Her legs were
crossed, exposing the tiniest glimmer of garter, and a
paper-thin cigarette hung wistfully from her pouting
lips. The electrified Tungsten of the spotlight framed
her exquisite features in an accusatory halo.  Even
the righteous, indignant flame of justice shinning
full in her face couldn't peel back the plastic wrap.
She was deception embodied.  A walking fantasy in pink
vinyl mini skirt, polyester mink coat and cubit
zirconium studs.  It was her job to elicit wishful
tears from men with hearts of brimstone, and she was a
master of her trade.  No one could escape the barbs of
those sea green eyes once she had set them.
       She dragged absentmindedly on her cigarette and
cast a reproachful glance in the direction of her
interrogators.  The two hulking detectives quavered
slightly under the weight of it.  She was like no
woman they had yet encountered, more akin to a lioness
than a creature of the human persuasion.  Her emerald
eyes, milky in the harsh glow of the lamp, shone from
their barbed sconce with a blind fervor that kissed
and bit and whispered terrible truths.  Neither man
spoke, both were transfixed and horrified, unable to
look away lest they turn to dust.
       "You want I should get a tan before the interrogation
starts?"  She made a point of pouting her lips and
punishing them with a flash of ambivalent aquamarine.

       The larger man was first to splutter into action.  He
straightened his suit, shifted in his chair and made a
nervous cough.
       "Ms. Leon, I'm detective Désespéré, and this is
detective Stumm.  I believe you're aware of the
arrangement, which this department has agreed to
honor.  You will give us the plans and whereabouts of
Mr. Spiegelman, Mr. Genofree and Mr.McMann, and in
return you will receive clemency, the reward money for
the capture of these men and a plane ticked to
Budapest."
The man paused, shuffling his papers apprehensively.
       "That sounds about right," she said, tossing back her
long blonde curls and looking away.  " Do you have a
cigarette, I'm all out?"  Her beautifully manicured
hand was already outstretched by the time he managed
to fish the pack out of his coat pocked.  She slipped
his lucky from the pack without a second glance and
lit it on the dying butt of her own.  First, a
meditative drag, laced with the sultry poise of her
position, and then she began.
       The tale was short.  An almost verbatim rehash of
Violence's account of Spelling's masterful plan, which
she had deftly wiled out of him the week before.  A
bottle of champagne and he had spilled his guts with
longwinded pride.  It was his fatal flaw.  He had
always been drawn, like a moth to a flame, to the
meaningless charade of conversation, and it was that
tiny thread of codependency that was to be his
undoing.
       The plan itself was a masterpiece of subtlety and
physical wit.  She reveled in the telling of it, and
in the vicarious glee of watching slack jawed
reverence dawn in the detective’s eyes.  When she had
finished, she took a final drag on the bummed
cigarette and gently extinguished it.
       "Can I go now?"  She was already out of her seat when
an awestruck nod from Stumm turned her wayward heels
towards Budapest.

***

       Violence McMann had finally found the truth.
Something in the thousand molten splinters of lead
suffocating his heart had given rise to enlightenment.
 Maybe the proximity of death afforded a better view.
A kind of introspective rubbernecking.  He looked down
at his blood soaked stomach and the tatters of his
jacket.  It wouldn't be long now.  Somewhere behind
him lay Jackapo's corpse.  The smoking gun still
rested comically in the palm of Violence's hand.  He
turned, his eyes capturing a century of light between
the dead man and the endless alley night, and watched
with desperate expectation for some essential shimmer
to issue from his still moist lips.  But there was
nothing.  The midnight hue of a Precambrian moon
reflected on his last moments with bitter
indifference.  The same moon that had seen Jesus
crucified and every saintly soul turned to dust now
illuminated the futility of his faith.
       Existence, everything he had, commenced sublimation
as the particles of his present self, his past and his
impending future coalesced into a single point of
time.  He felt reconciled, just for an instant, before
death lifted him and gently shook until the resolve
that had held his fragile consciousness tore asunder
and he returned to existential nothingness.

***

       Lorna Lee Loose was alone as always.  In her right
hand she clutched a fading photograph of Spelling and
her on a tropical beach, in the left a gallon of
gasoline.  The one room office she maintained as a
front for Spelling's criminal endeavors was already
rank with the smell of petroleum, but she continued to
slosh it over every accessible surface with spiteful
redundancy.  Nothing would prevent this fucking
shit-pit from roasting like a Christian martyr until
the silent suffering of fifteen wasted years had been
stripped from the walls in ribbons of ash.  She let
the last of the gas spill out over a pile of papers
and then tossed the can down in despair.
Spelling was a man apart.  No woman in this world or
the next would ever win his heart.  That tiny space
was reserved for some as of yet undreamt opus of
criminal craft.
       He had phoned five minutes before with the news that
Violence and Jackapo had gunned each other down
outside the Green Dragon.
       "Burn it.  Burn all of it.  Let em's die sifting the
pieces," he'd said, and hung up.
The plan was going to hell, and, judging from the sad
resolve in Spelling's voice, he along with it.  She
unscrewed the lid from another gas can and doused the
computer.
Every shred of documentation proving her existence
would soon be nothing more than a tiny column of
smoke.  All for the sake of a man who made love to her
while staring at his own reflection in her eyes.  The
phone rang.

"Law offices of Spiegelman and Genofree, this is Lorna
speaking."
"Its Bianca"
"Oh.."
"Is Spelling there?"
"Mr. Spiegelman has stepped out momentarily.  Would
you like me to take a message?"
"No, I'll be over in a minute."
There was a pause while Lorna contemplated the next
and most important word she would ever utter.
"Alright."
She lowered the receiver.
Something in the prodigal stench of the gasoline, or
else some vein of logic that had burst inside, made
her smile.  A glow of fevered resignation flushed her
cheeks and rustled her hair.  Spelling was gone, and
with him her responsibility to live.  She was free to
burn, and take that bitch with her.  If Spelling was
determined to go, then she would see him off right.
Tear the fucking monkey from his back and turn every
remaining part, paper and person, of his past into
irrevocable ash.  It was the only way he might finally
find his wings.   She kissed the photograph one last
time, lit a cigarette and sat down to wait.

***

       Teddly Thompson lay in bed contemplating death.  Two
days ago Evana had been deported.  Instead of her
radiant presence, three men in plain grey suits had
arrived at his door to inform him that he had been
employing an alien.
"An angel," he had corrected, but they--the kind of
glassy eyed officials who have come to speak and not
to listen-- took no notice.  With much chest swelling
and pontification they had sat him down and treated
him to a lecture on the psychology of women.
       "You can't trust em'.  They're all in it for
something, especially the pretty ones," they had
concluded.  Then all three had risen at once, nodded,
and left, slamming the door.  As it banged shut,
clapping like a coffin lid, Teddly had felt a great
tragedy weigh anchor in his soul.    No amount of
fantasy, or memory, or reminiscence could replace
Evana's angelic presence, and the void that now
existed in his life was far worse than the depressive
boredom, which it had replaced.  Some depraved cosmic
force was punishing him without reason or recourse.
The transient joy he had experienced in the company of
his nurse was now nothing more than aching nostalgia.
Like every pleasure in his lifetime had transmuted it
into guilt and suffering.  All beauty was fleeting.
The only consistency in the universe, the only over
arching truth was misery.
       With a trembling hand he slid back the covers and
eased into a sitting position.  Only the hysterical
irony of finally finding true love after a hundred
years of solitude, and then having it torn away by
some impartial superpower was keeping his ancient,
trembling molecules from dissipation.  He felt
obligated to remain, out of spite and recalcitrance,
and to fight the cosmic dictation that said he would
die from a wounded soul.  He raised himself from the
bed, slow and trembling, and began to dress--socks,
briefs, pants, shirt, tie and finally jacket-until his
best suit was assembled.  He was prepared.  Ready to
die on his terms.
       Outside, he hailed a taxi and asked the driver to
take him to St. Patrick's Cathedral.  It had been the
place of his indoctrination.  Every Sunday his mother
had dragged him to the vast, smoky cathedral to suffer
the hell fire sermonizing of father Gunathair, who had
instilled in his five year old mind an obsession with
faith and absolution that had tormented him ever
since.  Well, to hell with that.  He was done with
middlemen, mad preachers and the lot.  He was gonna
stick it to the big man himself.  Heaven no longer
appealed to him anyway, it was just like earth,
without the interesting people.
       He stepped out of the cab, and gazed up at the
imposing mass of dark stone rising, dizzyingly before
him.  Its neo-gothic facade and all the trappings of
splendor put him in mind of a great gilded picture
frame displaying a blank canvas.  But, despite the
hollowness of its hallowed halls, he had nothing more
substantial to fight it with, only pettiness.  It
would have to suffice.
       With his customary, shuddering gate, he proceeded
through the great brass doors down the aisle to the
cathedral's heart, between nave and transept.  He
glanced over the pews.  No one was in attendance.
Even Jesus, sagging on his cross, seemed preoccupied
and aloof.
With a quaking hand he unzipped his fly.  It was what
he'd always wanted to do as a teenager, take a piss on
these sacred cobblestones and tell you-know-who
exactly how he felt.  But now, as he stood there, a
single man in defiance of God, not a solitary drop
came to his aid. He started to laugh—a great
heart-rending bellow that brought tears to his
eyes--there is a God, he thought, and died, still
smiling.

***

       Spelling Spiegelman was in quite a fix.  His entire
crew, yegg, front man, cloak-and-dagger, muscle, even
his fucking fiancé had punched out permanently, and,
judging by the ransacked state of his apartment
someone had tipped off the police.  For the time being
he was safe.  The inky haze building on the horizon
told him that Lorna had done her job right, despite
taking herself and Bianca along for the ride.  If he
just abandoned the plan--it was irreparably fucked
anyway--and left the country now, the police would
never catch him.  He could start afresh, set up a new
life on some distant continent.  But of course he
couldn't.  The plan was all he had.  Discarding it was
tantamount to self-destruction.  Even the thought of
escape sent images of his departed troupe flashing
through his minds eye.  Didn't he have a
responsibility to their memories?  He wasn't sure.
When he really thought about it, all the conjured
corpses he saw inside seemed like nothing more than
tools to him.  Now broken or consumed by fate, their
purpose served.  No humanity had dared hijack a ride
in the ruins of any of their so-called lives, leaving
him very little to memorialize.
       He lit a cigarette and took a thoughtful drag.  He
had always lived in solitude, as he supposed most men
did, but now that the pretense lay bleeding in the
gutter he was proud to see that he retained the
courage to carry on being.  Death had clarified
things.  Stripped away the confusing illusion of free
will and replaced it with an egg timer.  His future
was a foregone conclusion.  There wasn't time enough
in all the infinite universes to alter it.  In fact,
time had stopped mattering all together.  His days and
nights had grown so fluid that the inky substance of
their hemispheres now ran together in his mind to form
an endless dusk.  It was in this gray-lit
phantasmagoria that he now found himself, alone and
fluttering hopelessly, at the whim of a vast
superstructure put in motion by his own incalculable
past.  No matter how far his intellect stretched in
every direction it could never counteract the
inevitable Armageddon that was ticking inside him—its
great cogwheels turning him ever closer to a fate that
would define and destroy him.
       He found this revelation profoundly unsurprising.
His whole life had prefigured this moment, and now
that it was upon him he was prepared.  No force in the
universe could stop him from trying his damnedest to
pull this heist.  He took a final drag on his
cigarette; cast it aside and for the first time felt
truly alone.  With a shiver he turned up his collar
and hailed a taxi.
       The sun was setting as the cab pulled up in front of
the federal reserve bank of New York.  Spelling could
see two men in dark sunglasses standing on either side
of the door, their conspicuous earpieces bulging
comically beneath their baseball caps.  They were
waiting for him.  He didn't want to get out of the
car, but some force beyond his control guided his hand
to the handle.  With a sigh of resignation, he pulled
open the door and stepped outside.

       Spelling awoke behind bars.  It had been three months
since he had last set foot on free soil, and the
monotony of prison life was finally taking a toll on
his morale.  He was more than alone now.  The other
prisoners with their orange jump suits, tattoos, and
false bravado bored him to tears.  He had to break
out; there was nothing else for it.  Break out, or
crack up.
       He sat up on his cot, and noticed a letter lying on
the floor of his cell.  He reached down and picked it
up.  The envelope was plain, and there was no return
address.  He tore it open and pulled out a folded
sheet of paper.

       Dear Spelling,
I'm sorry about everything that's happened.  I know
you’re not angry with me, God knows if you even have
it in you to be angry, but I'm compelled to apologize
regardless.  I'm living in Budapest now, off the
reward money.  It’s beautiful.  Old enough to matter,
and trees everywhere.  I hope you'll come visit me
when you get out.  There's something in the air that
reminds me of you.

       Love,
       Kip

He closed the letter and looked up. She was right, or
course.  He wasn't angry.  His boredom far outweighed
any lingering resentment.
       He would escape.  In fact, he would do it that very
evening.  Kip had given no address, but a woman like
her left a river of tears wider than the Amazon.  She
wouldn't be hard to find.  He lay back on his cot,
grinning for the first time in twenty years.  All
around him the steel bars of the prison rang with
futility and rage, but Spelling could hear none of it.
 His face was complacent, and his sightless eyes
fixated on Budapest.  Its rustling trees, its Holy
Trinity, and all its beautiful banks waiting to be
ravaged.