Last Cigarette Read online

ARETTE

  Mike Ramon

  © 2013 M. Ramon

  This work is published under a Creative Commons license (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0). To view this license:

  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

  If you wish to contact the author you can send e-mail to:

  [email protected]

  Web addresses where you can find my work:

  https://www.wattpad.com/user/ZeroTheHero

  The car came to a rough stop, the tires sliding in the sand. The engine idled for a moment, and then fell silent. The driver got out of the car and slammed the door shut. He wore a suit, expensive shoes, and polarized sunglasses. He looked around; nothing all around but empty desert. The temperature hovered near a hundred degrees, and the transition from the cool interior of the car to the open heat of day made beads of sweat pop out on his forehead.

  He walked around behind the car and knocked on the lid of the trunk. Desperate muffled sounds were the only response. He popped the trunk open and looked into it, down at his prey. A man lay hogtied in the trunk, a torn pieces of cloth wrapped around his head, the front end stuck in his mouth and the back end tied into a knot at the back of his head. He wore a suit also, but cheaper shoes. The man in the sunglasses pulled the other man out of the trunk slowly, dropping him unceremoniously onto the ground. He bent down and untied the strip of cloth.

  “God damn, you have no idea how much that hurt,” the bound man said. “You have to stop this. If you untie me now we can forget all about this. Whatever they’re paying you, I’ll double it. I swear.”

  The man stood over him, looking down at him pitilessly.

  “What’s your name?” the bound man asked.

  “Slade.”

  “Slade? Is that your first or last name?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “No, I guess not. Listen Slade, my name is Robert Flanagan, and I--”

  “I know who you are.”

  “Good. Then you know how much money I have. Or you at least have a rough estimate,” Flanagan said with a strained laugh. “I’ll give you…I’ll give you a million dollars. All you have to do is untie me and drive me back to town. How does that sound?”

  Slade bent down again and started untying the rope restraining Flanagan’s arms and legs.

  “Oh, thank God,” Flanagan whispered.

  Slade finished untying him and tossed the rope into the empty trunk. Flanagan started to get up.

  “You won’t regret this,” he said. “I take good care of my friends.”

  Slade kicked him in the gut and he sank back to the ground.

  “What the hell did you do that for?” Flanagan asked between shallow gasps for air.

  “Stay down there until I tell you to get up.”

  Slade went to the back door of the car, opened it and reached in. He grabbed a shovel that was laying on the backseat and closed the door again. He walked back to where Flanagan lay on the ground.

  “Now you can get up,” he said.

  “Wh-what do you need that shovel for?” Flanagan asked.

  “Get up or I’ll crack your fucking head open with it.”

  Flanagan got warily to his feet, his eyes never leaving the shovel.

  “Whatever you’re thinking of doing, you should reconsider.”

  “Here’s the deal,” Slade said. “You’re gonna take this shovel and dig a nice big hole. If you refuse, or if you stall in any way, I’ll break every damn bone in your body one by one. You will die slowly and painfully. Eventually you’ll be begging me to kill you. Or you could just take the easy way out. Dig me a hole and I’ll give you a nice quick death. Painless. How does that sound?”

  “It sounds like a shitty deal. Either way I lose.”

  “Yeah, but one way is much more painful than the other.”

  “I have money--”

  “I don’t give a shit about your money. You’re not getting out of this; you need to accept that fact. You can’t talk your way out, and you can’t buy your way out. Now choose, or I’ll choose for you.”

  “I have a family,” Flanagan pleaded.

  Slade swung the shovel, clipping him on the shoulder. Flanagan cried out in pain.

  “Wait, wait; I’ll dig the fucking hole, you bastard!”

  “Good.”

  Slade tossed the shovel on the ground and took a step back, his hand going to the butt if the gun than hung at his hip, and resting there. Flanagan reached down and picked up the shovel. His shoulder throbbed where the blow had landed.

  “Where should I dig?”

  Slade pointed to a spot about fifteen feet away from the car.”

  “There,” Slade said.

  “It’s scorching hot out here. I’ll die from the heat before you get a chance to kill me.”

  “I’ve got water in the car. Now dig.”

  Flanagan took off his coat and tie, and dropped them to the ground. He walked to the general area that Slade had indicated and looked down at the ground. He didn’t think he would be able to dig a hole big enough to fit in if he dug all day from sunup to sundown. But he started digging anyway.

  In less than five minutes he was panting harshly. In ten minutes his shirt was drenched with sweat. In twenty minutes his hands were starting to blister. He kept digging, preferring not to have his bones broken one by one. After a half hour of digging Slade gave him a five minute break, letting him drink some warm water from a gallon jug. Then it was time to resume digging.

  It went on like that for a while, with occasional breaks for water. Eventually Flanagan discarded his sopping wet shirt, digging bare-chested. Slade kept his shirt on, though it was getting plenty damp as well. The sun started its descent in the sky, and the day started to cool down just a little; it seemed to Flanagan like a small bit of mercy from the gods. When the sun met the horizon Flanagan stopped digging.

  “It’s not enough,” Slade said. “Dig some more.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Dig.”

  “I can’t! My hands are bleeding, for Christ’s sake. I’m tired. Every muscle in my body feels like it’s on fire.”

  Slade said nothing; he just looked at Flanagan from eyes that were still hidden behind sunglasses. When Flanagan looked into them all he saw were twin reflections of himself, an exhausted and broken man.

  “It’s not too late,” Flanagan said. “My offer still stands. A million…no, make it two million. We can get in the car and head back to town.”

  Slade said nothing at all. His hand still rested on the butt of his gun. A warm breeze blew his hair around his head. He was like a wall, silent and inscrutable.

  “I guess I’ll just dig, then,” Flanagan said.

  Sometime later Slade tapped him on the shoulder. Flanagan stopped digging. The day was stuck in that peculiar place where it wasn’t light but it wasn’t quite dark

  “That’s enough,” Slade said.

  Flanagan tossed the shovel aside.

  “Listen,” he said. “You got a cigarette?”

  “Don’t waste my time,” Slade said.

  “I just want a fucking cigarette, okay? Is that so much to ask?”

  Slade thought about it for a moment.

  “No. No, I guess it’s not.”

  Flanagan reached up and Slade took his hand, helping him up out of the hole. The hole was four feet deep, four and a half feet long and three feet wide. Even Slade was impressed that Flanagan had managed it without collapsing. Flanagan stretched the muscles in his arms and legs, trying to rub the ache out of them. His back was a hot nest of pain.

  Slade reached into his coat pocket and grabbed his pack of cigarettes.

  “You smoke Camels?” Slade asked.

  “I’d smoke a rolled up piece of toilet paper
right about now if there was tobacco in it.”

  Slade laughed. Flanagan had moxie; he had to give him that. Slade handed him the cancer stick, then reached back into his pocket and brought out a lighter. He lit the cigarette for the condemned man. Flanagan sucked smoke deep into his lungs, held it there, and then exhaled it in a sigh.

  “That’s good,” Flanagan said.

  “I’m sure it is.”

  “I do have a family, you know. A wife and two kids.”

  Flanagan waited for Slade to tell him to shut up. When this didn’t happen he went on.

  “My son, Steve, is thirteen. He wants to try out for football with the county youth league. I told him I thought it was a good idea, but to be honest the kid’s not very good. He can’t pass, he can’t catch and he moves like a tortoise. If he was a big kid maybe he could play defense, but he’s skinny as hell. He’s a good kid though.”

  Slade remained silent as Flanagan took another puff on the cigarette.

  “My daughter’s name is Mary,” Flanagan continued. “She’s seven year sold. She’s the prettiest little girl you’ve ever seen. She’s always drawing me pictures; she signs them and everything, just like a real artist. Sometimes I read her a story at bedtime. Not that often, I’m usually busy you know, but when I get the chance I like to do it. It makes her happy. My wife…well, I still love her. She loves me back in her own way. She was so…shit, I’m crying like a little bitch.”

  Flanagan wiped away a few tears.

  “I don’t want to die,” he said quietly.

  “Nobody does,” Slade said. “But we all will eventually.”

  “Why are you doing this? I’m offering you two million dollars. Whoever is paying you can’t be paying anything near that. What are you getting? Twenty grand? Thirty?”

  “That’s my business. It doesn’t matter out here.”

  Slade indicated the expanse of the desert with a sweep of his arms.

  “Out here is where we finish things,” he continued.

  “But it doesn’t have to be like--fuck it. I’m done trying to convince you. If you can afford to pass on two million dollars, I don’t think three million will make a difference. Or four, for that matter.”

  “So you understand at last.”

  “Yeah, I understand real good.”

  Flanagan took one last drag on the cigarette and threw it away.

  “It’s time,” Slade said.

  “Who hired you?” Flanagan asked.

  “Come one; let’s go.”

  “I need to know. I have a right to know.”

  “You don’t have any rights, Mister Flanagan.”

  “I need to know.”

  Slade grabbed Flanagan’s arm and pulled him toward the hole.

  “Wait, please. Just wait a minute!”

  Slade stopped pulling on him.

  “I’m asking you as man; please tell me. I want to know who paid money to have me killed.”

  Slade sighed. He looked at the hole, then back at Flanagan.

  “It’s means that much to you, even though you can’t do anything about it?”

  “Yes,” Flanagan said. “It means that much to me.”

  “All right. The guy who hired me is named Jenco. Claude Jenco.”

  Flanagan flinched at the utterance of the name.

  “Claude? Jesus Christ. I thought we were friends.”

  “You should have picked better friends,” Slade said.

  “No shit,” Flanagan aid, then barked out a mirthless laugh.

  “Now you know. Let’s go.”

  “All right,” Flanagan said. “I guess when it’s time, it’s time.”

  Slade didn’t have to drag Flanagan along this time. The two men walked to the rim of the freshly-dug hole. Flanagan stood at the edge for a moment, looking down into the hole; it looked like the opening of some great and dismal abyss. There was just the faintest hint of light now on the horizon. Flanagan lowered himself down into the hole. He stood looking up at his executioner; there was no need for more talk of money or family. This thing would be played out to its end. Slade unbuttoned the strap of his holster and withdrew the gun, keeping it pointed down at the ground.

  “I really like you,” Slade said. “I’m sorry we had to meet under such circumstances as these.”

  “So am I.”

  Slade started to lift the barrel of the gun, but then a good portion of his forehead exploded outward with a pink vapor mist, and he fell to the ground like a sack of bricks.

  Flanagan stood still for a moment, looking at the other man’s lifeless body as it lay on the ground, a pool of blood expanding slowly around the ruined head. Then he climbed up onto the edge of the hole and reached into Slade’s coat pocket, fishing out the pack of cigarettes and the lighter. As he propped a cigarette in his mouth he looked off into the distance. There was a pair of headlights fast approaching. He lit the cigarette, using one hand to shield the flame from the wind, then put the lighter in his own pants pocket.

  The headlights pulled up close; they belonged to a black SUV. One man climbed out of the vehicle; the driver remained behind the wheel.

  “You okay?” the man asked Flanagan.

  “Yeah, I’m okay. You sure took your time, though. You were supposed to clip him as soon as the gun was free of the holster.”

  “Yeah, yeah. If you ask me, this whole thing was a bad idea. It would have been much easier just to sweep this guy up, take him out to one of our factories in Easton and tase him in his balls until he told us what we wanted to know.”

  “I didn’t ask you,” Flanagan said. “And I told you before; I know this type of guy. He would have kept his mouth shut right up to the end.”

  “So you got what you needed?”

  “Yeah, I got what I needed. Now help me up.”

  The man helped Flanagan up on his feet.

  “Hand me my clothes,” Flanagan said.

  The man grabbed up the shirt, tie and suit jacket that had been discarded earlier. Flanagan put them back on.

  “I’m gonna have Frankie drive me back to town,” Flanagan said. “You stay here and bury this prick, then drive his car back to town. Meet us at the place on 6th and Rosewood.”

  “What then?”

  “Then we’ll pay a visit to an old friend of mine, Claude Jenco. Think you can handle it?”

  “No problem, boss.”

  Flanagan climbed into the front passenger seat of the SUV, and the vehicle turned around and headed back the way it came. When he was finished with the cigarette he opened his window and flicked the butt out. He left the window open, and as they drove along he let the cool night air tousle his hair. It had been a hard day, but it was a beautiful night.