Dark blue smoke billowed from the tailpipe of the four-door car idling in front of the town’s only convenience store. The large man inside makes a ritual of finishing the last cigarette in his pack before shutting off the engine. A thin veil of smoke had started to form around him as he jabbed the cigarette into his over flowing ashtray. He pulls his duster around him and steps out into the frigid cold of mid January. Standing at just over six and a half feet tall; he stretches the aches of a long drive out of his back and clenches his fists experimentally. A cold mist is drifting down giving the asphalt under his feet a sickly wet look. His arms swing loosely at his side as he ambles into the store looking to find the carton of smokes. He never stuck to a brand, but it didn’t really matter so much about the taste since they had all started tasting the same after almost half a century on the road.
“Cold day out there sir,” the clerk greeted him without looking up.
“Yep,” the man responded with the same dispassionate nature.
The man’s gray eyes scanned back and forth across the harsh florescent-lighted building. His eyes stopped on each person and then dismissed them. No body seemed to give him more than a moment’s glance as he made his way over to the glass locker to grab a highly caffeinated beverage. As he stepped between two metal shelves to gather a variety of pastries, the door opened and closed. The clerk gives the same greeting as before without looking up. The man held the food in the crook of his arm and the drink in his cigarette smoke stained hand. The clerk looks up from the magazine that he was scanning as the man lays the items carefully out on the counter. Glancing over he looks at the man that had entered while he was busy looking through the pastries. He looked familiar.
“Any thing else?”
“Yeah, give me a carton of smokes”
“What brand?”
“Doesn’t matter. Your cheapest brand that still has tobacco in it.”
The clerk brought down a box and bagged the items. After paying for the foodstuffs he headed out to his car that was highlighted with dark brown rust on the hood. The mist that had turned into a light rain was not helping its condition. He opened his door and leaned in to push off some fast food wrappers into the floor board so that he could lay the bag down on the passenger seat. It wouldn’t be long before he had to do another job or end up with no money for gas or food. Life hadn’t been glamorous the last several years, but it was the way that he wanted to live.
Really familiar. “Fuck!”
The man slipped into his car and tore open his glove compartment, which was filled with manila envelopes. Each one was open and he began leafing through them until he came across one marked “Joseph Carella”. Dumping the contents out onto his dashboard he began sorting through the official documents until he found the picture. The hair was different, but it was the same guy. He checked to make sure the gun in his holster had the safety off.
The man walked towards the back of the store with determination, and approached the young man fishing around for a particular kind of beer in the glass lockers.
“Joseph Carella,” The man said while resting his right hand on his pistol inside his duster.
The young man tensed up and looked around slowly at the tall man who had just called out his name. He hadn’t used that name since Chicago, and had been using fake ids for nearly a year.
“Yes?”
` “You are wanted for the murder of Isabelle Swarting. Please come peaceably or I will fill your skinny little ass with lead.”
“Fat chance. You can’t collect bounty if you kill me.”
“I’ve been paid for corpses before kid. The girl you killed parents would probably foot my expenses at least, if they knew you were lying in a shallow grave.”
Their conversation had started to attract the attention of the other customers in the store. The man heard a noise behind him and turned around to see a pump action shotgun leveled at his head. He leapt between two metal shelves and the gunfire thundered hitting a display that held greeting cards for many occasions. The cards showered down on top of him and one fell open in his lap as he sat up against the shelf ready to jump up and shoot. Idiotically he looked down at the Valentine’s Day card, and read the poem inside. Without thinking about it he stuffed the card into his duster and stood up to look over the metal shelf. Another man was holding the shotgun and most of the customers were panicking. The man fired and the man holding the shotgun collapsed into a spreading pool of his own blood.
Crouching back down the man froze when he heard the sound of a pistol being cocked right behind him. He had expected words from the boy. But, not every criminal has to boost his ego before pulling the trigger. The man had been shot before, but it still didn’t make the shock go away. Falling onto his back he fired the pistol again. Joseph went from being a wanted murder, assumed armed and dangerous, to dead; just that fast. The man went to the clerk holding the now blood stained Valentine.
“When the cops show up, tell them I had to do something”
The man went back out to the car, and started it up. He took the first cigarette from the new pack and lit off a cheap disposable lighter. Then he slouched over the wheel and drove away.
