Thursday, August 19, 2010

LAD Website Original: Carl's Story

Carl's Story
by Steven Ormosi

Carl opened the back door and looked around.
Wordlessly he motioned his team into position. They had four minutes to destroy the cache and get out. He saw one of his men eyeing a semi-automatic weapon and grabbed him. Carl shook his head “no” and pointed to the corner of the room holding up one, then two, then three fingers. Start counting.

The plan had been worked out beforehand. There was a strict code of silence to be observed while they were on task. Four people: one to take stock of what was being destroyed, one to douse the place and light it, one for lookout and Carl was there to oversee everyone and make sure nothing went wrong. He trusted his crew, but they weren’t the smartest tools in the shed and this needed to be done right.

The cache as it turned out was located on the bottom floor of a two story house that had been abandoned, then repopulated by Billy the Kid’s customers and trusted associates. He specialized in money lending and did a little drug running on the side. They had dispatched the outside guards quietly and right now, they were fixing to burn this mother down not ten feet below a glorified opium den where several of Billy’s clients no doubt festered.

Carl looked around. This was going to be important and crippling to Billy, just like Kelly needed. The place was littered with hardware and taking a few guns was tempting, but they didn’t want to give any obvious reason for retaliation. Walking around town with guns stolen just before a fire wiped out the building, along with whoever was upstairs, certainly qualified as a reason to retaliate.

Carl was hoping that they’d catch Billy himself upstairs and squash the whole feud tonight, but their intelligence had let them know he was at another house, and the security around him would’ve made the operation a logistical nightmare anyway. Just as the count was being wrapped up, the lookout signaled an interloper approaching. Carl stood near the door and waited as the stairs creaked. Everyone held their breath. A man’s voice came wafting through the door, he was singing.

“Myyyyyy body lies over the ocean, my body lies over the s—“

Carl grabbed the man’s head as he walked through the entrance and jerked it to the left until he heard it snap. “Bonnie,” he whispered in disgust.

Everyone winced.

Carl put up one finger and twirled it in a circular motion, everyone knew what it meant,
"let’s get this show on the road." The crew finished dousing the room and threw a Zippo in as they were leaving through the same door as they had entered.

The fire was lovely. Carl watched from a distance and smiled. Nothing like getting the job done right, he thought, the adrenaline rush slowly ebbing. Kelly would approve.

No comments:

Post a Comment