Grab the water. Grab Turd. Drag him off to a curb bathed in shadow. Splash water.
“Where is Thuggie?”
He cries.
“Answer me and you get some relief,” I say and jiggle the gallon jug over his ear. “Where is Thuggie?”
“I don’t know!” he screams through his teeth. His nostrils have become leaking faucets. Thick streamers of snot have gooed him from the upper lip down to the lower lip and have even touched the concrete. I look at this ghost chili spray and give it an approving nod. If it were a dude I’d buy it a stiff drink.
“So where is he?”
“Don’t know! Water! Please motherfucker! Water!”
“Who does?”
“Candy! Candy knows!”
Splash. “Who is Candy?”
“Candy Man! He deals straight for Thuggie! He’ll know! Gimme some water! Fuck!”
Another splash. “Where?”
“Over at the John Wayne Theater! Water!”
“I’ll decide when you get more water. The John Wayne Theater? You mean the old Pinnacle Theater? At Fiftieth?”
“Yeah! Yeah! Please! This shit burns like fire! Water! I need water!”
Splash.
“What’s he look like?”
“Dark glasses and he’s always on the phone! That’s it! That’s all I know! Water!”
I give him a splash and then pour the rest of the gallon out next to his head.
“Get up.”
I snatch him up onto his feet and march him over to the hooptie. I open the passenger side doors and swing him into the corpses of his friends. Get their blood on him. All over. Over to the driver’s side. Same thing. When Turd is good and slick I push him off to the rear of the car where he immediately resumes his flailing and screaming for water.
I go to the car I came in. Put on the gloves I brought and yank the windshield free from the car. Toss it off to the side and forget about it. Grab the diesel and the rubbing alcohol. Pour the diesel all over the inside of the hooptie. Splash the alcohol around. Got the accelerant, got the long, slow burn. I light it up. With a tremendous whoosh the inside of the car turns to an oven. Flames lick at the sky. Everything I do now is backlight in snatches of orange and yellow.
I loom over Turd. Put the barrel of the Glock 19 to his head.
“You’re the only survivor of this grand fuck-up. You’re soaked in your buddies’ blood and you don’t have a scratch on you. Smell that? That’s your friends burning. You just sold out one of Thuggie’s top dogs. You better fucking run. Got me?”
“Water!” he says. I laugh and toss the pepper spray canister in the fire. Heat will pop it. I get inside the car. Drive off.
Gloves on, I strip the Glock 19 as I drive. The barrel goes out the window as I cross an overpass. Under it there is a stream fattened with winter snow runoff. I slow to a crawl as I pass a storm grate. The slide goes in it. I flick out the remaining rounds into the bag I have. Stop at a dumpster and drop the receiver in. Toss a few bags over it. Stop at another dumpster and put the fifty round drum magazines in it.
I drive by a homeless pile and toss the gloves their way. The first one who comes to and tries them on will be the lucky winner.
The spot I took the car from is newly occupied as I return to the house party. I sneak the car into a space down the block and walk to my car. Get in. The car I stole isn’t too bad off; it needs a new windshield but that’s about it.
Folks are about, hanging out. Walking here and there. A second house has opened for business with the party so there are now two porches lit up with music blaring, people mingling, clouds of smoke rising. A grill is going. I can smell something pretty tantalizing in the air.
It’s not a party until someone starts a mass panic to the tune of gunshots. Muddy the waters. So as I put my car into drive and pull out onto the street, if for nothing else to be an asshole, I stick my .44 out the window and squeeze off two rounds into the sky.