A Simple Job

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Booted Vulture
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A Simple Job

Post by Booted Vulture »

A Simple Job.

Mr Lowe was the big man of the town. Mr Lowe was going places. He ran all the local rackets; the drugs, the fake brand cigarettes even the town’s three brothels were owned by him. Then was no mistake, Mr Lowe was going places. He had the money and he had the pull. He was going to expand his business. His lieutenants were all for it. Like him, they were men of ambition. Men of ambition also had to have certain fearlessness, so that they could thrive. Mr Lowe was going thrive. The Cartels around here were all run by old men. They had grown fat on their profits, gorging themselves on fine foods, old wine and exotic women. It blinded them. Mr Lowe’s expansion would take them unawares and he would expand his influence across the state.

Mr Lowe took another long puff of his Little Havanan Cigar and smiled to himself; he shifted his weight in the restaurant’s largest chair and awaited the third course of his meal. It was to be roasted Mandarin Duck stuff with oranges. Mr Lowe could not conceive of a more luxurious meal.

Mr Lowe’s pleasure was quite interrupted when another customer who was making his way over to the rest room, was actually clumsy enough to fall over his own feet, stumbled and nearly crash into Mr Lowe himself! Catching himself with a hand on Mr Lowe’s own table. Mr Lowe was turning furiously towards the head waiter, to lodge a most forceful complaint when he felt something jab sharply into his back.

Mr Lowe froze up completely. Turning towards the intruder he noted the strange almond shape of the man’s eyes and the shambolic no, shabby nature of the man’s dark tattered clothes. Even while he wondered how such a disgrace had ever managed to enter such a high class restaurant, Mr Lowe was sure he’d been stabbed. He was no racist but everyone knew these Asian immigrant’s were the cause of rising knife crime. He looked down.

Mr Lowe saw nothing more than the tip’s one the man’s finger pushed into his back.

Mr Lowe laughed to himself, how paranoid he had been. The man leaned close to Mr Lowe and he smelt expensive aftershave on the stranger’s face quite at odds with his disreputable appearance.

“Bang.”

Mr Lowe heard the word even though the tattered man had barely even vocalised it. Then he felt a shudder pass through him and everything below his waist went startling numb. He looked down. Hidden by the table a slow pool of red. He wondered what it was.

Mr Lowe was going places. Places that were six feet under.

The strange man simply walked out the restaurant. He was quite far down the road by the time Lowe collapsed. A small smile crossed his face when he heard the outcry from the restaurant.

The Slinger was back in town.
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Shroom Man 777
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Re: A Simple Job

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Short and simple, and nice. Ah, Slinger, the ultimate streetlevel shitpiece sixshooter slumdog :D

You getter continue this, Boots. Like, write the Slinger ruining all sorts of gangster shit - even meta ones. Have him battle a metahuman whose special powers is to have a digestive system that can also somehow function as a saltwater aquarium, allowing him to store deadly sea creatures in his gullet - a terrifying ability that he can use to SPIT OUT BLUE-RINGED OCTOPUSSIES and GODDAMN SEA ANEMONES!

Because if you're not using that idea, I sure as hell will... sometime in the grim darkness of the far future, where THERE. IS. ONLY. SHROOM.
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Re: A Simple Job

Post by Mobius 1 »

Slinger really makes for some great assasinations. I still say it's one of the coolest powers in OZC.

Damn, now I can't get the idea of those cursed sapient handguns out of my mind.
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Shroom Man 777
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Re: A Simple Job

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Maybe the cursed sapient handguns belonged to some old western villain who looked like Lee Van Cleef, and he was quite a monster in killing scores of men in gunbattles before he was finally killed - shot in the back by some dude who wasn't a gunslinger but just some shmuck with a gun. Now you have this young angry dude who's a total wanker but who's never fired a gun before, he finds Lee Van Cleef's guns and thinks they're cool, he gets possessed by them and as his soul gets corrupted, he goes around to continue his murder spree while the guns make him look more and more like Lee Van Cleef.

Yes.
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Re: A Simple Job

Post by Booted Vulture »

Hmm. Not sure I'm very happy with this. But I did promise Shroomy more before Christmas and he's been bugging me about it so...


II

A man known to the world at large as John Doe and to its criminal underbelly as The Slinger walked through the night, the smallest of smiles adorning his otherwise sombre face. It could have easily spread across his face and spit into a joyous arrogant smirk but that would not do at all. It was indulging in just that kind of hubris that resulted in the incident that had knocked back his career from ‘high flier that can name his own price’ to ‘street level slime that comes a dozen a penny’ He used to be highly regarded and sort after. Now people barely remembered the name ‘Slinger’. The mere recollection of the incident sent phantom pains shooting through his mouth and throat and brought the cloying coppery taste of his own blood to mind. He stopped and shuddered at the memories then licked his lips with his recently regenerated tongue, as if to reassure himself it was still there.

But they would know his name once again; John was determined. This was just the first job. More would come and he’d have it all again. They’d be no-one to stop him this time John mental cursed his one track mind as it lead him straight back to that which he had been trying to avoid considering. He glanced up at the night sky made duller and grey by rolling threatening grey clouds. Time to head home, he thought and started to trudge towards his ‘home’, eight blocks away.

The bar stank of numerous different kinds of smoke; stale beer and rotten carpet. The sign of over the door was so dirty as to be illegible. John Doe sighed to himself and shoved in through the door. The strength of the stench doubled then tripled as he took another step, he fought the urge to gag and ignored the slightly hostile look he got from all the regular clientele, which were in fact the bar’s only clientele; it wasn’t exactly the kind of attractive place that tended to draw in new faces.

Which of course was a pretty bad thing for the bar, the regulars didn’t exactly pay their way with any great alacrity; so month after month the place was losing money; hence why he rented the room above the bar out for a place to sleep; John had something in common with this place’s owners: he was desperate and he didn’t ask too many questions.

He reached the bar just as fast as his legs could carry him; and waved to catch the only bar tender’s (and, incidentally, the owner’s) attention. The bar tender could probably have been quite pretty; she was of a medium height, only a inch shorter than John himself, had wavy blonde hair hung below shoulder height; framing a bust which was shown off to great advantage by her barmaid’s blouse. All these features should have made her seem rather desirable but John didn’t feel much attraction to her. It might have been the slightly pained look to her eyes or the defeated slump of her shoulders; the poor woman looked like she been totally worn down by life. John felt sorry for her, and pity was pretty much lethal to his lust.

“Heya, John” She said, flashing him a professional rather than warm smile, “What can I get you? A shot? How ‘bout a brew?”

“Just my key, Maria.” he murmured quietly, “just my keys,”

She scowled at him, disappointedly and slammed the old metal key on the bar with rather more force than was necessary.

John grabbed them and then disappeared through the back door and up a flight of stairs, into his room. He closed the door and locked it behind him. Then he closed a trio of addition deadbolts and two additional padlocks that he added for security reasons.

His smelly ‘hobo chic’ coat slapped suddenly against his floor. Then he kicked off his boots as he staggered across his room; discarding his shirt, trousers and underwear in small rain sodden piles stretched between the door and his bed, which, entirely without ceremony, John collapsed into; he was pretty much asleep the moment he curled up under the covers.

-

He slept for a solid twelve hours, only rising at just after mid day when the sun managed to burn down straight through the small dirt stained sky light in the roof over his head. He spent the rest of the day doing not very much; dumping the dirty sodden clothes of the hobo disguise into the washer, showering and shaving to get rid of the authentic hobo smell and getting dressed in a plain white t-shirt and jeans. As was usual for him he had lunch in the closed bar. Maria’s bad mood with him had not yet subsided so he was treated to a repast of rock solid eggs, charred sausages and bacon so crisp it shattered when he stuck a fork in it.

She still deigned to take his phone messages for him and handed him a post it note. It contained a place and time and no other information. John nodded and smiled slightly when the barkeep seemed unwilling to leave after handing it over, evidently curious.

“Thanks, Maria,” he said, when she still wouldn’t leave but he flat out refused to offer her any information. It wasn’t considered professional for assassin to tell their landladys about their jobs.

She glowered and slid into the chair opposite to him.

“You know, you owe me this month’s rent right?”

“Yep.”

“And last month’s”

“… Yep.”

“And the only reason I let you stay, is because I really need the money?”

“And here was I thinking it was my rugged good lucks and roguish charms.”

Maria was not amused. John sighed to himself. He was no good with people. Not living ones anyway. He checked the times on the note again.

“Tell you what, when I get in tomorrow evening I can pay for three month’s worth of rent, Would that be acceptable to you?”

Maria nodded in a dubious ‘I can’t believe I’m falling for this line’ sort of way. Then went back behind the bar to clean some glasses.

-

Half an hour before the appointed time, John Doe pulled on an old battered jacket and headed out the door on to the streets of Crowtalon City; the pub wasn’t far from the restaurant where he’d completed his assignment yesterday. The area had once been a small town a small distance away from Crowtalon City proper, but urban sprawl had long since subsumed the town into itself so that only its most uptight and pretentious of residents still pretended that there was any distinguishing difference between the two. John Doe knew all this, and didn’t care. He only knew it because he’d had the misfortune to grow up in an orphanage not three miles from his current location.

John Doe swiftly walked to the designated spot; an alley running between the site of an long abandoned factory and a smokey dirty looking block of apartments. He didn’t particularly like the look of it. It was filthly and more importantly there were a lot of appropriate spot for him to be ambushed from.

He squashed his worries; he’d done the job, now he was going to get paid and that was all there was to it.

He waited, and waited and then he waited some more, irritably checking his watch and pacing to the entrance to check he was where he thought he was. He was.

Five whole minutes after the appointed time, an estate car finally pulled up and disgorged a pair of individuals; one smartly dressed in a suit with a file in hand and cou expression. The other dressed in a a black turtleneck jumper, jeans and a large gun holster; obviously the muscular backup.

“You took your bloody time,” said John grumpily.

“My apologies, Mr Doe,” said the suited individual.

“That’s Slinger to you,” he retorted.

“Ah, yes, of course.” The man’s voice was not so much oily as just plain made entirely from oil, “Now, I have a coroner’s report here about a mutual friend of ours; Mr Jonathon Lowe.”

“well I hope it says he’s dead.”

“Indeed. Killed; apparently by gunfire. Large caliber and fired at close range according to the impact trauma and wound shapes.” The suit looked up from his file and paused, smirking, slightly then continued, “Except for a small problem. There was no powder burns on the body that would usually be associated with common gunfire.” He flipped over the page to read another document from his file, “Nor did the forensic team find any evidence of any metallic shards in the room or any kind of bullet anywhere in the restaurant.”

Slinger rolled his eyes.

“Yes, that’s because you hired me to kill him. So I did. Why are we still talking about this when you should be handing over a rather large number of none sequential bills?”

Slinger’s hand was close to his leg; unobtrusively pressed against the folds of his jacket, he twisted it into a familiar shape; two fingers extended; two curled into his palm and thumb raised.

“Well its just we’ve hit a small snag, Mr Doe, these wounds are rather, ah… distinctive shall we say. My company is rather worried they will be rather easy to trace back to your Interpol files and from you back to us. That’s can’t happen.”

Slinger did wait for any more, he threw himself sideways; whipping his arms up and around; towards the two criminals. Just the smallest fraction of a second too late.

Silenced gunfire cracked gently behind him and red splashed across the alley.
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Malchus
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Re: A Simple Job

Post by Malchus »

Man, I feel read sorry for Slinger. He finally recovers from Fidel pulling out his tongue, but he's still insolvent as hell (good job depicting how down in the dumps he is, btw). Then his new job turns out to be a double-cross. :cry:

And I find it ironic that the lack of bullet fragments and powder ends up even more telling than their presence. :lol:
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Shroom Man 777
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Re: A Simple Job

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Oh shit! Dirty rotten scoundrels! Backstabbed in the dick! And cliffhangers!

I like the love-hate relationship between John and the bartender girl. Sad girl. And, man, Slinger. He just shot the guy and walked home and slept. What a dick. He didn't even care if folks could've seen him. And, man. Yeah, killing people with gunshot wounds without gunshots would be pretty much traceable if no one else can do it and if Slinger was in the radar of various law enforcement agencies. That sucks.

I wonder how he survives, if he does, and how he's so going to ruin the shit out of these asshole guys.

EDIT:

Man, sucks to be Slinger. Malchus is right. The LACK of bullets and gunpowder makes Slinger even more conspicuous.

I love how he's the epitome and example of the street-level shitpiece. He's just a man with a gun... WITHOUT even the gun! :lol:

The effects of Slinger post-Fidel and post-DE are excellent. Maybe he should slur some words, even. Like... fuckle!
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"Sometimes Shroomy I wonder if your imagination actually counts as some sort of war crime." - FROD
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