Page 8 of Intent to Kill
Carlos didn’t need to be asked twice, he left the money but took his duffle with him out the back of the club.
Walking past the bar, through the kitchen, and into the back alleyway, Carlos lit a cigarette and leaned against the railing, which, with him being shorter than most, came up to him at chest height.
Carlos longed for the old days. When he didn’t have to make his living slinging drugs for somebody else’s fortune. But the rich were the rich and the poor were the poor. There was no changing your station. Carlos knew that better than anyone. He’d tried once to take down Dorian Blake.
It couldn’t be done. Instead, it had cost him everything.
He blew the long strands of black hair out of his eyes as he flicked his cigarette off the edge into the pristine turquoise river that ran directly behind the club.
Resting his duffle on the railing, he fumbled through it for his mail, twisting another cigarette between his teeth.
Promotional coupon. Bill. Pizza menu. Promotional coupon.
He puffed on his cigarette and curiously grabbed the next yellow envelope. No return address on the back and weird, nearly illegible, handwriting on the front. It was like a four-year-old had addressed it. With their toe.
Thumbing his cigarette, Carlos coughed as he slid the envelope open and pulled the paper from the sleeve.
He was mid-puff by the time his brain caught up to what he was seeing on the crisp white paper. Coughing, he spat the cigarette into the water below and furiously turned the paper, and the envelope it had come in, over and over in his hand.
There was only one person who could’ve possibly sent it.
It said:In for life?
* * *
“Paul...” a nervous voice stuttered. “Could you come over here please?”
He’d only just sat down in the back office of the gun range. Groaning, Paul shot upright and made his way to the front counter where a trainee was trying to help a customer.
“Yes?” Paul’s tone was light. He was too indifferent with life to be bothered to be either angry or pleasant.
“They say they want to purchase a Carbine-edition M4, but I don’t see it in the system?” The kid fumbled with the buttons on the cash register, hitting as many wrong notes as a top one-hundred pop songs chart.
The thugs standing opposite the counter were dressed in all white, with dark skin like Paul’s, and over six-foot tall like him, too. He supposed they would’ve been intimidating had he not had at least an extra six inches on them.
“Make yourself scarce, kid,” Paul said, running his hand over his bald head.
Nodding wordlessly at the thugs to follow him, Paul began to lead them through the range. He didn’t need to look back to know they were keeping up as expected.
They pushed through the strip paneling doors onto a concrete loading dock where large pallets of illegal gun shipments were littered around the floor. Again, without a need for words, Paul pointed them in the direction of the M4 shipments at the far back.
“Don’t you want to know what we’re going to do with all these?” one of the thugs asked. God, the last thing he needed was for them to be chatty.
“I don’t need to know anymore than I need to,” Paul said.
“Nice tattoo, what does it mean?” the other thug said.
Paul looked down at his arm where he had a stripe tattoo with the words ‘in for life’ nestled in cursive along it. He was almost caught smiling and stroking his thumb along it before he thought better and straightened, storming away before they could ask him any more questions he didn’t want to answer.
He didn’t need any more reasons to be in trouble.
Paul never thought he’d be comfortable sitting behind a desk, but the back office at the shooting range had become just that. Comfortable. He often wondered how productive it was to be comfortable. He was of the thought that a great life was one filled with uncomfortable situations and fortunate misfortunes.
Spread out before him, Paul sorted through his mail, flipping through the colorful assortments of paper.
He cataloged a few letters before he got to one he didn’t recognize. Yellow envelope, scribbled handwriting, no return address. Slipping it open, he pulled the note from within.
That made two times today that Paul had felt more than emptiness. First when he nearly smiled, and now when his face froze over with an icy drip that he couldn’t determine the reason for. Was it fear? Or was it anger?
