NOVEMBER 29, 1934
THE RAIN WAS GUSHING down in great sodden sheets, like Jesus was pissing in my eye. Nothing for it.
I checked my boomstick. Six shots left. Every round in a chamber. One extra in my coat pocket. I should’ve taken a box, maybe two, but I didn’t. No place to get extra rounds from anymore. And no one was selling to me.
He killed my best friend, even if he was nothing but a lousy head-in-a-box. That wouldn’t stand. There had to be rules, had to be reckonings. That was dealt with, but there was still a reckoning for my own death.
My shoes sank into the river that the road had become and came out heavy. Slop, splash, squish. All the way up the road, out of the Welcome Mat, and toward that damnable mansion.
I probably stood outside those gates for far too long, staring at t
