The Dum-Dums

By Jesse Handlon

They smoked at the bar, puffing down each Camels like it was the last one they would ever have. The smoke provided an internal heat that relieved there cold bones. It gave them a calm that could only be provided by the sweet science of chemistry. The smoke congealed on them like a bulletproof vest, and the smell filled there clothes.

Grayson sat there and stared at his own reflection in the smoke-stained mirror behind the bar as these thoughts poured randomly through his mind. He thought about how much he enjoyed a smoke. Thought about how it was probably the only thing he enjoyed in his life. These thoughts filled him with a sadness. His life meant nothing to no one, not even himself. Only one person had ever shown him any kindness in his entire miserable life. Only one person treated him like a normal guy instead of a thug who collected gambling debts. Only one person, and he was in a pine box.

Grayson looked over at his friend, Bell. The two of them had come a long way together. They grew up down on Oswald street, poor and hungry. They met when Bell joined The Oswald Street Destroyers, a gang Grayson was in. They were the tough guys, the first one in a fight and the last ones out. The guys who used their fists to decide every problem they had. In the gang they were called warriors. When they stepped up in the world and joined an organization, guys like them were called dum-dums. They went through all of it together. They had big dreams of running there own crew, but were deemed too dumb for the job. They were losers, and they both knew it.

Only one person treated them differently than that. He was an old timer in the mob called The Shark. They called him that because he bit a guy's nose off in the middle of a fight. The Shark ran the crew they were in. He ran books and a loan shark business on Oswald Street. He hired the boys after watching the two take on a gang of kids by themselves. He especially took a shine to Grayson after watching him kick a kid in the teeth. He started them off as runners when they were twelve. When they reached 18 he put them in as collectors. They did a damn good job of it too. Any man who The Shark was having trouble with he sent them to take care of it. They would do whatever he asked. He always told them he would give them control of the crew if he didn't have a son to take over.

His son was called The Pirahna. He was a vicious man with no moral compass to lead him. The Shark taught him everything he knew, but all he knew was violence and running a crew. He had nothing more to teach him than that. The Pirahna took to it like a fish to water (forget the pun), especially the violence part. He took to it so well that when he grew tired of waiting for the old man to die he took care of it personally. He himself shot his old man with a shotgun blast to the face. He himself cut up the body and dumped it in the Harrison Canal. He himself.

Grayson's blood filled with rage as he thought about it. That's why he was here at The BasketBar. He was waiting for The Pirhana to arrive at the pool hall across the street. A pool hall he owned and had appropriately named The Feeding Pool. Once he saw him go in, he would go in after him wielding two .45s and a shotgun. He would go in there and make that bastard bleed.

Bell took a drag off of his cig and looked at the game on TV. He was strapped with an Uzi and a .44 magnum. He sat there watching the game and Grayson knew he didn't want to be there. Bell was a die hard catholic and wasn't one for the kill. He would throw a guy a beatin' in a second, no questions asked, but he couldn't take a life though. His God wouldn't look too kindly on that. Grayson didn't ask him to come, but felt bad for letting him all the same. He should of forced him to stay home with his wife Maria. He could of done it alone. This was a suicide mission if there ever was one. They would be lucky if one of them left alive let alone both of them. He should have forced him to stay, but in the end he just couldn't. He would damn himself for the rest of his life if Bell bought it and he didn't. He wanted to turn to Bell now and send him packing, but, truth be told, he was too scared to go in alone. So he kept his mouth shut instead and kept taking long drags to ease his nerves.

He listened to the basketball game while he kept his eye on the pool hall. His mind kept drifting away though. He would think about the boss and Bell. He had nothing more in his life to think about. He had a girlfriend but he dumped her when she refused to give any more blowjobs. He usually kept to the hookers at the Little Osaka brothel. All they wanted was a little cash and no other connection. Yet, he regretted having no connection to anyone in a meaningful way. His mother and father died of cancer four years ago. He had no brothers or sisters to lean on in hard times. He barely knew his uncles and aunts, and didn't even know if he had any cousins. He had nothing. The only thing he had was a gun and the warm feeling he got with the thought of using it.

The car pulled up in front of the hall. He saw it through the haze of smoke in his eyes. He saw The Pirahna get out with his flunkies. He watched them walk in like they were kings of the world.

Before he could even tap Bell on the shoulder he saw him stand up. Bell threw down a hundred dollar bill on the table and said,"ready".

He was more ready than Bell could ever know. He nodded his head in agreement. He got off his stool and took off toward the door. He tossed it open and was out into the snowy street in two strides. He almost galloped across the street. He reached into his trechcoat and pulled a sawed-off pump action shotgun. He jacked a shell into the chamber and walked up to the pool hall door with blood on his mind.

Grayson kicked in the door of the pool hall. Bell ran in first, spraying the room with Uzi fire. Grayson came in afterward with his shotgun raised. He took in the layout of the room in a second. A big open room with about fifteen pool tables. A caged in teller at the back to collect the cash for use of table. He saw The Pirahna and his boys hidden behind a table. He fired his gun directly at them.

Bell was doing things a bit smarter. He dived under a table and fired underneath it at The Pirahna. One of his guys caught it in the chest and face as the others scattered across the room.

Grayson fired shell after shell after the scurrying rats. He saw flunkies' legs decenigrate from the kneecaps down. Another's head was torn open from eye to neck. He fired another round hitting a patron of the hall straight in the back. The rest of the flunkies he'd missed now had there guns out and ready. Grayson ducked behind a cigarette machine for cover. He started to reload the shotgun. He had four shells left for his gun.

Bell jumped on the table and slapped in a fresh clip. He jumped from table to table toward his prey. He fired wildly into the group. Flunky after flunky dropped down in a bloodbath of bullets. The flunkies returned fire and filled Bell full of lead. Bell dropped off the table and onto the floor, dead. He took three men with him.

Grayson looked out to see his dead friend. He turned his attention to The Pirahna and the two flunkies that were left over. He ran across the hall toward the men's room. He fired his shotgun out at his enemies as he crossed over. Buckshot caught the guy with half a leg finally putting his pain to an end. He also sent a shell through one other flunky, catching him full in the chest. The last blast found a lamp over one of the tables. Grayson pushed the door open and found himself inside.

Grayson kept the door partially open so he could keep an eye on them. He felt a hot burning pain in his shoulder. He looked it over and found blood pouring like crazy out of it. He dropped the shotgun to the ground and pulled out his .45s. He took a deep breath and peered out the door. He quickly pulled his head back in before a barrage of bullets took it off. In the instant his head was out he saw The Pirahna and the last flunky running toward him. He was done for and he knew it. His mind filled with an emptiness and he could only focus on the pain. He was never a thinker and it felt right in his final moments that his head would be empty.

Grayson came out with both guns firing. He emptied both clips into The Pirahna. The Pirahna's face and chest exploded with each bullet that passed through it. Grayson did not miss one shot. The Pirahna fell dead to the floor. The flunky fired only one shot. It passed through Grayson's neck and into the wall.

Grayson ran out the door, gagging for his life. He dropped to the ground as his body went numb. A calming sensation came over him; kind of like the calmness he got when he took a drag off a cigarette. He felt good for once, as if he'd accomplished something worthwhile. He did what no other dum-dum did before him. He walked in and did something about something. His mind started to fill with that emptiness he so loved, and with his last breath he looked to heaven, but felt his soul fall to hell.

A Matter of Pride

By Jeremy Lee Riley


Daniel Nussel had only to listen to five minutes of Mrs. Shaw's rambling before he was certain he was at the right house.

"Tall man with strawberry blonde hair, you say?" Mrs. Shaw sat two cups of tea on the coffee table and then settled herself into a plush straight back chair beside a soot-stained fireplace. "Walks with a bit of a limp? Tattoo of Spider-man on his left shoulder? Why yes, I do believe that is Tony Stiegman to a T. Nice enough gentleman; saw my 'room for rent' sign and moved in about two months back. Paid the first four months in advance, never disturbs any of the other lodgers, helps with the dishes after supper. Couldn't ask for a better tenant. Is he in trouble for something?"

Nussel thought about telling her that her perfect tenant went by another guise, that of Thomas Swadner, notorious throughout the Midwest as the Cross-Roads Killer, a bi-sexual serial killer who had claimed the lives of over thirty-eight elderly women and men from Indianapolis to the Illinois line. About two months back, give or take, Swadner had apparently gotten wind that the law was closing in on him and wisely skipped town (well, the whole state of Indiana, actually) before he could be caught. Nussel had been on his trail long before that and he could've gutted every one of those stinking hillbilly, white trash, country bumpkin cops who bungled up the whole investigation and allowed him to slip right through their fingers. Luckily, Nussel was a better tracker than any of those corn-fed wannabes and the trail had led him south, past Texas, to this little border dwelling called Haydn City.

From there it was only a matter of asking around. All fingers pointed to Mrs. Shaw's old, two-story boarding house on the corner of Harvest and Main Street. New arrivals often stayed at her place, sometimes for a day, sometimes for months on end, depending on who they were and where they were heading. Shaw seemed like a nice enough old lady, a little needy for company maybe, she had nearly pulled him through the door after he knocked and introduced himself, and had barely allowed him to get a word in edgewise since. But she was nice, and that was good. He liked them nice.

"Tony works down at the mill," Mrs. Shaw said. "Works from six to three, Monday through Friday." She checked the grandfather clock by the front door, the hands of which, big and small, pointed to ten and was inching toward three respectively. "In fact he should be home any minute. I better put out the cake, Tony always has a slice with his tea when he comes home. Such a dear boy he is. I hope he hasn't done anything wrong."

Mrs. Shaw excused herself and went into the kitchen. She returned a moment later with half of a homemade cake and a large butcher's knife. She set both down on the corner of the coffee table and asked Nussel if he would like a piece as well. It was made from scratch, she assured, pineapple upside down cake, better than anything you'd find in a grocery store, that was for sure.

"I would be delighted to have a piece," Nussel said with a smile that made him look a decade younger than his thirty-seven years. "Can't beat homemade, after all."

"No sir, you can't." Mrs. Shaw thought a moment and then clapped her hand against her brow. "Plates. My word, I almost forgot. I'll be right back, Mr. Nussel."

"Take your time," Nussel said, and meant it. If Swadner or Stiegman or whatever the hell he was calling himself now was expected home any minute he didn't want the kind old Mrs. Shaw to witness what was to follow. He waited until she had disappeared back into the kitchen and then removed a silencer-fitted 9 mm Beretta from a shoulder holster hidden beneath his long, black coat. The grandfather clock struck three and Nussel took a deep breath. Swadner wouldn't be home before she returned, of that much he was certain.

Sure enough Mrs. Shaw strolled merrily into the room moments later, three dishes stacked in her hands, talking so fast Nussel had trouble keeping up with what she was saying. He just managed to hide the gun under the folds of his coat before she saw it. "Where are the other tenants?" He asked when she paused long enough to draw in a breath.

"Oh, Freddy and Sylvia are out to a movie, Bob's upstairs asleep--he works the nightshift down at the power plant as a security guard--and Henry'll be working until five. He's a sacker down at the Clip and Save."

"I see," Nussel said, and relaxed a little. He couldn't have picked a more opportune day to track the son-of-a-bitch down.

There was the sound of a bus pulling to a stop out front and Mrs. Shaw glanced out the window. "Ah, here he is now, Mr. Nussel. He isn't in any kind of trouble is he? I can't imagine Tony doing anything against the law."

Nussel checked his wrist-watch and said, "Mrs. Shaw, would you mind getting me a glass of water, it's time for me to take my pills."

"Pills?" Mrs. Shaw replied, cocking one thin eyebrow. "Whatever would a man your age need with pills?"

"Bit of a bum ticker," Nussel said and tapped his chest a couple of times to help get the point across. "Doctor's orders."

"Yes, yes, right away then." Mrs. Shaw turned and sped off for the kitchen, still talking even though her words were now garbled and lost by both distance and the barrier of a well-insulated wall.

There was the rattle of a key in the lock and the front door creaked open. Nussel stood and raised the 9 mm. Thomas Swadner walked in and Nussel took a moment to study this man who had made such a nuisance of himself. He was tall and stocky, not portly, per se, but there was the telltale impression of a gut pressing against the dirty overalls he was wearing. A baseball cap with a faded Coors insignia peering over the creased bill sat snug on his head. Locks of strawberry blonde hair snaked out at odd angles along its edges. His face was round and stubbly, his eyes the blue of a clear summer day. He saw Nussel--or, more importantly, the 9 mm Nussel had trained at his face--and dropped the lunchbox he'd been carrying in his right hand.

Nussel drew his lips into a snarl that showed off his perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth, and pulled the trigger. There was a compressed Pffh! and a neat little hole formed in the center of Swadner's forehead. His eyes rolled up until only the pink bloodshot whites were visible and an inarticulate noise emerged from the back of his throat. Eek! it sounded like to Nussel. Swadner teetered on his boot-heels and then fell forward onto Mrs. Shaw's plush straight back chair. Nussel sighed and holstered his gun once more. He couldn't stand copycat killers. Where did they get off stealing another man's thunder? It had been a long and arduous process tracking Swadner down, but it was over and done with now, and he could get on with reclaiming the glory that had been inequitably stolen from him.

Nussel looked down at the butcher's knife lying on the coffee table beside the cake. Light from the window gleamed off its honed edge. He grinned and picked it up. Mrs. Shaw emerged from the kitchen, carrying his glass of water and going on about heart palpitations, too much grease in one's diet, and how her own father had died of a heart attack at the ripe old age of fifty-two. In a second or two she would withdraw enough from her one-sided conversation to notice the body sprawled across the chair, and then she would drop the glass and scream. The glass would shatter on the hardwood floor, she would pull at her hair, maybe attempt to flee. Maybe Bob the security guard would come stumbling down the steps in a half-sleep daze to see what the matter was, and then things would really get interesting.

Nussel closed his eyes and savored the moment. He wondered absently if the old house had a cellar.

Welcome

Welcome to the Haydn City Chronicle. This blog will feature crime stories, horror stories, or whatever stories we want to tell that revolve around Haydn City and it's citizens. I hope you enjoy this blog very much.

The Editor