A Twist Of Noir 680 - Matthew McBride

LONG LIVE THE KING - MATTHEW MCBRIDE

Dylan Glenn Matthews found himself standing in a room full of dead bodies and everywhere he looked he saw blood. There was a cloud of thick gun smoke in the air and it wrestled his nostrils like a champion grappler. He tried to remember how the shooting began, but everything happened fast. He couldn’t remember.

Then he saw the bag of money on the ground and it all came back to him.

*

“It’s easy money.”

That’s what Conrad promised him on the way to the bank. A small town bank in the middle of nowhere. The kind of bank that never gets robbed cuz it’s right next door to the cop shop.

“That’s what makes it perfect,” Conrad assured him. “Nobody would ever think of this shit, D.”

He was right. Nobody ever did.

“Can we really pull this off?” Dylan asked. Voice shaky, more than just a little unsure.

“Fuck yeah!” Conrad exclaimed. “Of course we can pull it off. Wouldn’t try it otherwise.”

“What about the pork?”

Conrad laughed. “Scotty? Fuck that dumb son of a bitch. He’s at the Moto Mart every mornin’, drinkin’ free coffee and talkin’ to sweet Miss Thing behind the counter.”

Dylan knew better than to trust his brother.

He was hesitant, he thought about his girl. Thought about her white velvet skin and her hair that smelled like flowers.

“Yo, we doin’ this shit, man.”

But Dylan didn’t want to. He had a bad feelin’ in his guts. Yet Conrad was very persuasive. Always had been.

They pulled up to the bank and Conrad put the truck in park. He pulled a CD case from under the seat and sprinkled a little dope on the face of Elvis Presley. He sucked a small pile up his nose.

“Long live the King,” he said through watery eyes.

They got out of the truck.

*

Scotty Trainer was a Deputy Sheriff who spent his mornings doing just what Conrad said. Drinking free coffee and trying to get up Tina Sue Johnson’s ass. He never had a chance, but he was too stupid to know it. He was too stupid for a lot of things.

“Scotty, run this to the bank,” she ordered. Didn’t ask, she just told him what to do. And he did what he was told. Scotty was a good puppet.

When he pulled up to First Bank, he parked behind the Green Dodge truck with the engine running and gray plumes of smoke floating from each tail pipe. He grabbed the bank bag off of the passenger seat and made his way into the lobby.

That’s when he heard the gun shots, but the stupid bastard had left his Glock out in the car.

*

“Don’t anybody fuckin’ move,” Conrad yelled and spit flew from his mouth. He pulled a pistol from his waistband and pointed it at the young teller with a nose that seemed too small for her face and glasses that seemed too big.

Suddenly the gun went off and he put a bullet in her forehead. There was a quick burst of blood which sprayed the counter. Dylan began to scream.

“Conrad, what the fuck?” He was falling apart, and rightfully so.

“Oh fuck, D! I didn’t mean to, D, oh fuck, oh fuck.”

Then Mr. Baker jumped up out of his chair and Conrad shot him, too.

Dylan fell to the ground and pulled the stocking cap up over his mouth so he could breath.

That’s when he saw Scotty come through the door with his back-up piece in his hand.

He shot Conrad two or three times in the chest. Dylan wasn’t sure how many. It was hard to tell.

Conrad went down hard, but he managed a lucky shot as his body met the tile and the bullet hit the Deputy Sheriff in the neck. Blood began to squirt, and Scotty dropped to his knees. His body fell backwards and his gun went off one last time and fired a round directly into the ceiling.

Dylan grabbed the money bag and ran out to the truck.