Flashback

When he was eight or nine, Val had watched an old movie from the last century called The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid with the Old Man, who loved old cowboy movies. In the movie, a really slimy Jesse James and his brother Frank, joined by a bunch of other brother-outlaws, including Cole Younger and his brother, tried to knock over an “easy bank” in Northfield, Minnesota. Evidently Northfield didn’t like having its easy bank robbed since—in the movie, at least—every man, boy, and dog in the little town grabbed a shotgun or rifle and shot the outlaws to bits.

Cole Younger, already hit five times in Northfield, was shot several more times during a gunfight in a swamp, including in the hand, the chest, and the head. He survived to be captured and tried and sent off to the Minnesota State Penitentiary at Stillwater, but he’d suffered eleven serious gunshot wounds during the process.

Val, who’d been interested enough to find some library books on the subject, remembered that the total take from Northfield’s bank was $26.70.

Of course, those were old dollars and probably worth something, but even so…

Val tried to imagine Advisor Omura’s security guys shooting him eight, nine, eleven times and him still surviving. Being shot must hurt like hell. Cole Younger had been tossed into the back of a wagon along with his more severely wounded pals and, even though he was bleeding almost to death from his eleven wounds, had joked with his captors, and when they got to the town of Madelia, Cole managed to stand up, take off his muddy and bloody hat, and bow to some ladies passing by.

Learning this kind of coolshit stuff about the world and history was the reason that Val kept reading.

But could he be as coolshit gutsy as Cole Younger with eleven bullet holes in him? Val doubted it. He wanted to blubber like a girl when Leonard brought him to the black-market dentist in the basement tenement near Echo Park. How would he deal with a piece of lead traveling faster than the speed of sound slamming into his body, tearing up internal organs and arteries?

What other ways out were there?

He could open up on Coyne and the others before they assassinated Omura. Would that make him a hero to the city? Would the Advisor and mayor pardon him? Would he get a parade?

But killing all seven of the flashgang punks without getting shot himself seemed like a long shot to Val, even if he could bring himself to do it. He’d try for Coyne first, but all of those acned geeks were armed now. Val tried to imagine getting hit by a cloud of flechettes from Billy’s OAO Izhmash. Those things were three inches long and barbed. Jesus. The thought made Val want to throw up again.

Also, Val didn’t want to be pardoned. He definitely didn’t want to be a hero. He’d rather go the soft palate route than be the centerpiece in a parade.

What did he want?

To die rather than to keep on living in this fucked-up city and world… maybe. Probably.

The only thing that appealed to Val more than dying right now was somehow getting back to Denver and shooting the Old Man. That bastard had abandoned him after Val’s mother died—had abandoned him and forgotten about him, Val knew this for a certainty—and almost nothing would be sweeter than seeing Nick Bottom’s face in the few seconds before Val pulled the trigger of his Beretta.

And then, on Thursday—right when Val was sure that the only choice he really had was to shoot himself in the head later that night, just hoping that his skull wasn’t thick enough to deflect the slug—dear old Leonard had changed everything by telling him about the truck ride to Denver that his grandpa’s rich old spanic friend had arranged for them.

He’d almost broken down in tears right then but was glad he didn’t. Leonard would never have understood such tears of gratitude not only because he wouldn’t have to die that night, but that he’d get to see and kill his father.

Coyne had his magical getaway to Russia with his old lady the morning after the assassination of Omura. Now Val Fox had something coolshit better—his own midnight getaway with black-market truckers.

But what about the plan to kill Omura? Now Val could just shuck it off, not show up at the rendezvous Friday evening, stay out of sight until Coyne had to go on without him.

Or he could go watch—it would be something to flash on for years, no matter how it turned out—and never have to fire a shot himself. Or to get shot himself.

Val went to sleep smiling that Thursday night, but not before he used a twenty-minute vial of flashback.

He is four years old. Today is Val’s birthday and he’s four years old now. He can imagine how the four candles on the angel food cake with chocolate frosting will look because now he can count to four. He is four years old and his mommy is still alive and he doesn’t hate his daddy and his daddy doesn’t hate him and it’s his birthday.