Saint Oswald Jay Bonansinga (uplifting books for women txt) 📖

big goombah in the giant cowboy hat and the Baby-on-Board T-shirt in the reflection is enough to freeze Billy Elgart in place in front of the small oval mirror.

Stranger yet: There is a second man, a dapper gentleman in a black turtleneck, standing directly behind the big tourist, aiming twin weapons—one in each hand—at Billy.

But the strangest part, the part that has Billy thunderstruck, is the young girl creeping up behind the turtleneck guy. The tattooed waif with the raven-black dyed hair and Kurt Cobain cardigan holds an empty baby stroller like she’s about to chop down a tree with it.

20.

The stroller—a cheap rental, which Gerbil picked up out of desperation on her way across the casino—comes down hard on the Russian’s skull.

It makes a flat, metallic crunching noise—the wheels making good contact with Wachowski’s cranium. The Russian stiffens as though electrocuted.

Both of the Walther PPK pistols discharge, their blasts like muffled corks popping, sending high-caliber rounds high and wide into the wall and the mirrors, chipping tile and plaster and glass.

The Russian, stunned senseless, tumbles forward into Oswald.

Oswald is caught off-balance, and goes lurching forward into Elgart.

The domino effect sends Elgart reeling backward into the sinks.

All three men land in a heap on the floor, a stream of water from a breached pipe spewing across the tiles, instantly soaking them.

“What the fuck?—What the fuck!?” Oswald, on top of Elgart, claws blindly at the slippery floor for his Glock, which has clattered on impact under the sinks. His cowboy hat droops over his eyes.

“Please get off me please please!” Elgart cries in a strangled voice, crushed by Oswald’s weight.

Behind them, Gerbil tosses the stroller aside and reaches down to the Russian’s limp legs. She grabs the twitching assassin by the ankles and yanks him off the others, the Russian’s face scraping wet tile.

Wachowski is not quite unconscious, so Gerbil scoops up the baby stroller and gives the Russian another healthy whack on the back of the head. And then another. And then another. And another.

The assassin jerks and goes still.

Under the sinks, Oswald rolls off Elgart and lies on his back for a moment, staring at the ceiling. “What did I do to deserve this?”

Elgart lets out a gasp of relief and sits up, still woozy from the booze and shock, blinking like a man in the grips of a nightmare. “I knew it, I knew it…”

Across the room, Gerbil is pulling the Russian’s limp body over by the garbage receptacle. Then she kicks his fallen weapons across the tile. “Jesus Christ, Ozzy,” she says, turning toward the sinks. “We’re supposed to be saving other people’s asses, not yours.”

“Didn’t I tell you to stay in the truck?” Oswald sits up, wiping moisture from his face.

Gerbil shakes her head. “You’d be dead right now if I’d stayed in the truck.”

“Wachowski’s an amateur—I could have easily handled that puss-pocket.”

Gerbil gestures at the body by the garbage can. “What do we do with him?”

Oswald struggles to his feet. The fluorescent tubes flicker. The tender part of his skull is bleeding, the stitches popped. “Lock the door.”

Elgart stares at them. “You’ve come to kill me, haven’t you?”

“No, moron, we haven’t come to kill you. Have you listened to a word I’ve said?” Oswald turns to Gerbil. “Did you see where my Glock went to?”

Gerbil goes over to the door and searches for a latch or a dead bolt. “There’s no lock. Oh, wait a minute.” She finds the button on the doorknob and punches it. “There we go. Now what?”

Elgart is backing into the opposite corner, his Reeboks wading through an inch of water. “The Ferris sent you, didn’t they?”

Oswald finds the Glock under the sink. It is soaked but still serviceable. He jacks a round into the breach, then blows the moisture off the slide. “Elgart, do you think you could shut your pie hole for one blessed minute?”

Elgart shivers, his eyes shifting from the stalls to the door to the limp body of the fallen Russian. “Oh crap, crap, crap…”

“What’s the plan, MacGyver?” Gerbil is waiting, hands on her hips.

“First thing we’re gonna do,” Oswald says, thumbing the hammer back and tightening the suppressor, “is save a whole boat-load of people in one fell swoop.”

Gerbil stares. “Wait a minute. You’re not talking about...? You’re talking about...? You’re gonna pop the Russian right here? Right now?”

“If you want to leave, be my guest.” Oswald limps over to the unconscious assassin and kneels down as though he’s a paramedic about to provide emergency treatment. “This’ll only take a second.”

Across the room, Elgart shudders and closes his eyes. “Oh crap crap crap crap crap…”

Gerbil turns away. “Whatever you think, Tonto.”

“Here we go.” Oswald takes off his ludicrous cowboy hat and covers the Russian’s face with it, then presses the muzzle against the spongy hat.

He pauses.

In real time, the moment lasts only a brief instant. But for Oswald it seems to stretch for hours, days—an eternity. The truth is, the kindergarten doctor warned him about moments such as these, how the fragment in his brain might trigger a stray synapse, sparking like a glitch in a digital tape.

Over the space of a millisecond Oswald watches an imaginary movie playing in jagged quick-cut montage across his mind-screen.

He remembers watching his stepfather’s lifeless body sinking into the oblivion in a sewage treatment reservoir on a dark night on the reservation. He remembers watching a burned wig blowing back at him in the dark back seat of a car in a deserted parking lot at O’Hare. He remembers every hit, every empty hour after each job, and all the little details he usually stuffs down into that secret vault in the crawlspace of his memory.

But most of all, he remembers a trivial little moment at the Ferri family picnic a few years ago. He remembers meeting the Russian that night and talking shop and having dinner with the man. He remembers Wachowski tucking a napkin into his collar like a bib before