Title: Jack Rafferty (Deceased)
Rating: R
Summary: We all know what Dwight was thinking the night Jackie-Boy met his fate, but what about Jackie-Boy?
Author's Notes: Okay, okay, I was bored. It's not a crime.
"Baby doll, I've had me one helluva a bad day. I've been beaten up every time I turn around."
I remember saying that, kinda. I got a headache and now it's getting hard to remember anything.
It started with Shellie. That bitch. She got herself some punk of a boyfriend. Forgot to tell me about him. See if I help her anytime soon, the bitch. I don't even know his name. Or maybe I do. I don't know anymore.
Those Old Town hookers though…they're in deep shit now. They knew the deal. Too bad I won't be around to see it all come crashing down on their pretty little heads. Especially that blue-eyed one, it's all her fault. And that goddamn boyfriend of Shellie's. Bill? Ike? Dwight? I'd like to see him burn too, but that's looking less and less likely. Then again, it's not like I can do anything but look up from down here on the ground. There's a gun in my brain and I'm still hanging on. That's positive.
I see that little samurai bitch closing in. Since I'm as good as dead, the deal must be off. Let's see them hold off the deluge of police and mobsters. Old Town will be no better than any other slum in Basin City. And the whores will lose everything they've built.
Her sword flashes. I feel my neck open up like a geyser. I feel like a goddamn Pez dispenser. Dwight stares at me. "Oh well," he seems to say. "You stupid little fucker, you shouldn't have screwed with Shellie." Maybe that's what I was thinking. Hard to tell. My head hurts.
Basin City Police, number 9586. That's what it says on my badge. Dwight has the decency to look worried. He knows the deal. Knows I am…was…the only thing keeping the rough part of Sin City out of Old Town. He knows what'll become of his precious hookers. I want to laugh in his face, but there's not much air wheezing through the new set of lips in my neck. The whores can't help you now, Dwight!
He asks the samurai for a hardtop with a decent engine and a big trunk. They can't possibly have a car like that lying around. I been here too many times and I never once saw a goddamn hardtop with an engine to speak of. But the girls deliver. They actually manage to find a working vehicle. Call me crazy if they didn't pull it out of their goddamn asses. They're all toast, Dwight especially. I'll haunt his goddamn toilet if I have to.
They're chopping my comrades into bite sized pieces and I'm next. Looks like they already reached their trunk's body quota. I'm not gonna to fit. So they pick me up and stick me in the front with noble Dwight. The little bastard just likes the girls. So do I. Guess who the posthumous one is. I need some goddamn Tylenol.
He lights a cigarette. The nicotine smells so damn good. I'd do anything for a cigarette. I'm entitled after what I been through.
"I've had me one helluva bad day…"
"Caught you smoking there, bud," I murmur. I don't face him. My neck's about to flop around like a goddamn wet noodle. Besides, I'm dead. I'm not supposed to move.
"You shut the hell up, Jackie-Boy. You're dead. I'm just imagining this, so shut the hell up," Dwight snaps. See? I'm dead. That explains a lot of things, but not enough. Jackie-Boy? Officer Jack Rafferty of the Basin City Police, number 9586.
"Tells you something about your state of mind, don't it? It's got you hearing things and it's got your nerves shot. It's got you smoking. You know, it's truuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuue…" My head lolls far back; the top of my skull bumps the headrest. A breeze whistles through the slice in my neck. My head rolls back down. "…nobody ever really quitssssssss…" Too far. My chin bumps against my chest. There's no coherent sound. My head bounces back up again. "Smoker's a smoker when the chips're down and your chips're down, pretty much."
"I'm fine, you shut the hell up." I was really getting to Dwight. I never knew Shellie was into psychos. She always did have rotten taste in men, the bitch.
"Will you look at that! Ooh, those hookers let you down…" I laugh as my head makes another revolution. "What're you gonna do when you run out of gas? Call Triple A? You sucker for the babes, you...You ain't even gonna make it to the Pits." That's where all of Sin City's trash winds up sooner or later: the Pits.
"You shut the hell up. I'll make it," Dwight counters. Aggravating him is all too easy. He's seen the gas gauge, he knows he's going to have a hell of a time getting there. There's no way. Dwight steals a look at me and my drooping head.
"Not unless you keep your eyes on the road, sugar pie," I point out. Car coming closer. Faster, faster. Lights rammed down our throats. "Watch it!"
Dwight's eyes are bigger than the headlights in the windshield. To his credit, he seems to know how to get the rust bucket to move. The brakes keep the car in check and the bald tires hold on as the car skids around the oncoming vehicle. I have no seatbelt; some inconsiderate bastard didn't think to strap me in. I flop onto Dwight like some kind of goddamn floozy.
"Ah, this is great, it's just like being in a buddy movie." My chuckle sounds weak, even considering the air whooshing out of my neck.
"Shut up!" Dwight throws me off like the inconsiderate bastard he is. I laugh again, keeping an eye on the mirrors. "Oh you're screwed. It's over." Jackpot. I have my lighter and one last cigarette. I light it, hoping to maybe piss Dwight off just a bit more. "You're flushed."
He doesn't respond. He looks deep in thought, or as deep in thought as an airhead can possibly look. Probably wondering if he should out run the cop behind us. He knows we can't. Not in this thing. Maybe he's wondering if he's got the balls to kill the cop. Hell, he already helped do me in, I don't see how this is any different. Jack Rafferty, formerly of the Basin City Police.
"You'd better stop, you're making him mad," I warn.
"Whatever you say…" Dwight mutters. He stomps on the brakes and the car slams to a stop. Not before my head flies forward, jamming the gun in my forehead even further into my brain.
My head hurts. My name is Jack Rafferty, deceased, of the Sin City Police, number 9586, and I want a cigarette.
"One helluva bad day…"