The barbed steel caught him in the lower back. A quick jerk on the gaff pole and the hook separated, line feeding out in stunted jerks as failing leg muscles attempted to carry their life-long passenger his last few steps.
To an outsider looking in this would present as very - what's the word the Americans use? Right, melodramatic. In defense of the man writhing on the floor, barring any physical defense which he is clearly lacking, the quick entry of a gaff hook into any region of the body would be exceptionally painful. Lucky for him…lucky? Right, lucky, the hook was well placed by yours truly, and he can no longer feel his lower half. Gaff hooks have a tendency to come out on top when pitted against a spinal cord, be that the spine of a tuna or a man. I am experienced with both.
Blood frothed at the man's lips, with each of his labored breaths spattering the dusty vinyl floor until it resembled the pocked wasteland on the other side of the dilapidated, peeling walls of The Red Rocket in Lexington. Pathetic, desperate whimpers were given weak birth in a gasping throat before dying out shortly after passing through cracked, stained teeth.
'Sid Carson. Been looking for you, friend.'
'F-friend? G-go to h-hell.'
'Full-time resident, Sid. Here's the thing, I have a contract and you're the mark. Questions aren't for me to ask and answers don't interest me. You know why you're face down on the floor of this shithole with a hook through your spine.'
'Fuck y-you.'
'Yeah, fuck me. Two options here. I can finish the job fast and it will be relatively painless, or I can leave you here to handle things in your own way. Your call,' I say, and the words feel like lies even as I speak them. What real choice does the man have? He won't live to see the sun break through the hazy, dust choked sky. Leaving him alive, however temporary that may be, would most assuredly end in a gruesome death delivered by the hands of my not so distant kin, scraping around in the adjacent, blown out building. I make the decision for him.
Firearms are not what I would consider tools of the trade for a fisherman, but in situations such as these I find them useful. As the oiled, silenced 10mm pistol makes its appearance, Sid's writhing ceases and his face becomes calm, resolute.
'Tired of waiting for me to decide? Or do you have some other fucking sop to hook,' he asks in a muted, mucous-thick voice.
'Truth be told, Sid, I'm not one to find pleasure in a mark's struggle. Ěryǔ here is going to make things easier for the both of us.'
'Ěryǔ?'
'In Chinese it means whisper,' I tell him as Ěryǔ's black, single eye comes level with Sid's own. Sid nods and closes his eyes, looking into his memories to find something of beauty, something to replace my ravaged face and the drab, filthy walls as the last thing he ever witnesses. I give him a few moments to search and when the corners of his mouth turn up in the slightest hint of a smile, Ěryǔ tells her secret.
The suffering isn't something I enjoy, not like those twisted fucking raiders with their cages, chems, and diseased orgies. Suffering is a part of life in the Wasteland and it's up to each individual to decide which side of that suffering they're going to be on. Me? I'm holding the flying gaff.
