His eyes stared back at me, frozen in the same sickening astonishment that had shot through him the moment he realized his life was over; that split second just before it hit him. Now, lying lifeless, tied to a chair and drenched in his own blood, he never took his gaze away from me. Even after he took his final breath, he accused me, asking me why all of this had to happen the way it did.
I couldn't respond. There was nothing to say. 'Sorry pal, better luck next time?' Fuck that. No one ever gets a next time in this line of work. Screw up once and you hit the wall, end of story. Part of the fine print in the contract, I suppose.
Funny thing is, we had never really talked about death. Sure, it was mentioned passively around the poker table, and after those all-or-nothing moments where the dust setlled, and we were finally able to take a breath, light up a few cigarettes and say, "Fuck, we should've died!" Yea, those were the good days, the days where you could conquer the whole damn world with the pull of a trigger, make everyone fall to their knees and tremble with fear. We were the gods of the street, the masters of our trade.
Fate has a way of being really fucking ironic.
Some of his blood was spattered across the side of my face. I went to wipe it off, but my hands were kind of tied at the moment. Literally, with nylon rope. I could smell it in my nostrils; the smell of death consumed me, but this time it wasn't quite the same. I didn't feel proud, I didn't feel accomplished, I felt…afraid. Alone. Hopeless. Staring down the barrel of a .45 automatic pistol, those cold, green eyes staring coldly back at me through the sights. He said something, but I couldn't hear him. The voices in my head were screaming, drowning him out. I had to do something. I had to get out of here.
They were picking him up now, being very careful not to get any blood on their cleanly pressed suits.
"Get your fucking paws off of him!" I screamed, then felt a sharp pain streak across my face. My vision went blurry, and a thousand sirens went off in my head. There has to be some way out of this! They cut him out of the chair, and then one of them grabbed a black canvas bag from the corner. I almost screamed as they started to stuff him into the bag like a hunk of meat. Fucking meat!
This wasn't supposed to happen.
The rope tore into my wrists like a razor, a slow, sharpening pain that only got sharper the more I tried to forget about it. My friend was getting bagged like garbage, and all that was stopping me from ripping this prick's head right off his shoulders was some string. I figured it was all just a dream, and that in a moment I'd wake up in my shitty apartment, find him still alive, and plant a big wet one right on his lips. As it turns out, only your worst dreams ever become reality, and as soon as another strand of nylon string trapped him in that bag, my reality shattered.
He told me about what he'd do to me if I didn't give him what he wanted. I wasn't listening. There wasn't much anyone could do to me now. I was already dead.
I started to laugh. God, how I started to laugh. When you've finally accepted that your life is officially over, you can't help but be amused at how magnificently futile everything becomes. I should've seen this coming; I did see this coming; this is the culmination of everything I've ever accomplished in my miserable little life, and that is fucking funny. I must've looked like a total nutcase, because suddenly everyone in the room was staring at me, horrified. In that instant, the man tied to the chair, with a loaded gun pointed straight at his skull, was the most powerful man in the whole damn city. Yea, I was a god again.