Introduction - Or - A Date with a Bullet
August 6, 2016 9:36 P.M.
Today’s my birthday. The big “Four-Five”. I can’t believe I’ve been alive for almost half a century. Believe me, when I think about what I’d like to be doing on my birthday, staring down the barrel of a Glock 17, about to form a very intimate relationship with a copper jacketed bullet, is not it. I was thinking more like sitting in my favorite bar, drinking one of those fruity drinks with the umbrella in it. Things hardly ever work out the way you’d like them to.
Frank, the man pointing the small, but not significantly un-scary, pistol at me had a bandage over his left ear and smelled faintly of fermented fish. That’s not really his name, but I can’t really pronounce his weird Norwegian name. “Ragnvald.” How do Norwegians fit so many consonants into their language? And what the hell is a Norwegian doing in the Russian mob, carrying an Austrian gun? The mysteries of life abound.
It is a nice gun though. At least when I die, I’ll die knowing that I was shot with a decent firearm. I’m staring at the hexagonal opening at the tip of the barrel. There is a little bit of light spilling into it from the window behind me. It’s just enough light for me to see the rifling in the barrel. Is that how the CSI guys will identify the gun that shot me? No, the bullet’s going to go out the window after it goes through me. Maybe I should kneel down, so he has to shoot at an angle and bury the bullet in the floor. The CSI guys would appreciate that. I like to be of help when I can.
It’s amazing what you think about when you’re going to die.
How did I get into this predicament? To be honest I’ve been trying to figure that out myself. It’s such a convoluted series of events that it almost seems like it was all some sort of fever dream. Let’s see, there’s the dead guy with no pinkies, the woman in the pink yoga pants, the dirty cop, the fence, and let’s not forget those sneaky Russians. Oh, yeah, and the Krugerrands.
It all started three weeks ago……….
