...tails

"Fuck that hurts," he thought, pulling himself into a sitting position, his back pressed against the cold brick wall. The bright headlights were pointed straight at him, brightening the area around his legs, lighting up the building he had landed in front of. He had pulled himself through the grass, 6 inches or so to the wall, so he could sit up; he knew that this was a bad idea if there were certain internal injuries, but he had the feeling that those possibilities were the least of his worries.

Backlit by the headlights, he saw the driver meet someone in front of the truck. Money exchanged hands, a quick handshake and the driver headed behind the truck, no doubt to meet his ride home. The second person watched him leave, paused a minute, then went into the truck, turning the lights and engine off. The bright full moon lit up the area on this cloudless night.

"Julien," he said, although it came out more as a gasp. Punctured lung? He didn't know, he just knew it was really hard to breathe.

"Damn," Julien said, squatting down beside him. "That looks...painful." He grinned while saying it. "You can't say I didn't warn you."

Julien took out a cigar, carefully cut the end off, and took out a lighter. He slowly rotated the cigar above the flame, then took one careful puff. He let the smoke slowly release from his mouth, savoring the taste. He took another from his jacket pocket, looked at the beaten man sitting on the small patch of grass and raised his eyebrows in question.

"Those things'll...kill...you," he rasped out. Then laughed, quietly, painfully. Julien gaped at him, then joined him, laughing at the craziness of the response. He lit the cigar just as carefully, squatted down next to him, and handed it to the former bodyguard.

"I probably should have died years ago," Julien said, after pausing long enough to take a long puff. "You...you did a number on me."

"Heh. Franklin said...you were an artist. He...didn't mention...part pitbull," the last coming out as a harsh laugh. "You just...kept coming..."

"I was either in the hospital or rehab for over a year after that. Good thing it was just you, I wouldn't have survived both of you beating on me."

The man's thoughts went back to that night, when Joe walked out, the fucking pussy. So it was left to him to keep Julien from stopping the boss from banging Julien's wife. He put the guy down hard, but Julien just got back up. Broke his arm, Julien would swing with the other. Broke his leg, his ribs, finally he just had to keep hitting him until the guy didn't move any more. Realizing that he had a situation, he put a call in to a private ambulance company and made sure that they "found" Julien on the highway. The next morning, Julien's old lady lost her shit when she saw the blood and the damage in the house.

As for Joe? He heard through the grapevine that he wasn't able to get a regular job, so he had to take a gig in the sandbox. Never made it back; well, not all of him, anyway. They found enough to put in a shoe box to bury back home. The kid is in the system now; her mom died during childbirth, her father was now dead, and no other relatives to speak of.

Julien was speaking again, somehow the broken, bloody man missed when he started talking. "It took a lot of doing, getting back into shape. I stopped painting, shut down my business, and focused on healing, getting stronger. Good thing I had enough money that I didn't need to worry about any of that. Sarah kept trying to help me heal, kept trying to prove herself to me." There was a pause. "Shedivorced me. Can you believe it? Said that I had changed, that I was darker, colder. So much for 'completely loving' wife. Fucking bitch." His voice had become a snarl, hatred and anger forming each syllable. Julien wiped his face with his hand, getting some semblance of humanity back.

A long puff. "I told you. I warned you. But you wouldn't listen. So, after getting out of rehab, after getting all the clearances, I started tracking you down. I hired a PI, gave him a picture I had sketched of you, told him where you had worked and had him follow you. Oh, shit, hang on." Julien sat down and stretched his leg out in front of him. "Gets stiff in the cold. Not as strong as it used to be. Now, where was I? Oh, right, the PI. Well, once I knew where you lived, I just started tracking you down. You really screwed up my plans, living in that apartment. I couldn't just burn it down and maybe kill the other people in the apartment building. So, it had to be your car."

That caught the man's attention. "You?"

Julien chuckled. "Yup, all me. Had someone show me how to put a timer on a Willy Pete. Thought for sure that would get you. Burnt the fuck out of your car, though, huh?"

The man thought back to the hissing sound that started in the back of his Charger. Instinct had him throw himself out just as the interior burst into white flame.

"Then I figured that I would just run you over. How fun would that be?" Julien's face was lit up like a child's on Christmas morning. "But I didn't want to damage my truck. And to be honest, I wanted to know if it was like in the movies. If you were hit, would you fly through the air? Just roll over the top of a car? Get pulled underneath? So I hired a guy to do it for me while I watched. I thought it would be harder to do, you know? Get someone to run another human over? Nope. It was harder changing my ISP. By the way, it was none of the above. It was like you got stuck to the windshield. If he hadn't slammed on the brakes, you might still be a third wiper blade."

The man was having a hard time keeping his eyes open. "Well, time to get back," Julien said with a jovial slap to his shoulder. "I made it a point to buy the bar a round, and be seen heading toward the DJ's booth. I figure that's 100 or so alibis. Wouldn't want anyone to notice me missing, right?" Julien climbed to his feet, brushed off his pants, then turned back to face the man, as though he was Columbo with just one more thing. "This area isn't too good for your health, you know? You might want to move...if you can, you know, move." He looked at the man taking shallow breaths. "After all, I gave you three warnings. This is just the second." He made a gun with his right hand, two fingers as the barrel, and pointed it at the man, pulling the "trigger" with a wink and a grin around the cigar. He then turned and walked off, the bright end of the cigar growing dimmer and ever more faint in the man's eyes.

Tails was written before I posted the Heads. I wanted to put both of them up at the same time, but I had seen another author's Chapter 2 post days before the Chapter 1 hit. So I wanted to make certain that Heads was posted before Tails.