BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! | ODIS WEFF ONESHOTS

CUT OF THE CARDS

Or: Auld Lang Syne,

Of the Perceptivity Storyline

—IN WHICH THE MEMORY OF A MOBSTER CHANGES HANDS.

🥂

"I heard a voice like a trumpet of gold:

'To save your life, Diamond, bet it all fold'"

🥂

December, 8, 1950

Kansas City, MO.

"I could kill you, I could kill both of you, you shits!" Josto paced and reminded Odis a little of a fidgety young general he'd seen in basic training in New York. "You━" He pointed at Odis; "You can forget about the junk━get it anywhere else."

"Uhm." He hadn't realized the scolding would be so demeaning. A spark of competence flourished for a moment in Josto's manner, but slipped away under petulance again. He went on:

"And you've lowered your pay for━"

This did elicit a sudden, slight complain of a remark: "That's not fair━"

"Don't interrupt me, I'm scolding!" He moved to Milligan. "And you━I expected more from, y' know?"

He only seemed overcome by an imposing sense of dread, like the building of many small things to gather into one cluster of lies, one to cog the general workings of one's existence. Odis could only guess what was replaying in his head. Cold room and warm hands and hot mouths. Didn't happen, Again, Stop. He said, his passiveness indicating a smart, offhand sarcasm: "Sorry." He already lived in the Faddas' goddamn house, what else was there to take away but cash?

The sunlight dipped and frayed through the December afternoon. It gathered in the folds of the curtains and spilled onto Josto's shoes as he paced, a serious disdain over his face. "Anyway, now I'll have to handle this myself, can't trust you two with anything..."

Patrick's tongue moved behind his closed lips. He was forming an uncongenial thought and could not have been disturbed. His eyes, as always, were far-off, in the midst of an almost mathematical consideration. He said, "What about Gaetano?"

The sunlight stilled, cooling grey. Josto looked up.

Odis said, confused, "What about 'im?" There was a skittishness, a sudden absolute skittishness━that was, a nervousness with a pure chopped-up fear attached, one that was integral to his state━about him, then. A Divine quality to it. He could not say why, only name it. If only the diagnosis was the cure! He said, "Josto?"

Who rolled his eyes. "We had this conversation."

"We did not."

"Jesus-fucking-Christ, Weff."

Odis did not like Gaetano, the way a rabbit knows not to lurk before a bear's den. It was a relationship that should not have been so, especially considering they had not exchanged four words.

"What?"

"I'm stayin' clear of him," he said, suddenly precarious, "for now. If he knows what's good for him it'll stay that way."

"Right." He thought, Good. It was December, and December, before one got to the thirty-first, was safe. He chanced a look at Patrick, who only gazed past him with that haunted hallucinatory atmosphere. Something troubled him, worked at the back of his mind. It was December, with pine-needles littering the sidewalk. It was dead-cold with elongated meticulousness. The snow was dry and full of riddles, blank as old envelopes.