the big goodbye

it waited hidden behind the soap dish while i splashed cold water on my face, trying to remember where I had been the night before. i reached out for the soap - and then it got me with a sudden stab-burning pain in my finger that made me hop and swear like a vicar surprised with a chorus-girl in a hot bed motel. then I saw the guy creeping on the windowsill, trying look as innocent as a butterfly on a lilac leaf.

- oh, no buddy - I whispered, - i got mine, now you’re getting yours.

i made a lunge and brushed the creep off the ledge. It crawled on the floor like the sonofabitch it was.

- okay, friend - i said - say your prayers.

my foot did the rest, and soon that dirty yellow and black lowdown was lying on its back on the cold tiles, dead. i thought about calling the cops, but what the hell, what would those guys do? what do those guys ever do? just then I heard the doorbell. i went out into the hallway, and stood up close to the door so I could see the grain in the wood, and called out:

- who’s there?

- weegee - came the croaked reply.

i knew about weegee: the corpse-snapper; always on the crime scene before the cops. i opened the door.

- hi, pal! - he said with a cigar-filled grin, waving his camera bag. – it’s weegee by name and weegee by nature: prompt and first and right on the button.

waving my throbbing finger like a flag of surrender, i let him in. he took this shot of the dead guy on the bathroom floor.

- you’ll see this in the morning papers - he said as he left – and don’t worry, I’ll call the morgue…..they know me pretty well down there. too well.

when he’d gone, i closed the bathroom door on the cadaver, went into my den and grabbed the bottle of bourbon from behind the potted plant my ex-wife left me when she walked out.

i’ll bet that wasp was a girl-wasp… dames, they’re all the same…

 

Done