The Waiting Room
~ Chapter Twelve
A Circle Full of Guns Demands a Balance
Mort
felt like he was in a dream as he watched Shooter approach Duke. The
journalist stood with his back to them, pounding on his accordion.
The screeching instrument was creating a sound like nails on a
chalkboard…it just gave Shooter the creeps.
Slowly, Shooter
drew back the shovel, eyeing his prey. Duke continued to play,
rocking back and forth from foot to foot, his cigarette billowing
smoke like a tar-laden fog.
“Put the f--king shovel down,
Rainey. . .Shooter, whoever the hell you are today.”
George Jung
stood there, a cocked gun to the would-be murderer’s temple.
How
did the coke-head sneak up on him like that?
“What the
f--k!” Duke turned to face his adversary. “Jesus
H…what the
hell’s going on here?” Duke found he
couldn’t move, frozen by
the attempt on his life. He looked to see his drinking pal holding
his gun to the man’s head.
“Thanks, Jung! Always knew you
were a friend of mine! Remind me to get you a drink!”
“Not
so fast.” It was FBI agent Pistone, aka Donnie Brasco.
“I’ve
always wanted an excuse to blow your drug-selling, coke-snorting ass
away Jung. Go ahead. Give me an excuse.” He held his service
issue
revolver to the back of Jung’s head.
It was Brasco’s turn
to feel the end of a barrel. “I wouldn’t if I were
you.” the
gunfighter, William Blake warned the agent. “I
don’t think you
have the authority of the law in here.” Brasco told him what
to do
with himself. Blake ignored the suggestion.
“I have to
insist that you refrain from any attempt of injuring Agent
Pistone.”
Ichabod Crane rarely pulled his weapon, but felt the need to do so
now as he drew it on Blake. He did not touch the gunfighter with it,
fearing he would sense the tremble in his hand.
The tremble
grew more evident when Crane felt a gun to his own head. “I
do fear
that this has gotten out of hand. You gentleman are upsetting my
lady.” Lt. Victor informed them all. He told himself if he
could
control the masses of a prison,he certainly could squelch this little
uprising. But he too found himself at the other end of a gun.
“I
really don’t have the foggiest what is going on here. This
looks
like everything has gone to hell” Abberline stated, after
waking up
from his opium-induced sleep, “But whatever is going on here,
I
don’t think this will resolve it.”
The sound of a M-16
being prepared for firing caught the Inspector’s attention.
Pvt.
Lerner stood behind him, shouting in Vietnamese to put down the
weapon. Lerner had snapped back from his war memories to find a
circle of armed men and thought they were a group of prisoners
running amok. He repeated the command.
“You know, Private,
I’m having a thought here.” Sparrow had pulled his
pistol out,
and had tapped the back of the soldier’s head, then placed
the gun
down between the private’s legs. “It would be a
shame for me to
use my one and only shot on you, you know I’ve always liked
you.
But it appears that no one is parlaying. Now if you put down your
weapon, then Abberline would do the same, and so forth and so forth,
I am positive we can come to a compromise. Otherwise, I will find it
necessary to make you a eunuch. Nasty wound that would be, you know?
Makes it a little hard to get a girl”
Lerner listened to
Sparrow and realized he valued what was between his legs more than
taking a prisoner, and lowered the M-16. The pirate moved on to
Abberline waiting for him to comply as he leveled the pistol, with
just one shot, at the Inspector’s family jewels.
Abberline
followed suit and lowered his weapon. One by one, the Captain of the
Black Pearl made his way through the line of armed men, convincing
each one that it was better to be a whole, live man, than a brave
eunuch.
They all complied. That is until he reached the man
with the shovel. He kept it raised slightly above Duke’s
head,
ready to bring it down on a moment’s notice.
Sparrow moved
his pistol further up to the man’s face that was nearly
hidden by
the black wide-brimmed hat.
“You’re not being very nice
now today. Might I suggest that you put down said shovel and return
to your desk, perhaps even pour yourself a shot of that fine whiskey
you tend to keep for yourself.”
The mention of whiskey
brought him to the edge of his sanity, as he turned, his eyes wide
with hatred as he changed his intended victim from the journalist to
the pirate. Jack realized that the shovel was about to land on his
head, and attempted to pull back the hammer on his pistol, taken off
guard that he was actually going to have to use his one shot.
A
weapon fired, the bullet striking against the shovel’s metal
spade,
richoceting off. The men in the room ducked, including Sparrow, for
he had yet to pull his own trigger.
The clang of the dropped
shovel reverberated off the room’s walls.
“Now, if you
dickheads are finished playing your f-king games over there, I would
like to finish my lunch, which by the way is excellent
today.”
Sands lay down his weapon on the table and picked up his fork.
“Why
did you stop me?” came Shooter’s question.
“I was doing my
duty, trying to make “him” aware of us in
here.”
All
eyes were on Sands as he finished a bite of the pork dish. No one
spoke, no one moved. Finally the agent wiped his mouth, took a drink
of tequila and explained.
“I stopped you because that is
what I do. I restore the balance. I may not be able to see, but I
could hear that things were a bit one sided. So, my duty, Mr.
Shooter, is to restore balance. Now, can we all stop all screwing the
pooch and get back to what we do best, which is usually
nothing.”
Sands returned to his lunch, unaware that half the room was
holding up a certain finger in his honor.