In the News

In the main room of the abandoned warehouse, the members of Vince's gang had rigged an improvised table of boards and concrete blocks. It was usually a place for playing cards or throwing dice, but today Ozone sat down with a cup of questionable coffee from a street vendor, smoothed out a newspaper and began reading.

This sort of behavior didn't go unnoticed among some of the other gang members.

"What are you wasting your time on now?" Speedball asked. 

"It's called reading," Ozone said without looking up. "It's the sort of thing smart people do. You wouldn't know anything about it."

Fausto looked up from cleaning one of his guns. "If that's one of El Duque's papers, you'd be smarter to take it with you to the latrine and use it to wipe your ass."

"There's important information here." Ozone pointed to a headline. "Says here they're making improvements to the water sanitation facility."

Speedball shrugged his big shoulders. "I only drink alcohol, so who cares?"

"It's not like we have running water, anyway," Fausto added. "You're reading useless information."

"Oh yeah?" Ozone pointed to another story. "Starting October 1st, we'll have electricity until 10 pm."

"I'll believe it when I see it," Fausto said. "Besides, you don't need a newspaper to tell you if the electricity is working. Just flip the light switch."

"Or stick a fork in the socket," Speedball suggested. "I'll watch."

Ozone gave an exasperated sigh. "I can't help it if you guys want to be uninformed about what's going on in this city. Go on and be ignorant." He bent back over his paper, but when Vince walked by a few minutes later, he called to him. "I picked up a paper for us, boss. Want to take a look?"

"What kind of paper?" Vince ambled over, but when he saw the masthead he frowned. "Government propaganda." He picked up the paper and peered at it more closely. "Says here crime is down in the city."

"Not if I have any say in it," Speedball muttered.

"They mean reported crime," Ozone said. He tried to take the paper back, but Vince kept it out of his reach. "We're not in the statistics because we get away with it."

"Then you admit this paper contains misleading information." Vince tucked it under his arm. "I'll dispose of this. Go do something useful."

When Vince got to his office, though, rather than throw the paper away, he spread it out on his desk, poured himself a drink, and perused the front page, chuckling over the stories. He found the next few pages amusing, too, but when he came to the obituaries, he grew serious. A wealthy man had died, with the burial to take place in one of the outer suburbs, where those with enough money and connections could still sometimes get a plot.

Vince rubbed the blue stripe on his face and wondered what kind of security would be at the man's house while everyone was at the funeral. Breaking and entering wasn't really his thing, but he had a couple guys on his team who might be perfect for that sort of job.

With a sigh of satisfaction, Vince took a pen and noted the date and time of the funeral on the calendar he had drawn on the wall, then picked up his glass of scotch. Ozone was right, there was value in reading the paper. But the best things weren't from the front pages; they were what could be found on the inside, and by reading between the lines.

This was written for Sunday Scribblings 2.

Speedball in Love - Part Two

They were gathered in their usual meeting place, waiting to hear their assignments for the night's drug hand-off. Vince glanced around impatiently. "Where's Speedball?"

From the battered sofa, Three and Ozone exchanged guilty looks.

"We're closing an important deal tonight,” Vince reminded them with a scowl. “Don’t tell me he’s high on something."

"Well, not exactly. I mean...he kind of is, you know, sort of," Ozone said. "Except not really."

Vince turned to Three. "Can you translate that for me, please?"

Three bit her lip while she considered her words. "Maybe you should see for yourself. He's in the office at the end of the hall."

Exasperated, Vince headed toward the door. "This better be good." At the end of the narrow corridor was an old office where, by the last rays of sunlight filtering through the broken window, Speedball was writing a name; the same name that filled the other walls in loops and curlicues. "What ridiculous farce is this?"

Speedball started and offered an abashed smile.

"Who the hell is Melissa?"

"She’s the most beautiful and perfect woman in the world."

Vince scoffed. "Can't be. I was with the most beautiful woman in the world last night, and her name was...well, it wasn't Melissa, I'm pretty sure of that."

“She lives over on the south side, and she loves me.”

“Don't bet on it. But even if it's true, we’re meeting now and I need you to quit dicking around and join the rest of the group.”

With a heavy sigh, Speedball dropped his gaze to the black crayon he had been using to write Melissa’s name on the walls.

Vince frowned in suspicion. “What kind of drugs are you on this time?”

“None, I swear.” He smiled, his eyes glistening with happy tears. “I’m in love.”

“So what? I’ve been in love at least three times since last week. That doesn’t mean you have to get all sentimental about it.”

Speedball wandered to the nearest wall and traced Melissa’s name with his fingertip. “The world is too nice a place to go around threatening, stealing, and hurting people. I can’t believe I never saw it before, but we should be working to make this a happier place.”

Vince took a deep breath, both to give himself time to think and to keep from throttling the guy. “The city will be a much happier place once we’ve closed this deal tonight. Cannabis, remember? It makes everyone happy.”

“I suppose.” Speedball resumed writing Melissa’s name on the wall.

Vince stepped into the hall, nearly colliding with Three and Ozone, who had been hovering just outside the door, listening.

“What are you going to do, boss?” Three whispered.

“I don’t know. I need time to think.”

“Do we have time?” Ozone asked. “I thought we had to meet Quix in an hour.”

“Forty-five minutes,” Vince said in clipped tones. “And no, we don’t have time, but we also don’t have much of a choice.”

Three and Ozone watched in silence as he stalked away, then Three whispered, "Speedball's lucky Vince didn't beat him up."

 Ozone nodded agreement. "You think maybe he can relate?"

"Vince, relate to someone who's in love?" Three suppressed a laugh. "Not a chance."

"He's got something up his sleeve, then."

Three shoved her shock of platinum hair off her forehead and put her other hand on her hip as she stared at Vince's back, far away now, down the hall. "I've got a feeling he doesn't know what to do."

"No way. Vince always has it under control."

"Twenty bucks?" she offered with a sly grin.

Ozone hesitated only a moment. "You're on. And I want cash, not an IOU."

Three grinned. "Only if you win, friend." With a toss of her hair, she headed back to the meeting room to wait and see what Vince would do.


This is a Three Word Wednesday post.

Missed Part One? Go here: Speedball in Love

Speedball in Love

Three lay on a mattress on the warehouse floor, not doing anything in particular, just gazing at the water-stained ceiling and wondering if she had the energy and the cash to get her hair touched up before tonight's drug handoff. Her dark roots were starting to reveal themselves, and although it was a pain in the ass to keep getting them bleached, her shock of white hair had become her trademark among the local toughs.

At the sound of footsteps, she turned her head in a lazy way and squinted at Ozone, walking toward her across the room. "It's not my turn on watch yet."

He gestured for her to get up and follow him. Curious, she did as he asked, wondering what flighty, impressionable Ozone had come up with this time. He was forever dabbling in some sort of idealistic nonsense, so maybe it was something good.

They paused outside the door of one of the old offices and Ozone motioned for her to peek around the corner. What she saw caused her to draw back in alarm. She met Ozone's eyes, then they moved as silently as they could back into the main room.

"What do you think?" he asked in a low voice.

"Unbelievable. I always thought he was too shallow or too crazy for that sort of thing."

Ozone nodded agreement. "Vince will be pissed if it makes him not want to work or something. He's insane, but he gets the job done."

Three couldn't argue with that. No whack job was too repulsive and no ground too hallowed for Speedball. He got a thrill from hunting down their enemies, even if it meant charging into the blasts of rival gunfire. "This won't last long," she said, without any sense of certainty. "It's just not in his nature."

"I hope you're right." Ozone cast a glance back toward the room where Speedball was rapturously doodling a woman's name on the walls. "The idea of Speedball in love..."

"Repugnant," Three agreed with a shudder. "We'll just have to wait and see how this unfolds. She probably won't return his interest anyway. What sane woman would have him?"

Together they gazed at a spot on the floor, lost in similarly glum thoughts. Rejection might be just as bad having the object of Speedball's affections return his interest. Either way, they stood to lose a skilled fighter at a critical time.

Finally Three sighed and returned to her mattress. "Not much we can do about it, either way."

"But don't you think we should—"

"What? Play matchmaker? Break it up? Find a whore and get him laid?"

Ozone frowned, a line forming in the center of his brow. "No...that last one is probably how this whole thing got started."

Three gave a nod of satisfaction, lay down and stretched her arms overhead. "In that case, there's nothing we can do, and it's Vince's issue to deal with."

"He's the boss," Ozone agreed.

Indeed. Three returned to gazing at the water spots on the ceiling. What a day for Speedball, of all people to be in love. It would be interesting to see what Vince had to say when he found out. A little tirade might shake things up a bit.

Then again, today would be a fine day to get her hair touched up, if she only could rouse up the energy for it.

This was written for The Sunday Whirl.  Please see the sidebar for more stores about Vince and his gang.