The Partner

By Dana C. Kabel

Max checked his watch. It was seven-thirty and the sun was on its way down for the day.

“Are you sure he's going to come this way?” He asked Sully.

“Yeah,” Sully said. “I been watching him for two weeks. He cuts through the park and the cemetery every night on his way home.”

“That's creepy. Where you gonna get him?”

“In the cemetery. There won't be any witnesses,” Sully said.

“Remember our agreement.”

“Yeah, yeah…you get the disc and I get any money or valuables the dumb fuck has on him.”

“Hey, is that him coming around the corner?”

“Get behind the bushes. Hurry up.”

Sully pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and sat on the park bench and pretended to talk on his cell phone. The mark walked by with his pack slung over his shoulder and his nose in a book, completely oblivious to the presence of the thug on the bench.

Sully could have easily tripped him and snatched the pack away and lit down the street. But there were people driving by in cars and he didn't want to have to deal with an interfering Good Samaritan.

When the mark turned the corner, Sully jumped over the back of the bench and ran to the woods. Max scrambled after him, sucking big wind to try to catch up.

“Stay back! If he sees you, it's all over.”

“Where…you…going?” Max gasped.

“Back way to the cemetery. Go back and follow him to the front. By the time you get there, I'll have him.”

Max stopped and braced himself over his knees as he took in big gulps of air. He watched Sully disappear through the thicket of trees in front of him like a deer.

When the stitches in his side went away, Max turned and started jogging back to the road. He went for two blocks before he reached the cemetery and slowed to a fast walk.

The mark, whose name was William Shope, was navigating through the bone yard. He was no longer reading the book, but instead was using it as a shield against the brilliant light of the setting sun that was shining in his face.

Max shaded his own eyes with his hands and scanned the field below him looking for a sign of Sully. He suddenly understood his deadly partner's strategy in going after his prey with the sun at his back.

William Shope never saw what happened when Sully stepped out from behind the mausoleum and chucked a rock at the side of his head. The thick glasses he wore flew off and William fell down on his side.

He groaned and reached up to touch the wet sticky spot on his skull and Sully jumped on top of him.

“What are you doing?” William cried.

Sully didn't speak a word; he just grinned like the devil as he pulled out his knife and flicked the blade out high above his head. William squinted and saw the sun flash off the little piece of steel.

“What…what…”

Sully slapped the open palm of his other hand over his victim's mouth. Then he brought the knife down and sliced through the strap of the shoulder pack, as well as through the shirt and flesh that lay beneath it.

William screamed into the hand that muzzled him. Tears rolled out of the corners of his eyes as a crimson spot spread across the fabric of his shirt.

“Know who I am?” Sully asked.

William closed his eyes and tried shaking his head from side to side to answer that he did not.

“Fucking liar! You know my name. And you sure as fuck know who he is.”

He pushed William's head sideways so that he could see Max, who was now close enough to spit on.

“Jesus,” Max said. “What are you doing?”

“The rough work. It's what we agreed to. You pick them out and I do what I have to.” Sully waved the knife in the air.

“N-no. I just wanted you to rough him up a little and get the bag.”

“But he's seen our faces. He knows who we are. Do you think he's just gonna walk away from this without telling anybody? We'll be locked up by this time tomorrow.”

Sully turned the knife in his hand so that the blade was pointing out of the bottom of his fist. He stabbed down swiftly and buried it in the ground an inch away from William's head.

Max felt his heart jump into his throat as the blade went down. When he saw that it sunk harmlessly into the dirt he let all of his air out in relief.

Sully grabbed the bag and flung it into Max's chest. William started weeping and Sully, who was straddling him, jumped up.

“Shit! Fuck! You fucking pissed yourself!” He pulled at the ass of his pants that were wet with his victim's urine.

“I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to die…” William cried as he curled onto his side in the fetal position.

Max started laughing at the site of the tough guy with piss all over the back of his pants.

Sully bent over and picked something up. It was a rock, the size of a football. He raised it in the air and brought it down on William's head.

When Max heard the wet thud like a smashed melon, he started vomiting.

Sully picked the rock back up and brought it down three more times, until there was nothing resembling a human head underneath it.

“Fuck!” Max yelled and started running away with the bag still clutched in his hands.

Sully found his knife in the dirt and pulled it free before racing after him.

Max was almost to the road before he was grabbed by the back of the shirt. Then he was running in place, straining against the material and waiting for the dirty knife to slide into his back.

“Hold it!” Sully shouted.

He brought the knife around so that Max could see it, then he folded it shut and put it in his pocket.

“We had a deal,” Sully said.

Max stopped running. He turned around to see his partner's eyes fixed on the backpack. He held the bag out and Sully snatched it away.

Sully unzipped the pack and rummaged through it. He nodded approvingly at some of the items and then pulled out the thin slip case of a video game and handed it to Max.

“Your disc,” he said.

Max took the game in a trembling hand.

“You gotta learn to relax, man.” Sully put his arm around Max's shoulder.

“You know, next years gonna be even better.”

“Next year?”

“Yeah…we'll be in middle school, man. Those kids are gonna have a lot better stuff than fifth grader's have. I heard this prick the other day said his old man was buying him a laptop when he graduates from fifth grade. A fucking laptop, dude. That's way sweeter than an mp3 player or a cell phone.” Sully shook the bag of loot in his hand.

“Yeah, uh, look I gotta go before my mom starts calling me. We cool?”

Sully looked over his shoulder at the dead boy who was starting to get swallowed up in the darkness of night.

“Of course we're cool...partner.”