The Night Before Larry Was Stretched

Flash Fiction by Frank Sonderborg

We sat on Larry’s prison bed and reminisced about our Special Ops glory days in the Army Wing.”

“Why?” I finally asked Larry.

He smiled through his ugly shattered face. Larry always had, serious fucking issues. But now he was sitting on death row. Because of a hurried emergency hanging law, brought in by a special Irish Government ruling, to punish the drug czars, for killing public servants.

“Jayzus Larry, you killed a cop. A young, newly trained Garda Síochána.

Battered him with a fucking claw hammer. They have to hang you. You’ve given them no other choice.”

Larry just gave me an ugly grimace. All that remained of a face that once had charmed the knickers off women, from Kabul to Ouagadougou.

“I didn’t mean to kill him. Never did.”

“Larry, you wasted eight that fucking day. And would’ve walked away with a medal for the seven. But fucking H Christos, you had to top a newbie. The young chiseller wasn’t even cleared for firearms.”

“The young boy, the Gard, Damien O’Leary. I spoke to his mother.”

Did she forgive you?

“No, she said she hoped I’d burn in damnation for everlasting eternity. Can’t say I blame her.”

“I can’t believe you decided to take out Kempski, on your own.”

“Nearly did too.”

I looked at him and said, “So, crazy Larry arrives outside the council house headquarters of, ‘The Emperor of Crime, Mickser Kempski. Wearing, what looked like a grey morph suit and armed with a Special Ops Tomahawk and a claw hammer.

What were you thinking!! Did you think he’d say? Look, it’s the repair guy, let him through. He’s here to fix my broken fucking windows.”

“I never had a plan. But I was wearing a full body armour suit, a lightweight DuPont graphene outfit. Took it home when I left the ‘Wing,’ as a souvenir.”

“Yea, you looked pretty scary on TV.”

“Joe, they said my Tomahawk went missing from the evidence store, after the trial.”

“I have it. It was slipped to me, by one of the ERU boys, they still believe in you.”

“Well,” Larry said, “when the UN give you empty rifles to keep the peace on the Golan Heights, you gotta have something.”

I agreed. Most of the ‘Irish Army Wing,’ assault teams packed them.

“Kempski’s first four died more of shock at your bulletproof graphene suit than the Tomahawk hacking. But Jayzus, you stopped to batter their heads to pulp.”

“Training Joe, I was well trained in the ‘Wing.’ Fuckers with their Kevlar pads thought they were immortal warriors. Soon learned about pain.”

“The rest were pumping you with lead.”

“Lots of bruises to prove it, Joe. No face mask though. It’s what screwed me in the end.”

“And as if luck wasn’t your middle name, it was all live on CNN, they were covering the Irish gangland scene that day. They had cameras set up on the estate, for their big interview with, ‘Emperor Kempski.”

“Everybody gets their fifteen minutes of shame, as Andy Watermole once said.”

“Then you turn up like fucking Zorro, the unmasked avenger. And start motoring through Kempski’s immortals.”

I got close, Kempski was pressing the panic button at this stage.

I could smell his fear, the little shite, my intention was to bury the axe, in his fucking skull.”

“This is when the ‘Armed Garda Emergency Response Unit’ arrived, to save the day.

Jayzus Larry, you trained most of those ERU guys. You fucking knew how it would go down.”

“Kempski was pumping that drug shite into my estate. And nobody was doing anything about it. He was fucking murdering my people.”

“All this, live on prime-time CNN, on the ‘CNN, give me something new, entertain me I’m bored of fucking reality TV shows.’ You hack your way through his Pretorian Guard. And then it all went to shite.”

“I had the bastard with the next swing. Then I took one in the back of the head. Jayzus those ERU guys can shoot. It bounced of the graphene fibre and spun me like a spinning top. The next round went in under my nose, no graphene face mask, and lodged in the back of my head. Ruined me looks forever. I had the claw hammer ready and then I was just running on diesel fumes.”

“The boy, O’Leary, saw himself as a hero. Done what he’d been trained to do at the Garda college, I suppose,” I said.

“And I just done what I’d been trained to do on the battlefield. You want to know something. They knew I was going up there.”

“Who knew?”

“The ERU team. I called them and said I was going up to take Kempski out.”

“Jayzus.”

“Told me, no firearms. Which is why I was armed with me axe and a hammer. The boy obviously wasn’t told. Above his paygrade.”

“Jayzus Christ Larry, you could have said something about it, at your trial. You may have got some level of mercy.”

“Joe, he came at me in a blur; I hacked him to death with the Tomahawk and battered him with a claw hammer. Live on CNN. No mercy shown. No more to be said.”

“At least tell your mom you didn’t mean it. Tell her it was an accident with the boy, for me, please.”

“I already have. I’ll always be her boy, her hero.”

My visiting time up. I left Larry to his thoughts and memories.

They may stretch Larry tomorrow night, for expediency’s sake.

He killed a young cop, and justice, did indeed need to be seen to be expedited.

But I also had a full body, light weight graphene suit. And one thing we learned in the ‘Wing,’ was to let go of things. To forgive. To bury the hatchet. This one though, was going to be buried in Kempski’s fucking head, were it rightfully belonged.

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Bio: Frank Sonderborg was born in Dublin, Ireland, lives in the UK and does his best to write interesting stories. His stories have appeared in: Action: Pulse Pounding Tales 2:, Noir Nation 3: Noir Nation 5:, Pulp Modern JFK Issue #6, Pulp Alternative, Shadows and Light:, Thrills, Kills ‘n’ Chaos:, ShotgunHoney, Twist and Twain, The Yard: Crime Blog, Punk Noir Press.

Read more flash fiction on The Yard: Crime Blog

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