Poison Joe in Bingo City

By

Kyle Valanne

Poison Joe Langford sat in his car. It was noon and the hot sun was sending streams of sweat down the forty-year-old face of the hunter. His greasy black hair was lost beneath a dirty red ball cap. Dressed in dusty worn jeans and a faded plaid shirt, he looked like one of many; he could have passed for any one of the dozen men who sat behind the wheels of their cars. All were waiting for the ferry to return from its river crossing so they could make their way to the City.

Poison Joe Langford could have passed for any of the men, but he was nothing like the others. He was a notorious hunter. He was a professional killer . . . a legendary gun for hire.

"It's hotter than the seven hubs of hell in this no-good shit wagon," he grumbled around the non-filter cigarette that hung from his lip. He squinted against the smoke and watched the ferry approach the dock. Four cars in front of him, seven behind, and several more approaching the loading zone filled the morning air with a low, steady rumble.

Why anyone would travel to the City was beyond Langford. He had been there twice before, and it was nothing more than a cesspool of garbage, shopping carts, mutants, fast food joints and bingo halls.

Sooner I find that useless dipshit the better, he thought.

Langford glanced down at the sawed-off twelve gauge on the seat beside him. He touched it briefly with filthy fingertips and smiled. It would make quick work of his target. That speed was what had kept Langford alive for fifteen years in this business. Fast and efficient. In and out. It's what made him the highest paid button man in the area. It's what made people fear and hate him. It's what made people love him and long to be around him.

Langford farted, then tossed the stub of the cigarette out the window. He ran his hand across his prickly cheek and smiled again. Only be a couple of hours before he could take care of business. He enjoyed his work. In another time, he would have been called a serial killer and a sociopath. In the past, he would have been locked up and executed himself.

Now, it was Langford who did the executing.

Putting his Mustang in drive, he edged forward. The ferry was loading for the three-kilometer journey to the City. The ferry could carry fifteen vehicles. The steady stream of traffic to the City kept the ferryman busy. Many more cars and trucks made the journey into the walled metropolis than came out, as if they were swallowed and consumed. The City seemed to hunger for the metal flesh of cars and the souls of the passengers.

Sin and gluttony were the order of the day, everyday. Gambling, prostitution, peep shows, gladiator matches of snuff wrestling, drive-through burger joints, and bingo halls made up the majority of the City. Streets were lined with junked cars, littered with garbage and feces, swarming with flies and dogs. Young kids of both sexes peddled their bodies on street corners, eager to make a stake for some wine and a bingo card. Burnt-out bingo junkies wandered aimlessly, some crumpling to the sidewalks as their wrecked bodies collapsed after months of neglect and abuse. The City was a shithole that eventually ate up everything in it, including the people.

Langford couldn't understand the obsession; it was like some perverse drug. Three years ago he had spent two days in City, playing bingo and eating cheeseburgers. He hated it. It was the slowest, most boring two days of his life.

Huge warehouses were filled to capacity with bingo players of all description. Old women with blue hair and no teeth, young women with no hair and silicon enhanced bodies. Grinning youngsters wearing rubber bodysuits, smelly men decorated with countless tattoos and body piercing. Transvestites in poodle skirts and bikini tops, old men with three-foot Mohawks and nicotine ruined teeth, and giggling crazies strung out on Prozac sat at picnic tables.

They hunched over rows of bingo cards, a cloud of smoke filling the upper third of the warehouse. Everyone smoked cigarettes of one type or the other, sipped diet colas and ate bag after bag of corn chips. They hung on every word of the bingo caller, a muscle-bound geek with thick glasses and buckteeth. The crowd seemed to tremble with near sexual anticipation, each player longing to stand and scream out in orgasmic delight, "BINGO".

Two days had been enough. Poison Joe had left the City immediately. Driving for fourteen hours he finally pulled over and killed a couple of hitchhikers just to relieve the tension he felt grinding inside. They had been heading for the City.

Langford smiled behind another cigarette as he recalled the look on the hitchhikers' faces as he stomped them to death while screaming 'bingo' over and over again. "Bingo!" STOMP STOMP "Bingo!"

He eased slowly onto the ferry and stopped behind a green station wagon. He shut off the engine and got out to stretch his legs. His six-foot-five frame always felt cramped after spending time behind the wheel.

Several of the other passengers were huddling together. Langford could hear their excited chatter. They were discussing a new bingo warehouse that had opened in the City. One of the passengers, an overweight woman wearing a thong bikini and eating an apple, was spraying the others with juice and stories about the great new bingo hall.

"They say that it's fourteen stories high with fourteen different games going at once. They say that the bingo caller has a voice like sunshine and that someone wins every fifteen minutes. They say that..."

Langford walked to the front of the ferry. He looked across the polluted river at the City. Grey concrete walls stretched fifty feet into the smoky air; hundreds of smoke stacks and towers poked up above the wall. He could hear the droning buzz of the place. Honking hours, machinery, screams, country music, and human voices all blended into a mad rush of noise. With a flick of his wrist, Langford dropped his cigarette into the swirling water. The ferry was pulling away from shore and he wanted to catch a quick nap before show time. He walked back to his Mustang.

"...Jackpot ever won. They say that people come from across the world for this new bingo place. They say that one woman walked for sixteen days and nights to get here. They say that..."

Langford closed the door and rolled up the window. The car was warm and stuffy, but he enjoyed the mugginess. His face began to run freely with sweat. He ran his tongue across his upper lip and enjoyed the salty taste. Closing his eyes, he fell asleep. Fifteen minutes later, he awoke just as quickly as he had fallen asleep. Power naps were all he needed to get through the day. Eight hours of sleep in a warm bed was a luxury Langford had never known. There were many things that he had never had the opportunity to experience, but it did not bother him. His world consisted of travelling quickly to some farm, community, or camp, killing an assigned target determined by whoever was paying his salary, and then moving on to a new target.

Occasionally, his work took him to larger settlements. He didn't mind. He really didn't care if he was even paid for his services. He enjoyed his work; money was just something that kept him going. He had no possessions that couldn't fit in his car. He had no permanent home.

The ferry lurched to a stop as its bumper touched the dock outside the City's walls. Langford started his car and waited for his turn to drive off. He lit a cigarette and passed the time drumming his fingers on the twelve-gauge. Two minutes passed before the Ford Mustang rolled off the ferry. Langford gave the finger to the ferryman and headed toward the open gates in the gray wall. The other passengers were also rushing to enter the City; they were eager to be swallowed into its mad world.

Passing through the wall, Langford's senses were bombarded with the stench and noise that filled the air. He drove slowly down the crowded street. People of all creeds and colors were milling about. They shouted, laughed, made sexual gestures, ate burgers, and relished in the crazed carnival in which they found themselves. The Mustang crept along at a snail's pace as Langford maneuvered through the throng. He kept his right hand on the twelve gauge, hoping that some bingo freak would give him a reason to use it. He was getting hungry for the kill. He played the event over and over in his head; the anticipation was wonderfully arousing.

Mitchell Candy was the intended target. Langford had no idea why his latest sponsor wanted the man dead and didn't care in the least. The sponsor had passed him an envelope of cash, told Langford where to find Mitchell Candy, and the business part of the transaction was over.

It was time for Langford to have a little fun. He could picture the confused look that would come across Candy's face just moments before the face was erased with a stroke of the trigger. He could see the cloud of blood, bone, and brain that would fill the air. He could hear the wet crash as the lifeless, faceless body toppled over. He could taste the fear, the tension, and the excitement.

Swinging down a narrow alley, Poison Joe Langford stopped his car and stepped out. He carried the twelve gauge openly in his right hand. The City had no police in the streets. The bingo halls employed former police officers as security, but they never ventured beyond the walls of their place of employment. Like most people in the City, they could care less about the thousands of drifters, losers, wannabes, and dreamers who wandered the streets, they were only concerned with those who could afford the next bingo game. If you couldn't shell out the money for a bingo card you were about as valuable as a used Kleenex.

"Mitchell Candy lives in a small canteen on Dingle Avenue. He sits behind the counter all day and sleeps behind the counter all night," Langford's sponsor had said, "He's a goofy looking prick with too much hair and not enough common sense. I want him deader than hell!"

Langford had nodded, taken the envelope, and headed out immediately for the thirteen-hour drive to the City. Now, standing in the alleyway beside Dingle Avenue, he was ready to take care of business.

The stench and racket that filled the air was even stronger outside of the Mustang. His nostrils burned with the thickness of the odor and he could taste the stench as he walked from the alley onto the sidewalk.

His stride easy and relaxed, he entered the Zone. Langford remembered watching basketball on television when he was a kid and how the announcers always went on and on about a player being in the Zone. The basket would look twice its size and everything the player did seemed to work out--everyone else on the court seemed to be moving a step slower. When a great player entered the Zone, it was magical; they became larger than life. Poison Joe was now in the Zone. His stride was more confident, his movements somehow beautiful as he moved through the milling crowd. He was heading toward the canteen, not to score the winning basket, but to slam-dunk the shit out of one Mitchell Candy.

The Dingle Avenue Canteen was a one-story building nestled between two of the City's older bingo halls. Its red painted siding was old and weathered, it's one window plastered with outdated notices for long forgotten sporting events and circuses. Langford shoved a laughing teenage girl out of his way as he stopped in front of the canteen. She stumbled awkwardly into the street and was hit by a truck. Her broken body was thrown back onto the sidewalk. The crowd didn't bother to look at her, they simply stepped over or around the body and continued on their way. She was just another piece of flotsam on the avenue.

Langford lit a cigarette. The Dingle Avenue Canteen was like he remembered it. It had been his restaurant of choice during his two days of bingo and cheeseburgers in the City. The food was horrible, but it had been the closet place for something to eat. Inhaling deeply, he couldn't get over the irony of being back at the burger joint. Three years ago, he had thought about killing the owner during his last meal to protest the terrible food, but he hadn't. Now, he was back and Langford had a pocket full of cash that said owner Mitchell Candy would be dead within the hour. Crushing out his cigarette, he entered the canteen. A bell sounded his arrival.

The room was dim, the walls beige with grease and cigarette smoke. Five booths and two small tables filled most of the space. It took a second for Poison Joe's eyes to adjust to the lighting. When they had, he saw that the place was empty except for a short Spanish woman behind the counter and a man who was obviously Mitchell Candy.

Candy was sitting in a rocking chair, his long hair and ragged beard dominating his features. Langford guessed his age at somewhere near sixty. It would have taken that long to grow the sea of hair that littered the floor at his feet. Grey curls hung a good five feet from Candy's head. The end of his beard lay on his lap. The man looked like a shaggy dog.

"You want a cheeseburger, mister?"

It was the Spanish woman. Langford ignored her and walked up to Mitchell Candy. The twelve gauge was still in his right hand.

"What's the sawed-off for? You planning on capping someone?" asked Candy, his voice muffled behind the beard.

"Might be," Poison Joe Langford replied. He lifted the barrel up toward Mitchell Candy's face.

"Hey, what the hell! You're Poison Langford, aren't you? What are you doing here? Who sent you?"

"Does it matter?"

Langford was thriving on the moment, relishing the tension and excitement. It was what he lived and longed for, the moments just before the kill. The Spanish woman behind the counter was frozen with fear. Mitchell Candy struggled to control his trembling hands.

"I said, does it matter?"

"Yeah. I have a...a right to know who sent you. You can't walk in here at just shoot me. We both know that I'm too old to do anything about it, but I have a right to know who wants me dead. I have a right, I do!"

Langford loved the unfolding moments of violent death, it was like walking in his own private piece of paradise. There was something so beautiful in watching a man face death, watching his eyes come to terms with what was about to happen.

"Guess?"

"What?"

"Guess. Take a guess who sent me. Think back over your shitty life and chance one."

"I don't...I don't know, I don't know," Candy spewed.

"You're gonna get a kick out of this. C'mon, guess."

"I don't know, really...I...have no idea. please, I...uh"

"It's your sister. man!" Langford laughed, his voice filling the canteen, "Your goddamn sister sent me. Don't know why and don't give a rat's ass. All I know, you poor shit, is that your own sister wants you dead."

Mitchell Candy didn't move. Langford noticed that the bearded man's hands suddenly stopped trembling.

"How much is she paying?"

"Not important."

"I'll double it!"

"What?"

"I said, I'll double it. Whatever that bitch is paying you, I'll go double. I'll give you twice the money to kill that bitch. What do you say?"

"Show me the bread."

"It's in the back, Sophia will get it for you."

Mitchell Candy turned in the rocking chair and faced the Spanish woman behind the counter, "Get the money outta the safe, go get the money!"

Sophia Alvarez rushed into the kitchen. Several seconds passed before she returned with a large roll of bills.

"How much? How much the bitch pay you?" Candy pleaded.

"Five yards."

"Okay, okay, okay...I'll...I'll give you ten, ten grand. Count it out, Sophia, hurry, count out the goddamn money."

Langford watched the pair. He couldn't stop the smile that was spreading across his face. This was beautiful. Sophia quickly counted out a hundred C-notes. She crammed the money into a greasy bag and handed it to Mitchell Candy, who promptly passed the money to Langford.

"Here. Take the dough. Ten grand to kill that bitch sister of mine, twice the money she paid you!"

"You want me to kill your sister?"

"Yeah. You know where she's at, kill that bitch dead. Here take the money," Candy's voice was a rush of excitement.

Langford shoved the sawed off barrel of the twelve gauge roughly into Candy's face. He could hear Sophia inhale sharply.

"You want your sister dead? Okay, it's a deal...but I must tell you, man...I have never started a job and not finished it."

The roar of the shotgun engulfed the canteen, rattling the glass windows in front. Mitchell Candy's face was erased in an explosion of red. The impact of the twelve slammed him back in the rocking chair, which rebounded forward and threw his lifeless body onto the floor.

Langford turned away from the dead man and faced the trembling Sophia.

"Okay, I'll get that cheeseburger now. Make sure there's plenty of extra onions," he smiled.