Cooked Goose

long.”
    A surge of anger shot through the killer, giving him the extra jolt of adrenaline he needed. He steadied his gun.
    “With two fingers,” he said, “pull your weapon and put it on the table there. Slowly. Now sit in that chair.” He waved his gun toward a rusted contraption with a torn leatherette seat.
    Reluctantly, the captain complied.
    Dunn tossed him a pair of handcuffs. The simple gesture caused a pain like white lightning to shoot through him, but he pushed past the misery.
    “Cuff your right hand to the chair arm,” he said. “Do it! Now!”
    Dunn studied his captive with eyes that burned. But it was a cold fire. “So, you were expecting me sooner?” he said as he watched Bloss struggle with the cuffs, trying to put them on with his left hand. “It’s not easy, running around for days with two bullets lodged in you... bullets your ‘brothers’ gave you. Thanks a lot... Bro.”
    Finally, Bloss snapped the cuffs closed on his own wrist, then squinted at Dunn with those dark, slitted eyes that Dunn had come to hate.
    “You came after my daughter,” Bloss said. “My own kid! What the hell did you think I’d do?”
    “What made you think it was me?”
    “She saw your ring, you moron.”
    “It could’ve been DeCianni or McGivney. They’re Marshals. They’ve got rings.”
    “I checked them out. They had alibis. Both were accounted for; you weren’t.” Bloss shook his head and gave Dunn a contemptuous look that made Dunn want to go ahead and blow his brains out on the spot. But he had waited for this a long time. The fantasy of carrying out this execution was the only thing that had gotten him through the night before, when the fever had been so high, the pain so bad.
    And since this would be his last killing, he didn’t want to rush it.
    “I can’t believe you wore one of our rings to do shit like that,” Bloss continued in that self-righteous tone that made Dunn furious. “Those rings were a symbol of justice and the power of the law. But rape? What kind of lowlife are you? I can’t believe you were even a cop, let alone that we let you join the Marshals.”
    Titus laughed, but the movement caused an agony in his ribs. One of the bullets had struck there, in his side, and passed on through. The other was still lodged in his left shoulder. A bucketful of stolen antibiotics and driving rage had kept him going so far, but he had just about reached the end.
    “You didn’t mind us wearing those rings when we took care of dirty business for you...” he said, “...like that pimp in Oak Creek , the coke dealer in the valley, or that kid in East L.A. All that boy did was steal your wallet and whack you around a little. But you couldn’t report it because you got robbed with your pants down, bangin’ a hooker.”
    “That kid was trouble, had been all his life.” Bloss passed his left hand over his forehead that was slimy with a film of sweat.
    “And you decided he had to die,” Dunn said, “so we killed him for you.”
    “I told you to rough him up, not kill him.”
    “Sometimes things don’t go as planned; he had a gun in his boot and he drew it on us. Of course, you didn’t exactly shed any tears when we told you he was dead.”
    “That was different. It was justice. That’s why I formed the Marshals in the first place, why I invited you guys in... to administer justice when the system broke down and let a criminal slip through the cracks. And that’s a long way from raping and beating innocent women.”
    While Dunn silently seethed, the only sound was that of the clock ticking on the nightstand. Dunn felt a wave of weakness and nausea sweep through him. He could taste the saltiness of his own sweat that ran down into his eyes and the corners of his mouth. He allowed the rage to build to a crescendo inside him
    The more fury he felt, the more steady his hand became, but the more difficult it was to breathe.
    “And is that what you thought you were doing when you sent McGivney and DeCianni after me?” he said. “My so-called brothers, coming to murder me in my own home? Did you think you were administering justice?”
    Bloss glowered at him, not bothering to hide his hatred; not a smart move for a man staring down the barrel of a gun, Titus decided. This guy deserved to die, because he was stupid, if for no other reason.
    “It was justice,” Bloss said. “And if you’d gotten what you deserved, you’d be dead and McGivney and DeCianni would still be alive.