Savage Tales

I wouldn't fink or turn on you. But I gotta eat. I'm just saying that I'd like to know –"
    O'Leery took his pistol out from under belt and aimed it at Charlie's head.
    "Aw gee, boss," said Charlie, "ya don't gotta go doing that. Please, c'mon, boss."
    "Seems we have some disloyalty in the ranks here," said O'Leery. "Seems that my leadership ain't good enough. And I'd just like to know if anyone else besides Charlie here feels the same way. Well? Spit it out, ya no good good-for-nothins."
    Nobody said anything.
    "Well, it seems your alone on this one, Charlie," said O'Leery. "And it seems we can't let things go on as they've been goin' on. It seems that you couldn't deal with that."
    "Don't do anything you'll regret, boss," said Charlie.
    "Me?" said O'Leery. "I can't see myself regretting a thing."
    "Aw geez, no," Charlie began. Then he reached for his gun.
    O'Leery fired and a bullet scratched open Charlie's forehead and tunneled through his skull and brain and came out the other side. Charlie stopped reaching for his gun. He stopped doing much of anything, standing for a moment, then falling to the ground.
    Muscles Mcgee, another member of the O'Leery's crew, who had held only a pair of jacks in the previous hand, vomited on the barroom floor.
    "You pussy, Muscles," said O'Leery. "Hey, Joe, clean this mess up. These messes."
    Joe the bartender, who had hardly acknowledged the gunshot, came from around the counter to survey the damage, then said, "Sure thing, boss."
    "Let's get out of here, boys," said O'Leery. "This ain't a proper place to be right now."
    The crew stood up to depart and O'Leery holstered his gun. He should have kept it out.
    The doors leading outside swung open, pushed in by tommy guns and their noses sniffed around until they found O'Leery and his crew. The newly arrived men looked at the corpse on the floor. One of the newly arrived men was Vincent Morelli.
    "Hello, O'Leery," said Morelli. "Heard a shot and thought we'd come in and say hello."
    "Morelli. You don't have much sense coming in here."
    "Yeah?" said Morelli. "Seems you don't have much sense shooting one of your own boys. Whatsa matter? You two have a little tiff?"
    What Morelli didn't realize was that Salmon Smirks, another member of O'Leery's gang, had gone to the store to get a lighter. He was outside the bar and listening, trying to decide what to do. Finally he decided on loyalty and kicked the door in and began to shoot. His eyes were not adjusted to the darkness of the bar and he ended up firing at the mirror on the far wall.
    Morelli's boys spun around and fired on Salmon, tearing his body apart. This gave O'Leery and his boys a chance to get their guns out and pretty soon a tornado of bullets were ripping apart the bar. Joe the bartender took a slug in the liver and fell down. O'Leery and all of his boys took bullets and most of them died that day. Morelli and his boys took some bullets, but only Morelli's son took a serious wound in the penis, one of the worst spots to take a bullet, and he couldn't walk. He just couldn't.
    When the bullets had stopped, the sirens started and Morelli knew that someone must have tipped the cops.
    "Screwy pigs," said Morelli. "We gotta get out of here, boys. Everyone good to go?"
    "No!" said Donnie. "I can't move."
    "What's wrong, Don?" said Morelli.
    "I think I got a bullet."
    "Where, kid?"
    "My prick. They got me in the willy."
    "Can we look?" said Morelli.
    "No, Dad!"
    "Can't you walk?"
    "No."
    "Can't we carry you?"
    "No, Dad. It hurts. Just leave me. I need a doctor."
    "Abe can help you back at the house."
    "Abe's not a real doctor."
    "C'mon, boys, grab him."
    "I said leave me! I want a hospital."
    "Jesus Christ, you're gonna act like a baby, fine, but if you squeal we'll put you out like a match, see? We'll forget you were ever family. Got it?"
    Donnie had passed out and couldn't answer.
    "Leave him," said Morelli.
    "But, boss," said Lightbulb Zurini, "he's passed out. We can take him along without him putting up a fight."
    "Nah, kid wants a hospital, let him have it. We needed a new safehouse anyway. Come on. And besides, I don't think Abe could remove a bullet in the penis. He's not a real doctor."
    "That's true," said Scarnose Vambooni, who had a giant scar across his nose when Abe had failed to remove a boil properly.
    So they left Donnie Morelli on the floor and went out the back, flipped a manhole cover, and went through the sewers a couple blocks till they thought they were past the