Questions slapped my brain like the sleet on the window pane. Could it really have been him? Wolfhook? Sure I’d heard stories; campers getting chopped up, a gentlemen’s club being raided, but were they true? I had a sinking sensation in my gut that told me by the end of this I’d be sorry I asked. Or maybe I just needed a burrito. Joe’s has good burritos. And his sister works there. Man, that’s any man’s dream: a hot steamy burrito served by a hot steamy broad. Mmm. I lick my lips. The rain is so hard on the streets I can’t light a cig as I walk to Joe’s Cafe. The street lamps illuminate the drops as they plummet, making little wet lasers from the clouds. They pelt my fedora as I pass by. I round the corner and I see Joe’s place, blasting neon light like a bright beacon through the filth. As I near his door that bad feeling creeps up on me, like someone blowing on the back of my neck. I shiver and pull my trench coat tighter over my chest. The glass in the door is smashed. I notice this first. I pause for a moment to survey the scene. Straight ahead is the bar. Coke overflowing from the tap that’s still running. The booths and tables block my view of the floor on either side of me. I see someone’s meal left to be scavenged by flies. Wasteful people.

“Joe?” I say.

I move in. The glass crunches like porecelain cockroaches under my wingtips. There’s a smudged handprint in blood on the chair to my left. On the floor to my right a little trail bleed till it hits the end of the bar and turns the corner. I figure that if i was to get into an argument my good friend Ruger (great name, eh?) would be the best conversation stopper, so I bring him into the light. I follow the blood red road until it leads me to the corner. Around it I see a man laying face down, swimming. Not a pleasurable swim at the pool, more like a death swim in the lake filled by his own blood. I look over the counter. Trays are knocked over, silverware, napkins. It looks like an earthquake hit the place. Or maybe Anna Nicole Smith just took a bad fall. Either way, it’s dry in here and I can finally light that cig. The fan above sucks up the smoke as I hop the couter. Moving to the swinging door to the kitchen I notice more blood, and the door’s been slashed up. Bad. The little porthole window is smashed to. I pull back the hammer of Mr. Deadeye and he puts a friendly bullet in the chamber. Tentatively I push back the door. The place had been through a riot. Steam was shooting from somewhere, cramping my vision. It scalds me as I walk through. Now i see Joe. Slumped against the counter, his head flopped back. His throat’s gashed open, and there’s more blood on him than in tose Evil Dead movies. A shotgun with a few spent shells lay scattered. Joe had the deadest eye in town. He didn’t miss.

I disregard this as I a whimper. Curled up in the corner sits Julie, Joe’s sister. I run over to her and kneel. Her hands are wrapped around her knees and she’s rocking back and forth. One is soaked in blood and I realize there’s a hole punched all the way through it. I lift her up and can barely hear what she whispers: “We don’t sell hotdogs here…” She repeats as I bring her into the cleansing downpour.