The Enigma’s Anomaly

“Frankie,” Gerard groans when I start walking too fast. I can’t help it, I see the car and I want to get to it as quickly as possible.

“Hurry up, Gerard. You can sit down in a moment, okay?”

“What’s the point, the car hit a tree it’s not going to run,” Gerard says.

“There are a few tricks I’ve picked up in my life that would both surprise and repel you. One of those such things is hotwiring a car,” I say.

“You can hotwire a car?” Gerard asks, sounding like a mixture of impressed and a little accusatory.

“Yes, well I’m very good at a lot of things. Just none of the things I’m good at are legal,” I say. “Maybe someday I’ll show you how to remove mattress tags.”

“Is it bad that I find that hot?” Gerard questions.

I giggle, “If you find that hot than you and I may have been made for each other.”

“I don’t think it’s just that that makes us made for each other,” he says and then blushes.

It’s kind of fun talking about this so freely with Gerard. I mean, obviously I’ve done some pretty shitty things in my life. I’ve stolen wallets, killed a few people, broken into a bunch of places, and done various other illegal activities, but it’s nice to just talk about it. I at least haven’t done anything really awful. I don’t steal things that can’t be replaced, or that are going to be really missed. I’m not the kind of person who’d steal a diamond ring, or a family heirloom. I would never steal a person’s identity, and I would never actually kill someone for myself.

Being a contract killer is kind of a sensitive expertise because it’s not something I’m proud to be good at. I am, I’m very good at it, but I don’t like to be. I’ve got a good standing in my community, or at least I used to. Gerard doesn’t judge me though, and I think that’s one of the things that makes me so crazy about him. He knows who I am, flaws and all, but he accepts it. The way he’s so willing to let it go makes me almost weep from happiness. He’s honestly the most amazing human being I have ever met, and am likely to ever meet.

“Do you have any cell reception?” I ask looking at the nonexistent bars on my phone. Gerard shakes his head and I sigh.

It takes a little longer then I’d wish for us to get to the car, and I leave Gerard on the sidewalk a few feet away to make sure there’s no one inside. When I see that our ambusher’s car is sufficiently unoccupied I wave Gerard over. He eagerly clambers over and leans himself on the side of the car with exhaustion.

“Can I have that sweatshirt back for a moment, Gerard?” I ask him after peaking into the window. Gerard raises an eyebrow, but he shrugs the garment off and hands it to me a moment later.

I wrap the fabric around my fist then take aim at the window of the car. It shatters with ease, and I unravel the sweater handing it back to Gerard. He looks surprised at the sudden loud noise, but he doesn’t question it. I get a hand on the interior handle of the car, and pull the driver’s side door open in front of me.

“Oh, jackpot!” I say, looking into the backseat. It is though. There’s a briefcase that I check the contents of and after opening it, I’m a little offended. Money. Lots and lots of money. Banks is paying these guys this much cash, when I got one third of this. Rude. There’s also a big sniper rifle, which on any other day would probably make my jaw drop because it’s one gorgeous piece of weaponry, but I just grab it, and thank the idiot assassins for already assembling it. There’s a smaller revolver in there that I grab as well, and some documents that I make a reminder to look through if I get the time.

“Hey Gerard, would you maybe hold onto this for me,” I say crawling out of the car. I see his eyes widen and I snort slightly at the fear he gets when I hold the huge gun out to him.

“I... uh, Frank,” Gerard splutters desperately, and I feel my smile get bigger at his indecision.

“How about you hold the little gun then,” I say setting the rifle back onto the seat, and handing the revolver out to him. He looks almost as incredulous by the little thing as he was the rifle.

“Here Gerard, I’ll show you how to use it,” I say and I hold it out for him to take. He looks so hesitant to grab it. “Relax, Gerard, the safety is on.”

He takes it carefully and I watch his hand droop a little by the unexpected weight of the weapon. I go to stand right in front of him, where he’s still leaning on the side of the car.

“Alright Gerard, I don’t want you to shoot it now, because it’s kind of a loud thing, so I’m going to show you how to shoot it with the safety on. If you see any movement flip this little lever on the side,” I point to the small switch and Gerard nods, “that’s the safety. It clicks out of place if you flip it.”

“Do you think I’m going to have to use it?” Gerard asks nervously.

“I hope not, but I’d rather you knew how, okay?” I say and I put my hand on his shoulder to stop him from shaking a little bit.

He takes a deep breath and nods for me to keep going.

“Okay, you know where the trigger is right? You’ve seen enough movies and shit, it’s this little nook, and the circle around it is called the trigger guard. Make sure you’re forefinger is in that nook if you see someone coming as well. Essentially that’s the part that shoots. Now this is a revolver, not a pistol, so you have a hammer instead of a slide. You see pistols on cop shows, that’s what they’re more likely to use, and it looks a bit cooler. But you have a revolver here, it’s got a hammer which is a little less convenient. These are a much older type of gun, and if you’ve ever seen a western movie, that’s what they were using probably.”

“What is a hammer?” Gerard asks, and I realize just how dauntingly little he knows about these things, so I continue.

“The hammer is this part right here,” I point to the small switch on the top part of the gun, “it’s on the other side of the barrel so you don’t have to worry about your hand getting in the way of the bullet, okay? What you need to do is pull the hammer down while you’re pulling the trigger. You cock it back with your thumb, and you pull the trigger simultaneously. That’s how you get the bullet to shoot out.”

“Why are there two parts?” Gerard complains and I roll my eyes at him. There’s a reason pistols are more popular than revolvers and it’s for that exact reason.

“Okay, that’s how you fire a gun, but you also need to know how to stand,” I tell him, and I take the gun from his grasp to demonstrate the stance for him. I hand it back to him, and I get Gerard to place his feet at shoulder-width apart, then get him to put his left foot a step in front of his other foot.

“You’re dominant arm should be completely straight, okay? Hold it firmly out in front of you and that’s the hand that should be doing most of the aiming. Your other elbow should be a little more lax. That’s the hand you use to try and keep everything steady. This is how you should stand when you’re firing a gun, got that?”

Gerard nods, and says, “I’m way too scared to actually shoot this thing though. And my ankle hurts.”

“You’re not putting all that much pressure on your left leg, Gerard, it’s just to keep your balance. If you weren’t so alien to holding a gun, I’d say you might be able to lean against the car, but your aim would be way off.”

“But why can’t you shoot it?” Gerard pleads.

“Because I have to hotwire a car which is going to take me about ten to fifteen minutes. I also think it’s best if you know how,” I tell him, feeling a bit miffed, “one last step and then I’ll get to working on the car.”

“You’re not done yet? How complicated is this thing?” Gerard asks, looking at the gun with disdain.

“You’ve barely even held a gun before! I have to run through everything. The last piece to the puzzle is the aiming. What you do is hold the gun about level with your nose, and when you look at the gun in your hand you have to think of it as an extension of your arm. It should be an arm’s length away but make it level. You have to remember that it’s the aim that counts most. You can fire a bunch of bullets in a few seconds and miss with every one, so you have to remember that aim is more important than speed.”

“Is that an innuendo?” Gerard says, and I actually laugh despite myself.

“Okay, shut up,” I say rolling my eyes, “when you aim, you need to always aim it just under the target. If you point straight at it, you’re going to miss it because the guns going to force itself upward from impact. Point it just under the goal. You need to steady your breathing the best you can. Steady breath makes for a steady hand, so take deep breaths, and you’ll find yourself shaking less and less. When you take aim, you point and pull the trigger, then you hold the gun on the spot the best you can. The blowback is going to be pretty significant, and you’re going to feel it. It’s going to force your arms up, and it’s gonna be fucking loud, but you have to keep the same position and stance the best you can. The follow-through is the scariest part usually because that’s when you have to pull yourself together well enough to fire again. If the target is still advancing you squeeze the trigger once again, and if you keep your position the accuracy is more likely to be on point.”

“Okay, but what happens if it’s really strong?”

“Oh it will be, you just have to try to keep your stance the best you can. It would be nice if you can pick up any shell casings from the ground after firing as well, but only after you’ve used all your bullets. The shell casing is what police use to identify the gun, because you can’t always get an accurate read on a bullet if it enters, well, if it goes inside a person.”

“Like what happened to you?” Gerard asks.

“Yep, precisely. The gun that shot me was an unregistered pistol, which means that they had no way of tracing it to anyone. This is probably unregistered as well, or stolen, but it’s usually best if the cops don’t even know the guns story.”

“Is that all?” Gerard asks.

“Yep, I think so. It’s not the best I wish I could do for you, but it’ll have to do. Ideally we’d fire off a few rounds to help you get a feel for the gun, but we can’t afford to make that much noise,” I check that the safety is on one last time before I walk over to the front seat and look at the wheel sheepishly. Time to get to work.

“So do I just... stand guard?” Gerard asks, poking his head to look at me undoing the dashboard.

“Basically, yeah,” I say not looking at him as I get to work, “holler if you even kind of think someone is out there, okay? You’ve got your gun. I’ve got mine.”

I pat the big gun that I moved to the seat next to me and I start on the wires of the car unenthusiastically. I always hate this part.