The Consequences
A Noir Fiction
“Hey! It’s not what you think it is.” He shouted frightenedly. Getting cornered by two women clad in black at this time of the day was the last thing he expected. He looked around anxiously. But as usual, with the dawn of the twilight, the alley was as empty as a desert.
“Mr. Schneider, please remove your coat slowly and put it down.” The taller woman took a step forward keeping her gun pointed at him. “But no tricks! If you cooperated, things would be easier.”
“I swear, I don’t have a gun, damn it.”
Despite his effort, his voice clearly betrayed his panic.
“And this is not the winter either. Besides, that coat is the last thing you should be worried about right now.” The woman sounded cold.
She locked her eyes on his as if she were trying to pierce his soul. The lamppost that was a few yards away lit their immediate surroundings.
There was a brief moment of silence among them.
“It’s obvious you know why we are here, Mr. Schneider,” The woman’s voice resonated with the sharp look on her face. “So, if I were you, I wouldn’t waste a single moment keeping my mouth shut.”
She lowered her gun.
He took a deep breath. Pausing for a few seconds he tried to gather the best possible words. After all, his life was going to depend on them within the next few minutes.
“Also, let me remind you, we don’t have all the time in the world.”
There was a slight impatience in the woman’s voice.
“Okay, I screwed up, oh! Jesus,” He cried in fear. He was breathing fast. “But I swear, you all got the wrong picture, Ripley,”
His look shifted from Ripley to her partner. However, her face didn’t depict any emotion either. After all, he had never seen her before.
Ripley’s voice brought his attention back to her.
“Care to elaborate, Mr. Schneider?”
“That was pure self-defense.” He couldn’t help but stammer when letting those words out. “I was questioning him about some business. That’s when his kid tried to attack me. If I weren’t quick, it would have been me.”
Ripley kept staring at him with a sinister smile on her face. He could see the disbelief in her eyes.
“Help me understand. Are you saying that a fifteen-year-old, untrained child who is half your size tried to physically overpower you?”
“For the God’s sake, he had a gun, Ripley, do you really think I had that many options at that moment?”
“Well,” Ripley looked around for a moment. Still, there was no change in the landscape. It seemed like they had chosen the perfect place for conducting business.
“For a moment, let’s imagine you are telling the truth. But what business did you have with this child’s father anyway?”
“Well, he…..” Schneider hesitated. For a moment, it looked like he was at loss for words. He let out a long sigh before speaking.
“That bastard Bradshaw knew something about my last assignment. I had to look into it, you know?”
Ripley looked at her partner who was a few steps behind her. She could see the disappointment on her face.
“Mr. Schneider, we hate to break this to you but what our investigators gathered from the scene is quite different from what we just heard.”
Those words were followed by a brief, deadly silence that reverberated in Schneider’s heart. The next moment Ripley’s partner who had been remaining silent for the entire time began to speak.
“They had found a gun in the scene which belonged to neither of the victims. Unfortunately, its ownership traces back to no one but you.”
Ripley’s eyes became narrow.
“Maybe that explains you walking around without a gun.” She raised her weapon while speaking. “After all, we never waste time confronting people who picked up the trails of our assignments. We just eliminate them.”
Schneider looked like someone who had lost his last straw. The two guns had been pointed at him again.
“You can’t blame us, Mr. Schneider,” Ripley’s voice was unusually calm. “You’d been warned a few times before. Despite the generous compensation of our superiors, you kept falling back to your old habits. Extorting, stealing, even pickpocketing.” Ironically, she sounded somewhat disgusted.
“You extorted money from someone who’s got nothing to do with us. While doing it, you violated the only restriction in our line of work. You killed a kid.”
With that, the women stopped talking. Yet they waited without going further. They didn’t even flinch when he reached to his back pocket to take his wallet out.
“Take a look.” With a solemn look on his face, Schneider showed them a photograph of two young boys. Ripley carefully took a step forward to inspect the picture. The two children appeared to be about seven and ten years old.
“This is Gus, and this is Ryan.” Schneider pointed at each child. His demeanor was gradually changing and for a moment, it seemed like he had made peace with what’s about to happen.
“You are right. I messed up. But I’m everything to these kids. My absence will be worse than death for them.”
He tried his best to refrain from sobbing.
“Your files don’t indicate any family.” Ripley sounded neutral.
“Their mother died of a drug overdose years ago. I never wanted to expose them to my world. That’s why they live three states away in a children’s home.” He sounded sincere.
“I beg you, Ripley, spare me only for this time. It won’t happen again.” He pleaded.
Ripley lowered her gun looking at the other woman who was standing behind her. Then, carefully looking at the picture again she pointed at the boy in a red t-shirt who looked older.
“Ryan, right?” She asked in a curious tone.
“Yeah,” He sounded weary.
Ripley casually took a step back and shot Schneider in the head.
Her custom-made gun made the minimum noise. After a brief moment of watching the surroundings, she turned away without even bothering to look at the corpse.
The city lights could be seen far away under the darkness that was hovering over the world. With the gun still in her hand, she kept watching that scene for a few moments.
“Don’t give me that look, Cassandra,” After lighting a cigarette, Ripley finally began to talk to her partner without taking her eyes off the city lights. Cassandra was still standing there looking slightly confused.
“Seconds ago, he told that the kid in red was Gus.”
