The car jettisoned through the Portland traffic with little to no regard for the personal safety of other travellers. August Monday leered out his window, champing at the bit. He knew something was up. The sweat soaked armpits of Detective Seth Renner was louder than the silence that had risen between the pair as Renner took them to a destination he had mapped out in his head. A destination he hadn't bothered to share with Augie.
 
Plucking another Marlboro Red from his pack, just to settle his nerves and the rage growing in his belly, Monday lit up and finally turned to Renner.
 
“You know a place that makes pretty pink drinks with umbrellas in 'em better than any other place or you just don't like the five bars we passed.”
 
Renner scoffed. “I know a place. Be a shame not to take you.”
 
Monday scoffed in return, cracking his window a touch just to let the night air pull the smoke out through its gap. Watching the stores and lights passed by, Monday's sixth sense, the one which told him shit was going down, was tingling like a tweaker's gums. He knew something was up and the thick layer of secrecy Renner tried to hide beneath seemed to irritate the Raging Fear all the more. He took a fleeting glance at Renner, who looked out his window like he was trying to spot a tiger under a jungle's canopy, looking for the place in his mind.
 
Monday glanced ahead, knowing the street all too well, and the destination occurred to him more quickly than he'd hoped to like. Duggin's Dungeon was the nickname Portland folk had given the bar whose real name was Jimmy Duggin's for the fact it was tucked down the back of an alley, real estate no sane man would want, but Duggin made a killing there. His thing was under-aged drinkers and guys out on parole. The out being the active part of the sentence. A place where folks who just got out of the pokey went to try and catch an old friend, a “job” or someplace warm to store their cock. The morals of Duggin's Dungeon were as loose as the woman who inhabited the joint. Augie remembered being eighteen and watching some forty year-old woman pouring two beers, one for him and a buddy, and while she poured the second her nipple lay on the top of the first. It was not a place for the faint of heart. It had grown a reputation as being the baddest place in town, a place where security turned their heads for five minutes if you slipped them one hundred bucks. Nine times outta ten, five minutes was all you'd need.
 
As the old sedan slowed down, with a cough and wheeze, Renner guided it into the curb the street across from the alleyway, smiling as he looked across to August. The cat that got the canary kinda smile. The kinda smile that August Monday liked to punch into the back of a guy's head. And that punch was coming to Detective Renner, only he didn't know it yet.
 
As if resigning to his fate, August smiled meekly back, knowing which way his path would travel, and tugged open the door, stepping onto the pavement where the Portland breeze came and kissed his face without compassion. Its chill leaving the exposed cheek that was not covered by Augie's grizzly beard a deep crimson red. Resting on the roof of the sedan, Monday puffed like a chimney, staring across at that alleyway like some kid would the principal's office at the end of the corridor.
 
Renner exited, staring across in the same direction yet the sweat seemed to disappear once he'd hit the brittle Portland air. His shoulders stood confidently, his feet shoulder width apart, a man who was ready to take on the world without any fear and that was just the thing that struck Augie the most as he rounded the hood, Renner seemed to have grown a spine since he'd exited the vehicle and let his feet settle on the tarmac.
 
“We headin' across there?” Monday sighed.
 
Renner nodded. “Yup. Coldest beers in town. You like cold beer?”
 
“I like cold beer plenty, but saggy tits don't do nothin' for my digestion.”
 
Chortling like a pig, Renner gave the roof of the sedan a slap like he were trying to round up the Raging Fear. “C'mon, Augie. Let's get a move on. A man's not a camel. You expectin' me to die of thirst or somethin'?”
 
A grin swept across August's bearded mouth, coy enough so as to not let Renner get a look at it. “Somehin' like that,” he muttered beneath his breath.
 
They stepped across the street, two men with completely different plans being carried out. It was almost like the old west; August could have sworn he saw some tumble weed rolling across the alleyway's mouth in the corner of his eye. He noticed the sounds of their footsteps, the rise and fall of Renner's chest as he took breath. Those shoulders. How broad they seemed to the little man behind the wheel. Something was filling him with adrenaline and Monday would get the bottom of this, you could near on guarantee.
 
As they entered the alley, Monday looked across at security, yet their gaze was not on the alley's mouth. They stared into the distant shadows toward the end, nodding as they took orders from a silent force in the darkness. They stepped inside. They left the alley to its ways.
 
Renner went on ahead, his pace enticing Monday to keep up, but he wasn't heading toward the door of Duggin's. No way known. His agenda was that force in the shadows. He seemed almost like a school boy finally getting to the toy store with the five bucks he got for his birthday from Aunt Flo. He almost skipped in his step. August's stride was purposeful and planned, knowing full well he was stepping into enemy fire.
 
Someone emerged from the shadows, the presence almost leaving Renner in awe of them. His right hand wore a black glove but its offerings were lifeless and empty. His left was animated, full of life.
 
Brock Shepherd.
 
“August,” he greeted.
 
“You.”
 
“Me.”
 
Like a cat presenting its owner the rat he'd caught, Renner nudged August with an elbow toward Brock further. “I brought him. Just like I promised.”
 
Brock nodded. Monday shot Renner a share for the nudge. That would come back on him. Without a doubt. Tenfold.
 
“Good work, Renner. What about the Fed? Where is he?”
 
“He was detained by his daughter.” Renner thumbed at Monday's direction.
 
Shepherd's head cocked to the side, a smile rising across his face. Eyes lit up with crazy, leaving an uneasy feeling in the gut of one August Monday. “With April, huh?”
 
“You shoulda called first if you was expectin' to make plans, Brock.”
 
“Always the wise-guy.”
 
“Always the homicidal maniac with some sorta hand fetish.”
 
A chord seemed to have been struck and FBI's number three serial killer on the list lit up. “Keep making jokes, Monday. See how far it gets ya.”
 
“It'll at least get me outta this alley.”
 
“Who says you're leaving this alley tonight?”
 
Augie's thick thumb jammed into his own chest. “Me.”
 
“You?”
 
Monday nodded, solid as a rock. “MmHmmm. And after I shoot this fuckhead in the head with his own gun I'ma turn it on your gimp ass and blow ya other fucken hand off. How's that sound?”
 
Shepherd's eyes flickered from August to Renner, like he were trying to figure out the distance and speed, the strike Monday would need to pluck Renner's handgun from him. “Like you're dreamin'.”
 
“I don't dream.”
 
An old fashioned stare down ensued, one waiting for the other to the make the first move. The confidence that seemed to course through Renner's body had dissipated and left the fat, nervous man as he stood in the car. Sweating like he were going through a Moroccan heat wave. Shepherd rolled his shoulders in their joints, knowing full well things were going to get physical.
 
“I told you ta get rid'f the Fed.”
 
“Didn't you hear, Brock? I ain't so good at takin' orders. I'm what they call an “anti-authority type personality”. I reckon me and you've got a lot in common.”
 
Renner stumbled forward, reaching into his coat, fumbling for his gun. He stood before Shepherd, speaking to him over his own shoulder. “Lemme just pump a big fucken hole in his head right now, Shep. LEMME DO IT!”
 
The more Renner fumbled inside his jacket, the more the panic began to set in. He pulled the flaps of his jacket back and stared into the empty shoulder holster nestled against the side of his ribs. It was empty. By the time Shepherd realised what was going on and Renner'd figured out that his piece had been pilfered, it was too late. The Raging Fear stood before them even more enormous than his 300+ pound frame had moments ago.
 
Staring down his arm and down the barrel of a cannon, Monday took aim for Detective Renner's face. A face washed white and ghastly. His eyes wider than the Grand Canyon as a wet patch began to form at the front of his trousers. Renner was so scared he pissed his pants.
 
“Aw, shit, son. Why'd you go pissin' yer pants for?” Gesturing at Shepherd with the gun. “Can't you find yourself some henchmen that have got a little more mettle, Brock?”
 
“Don't do it, August! Please! This was all his idea!”
 
Letting a pffft slip from his lips as his thumb cocked back the hammer. “Think I don't know that? Fuckhead. It's lights out, Renner.”
 
“WAIT!” he cried, palms up like they could rebound bullets. “PLEASE! I GOT A WIFE AND KIDS!”
 
“So, what? I got a daughter and a grandson, yet here we are...” Monday splayed his hands out; offering the alleyway like it was a scene in a play. “You leadin' me like a lamb to the slaughter, to your shepherd, figuratively an' shit. Motherfucker. What's to stop me from blowin' your brains all over this cunt's face?”
 
Dropping to his knees, Renner cowered in a puddle of his own creation,. He shook his head in disbelief, staring at Monday with the gun in hand. “But... but it was his idea.”
 
Monday chuckled at the pitiful excuse Renner had to offer and smiled wickedly at the Detective. “So was this.”
 
KRA-KOOM!