Free Columbus by Derek Haas

counter, wailing backward with his left elbow, but I move with the blow and use his own inertia against him, whipping him around for a second meeting with what’s left of the mirror.
    He’s got heart, I’ll give him that. He drops like a rock, plunging to the linoleum floor as he tries to whip my feet out from under me but I sidestep his scissoring legs and stomp with everything I have on top of his kneecap until the bones crunch like gravel. He wails in pain, instinctively, and reaches into his sleeve for his knife but it’s not there. He looks puzzled for a moment until his eyes settle on my hand.
    “You stupid fuck.” I am holding his knife in one hand and my pistol in the other.
    “Let’s work something out, Columbus,” he says from the ground, his hands raised, his right leg snapped at an angle like a wishbone. He’s got a thick Irish accent that lends a strange softness to his words. His voice doesn’t match his face in the least.
    “What part of me were you supposed to take back to your client?”
    He measures me, trying to determine if he should lie. He also wants to keep me talking; as long as I’m talking, he’s alive. I would have tried the same thing.
    “Your trigger finger.”
    “Kill me first and then the finger?”
    “Aye, cut it off while you’re alive, but yes, that’s it.”
    He lowers one elbow to the ground, leaning back, breathing hard, blinking blood out of his eyes. It is seeping down the contours of his face and collecting in his beard so the whiskers turn a blacker shade, creating an odd aura around his face, like he’s getting younger before my eyes. His hand creeps toward his side like an inchworm, but I don’t shift my eyes to it.
    “You the only one Saxon hired, or are there more?”
    “Who’s Saxon?” The inchworm keeps inching.
    “The guy who’s going to call all this off.”
    “If you say so, brother.” Inching. Inching.
    “I say so.”
    And the worm reaches his belt, and in a blur the bearded man has a gun in his hand but my first silenced bullet takes off the top part of his hand, sending the gun skittering across the linoleum until it comes to a rest next to the toilet.
    He looks at me with true shock in his eyes just a moment before my second bullet closes them forever.

CHAPTER SIX
    THE SPOT ON THE SOQUE RIVER WHERE SAXON LIKES TO FISH IS PRIVATE, PART OF A FISHERMEN’S LODGE THAT HAS BEEN STANDING FOR GENERATIONS. SECURITY IS LAUGHABLE, RELIANT ON A FEW “NO TRESPASSING / PRIVATE PROPERTY” SIGNS AND TWO GUARDS WITH SNOWY HAIR AND BULGING BELLIES, AS THREATENING AS FIELD MICE.
    I step out of a small copse and stand directly behind Saxon. He looks like he wandered out of an L.L.Bean catalogue, standing on the bank of the river, wearing navy waders and a plaid hunter’s shirt underneath a thick multi-pocketed vest. He is tying a spinner on his line, pulling the knot tight with his teeth as I approach.
    “Catch anything?”
    He gives me a once-over, like I’ve just befouled his sanctuary.
    “No.”
    Then he turns his back on me, as if I might disappear. When I don’t, he sighs dramatically before looking at me again.
    “You staying at the lodge?”
    “No.”
    “Well, this is private property, buddy. And I like fishing alone.”
    “I caught something this morning.”
    “Good for you.”
    “You might want to take a look at it.”
    He waits, and I can see the thoughts warring behind his eyes: do I humor this asshole and maybe he’ll go away, or do I tell him to get the fuck out of here and possibly incite him? The first choice must win out. Resigned, he offers, “Okay. Show me your catch.”
    I toss something at his chest and he fumbles his pole as he tries to get his hands on it. When he looks down at his palm, he realizes he is holding a man’s finger.
    He drops it like it’s toxic and stammers, “What is this?”
    “The trigger finger of one of your hired killers.”
    Fear sweeps across his face and his cheeks burn as though they’ve been