Bombay Canary

At this point in the game, the air in the room was thick enough to chew with sweat, cigarette smoke, and the near-flammable breath of men who’d spent their lives dodging consequences. All six sat at the rounded table; turbulent glasses overflowed over the years with booze that caused the wooden edges to become soggy. Mysterious black stains told the players all that they needed to know about those who came before them to this little shack hidden in the back of the pier.

A few of the men had taken off their coats to cool down from heat that haunted the room like a roasting spectre. Maybe it was one of Mof’s tricks to tip the scale even more so to his side. It was his table with his cards and they were his humble employees but this was not a celebration of personal achievement or company prosperity. Those who were invited to the shack had their fate tethered to whatever sequence of two-card hands they may be dealt. If those cards were not part of enough winning combinations, their termination was guaranteed and the severance package would be delivered by Mof himself.

Finch scratched his scraggly beard with enough intensity that it should’ve started balding like his prickly head. His bright green eyes stared intensely at his cards; they were shockingly pretty for a man who otherwise resembled an unwashed potato.

He was the odd one out amongst the beasts at the table. They were killers, dealers, traffickers and more, but he had only bought weekend tickets to jail for petty crimes that weren’t severe enough for a mention on the nightly news. His involvement in gang activity was not even voluntary; he was just an insignificant patsy that could be a no one in the eyes of some security cameras. If only he had fulfilled his duties, he’d be a free man. Free to continue on with the lousy life where bad luck plagued him like a chronic infection.  

Monte looked at his dwindling chips as though they were children he couldn’t afford to feed.  I just need one good hand to be back in, he thought.

Mof exhaled a stream of smoke thick enough to tint the hanging lamp above him. “Hide your shame, fool,” he said. “At least you’re aware of your demise. Finch still looks like he believes there’s a chance in hell…”

The dealer was a fishmonger Mof had pulled from one of his many side businesses. His rough and scarred hands trembled as he heard the felonious men drunkenly play out a game most dangerous.

King of hearts.

Monte’s face collapsed even before he turned his hand over. Finch sank lower in his chair, pretending to study his own useless cards. Aris smugly flipped over two kings to complete a three of a kind that wiped the chips away from the group. Domino and Presley could at least be satisfied that it was one the squad that won the hand. Mof’s lips wriggled ever so slightly while trying to maintain a straight line, displeased that he had lost the round. The rest of the men tossed their cards forward and the table was emptied and reconfigured for the next battle.

“You’re lookin’ real tired,” Mof said. “Maybe bored. You bored, Finch?”

“No,” Finch said without looking up. “Just thinking.”

“That’s worse. Stupid people thinking is a dangerous thing.” Mof leaned back, lit another cigar, and grinned at the table. “Boys, it’s about that time. Finch, Monte, your stacks are pathetic. You’re out next unless you earn yourself a buy-in.”

Monte swallowed. No, I still have chips, he thought. Finch already knew the price would have to be paid eventually;  the other men had already spilled the beans on how this card game typically ended.

Mof flicked a switchblade open beneath the table. “We’re upping the next buy-in and you don’t have enough to continue. Ten chips for a finger.”

Monte stared at the knife like he had never wielded one. “Boss, it was Finch’s mistake…”

“Ten chips,” Mof repeated. “One finger. Your crew lost a valuable connection.”

“But…you sent him to us.” Monte pleaded, surpassing the patience of Mof as he began to reach for a piece of metal sticking out of the inside of his pants.

Aris snatched the knife, grabbed Monte’s hand, and sliced the pinky clean off. He was ex-military and led the gang's interrogation efforts. He could act without hesitation when violence was necessary, regardless of the stakes. Monte screamed while flailing from his chair and onto the floor where he squirmed. Again, Aris assisted the man by shoving Monte back into his chair as Mof tossed ten chips, roaring with laughter with one hand on his boisterous belly.

Finch watched onto the gross display of brotherhood shared by the two vermin. During his short time, there was no room to grow respect for the monsters sitting beside him.  Aris grabbed the knife and smashed it into the table. “Your turn.” He said facing Finch.

Mof’s laughter came to a halt after a few more seconds and he stared silently.

Finch tinkered around with the knife for a moment, tossing it from hand to hand and poking at the point as if to measure its preparedness for flesh.

The clicking of a hammer signaled the cocking of a pistol. Mof pointed it straight at Aris who didn’t shutter for even a second. “Don’t interfere this time.”

Aris let out the smallest chuckle in the form of a huff. “I ain’t,” he said.“Why don’t you just pull it, coward.” Aris raised a finger to point at the center of his own forehead.

“Not an easy way out of the shithouse.” He placed the pistol on the table, far out of reach of the other. He took another tremendous drag and exhaled. “Live for yourself, if you can.”

Finch didn’t know what he was waiting for. There was no one in this world who would come save him from this tortuous ritual. No cop would dare patrol this corrupt pier without being forced by a pressured sergeant. Mof grew tired of waiting and stood up so quickly that his chair fell to the wooden planks below; the pistol pointing straight at Finch.

“He paid his debt and now it’s your turn!” Mof sat there, annoyed at the lack of attention that Finch should be giving him. “Hey! Look at me and understand the situation you have found yourself in! It’s partially my fault for placing my trust in all of you idiots but you have disappointed me far more than anyone else!”

Finch looked at Mof with his arm outstretched and his face as serious as it had been all evening. He wouldn’t shoot so easily. He demanded to see his sadistic rules play out.

Finch wouldn’t break eye contact as he bravely skewered his own hand, yelping out like a small dog chasing its disembarking owner before straightening his face once again with tears precipitating ever so slightly on his eyeballs. Blood misted into the air and began to pour out and flow onto the table. Finch covered it before anyone could get a sight at the damage. He was too ashamed to admit that he didn’t want to look down and see the finger severed from his body.

“Go on. Show us brave soldier. Toss that putrid piece of flesh over here and I’ll give you the coins you’re begging for.” Mof said, his expression still statuesque. “Show me the goddamn finger!” He swung the gun like a madman in front of Finch’s face, kicking his own chair into pieces on the floor.

Blood smeared the table. Finch covered the wound with his other hand, unwilling to see what damage he’d actually done.

“Show it!” Mof barked, shaking the gun in his hand as he leaned forward.

Finch looked away as he removed his uncut hand from covering the sacrificial one and shoved it forward to present to Mof. Blood sputtered out, near enough to Mof’s face that it wetted his eyes with the red secretions. He screamed out and tried to rub the blood out from his eyes with his hands first before trying with his shirt. In his rushed attempt to clear his vision, the gun was dropped onto the table and fired off a round into the left side of Presley’s chest.

Aris quickly pounced on top of the table and secured the firearm before stomping his boot down onto the head of the blinded Mof. He quickly whipped his belt out of the loops on his pants and wrapped it around the boss’s neck, extinguishing the life of an infamous and previously untouchable god of the underbelly. For the smallest ticking of a clock, the room seemed to defy the motion of time. Everyone’s eyes scanned the scene before reality set in and time marched onwards.

The fearful Monte finally released all of the stress and tension that had built up in his body, “MY FINGER. WHERE’S MY FINGER. DOES ANYONE HAVE SOME ICE? OH GOD. OH GOD.”

“Damnit, Presley, stay with us.” Domino assisted his dying comrade as he struggled to breathe with the bullet hole in his lung. Presley looked into Domino’s eyes for a bit longer, unable to get another word before finally succumbing to the wound and collapsing onto the floor.

Aris threw his belt to the side and kicked over the lifeless corpse of his former boss and walked over to Finch, sitting still and holding onto a finger that was revealed to only be half separated. Finch looked up as Aris walked straight to him and then the thug grabbed the clinging flesh and bone and ripped it off all the way off, tossing it against the wall.

“Get some rope boys.” Aris cracked his knuckles and dragged Finch over to the place where Mof was previously sitting. Domino stomped on Finch’s disembodied pinky finger and nodded his head. The dealer stood frozen. He was a common working man, who packaged fish for people to take home and feed their families. Now he stood in front of these fresh and freed dogs escaping their inevitable fall to hell for at least a little longer.

“It’s too bad Mof couldn’t win his own game. Your death by his hands would’ve been so much more comfortable.” Aris cocked his fist back and waited for a second before propelling a mighty strike into Finch’s nose; blood sprayed into the air as his chair reeled back and bounced off the hard concrete floor. Aris immediately stomped his foot on the legs of the chair to make it rocket back up to where another punch was delivered. He did this five times in a row, leaving Finch’s face sputtering with red liquid and shades of purple beginning to take shape around his nose and under his eyes.

“Who are you really working for?” Aris demanded.

Finch spat a mix of blood and saliva on the floor. He wasn’t a tough guy by nature but the beatings throughout life had granted some immunity.

“You wouldn’t believe how unemployed I really am.” Finch replied.

Aris asked for a cigarette from one of his boys, lighting and taking a drag before snatching up Finch’s four fingered hand and shoving the lit cherry into the wound. Finch screamed helplessly with no outlet of relief but Monte quickly covered his mouth with a dirty rag he found off the floor. Only the fishmonger winced at the cruel act.

“You were chosen because of how disposable you really are. Do you know what Mof told us to do once you returned with the package? Alligator exhibit at the Downtown Zoo. Pay the security to look away and ignore your begging as they ate you down to the bones. But here we are. Without the package and a burned connection with that dirty cop. So tell us and all you’ll get is a bullet. Keep the secret and we’ll draw this out until we’re not mad anymore. Do we look like folks who move on easily? Huh, Finch?”

“Listen, I had the package but you guys left me alone for so long that I caved. I was sober for three whole months before those beers. Y’all didn’t get a room with a TV. What was I supposed to do?”

Finch’s response was interrupted by the sound of several whiskey bottles shattering. Aris put a wooly glove on his hand and thoroughly covered it with shattered shards. He turned back to Finch and slapped both sides of his face repeatedly with the improvised device but despite all the suffering Finch had absorbed, he managed a sloppy laugh.

“Man, y’all are really bad guys.” He said.

“And you’ll never forget that.” Aris said.

Finch rocked back on the chair, lifting the front two legs off the ground and slammed his head forward to carry the momentum to attempt a final assault against his tormentor. The useless maneuver was easily dodged by Aris with a simple swinging of his hips backwards. The madman began to laugh again as he stomped Finch’s head into the creaking wooden planks below. The other men rose from their seats and joined in the beat down, stomping, squishing and kicking their judas.

The fishmonger finally found a window of opportunity to escape the hellish shack. He ran towards the door just a few meters over but Domino took notice and quickly pulled him back in just as he exited through the doorway. The fishmonger smashed his forehead into Domino’s nose and he fell backwards into the others, knocking them down like pins in a bowling alley. They quickly stood back up but in their excitement to add one more victim to their revenge tour, Monte had knocked over one of the wall lamps. It crashed into the floor, exposing its electrical insides to the puddles of alcohol that had soaked the floor, igniting an inferno with the gang as the first logs to the fire.

They lurched forward as their flesh and bones were entrenched in the fiery devastation, turning all into an unrecognizable mass of sludge. Finch could look in their direction as he laid helplessly against the wooden floor. The amalgamation nearly merged into one disgusting heap of humanity as their burning bodies tried to separate from each other and reach the outside with the ocean so close below the wooden planks. Finch shouted for the fishmonger’s assistance but he was long gone from the collapsing shack. He was able to knock the chair on its side but his feet were still too tightly tied to prop himself in any useful way. All around the walls, the fire danced and destroyed whatever it touched with only time separating Finch from becoming part of a singular pile of ash.

Sirens could be heard far into the distance but this inspired no hope for the man with seconds, not minutes, left from the fire. Finch was forced to close eyes from the onslaught of smoke and debris that filled the air. He coughed and coughed with oxygen unable to find its way through the ashen layers of pollution. The floorboards began to creak and cry through their dissolving fibers as the ropes on Finch’s limbs finally were grazed by the flames and began to heat up instantly. He felt the searing pain of being set ablaze as the floor of the shack finally gave out and he was dropped to the black ocean below.

He crashed through the surface with the flames being extinguished immediately. The ropes that had kept him subdued for so long were now black and toasted, easily ripped through with the strength that he still had. Finch swam to the surface where he drew a mighty breath of air that restored the possibility of life past the evening. Up above on the pier, the charred remains of the cabin rained down; the bodies of his captors were indistinguishable from the remnants of the building. He swam under the towering pier and towards the sandy beach just twenty meters away. Sirens rang out loudly as the firemen marched towards the blaze and doused it with blasts of water. Police and ambulance would follow and search for any survivors but Finch wouldn’t be able to request their assistance without becoming a suspect.

It was hard to feel guilty about the lives that were lost. As disposable as Finch saw himself, those devils were far worse and now they would sink to the bottom of the ocean as indistinguishable particles. Vigilantes and heroes get remembered for taking out the bad guys but Finch was a bad guy to most people.

Hey God. Do you have an accountant? I think we’re even if you check the numbers. Finch said to no one at all.