Ducks and Discretion

Consulting: Short Standalone Fiction

Photo by Europeana on Unsplash

The knee felt like it was building a campfire with his shin. He elevated the foot rest in the fancy theater seats, and a fuck you, no, level 8 on the Mankoski scale pain shot up into his lower back.

Miller Tobias almost screamed.

He did not.

The hit man in the movie lifted his gun from a belt holster and told three people in the room “I’ve got a score to settle.”

Miller Tobias ran his hands through his gray hair and wondered why he didn’t allow himself to scream when it hurt.

The answer was simple: A lifetime of being discreet.

Miller Tobias wondered why he went to movies like this. They never got it right.

His hair was gray for the first time ever.

Natural.

Another disguise.

He was hungry, but he didn’t want to get up and walk past people, take the chance of tripping on a foot and wanting to scream again, though screaming wasn’t something they could really punish him for.

He hated the consulting game now.

That’s what they called it. Consulting.

Miller Tobias wasn’t sure why he liked bullets and brake lines better than fentanyl, but he did.

Holy crap he was hungry.

When the movie was over he would go to Holland Frosting.

The donut shop.

Great donuts, and without any reason he was ever able to discern, the best clam chowder he had ever had.

Holland Frosting was where he did things wrong.

He went there too often, and he tipped Robin Craddence 50 bucks every time.

Indiscreet.

Memorable.

Routine.

All things guys in his business shouldn’t do.

It was like a vice.

Miller ran his hands through his hair again and a gray strand came out.

Most guys that did the kind of consulting he did didn’t make it to gray.

On the screen the man with the gun did three indiscreet things in one minute in pursuit of his duck.

That’s what they called ‘em. Ducks.

Miller had never killed a real duck. The thought made him ill.

The guy on the screen was a fast runner. The actor had played college football, did his own stunts.

Miller Tobias, who had also been Dan Saunderson, Rick Lawrence, Tom Kerlan, and Jerry Hampton wasn’t particularly muscular, or fast. Just smart, analytical, and relatively emotionless.

He was a decent shot, when it mattered.

That didn’t matter too much anymore.

He still carried because he still carried, but drugs was the game now.

He hated it.

Widows of guys that got shot generally knew that their husband was into some shady shit to afford that quad level on the canal and the garage full of Italian horsepower.

Widows of guys who OD’d on fentanyl in the cocaine they were snorting were shocked, and disappointed, and hurt, especially the widows of the guys who didn’t do cocaine.

The movie ended, not with the hit man in prison, like Miller Tobias knew he should have been, would have been, but with him on a boat with the impossibly hot barista from the first ten minutes of the film.

Miller Tobias ordered two bowls of clam chowder at Holland Frosting.

Robin Craddence bought the place off Harry Ribakian. It was hers now.

She knew, or thought she knew that Miller Tobias was a consultant for hotel booking software.

She knew, or thought she knew, that Miller Tobias was in love with her.

Miller Tobias knew that they wouldn’t be getting on any boats together as credits rolled.

Someone could come back at him at any time, you just never knew, and the first person they would go after would be his significant other.

There ya go, smart guy.

Miller Tobias couldn’t let that happen.

He stood up from his stool at the counter and his knee got furious at him.

Robin saw him grimace.

“Are you okay, Jerry?”

Miller Tobias nodded, smiled. He could have been a great actor.

“Old, um, football injury. Catching up to me.”

“I have a vicodin if you want one,” Robin said.

“No, no thanks. I’m not a big fan of drugs.”

“Just gonna gut it out, huh?”

Miller nodded.

It was a dishonest nod, and he hated it.

When Robin walked into the bakery room Miller Tobias shoved five one hundred dollar bills between the soup bowl and the plate it rested on, and another five under his water glass.

Indiscreet.

He hobbled to his car and pulled out.

He had 1700 bucks left in his pocket.

He found an envelope in the glove box and shoved the money in there.

Hobbled into St. Peter Episcopal, the church with the showers and washers for homeless people, and handed the envelope to the woman at the intake desk. She opened it as Miller Tobias turned around to leave.

“Excuse me, sir, I have receipts for your taxes and we’d love your name to thank you.”

Miller Tobias shook his head but stopped abruptly.

“I don’t need a receipt. My name is Jerry Hampton.”

“God bless you, Mr. Hampton.”

Miller Tobias laughed.

Indiscreet.

Miller Tobias drove to Cavanaugh Park and walked down into the nature trails.

There had been so much development and deforestation in the area that deer wandered all the subdivisions. Not really much use for a nature trail when the nature was shoved into one’s backyard.

About a mile into the trail there’s a bridge dedicated in memory of someone named Tom Kerlan, and that’s where Miller Tobias copped one of his aliases.

The water in the small river that runs beneath the bridge is cloudy and murky, about eight feet deep.

Miller Tobias pulled his Sig from his shoulder holster.

He put his ass up on the bridge railing, his knee screaming at him for the very last time, and put the suppressor in his mouth.

Even with titanium on his tongue he could still taste the clam chowder.

The mallards down the river would be the only ones to think the splash was indiscreet.

***

I set out to write a really short one to test something for a friend and this is what happened.

If you like it it would be great if you could throw a broke writer a few bucks. While Substack happily touts its growth, it is nearly impossible to grow paid subscriptions in the fiction realm, but coming up on five years, I’m still pumping out quality shirt fiction and a new serial.

Let me know if you like this one at buymeacoffee.com/JimmyDoom