Arthur Templeton strolled down the street, the uneven limp now mostly gone from his healed leg, a new pair of glasses on the brim of his nose. The warm night on the outskirts of the city pushed the crickets into a frenzy, and as Templeton wiped sweat from his face his messy comb-over came untucked; with the cheap suit and wild hair, few of the sparse pedestrians took note of the man as anything more than some dead-beat salesman or junkie. From the perspective of a man such as Templeton, it was an excellent perception for potential witnesses to have.
Stepping off the curb and into a parking lot, Templeton approached the convenience store on the corner, checking his wallet. Staring up at the side-view mirror on a nearby car, he noted the two punks behind him, both young men with hoods over their heads, hands in their pockets. Without turning, Templeton's hands tensed around his wallet, watching the man behind him draw out a small pistol, chambering a round for Arthur to hear.
"Yo, pass up the wallet man, anything you got!" the one with the gun barked, as the other stepped around him with a switchblade, giving him a little jab that nearly nicked his arm. "Just pass it the f**k over!"
Templeton passed over his wallet, blinking with a slightly unstable twitch in his demeanor, like a neurotic impulse. The people inside the convenience store were out of view, and the surveillance camera wasn't aimed at them.
"Here," Templeton said with a little nervousness, reaching slowly into his coat. "You want my Credit Cards, too? I keep them with my phone..."
"Hey, don't f**king' reach for anything mofucka--"
There were two loud bangs as Templeton shot the holstered Glock on his chest straight through the back of his coat, blowing a pair of holes neatly through the fabric; one of the bullets found its mark, lodging itself deep in the armed mugger's throat. He stumbled back gurgling as Templeton, not missing a beat, turned on one foot with his drawn Glock, and finished him off with two taps to the chest.
The second mugger dropped the wallet and the switchblade, holding his hands up. Templeton sighed, picking up his wallet and nearly walking away, stopping himself as if on second thought.
"Jesus, don't shoot!"
"Really. People work hard for their money, you f**king wanker." He put the barrel of the gun to the man's neck, and pulled the trigger, wincing away from the spray of spatter. The dead man fell over onto the parked car's hood, setting the alarm off.
Walking away briskly, Templeton smeared the bloody mess away from his glasses, slinging his ruined coat over one arm as he made his way back into town. He felt confident nobody would miss the two scumbags that terribly much.
_________________ ~They're gonna hang me in the mornin', before the night is done, They're gonna hang me in the mornin', and I'll never see the sun.~Maxwell Murder wrote: Gordan and Praphet, you are the two halves of God.
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