Books and banter by W.H.Manke

For this week I thought it would be the right time to post the final excerpt from my novel, “Beyond the Breaking Point”.  In the few paragraphs of the excerpt we see Monty, the main character, attempting to confront the gangster boss who had ordered his men to eliminate Monty.

Walking up the steps of the cathedral toward the large front door, Monty nervously touched the starting gun in his pocket as if to reassure himself.  “If Barney’s account is right, Tony will be in the entry way,” he murmured.  “To get to his boss I have to eliminate him quickly.  I better start my act right now.”  He stopped for a second, let a bit of spittle roll down his chin, began to walk unsteadily and started to mumble over and over, “Father Anton I got to confess.”

Monty had found the priest’s name among others on the sign in front of the church.  He hoped the Father or any of the other priests were not inside the sanctuary.  Pretending he had trouble opening the door he made himself stumble inside.  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Tony standing to the side of the entryway a few feet away from the right side of the door leading into the sanctuary.  Seeing Monty enter he began to move toward him.

Monty stopped, made himself sway a little and acted as if he needed to find his bearings.  He burped before he pretended to finally see Tony who had stepped in front of the door into the sanctuary.  “Father Anton I got to confess,” Monty slurred the words and saw Tony smirk and relax the grip by which he held his handgun.

Monty stepped toward the door that Tony blocked.  “Do yourself a favor and come back in an hour,” Tony said and laid his hands on Monty’s shoulder trying to turn him around.  But Monty sidestepped him and a second later pointed the starter pistol at Tony’s temple clicking the hammer back.  “Make one sound or a tiny little move with your hands and you’re dead Tony,” Monty hissed trying to sound desperate.  He clearly saw the shock in Tony’s face at the sudden change in the man in front of him and his reaction to the cold barrel of the gun at his temple.  For a moment he seemed frozen to the spot.

Unblinking, he watched Tony trying to collect himself and gain time by asking, “What do you want, man?  If you want money, let me reach into my pocket.  I’ll give you my wallet.”

“Do you think I’m stupid, man?” Monty asked imitating a sneer.  “I’ll get my money from the collection box in there.  He pointed to the door by tipping his head toward it.  “You just turn around nice and slowly.  We’ll go in there in a second, and you can reach for the money in the collection box for me.  See, you can be my partner.”

Monty didn’t want Tony to know that it was Carlos he wanted. Tony turned around slowly.   For a moment he took           his eyes off Monty, who seeing it hit the man’s temple hard with the pistol he had still held to Tony’s head.

A groan escaped Tony, and he slowly sank to the floor.  Monty caught him by wrapping his arms around his chest.  He eased him to the floor and dragged the prone man to the far side of the entry way.  Pulling the handcuffs from his pocket that he had taken from Harry’s house he clamped one cuff on Tony’s right wrist.  He wound the chain around one of the metal bars that had been fastened by thick metal rings in front of the large stainless glass windows that reached from the ceiling to the floor and snapped it on the man’s left wrist.  Next he took a small tablecloth from the table nearby, tore off a large strip and stuffed it into Tony’s mouth. Searching through Tony’s pockets Monty found a handgun and a switchblade knife.  Working quickly he placed the pistol into his own pocket, slid the knife down the slot of a collection box fastened to the wall at the left side of the entryway and quietly stepped to the door leading into the sanctuary.  

For a moment Monty stopped to listen.  Not hearing any sounds coming from the sanctuary he opened the door slowly and quietly walked in.  He took several careful steps inside before he stopped.  It took him a moment to adjust to the candlelight inside.  Looking around the sanctuary he let his eyes sweep from pew to pew.  All stood empty.  For a moment he wondered if Carlos had been warned and had managed to escape through one of the side doors.

Monty took several quick steps forward.  He saw Carlos kneeling on the bottom of the red carpeted step to the left and below the altar.  He saw that the man’s hands had gripped the carpet of a step above him.  His head lay bowed between his outstretched arms.  He did not move.  Monty could not detect any rise and fall of the man’s shoulders.  He wondered if the gangster had stopped breathing.  But listening carefully he heard him mumble softly.  Deep disgust for the man lying at the foot of the altar praying swept over Monty.  I’m going to have to shoot him to get my freedom back, he thought.

It has been quite a while since I posted the first excerpt from my novel, Beyond the Breaking Point.  The two pages from the manuscript that follow will introduce those of you thinking of reading it to two of the gangsters who had orders to silence Monty.  I introduced Monty in the first excerpt.  He had witnessed and taken pictures of a murder the two gangster had committed.  Once Carlos, the gang’s headman, found out that Monty had witnessed the murder and taken pictures of it, he gave the order to eliminate that threat to the gang.  For several days Monty had managed to elude the two ordered to kill him. Carlos blamed them for this development. To get swifter results he did what he did best.  He threatened them.

Harry Kratzinsky sat in his living room.  He had not turned on the lights even though it was dark outside.  Switching the television on to a news channel for the eleven o’clock news he reached for the glass and bottle on the side table to pour himself another drink of whiskey.  With the bottle and glass in his hand he heard a series of dull explosions.  Three holes suddenly marked the living room window.  The television screen shattered and darkness suddenly covered the room.

Harry had been drinking for some time.  His reactions to what had happened were slow. After several seconds had passed, he recognized that someone had fired bullets into the room and hit the television.  He dropped to the floor, crawled to the chair where he had left his coat and removed his revolver from the holster hanging behind the jacket.  He snapped the safety off.  Keeping his body close to the floor he crawled slowly to the window through which another round of shots rang shattering the whiskey bottle and a glass bowl near it.  He swore.  Keeping his head low he waited.  No other shots came, but he heard car tires squeal out.  Carefully he lifted his head. He looked outside for a second before pulling his head down again.  While no other shots entered through the window, Harry remained lying on the floor for a few seconds longer, waiting to see if other shots would be fired.

Finally, he thought it safe to take another look out of the window.  He noticed the taillights of a car speeding away and turning out of sight far down the street.  He swore again and stood up.  His thinking was clouded.  He wondered what to do next.  Finally he walked to the door to look outside to see if any of the neighbors had heard the shots.  Surveying the neighborhood he saw no one out of their house.  As he looked up and down the street all appeared quiet.  Turning to go back inside he saw the note pinned to the door.  He ripped it off, swore once more and walked inside.  Not wanting to turn on the lights in the room he made his way to the bathroom.  He closed the door and turned on the light to read the note.

“This is only a friendly reminder to get it done.  The next reminder won’t be this friendly.”  The note was not signed, as he knew it would not be, but he had no doubt who had written it and who had pinned it to the door.

Harry cursed.  He crumpled the note up and threw it into the waste basket.  His anger flared up.  “Darn you, Carlos,” he hissed.  It was the second time that day that he had cursed the man whose orders he took

Daryl Nalun had fallen asleep in his easy chair while his wife sat near him watching television.  She sat up suddenly thinking she had heard something that sounded like shots.  She turned the sound of the television down to listen more carefully.  She heard another three shots and turned white with fear.  “Daryl, someone’s shooting on our property,” she shouted.  Daryl groaned, rolled over and turned to his other side.  “Daryl!” she shouted louder.

He sat up not sure where he was.  Once fully awake he saw his wife pointing outside, but what she said made no sense to him still trying to clear his head.  “What’s the matter with you?” he finally demanded.  “Have you lost your marbles?”

“Someone’s shooting out there, and I’m sure it’s on our property.  Go have a look.”  

Harry took in the information, but it took him a moment to digest it and recognize its meaning and the danger it presented.

“Are you crazy, woman?  Turn out the light and get down on the floor.  If I go out and there’s someone shooting what’s stopping them from drilling me?”  He rolled on the floor to the wall at the front of the room.  He listened for other shots, but there were no more.  When he heard the sound of a car speeding away he lifted his head.  Several minutes passed in silence.  “How many shots did you hear?” he demanded staring at his wife who lay motionless below the light switch.  He saw little by the small amount of light that came through the windows.  Not seeing her move he asked, “Did you catch a bullet or what’s the matter with you?”

“I heard five shots, but there might have been more,” she finally said.  “The television was on.  At first I thought the shooting came from the program I was watching.  It was a movie of detectives hunting down a couple killers.  They were hot on their trail, and I first thought they shot the crooks.”

Daryl spat out a curse that she could not hear.  “I’m going out the back door and check out what’s going on out there.  But I think whoever was shooting took off.”

“Why don’t we call the police and let them handle it?” his wife asked.

“I can handle it.  The cops will only wag their finger at whoever was shooting and tell them not to do it again.  If I catch them, they’re going to get a belly full of lead.”  He made his way outside ducking behind cover wherever he found it.  It took him several minutes to reach the front of the property where the shooting seemed to have occurred.  Within a few minutes it became clear to him that the shooter was no longer on the property.  He looked around to see if he could see anything amiss.  Nothing appeared to be out of place.  He let his eyes roam into the pasture where several of his sheep had grazed during the afternoon.  He saw that they had bunched up in the near corner of the two acre pasture.  Suddenly he stopped short.  It seemed to him that two sheep lay in the grass on the opposite side, the side nearest the road.

“That’s strange,” he mumbled.  “Why are they not with the flock?  I better go have a look. Arriving at the first sheep he saw that the animal was bleeding.  It had been shot.  He quickly walked to the second sheep and found it shot through the head.  “Darn it,” he said and let out a string of foul expletives.  Looking up toward the road he noticed what looked like a piece of paper stuck on one of the posts above which his property sign, Cottonwood Pastures, hung.  He walked to the post and tore it off.  It was too dark to read the note.  He looked up at the sign to make sure it had not been damaged and then walked back toward the house. Under the outside light he read the note on the paper.

The words were like stabs from a knife to him.  “This is a friendly warning to get the job done.  The next time it may not be sheep that get sheared.  Hope you like lamb chops.”

Daryl turned red with anger.  He had always disliked Carlos even though he had been paid well by him.  Standing under the light outside his house he hated him nearly as much as he hated the young fellow he had been ordered to eliminate.