White Noise

Part III

Lilith stood there. Her gun drawn pointing at Cain. Cain stood there. His gun drawn pointing at Lilith. They had been in a Mexican standoff in the narrow alleyway for several minutes now, but it felt like an eternity as Lilith’s arm began to tire. She held the package wrapped in brown paper tightly in her other hand. It only had a pound of gear inside but in this moment, it felt like a ton.

Cain was her dealer. For their previous deal, Lilith had rolled cut newspaper together wrapped in a couple of hundred-dollar bills to make it look like a nice big wad of cash.

To be honest, Lilith had been initially quite surprised Cain had agreed to sell even more to her, this time, let alone sell her anything at all. Then again dealers are dealers and if they think they can make a quick buck they are up for it.

It really did not surprise Lilith that Cain had been more cautious this time. At a guess, he was still not overly impressed by the realization that she had stolen about 20k worth of gear from him.

Lilith was kicking herself for thinking she could get away with it again. This time, after exchanging her bag of fake cash for the precious white powder, Cain pulled a gun on her, not allowing her to leave before he checked the bag.

Lilith was praising herself for having the presence of mind to bring her piece with her. She had been fast enough to pull her gun on Cain as fast as he had pulled his on her.

“I knew it. Ya scag. Where’s the money?” Cain waved the gun at her.

“Ya don’t do any of the hard work. I’m the one on the streets risking my life. Ya don’t deserve a cut. Ya nothing more than a gear pimp” Lilith waved her gun back in her defense. “Ya prices are highway robbery.” She continued.

“Connections, baby, I got connections. Ya get ya self some connections and cut me out but don’t pull this shyte on me. I’ll snuff ya.” Cain spat as he spoke, waving the gun wildly.

Lilith did not know how she was going to get herself out of this situation. Why had she ever agreed to do a deal in board daylight, she will never know.

Stupid. She thought to herself as she darted her eyes left and right looking for an escape route.

She could hear the traffic from the congested street behind her. Car horns, bus horns and truck horns were being thumped vigorously to make one loud long droning sound.

Somehow, she could hear people over the top of the horns shouting profanities out their windows both at the traffic jam ahead and at each other. Directly behind her, a bus rhythmically beeped its horn as passengers hung their heads out the windows to shout their frustrations at anybody and everybody about their growing tardiness.

“I’ll lose my job, jerk.” A red-faced man forced his chubby face through the small window opening.

“I can’t be late to my daughter’s day care again. They'll penalize me. I can’t afford that. I almost make nothing after day care costs as it is. Are you going to pay for that?” screamed a young woman waving her hand out the window.

“Go film your movie someplace else. You can’t just block off a main street in the middle of the day, ya morons.” Yelled yet another.

Lilith decided this was her only chance of escape. Under the cover of the deafening street noise, she discharged her gun over Cain’s head, turned and ran out towards the main street. Cain dropped intuitively to the ground in shock.

The street was more jammed than the road making it hard for Lilith to negotiate at any real pace. She dodged left and right knocking into people as she tried to get around them. As she approached a group of people standing around a bus stop, she saw a woman wearing a similar brown coat to hers and shoved the package in her hand.

The woman tried to lunge after Lilith to give the strange package wrapped in brown paper back to her. Lilith brushed the woman off and darted through the stationary cars across the road. On the other side of the road, she slowed to a walk and blended into the crowd, continuing to walk as fast as she could, without attracting any more attention, away from the disastrous exchange.

In a karate action movie style, Cain sprang immediately to his feet and chased Lilith towards the street. As he turned the corner, he saw the woman who was trying to pull a fast one on him just standing there at the bus stop looking strangely at the package in her hands.

Does she really think I am that stupid? Just standing there pretending to be catching a bus like nothing is going on. She really should have hidden that package. Cain snickered to himself as he grabbed the package from the woman’s hands without resistance.

Boom. Somehow the gun he had forgotten he was still holding, had discharged straight into the woman’s chest. Her eyes stared at him in disbelief as she clutched her chest and fell to the ground in slow motion.

Startled Cain dropped the package and scrambled his way through the crowd as fast as he could, not brave enough to turn around to see what had happened. The high-pitched screams from the people around him almost burst his ear drums.

A beefy man dressed in a suit tried to grab Cain but only managed to grab the scruff of his coat. Cain wriggled out of it and made his escape down a side street.

A woman dressed in a white nurse’s uniform stepped over the package that had smashed open on the pavement, its contents, a bag of flour lay splattered on the ground. She hurried to the side of the wounded woman lying motionless on the sidewalk and scooped the woman’s head into her lap, automatically taking her wrist at the same time to find a pulse.

“Call an ambulance.” The nurse turned her head frantically looking for anyone and everyone who was listening to her. About 10 people obediently pulled their mobile phones out and started dialing.

“Apply pressure.” The nurse commanded as she threw her shawl at a man looking disbelievingly at the unfolding situation.

“Mina……” The wounded woman whispered breathlessly as she squinted at the nurse’s name tag.

“Shhhhh, it’s OK, save your energy.” Mina stroked the wounded woman’s hand.

“David ……….. Lisa” the wounded woman whispered. Her gaze vacant as her last breath left her body.

Mina sat there looking at the woman’s face. She was still gently stroking her hair. Mina stopped rocking the woman and gently brushed her hand down the woman’s face and closed her eyes.

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