The Wrong Bags
by Des Nnochiri

It was a disaster. Pretty much from the word go.

First, there was Lorraine - sorry, Mrs. Barbone - and her whole genius idea to save her marriage.

See, husband Carmine had been spotted on more than one occasion, stepping out to the city's coolest night spots with some of the hottest babes imaginable. Real lookers. America's Next Top Models. Stacked. I mean, really.

Which gave Mrs. Barbone the kick she needed to finally get a complete makeover. New clothes, new shoes, exotic new perfumes, accessories - the whole nine yards.

And a brand new body, to go with them. She scheduled liposuction, collagen injections, breast enlargements, you name it.

All she was missing were the raw materials.

That's where cousin Benny came into the picture. He's the one who kept his ear to the ground, and told Mrs. Barbone about the truck. Transporting collagen, saline implants, and "other paraphernalia of cosmetic surgery" to a clinic in Brentwood.

Mrs. Barbone's doctor - a sour-faced scarecrow of a guy named Melnitz (He always reminded me of something out of The Munsters, but there you go) - was already in place. He wasn't a cosmetic surgeon, as such (or at all, in fact), but he'd seen Lorraine through a difficult appendectomy, three complicated Caesarians, and any number of other major or minor medical emergencies over the years, so...

She'd set him up in a swanky private clinic, upstate. All she needed now was a crew to boost the necessary materials off that truck.

Benny called me in, along with Jimmy Deans and Frankie Cicero. Benny figured, four guys - a driver, someone to ride shotgun, and a couple of mooks to do the heavy lifting.

I couldn't say no. I mean, the boss' wife's cousin calling us out on a job for the boss' wife, and all that.

Jimmy Deans would've walked off the edge of the Atlantic City pier wearing a concrete pylon round his neck, if Lorraine had asked him to. So he was definitely in.

And Frankie Cicero was family; a cousin of Benny's (and Lorraine's too, I guess) on his mother's brother's sister's side. Or something.

So, there we all were, corner of Fifth and Glenville, on a clear cold morning in early November.

"Freezing our asses off." Jimmy Deans stomped round our spot in a little circle, his breath misting the air. Wreaths of it curled around the fur collar of his jacket, and plumed over his knitted watch cap. He was waving his arms like a baseball umpire, calling a slider in as safe.

"Hey, watch where you're pointin' that thing!"

This from Frankie Cicero, referring to the nine-millimeter automatic Jimmy Deans was clutching in one mittened hand, as he did his umpire routine. Frankie frowned.

"Hey, Benny, you sure this truck is comin'?"

"Yes." Benny bit the word off. Couldn't blame him; this was like the twentieth time Frankie had asked him that exact same question.

Couldn't blame Frankie, either. We'd been in the same spot for over an hour. The truck was late.

"Hey, guys," Jimmy said. "Heads up. I think this is it."

A big white delivery van was approaching the intersection. Jimmy stripped off his gloves and stepped out in front of it, gun held high in one hand. The other held up a leather case with a badge on it. Looked like something he'd gotten out of a cereal box. Probably was. I don't know why he'd bothered; no-one was going to mistake him for a cop. Of any kind.

Certainly not the guys in that truck.

We watched, horrified as the guy in the front passenger seat whipped an Uzi out the side window, and cut Jimmy down with a sustained burst.

A pro. He didn't say a word. Didn't even blink. And he wasn't finished.

Leveling the weapon again, he opened up on the rest of us.

"Oh, shit!" That was all Frankie Cicero got to say, before losing his Adam's apple. And a fair portion of his upper torso.

Benny took several hits in the mid-section and went down, as I hit the dirt, and rolled, for dear life.

The truck hurtled on, down the street. And, as it did so, I caught a flash of the logo on its side.

"Oh, shit," I said. Seemed appropriate.

About a half a minute later, a second delivery van - this one proudly bearing the mark of PlasGel Medical Express - rolled sedately through the intersection.

Wrong truck.

Jimmy Deans and Frankie Cicero, dead. Benny, as good as.

If it hadn't been such a monumental... well, you know, it would have been funny.

Of course, I kept quiet about the whole fiasco. Two cousins of the boss' wife cut down in their prime, frosty morning, middle of nowhere. Wouldn't do for me to admit to having been there  - and survived.

I asked around, though. Discreetly.

For the record, the truck we tried to boost was transporting bags of the week's profits for a major distributor of designer pharmaceuticals. The guys hijacking it worked for one of the major crews (a competitor) downtown.

So, no new bags for Mrs. Barbone.

Her husband continued in his philandering ways, and she was eventually forced to take matters into her own hands.

She told him to clean up his act.

Then, she shot him in the groin with both barrels of a sawed-off, loaded with rock salt and industrial strength cleansing powder. Pine-scented.

He got the message, I think.

BIO: Desmond (Des) Nnochiri spent his early years traveling with his parents, and was educated in England, the USA, and the Republic of Ireland (Eire). He writes freelance now, and has taken his first steps into the world of screenwriting. He has contributed stories to A Twist of Noir, The Flash Fiction Offensive, and Powder Burn Flash. He has just started blogging, at Des Nnochiri's Write to Speak (http://desnnochiri.wordpress.com)