By Michael

The men who’d come to kill Kalvin Bein arrived at the bar promptly at ten thirty, just as they had said they would. They - the three of them; Ben, Jim, and Linus - held chains and bats and knives. There would be no guns. That was the agreement.

Knowing full well that he would die that night, Kalvin Bein made no attempt at running or hiding. He simply sat at the bar and drank his whiskey and let the men approach him from behind.

“Bein,” said the one with the bat from over Kalvin’s shoulder.

“…yep,” the corpse replied. He finished his drink and reached into the back pocket of his denim pants to retrieve his wallet and left it on the bar. He slowly stood up from his stool, grabbed his coat, then turned to leave the place and made no fuss about the men following him out.

The night was calm and quiet and the air was brisk and the sky was full of stars.
Kalvin said “I made my peace with God and he’s gonna stay out of my way so long as I stay out of his, so let’s get to it,” in the middle of the cold and empty street. The four killers made no moves and understood the silence around them for but a moment. 

When the time came to end life, Kalvin Bein managed to pull a gun from his coat to shoot and kill the man with the chains and the man with the bat before the other man put a knife in his stomach. 

“You’re a wicked son of a bitch, Kalvin Bein,” Ben said as he looked into his victim’s eyes. Then he leaned in real close and whispered in the bastard’s ear “…and I hope the Devil lays into you real good for what you did to those girls.”  

The criminal Bein smiled a steamy, bloody smile as he pulled his killer in and embraced him with his left arm and raised the gun in his right hand to Ben’s head. “No guns” had been the agreement, but Kalvin Bein was never good with agreements and that was why he would be murdered that night. 

“You know better than anyone in this damned town,” Bein struggled to get the words out. The two men’s eyes were locked and full of hate and understanding. “…I loved those girls more than life itself.”

And he pulled the trigger.