It is funny how one can feel the strangest of urges in the unlikeliest of situations. Crouched behind a pillar to avoid getting shot, palms closed over the butt of his Glock 9mm pistol, the urge suddenly hit Gautam ‘Loco’ Mengle like a bullet in the head.
It had nothing to do with his current situation. Indeed, Loco had no idea why that particular urge should come to him while he was engaged in a firefight with an out-of-control junkie inside a subway. However, there it was, bursting within him, begging for fulfillment.
Loco didn’t even flinch as the junkie sent another steam of automatic fire his way, taking chunks of plaster out of the pillar he had taken cover behind.
“How the fuck did this guy manage to get hold of an M16?” he wondered as he risked a quick peek. The junkie was slapping a fresh clip in the gun.
“Great, he’s got ammo too,” Loco thought, as he took advantage of the lull to dive behind another pillar, this one a little farther ahead. The move brought him closer to the junkie, and also elicited another stream of gunfire. More plaster fell, but the bullets got nowhere near Loco.
The urge was growing stronger now, and he knew something had to be done about it. Suppressing it was not an option. He did not believe in resisting temptation. Like Lord Henry Wotton in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Loco believed that the only way to get rid of a temptation was to yield to it.
However, there was no way he could yield to this particular temptation without sending ripples of concern among his fellow gendarmes, who could hear every sound he made through their earpieces.
“Die, motherfucker, die!” the junkie screamed as he emptied the clip and crouched behind his own pillar.
Crouched behind the pillar, Loco heard the distinct click of an empty gun followed by another lull in the gunfire. Making another effort to stifle the urge, he swung into action.
Abandoning all cover, he sprang out from behind the pillar and ran straight toward the junkie, who, he could see, was just discarding the empty clip with one hand.
Race against time, Loco thought, focusing on the junkie’s left elbow, which was jutting out from behind the pillar. The way it was moving told Loco that he was fishing for another clip. He ran harder. The urge grew stronger.
The elbow stopped moving, and then disappeared behind the pillar. The junkie had found the clip and was now sliding it into place. He cocked and loaded the automatic rifle and swung around to his right, just as Loco dove to his left, rolled ahead and came to a stop on his knees right beside him.
“So clichéd,” Loco said. The junkie spun around, straight into the barrel of Loco’s Glock.
“So dead,” Loco added and fired two shots into the side of the junkie’s head, who went down like a log of wood.
“He’s down,” Loco said into the tiny microphone mounted on his wrist.
“Yeah, we heard,” a gendarme replied. “Nice finish.”
“Nice line, too,” said another.
His job done, Loco pressed a button to stop transmitting from the microphone. Then, he sat down near the dead body. He could resist no longer.
Throwing his head back, he started laughing. Funny how you can get the strangest of urges at the most unlikeliest of times.
