I Can't Believe It's Not Kingdom Come (2)
Chapter 2 of the crime comedy from Chris Well. When the world fails to end on schedule, the mob is in no mood to discuss End-Times theology...
You can listen to the author commentary for this chapter here. (Don’t worry, no spoilers!)
I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S NOT KINGDOM COME will be serialized every Thursday and Saturday on Substack. Links emailed out once a week in our weekly Monster Complex™ newsletter!
I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S NOT KINGDOM COME
It’s not the end of the world—which could be a problem…
- 2 -
Out in the car, Ross Cleaver was bored. He and associate Bill Lamb had been sitting for maybe forty minutes in the gravel lot across from Zykes Drugstore. They were new to the territory, just wanted to get to know their future “clients.” This was the edge of the business on this street. Drugstore, barbershop, church. Then you hit the houses. In front of the church, the sign read GET RIGHT OR GET LEFT. Underneath, in smaller letters, it read, THE TIME IS CLOSER THAN YOU THINK.
Cleaning his fingernails with his teeth, Cleaver once more thought over his mental to-do list: towing operation, check; numbers-running, check; insurance cooperative, check. (“Insurance cooperative” had a much better ring to it than “protection racket.”)
Cleaver turned and regarded the other man. He watched Lamb finish off yet another plastic bottle of water and drop it to the floor of the Pontiac with the other empties. Cleaver grunted. “Got a bladder problem?”
“Whut?”
“The water.” Cleaver, still trying to clean under his thumbnail with his bottom teeth, nodded toward the empties piled at the other man’s feet. “You drink a lot of water. Got a bladder problem?”
Lamb stared with wide, glassy eyes. Twitched. “Why would drinking a lot of water mean I have a bladder problem?”
“Why not?”
“If I had a bladder problem, I would drink less.”
Cleaver grimaced, wishing he never brought it up. “I’m just saying, a person with a bladder problem might want to flush something out of his system.”
“If I had a bladder problem, I’d have no trouble flushing—”
“Hold it.” Cleaver pointed toward the back exit of the drugstore across the street. The old man was closing up for the night. “There he is.”
Cleaver opened the driver side and exited the car, carefully—he really needed to lose that last thirty or fifty pounds (or think about a bigger car). As he rounded the front of the car, Lamb joined him. The man was a head taller and decidedly thinner.
He sometimes wondered how Lamb stayed so trim. After all, the two had about the same eating habits, got about the same amount of exercise. Give or take a shakedown or the odd beating of some welsher.
Maybe it was the nervous twitching. That had to burn off calories.
Cleaver and Lamb crossed the empty street, which smelled like fresh tar. As they reached the drugstore exit, the grizzled old man was locking up, fumbling with his key ring.
Cleaver glanced quickly at Lamb, hoping this time his associate kept his mouth shut. He turned eyes back to the old man locking up. “Evening, Padre.”
The old man jumped, whirled around. “Oh! You startled me!” He was on the frail side.
“Don’t worry, Padre,” Cleaver said. “You’re safe. We just—”
“Yeah,” Lamb snorted, rotating his shoulder blades. “Safe.”
Cleaver shot his associate a glare. “Do you mind?” He turned back to the old man with a forced smile. A little more predatory than he intended, but the only smile he had. “You’ll have to excuse him. ” He started over. “Um… ” He had lost his place. Evening Padre don’t worry Padre you’re safe we just… “We just wanted to express our concerns for you in this neighborhood.”
The old man stared back. Blankly. Serenely.
Cleaver motioned to the buildings around them—the church, the gas station, the greasy diner, a row of houses. “This ain’t the safest area. Know what I mean?”
The old man’s eyes narrowed, his gaze sharpening to a point. Trembling, he raised a bony, misshapen finger at Cleaver. “You have no business here,” the man said in a trembling voice. The two mobsters stepped back. “Get thee behind me.”
What was with this guy? Cleaver forced a grin, held up conciliatory hands. “Hey, old-timer, you got this all wrong. We represent an insurance cooperative.”
“Sure,” Lamb tossed in, nodding like a jackrabbit with a neck problem. “An insurance racket.”
Cleaver shot Lamb angry eyes. “The grown-ups are talking here.”
The old man picked up steam, still pointing that skeleton finger. “I rebuke you!”
Cleaver waved his hands. “Okay, okay.” Turned to Lamb. “Let’s hit it.” To the old man, “We’re sorry to have troubled you, sir.”
As the two thugs walked, Lamb let out this sort of whine. A signal he was about to make a comment that would endanger his quality of life right now.
Cleaver held up a hand. “Whatever it is, stifle it.”
“But—”
“I don’t wanna hear it.” Cleaver snorted and spit snot on the tar.
The two men were silent as they reached the car. As the car sped away, Cleaver checked the rearview mirror. He wasn’t sure what had happened back there. All he knew is he would never trouble the old man again.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY:
I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S NOT KINGDOM COME is an ensemble novel, so the various chapters follow different plotlines. We started out in the previous chapter with a religious zealot telling his story to a mystery confessor; this chapter introduces two professional criminals; and in subsequent chapters we’ll meet some political figures and then some members of law enforcement. Although these characters and plots appear at first to be unrelated, later in the novel the different stories will begin to intersect.
There are 70 chapters for I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S NOT KINGDOM COME. My plan is to post a chapter every Thursday and Saturday on Substack.
If you can’t wait to see how it turns out, you can actually read the whole eBook (as TRIBULATION HOUSE: RELOADED) on Wattpad.
Find Chris Well online: