Free write: Setting, Winter

I took a fiction writing class that ended earlier this year. This free write was born from an assignment on setting. Copyright belongs to the author

Jinder had a cocaine problem. That much was evident from my view into his apartment with my scope. Twice now, he’s left this little party he’s throwing on his adjoining rooftop to head into his kitchen to do a bonus line. After lying down prone for the last two hours, I could spot all the little countdown habits at this little party, and at least tonight, it was going to get one of them killed. If that fucker ever showed up.

The sun was already setting in New York when I flew into town for this little rush job, and as much as my type of work benefits from the cover of darkness, I was already missing Hawaii, and the warm bed waiting on me. I drove from the airfield across the bridge to end up at this inexplicable rooftop winter party, and tried to comfort myself with the pink sunset from the car, until I looked at the water, still placid and unfrozen, and imagined the bodies using it as a resting place, and it never felt further away from my little slice of paradise. 

“Hey man you have eyes on our guy yet,” Jake’s voice came slicing through the relative silence of the rooftop I’d been occupying, “I have a warm thighs waiting on me at home.”

“If you want me to do you a favor like this again you need to keep this fucking com line clear,” I answered as I adjusted the scope yet again. The wind was picking up, rifling through the branches of the winter barren trees and shaking the last of the snow onto the sidewalk.

“Fina-fuckingly we got incoming, that little fuck has finally come,” Jake whispered, his voice all business. 

I tracked our target as he stepped out of his SUV into the night air, pulling his ridiculous fur coat closer. He surveyed the entrance, seemingly just realizing that New York snow storms means no trash pick ups on Fridays, and his path to the front of the building was lined with trashbags. 

He didn’t go for the jump. Instead he had his driver pick him up in a bizarre hold and deposit him to the other side of the trash, landing on the monogrammed rug in front of the luxury building. He paused to adjust his coat, his breath hanging in front of him in misty white. 

I waited. Until he made it safely into Jinder’s apartment, and pulled Jinder aside with a .38 in his gut. I guess this was both a collection mission and a social call. I let him get all the way out to the roof and lean forward doing the stupid titanic thing before I put one in his forehead, the velocity brought him head over foot 40 stories down to the trash in the sidewalk. Right where he belonged.

I policed my brass, and walked out with my rifle in a guitar case. I took in the lights right across the water, it looked like the stars came down to blanket the buildings. New York in the winter has its charms after all.