Poison Kaine (#FridayFlash)

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Old Kaine paused in his long shuffling up the sidewalk and leaned on his cane, looking over the two younger men who stood in his way. “What’s up?” he sighed, knowing well what was up. They said nothing. “I got four dollars and twenty-seven cents,” he continued at last. “And a paperback. But I guess you boys aren’t much for reading.”

The assailants looked at each other, trying to decide if they had just been insulted. “I bet you got more than that on you,” one said.

Kaine looked around. Nobody was around, let alone paying attention. “Look,” he said, raising his cane. “I think you need to…” The cane made a phhut sound, and one of them fell over, stiff as a statue, staring at the dart in his gut. The other gave his partner a goggle-eyed look. “Young folks these days,” said the old man, now pointing his cane at the second man. “In my day, the survivor would’ve had the sense to run for it by now. So why aren’t you running?”

The would-be attacker took a few steps backwards, hands up, then turned and ran. “About time,” Kaine muttered, plucking the dart out of his victim. He was not quite dead yet, but the poison had done its work, seizing up all his muscles. He was suffocating, and feeling every bit of it, at least until he lost consciousness. “If you were one to do a little thinking, you might have thought about how an old geezer walking alone out here lived long enough to be an old geezer, eh?”

He looked around one more time, then opened his cane at the crook. He dipped the dart in fresh poison and reloaded it into the barrel. One shot was all he ever needed. But there was real work to be done later. The Senator was having his big rally in the Square tonight.