Loraine

At 2:40 a.m., a black Audi sedan slipped silently from a coastal village lane onto a hard sand beach under fading moonlight at low tide. After rolling stealthily toward the headlands like a stalking panther, its engine revved when a vague figure loomed out of the shadows at the far end of the beach. Gunning hard, the Audi bore down on the man who stood stonelike in the distance, staring head-on into the fast-approaching headlights. At 2:45 a.m., the Audi exploded.

Loraine loathed every day she woke up. Each was a harsh reminder of all her puking yesterdays. Stale sheets yellowing in the miserably damp cabin. Gulls screeching on the sagging roof. Musty smells seeping from rotting walls. And the constant dull throbbing in her aching head. Today was no different, except it was 2:45 a.m. and her skull felt like a bomb had just gone off.

Collecting herself on the edge of the bed, she reached across the crumpled sheets. Her man was gone. It was just like him to hightail it. He was jumpy like spittle on a hot plate. Always on the lam, dragging trouble from beneath every rock he ever crawled out from under.

Mike Delaney was feral, unbroken. The good and the bad of that are a matter of opinion. For Loraine, it was bad. She snorted him like cocaine. Most folk took him for a wannabe bigshot who might shoot off his own foot someday. A few, who had known his bitter old man, felt pity. But any way you took him, Delaney was unique. “A real winner” in the lowest sense.

Delaney grew up a punk under beatings delivered by his brutal father. Time and again he was battered and bloodied, but he stood his ground until one day he bested the old bastard. Leaving him bleeding on the curling linoleum of the kitchen floor, Delaney felt like a champ.

From her rickety deck perched above the dune grass, Loraine stared agape toward the dark ocean, her gaze fixed on a fiery glow, flickering through the rising fog. A shudder sent spasms through her body as she crumpled into a heap. Sobbing into cupped hands, she knew he was dead.

Earlier, Delaney had slipped silently from Loraine’s bed and stolen into the damp night air, bolting down the dune toward the headland. He had heard the Audi crunching gravel near the cabin and feared the hounds Al Paparo had sicced on him.

Paparo ran a numbers game in the city, took horse bets, and schemed his way through any crooked enterprise that made a quick buck. He was shrewd, a rare breed who slipped past the law unseen. Delaney had lost big on the ponies, then welched on his debt to Paparo. Now Paparo’s junkyard dogs had him cornered.

Delaney fled from the headlights that had spotted him scampering down the dune. As he raced across the beach, the Audi accelerated. He flung himself behind a solitary basalt boulder jutting up in the wide expanse of smooth sand. Thinking quickly, he rose in front of the only weapon he had, staring menacingly at the onrushing car. At 2:45 a.m., he leaped, leaving the jagged stone exposed as the racing Audi shredded its undercarriage. The explosion flattened Delaney. The heat seared him. Getting up, he staggered—stunned but triumphant—into the dune grass. Again, he was the champ.

Loraine stood, then fell tear stained into the cabin, where Delaney caught her. She sank into the smells of scorched clothes and singed hair. “Another puking day,” she thought, as sirens wailed in the distance.