“Boss, the guy ain’t human, I tell ya’!” Charlie said in a suppressed shout that he hoped couldn’t be overheard by Curly in the next room. “What he did… well, it was magic! That’s the only word! The Biathlete froze up like a statue, started fallin’ apart at the seams, and then fuckin’ BUGS spewed out of his eyes and ATE HIM!”
Boss Murphy scratched his thin mustache and considered his response. He’d been hearing this story all morning, from all of the robbery crew. Neatly forgotten, he thought, was their own slipshod planning of the job. Conveniently ignored was the fact that they almost botched the job without that jump-suited do-gooder ever getting involved. But this notion that Curly the Carny had killed The Biathlete by waving a book at him was being repeated too consistently. It didn’t have the ring of a rehearsed excuse. It also jibed with similar reports from other jobs in the past. People who got in Curly’s way didn’t just die. They suffered horrific torments, like Old Testament plagues, for no discernable cause or reason. Murphy had first thought that Curly was pulling his old mentalist act and hypnotizing people, but the mutilated and unrecognizable corpses told another story. Curly was a freak of a whole other variety. Come to think of it, Murphy was having trouble remembering exactly why he had hired the man in the first place, let alone promoted him.
“All right, Charlie. I hear what you’re sayin’,” Murphy replied with a tired sigh. “I guess I had to deal with this sooner or later. You and the boys all go home, or go drink your pay, whatever it is that you do. Send in Curly on your way out and I’ll talk to him about this.”
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