Ricky had once been a musician. Before the streets swallowed him whole, before the darkness crept into every corner of his life, he’d spent his nights in smoke-filled jazz clubs, his fingers dancing across piano keys. He wasn’t famous, not even close, but he had a sound—a sound that made people stop and listen. Back then, he was just another kid from the Bronx trying to make it big, drowning out the noise of the city with music. But music doesn’t pay the rent. Not when you're as low on the ladder as he was.
That’s when Vinny came into his life.
Vinny was different. He wasn’t the kind of guy who sat in the back of a club to soak in the tunes. He had no use for music, no patience for artistry. Vinny dealt in cold cash and fear. His world wasn’t about melodies or crescendos—it was about power. And Ricky, with his dreams crumbling under the weight of unpaid bills, made the mistake of thinking he could dip a toe into Vinny’s world, make a quick buck, and still get out clean.
He couldn’t. No one ever did.
It started small: running packages, driving cars, nothing too serious. The money came fast, and Ricky got hooked. But then came the Peacock Jewelry job. One night, one heist, and his whole life flipped upside down. Ricky hadn’t planned on anyone getting hurt, but someone always did when Vinny was involved. The old man in the shop—their only witness—took a beating he never woke up from. And Ricky, who had only ever wanted to make enough to fix his life, was now running from it.
The guilt ate at him. He tried to walk away from Vinny after that, but Vinny didn’t let people walk. He watched, waited, and when Ricky started pulling away, he tightened his grip. Ricky knew the rules: stay quiet, take the fall, and maybe, just maybe, you’d get to breathe another day. But as the years went on, Vinny’s promises started to rot. The more Ricky pulled away, the more Vinny reminded him he wasn’t free.
Then came the kids.
Ricky wasn’t a saint, but when his daughters were born, he saw a way out, a way to make things right. He swore off the dirty jobs, turned his back on Vinny, and tried to go straight. But straight isn’t a clean break when you’ve got blood on your hands. No matter how far he ran, Vinny was always in the rearview, waiting for the moment Ricky would slip.
And Joey? Joey was supposed to be the answer. Slick, with a suit that always seemed too clean for a guy in this line of work, Joey was Vinny’s lawyer, but more importantly, he was the one who could pull strings. Joey had gotten guys out of tighter spots than Ricky, or so he claimed. He was supposed to cut a deal, make sure Ricky didn’t end up like the other ghosts Vinny left in his wake. But Joey was a snake in a suit—nervous, twitchy, with eyes that never stopped scanning the room. He didn’t want to be involved, not this deep.
And now, tonight, it was all about to come to a head. It was raining again. The kind of rain that slicked the streets of New York and made the neon lights bleed into the puddles. Ricky stood outside the jazz club, the sound of a lone trumpeter drifting out into the alley. The notes twisted through the air, soft and mournful, just like his thoughts.
Ricky pulled the collar of his coat tighter, shielding himself from the wind. The cool metal of the revolver weighed heavy inside his pocket. He wasn’t here for music. Not tonight.
Joey shuffled nervously beside him, fumbling with a cigarette. The lawyer’s hands were trembling, and his eyes darted to the shadows, as if he was expecting someone to leap out at them.
“You don’t have to go through with it, Ricky,” Joey muttered, his voice barely audible over the rain. “We could go to the cops.”
Ricky didn’t even look at him. His eyes were fixed on the slick street in front of him. The club’s neon sign flickered, casting everything in a hazy red glow. “Cops don’t care about guys like me,” Ricky said, his voice low and cold.
Joey took a nervous drag from his cigarette, exhaling shakily. “But there’s still a way out. You can just walk away.”
Ricky let out a bitter laugh. “Walk away? Nah. You don’t walk away from people like Vinny. You either take the hit, or you give it first.”
Joey swallowed hard. He knew that, but hearing Ricky say it made everything real. Too real.
They stood in silence, the rain tapping against the pavement like a soft drumbeat, the sound of the trumpet fading into the night. The door to the club creaked open, and Vinny stepped out, his heavy frame casting a long shadow against the alley wall.
Vinny was calm, almost too calm. He was the kind of man who never raised his voice, never broke a sweat. He didn’t have to. His presence alone was enough to put most people on edge.
“I see you made it,” Vinny said, his voice steady. “Thought you might’ve skipped town.”
Ricky’s hand tightened around the revolver in his coat. “You know me better than that.”
Vinny nodded slowly. “Yeah, I do. You shouldn’t have crossed me, Ricky.”
“And you shouldn’t have let me walk away,” Ricky shot back.
The tension between them was thick, the kind that made the air hard to breathe. Vinny took a step forward, his eyes never leaving Ricky’s.
“This is your last chance,” Vinny said, his voice quieter now, almost a whisper. “Walk away, or I put you down right here.”
Ricky shook his head. “I’ve been dead a long time, Vinny.”
The alley went silent, except for the steady drip of water from the fire escape above. Ricky’s fingers tightened around the grip of the gun, his heart pounding in his chest. In a flash, he drew the revolver.
Vinny was faster. A single gunshot echoed through the alley, loud and sharp against the silence. Ricky staggered back, the revolver slipping from his fingers, clattering onto the wet pavement. His hand instinctively moved to his side, blood seeping through his coat. His legs buckled beneath him, and he collapsed against the brick wall, sinking down slowly.
The rain kept falling, indifferent, tapping against the ground as if nothing had changed. Vinny stepped closer, his face calm, almost serene, like a man who had just finished a routine errand.
Joey froze, his breath caught in his throat. He hadn’t moved since the shot rang out. His cigarette hung limply from his lips, forgotten. He looked down at Ricky, who was struggling to breathe, his chest rising and falling in shallow bursts.
Vinny crouched beside Ricky, his eyes studying him like a predator watching its prey take its last breaths.
“You never could play the long game, Ricky,” Vinny said quietly, almost like he was talking to an old friend. “You think you can slip out the back door, make a clean break. But you and me? We were always heading here.”
Ricky’s vision blurred. His thoughts drifted, but through the haze, he saw their faces—his girls. They were the only reason he had tried to go straight. The only reason he had believed, even for a moment, that he could leave this life behind.
He fumbled inside his jacket, his blood-slicked fingers brushing against something crumpled. He pulled out the photograph, the one he kept with him like a talisman. His daughters, their innocent smiles frozen in time, their world still untouched by the shadows of his.
Vinny glanced at the picture, his face unreadable. “Cute kids,” he said, his voice devoid of emotion. “Too bad they’ll grow up without a father.”
Ricky’s grip tightened on the photo. He had failed them. He had failed himself. But as the pain intensified and his body grew heavier, the guilt started to fade, replaced by a strange sense of relief. It was over. The running, the fear—it was finally over.
Vinny stood up, wiping the rain from his brow. He looked at Joey, who was still rooted in place, wide-eyed, his cigarette now a soaked stub.
“Get out of here, Joey,” Vinny said, his tone dismissive. “This doesn’t concern you anymore.”
Joey blinked, as if waking from a nightmare, and stumbled back, almost tripping over his own feet as he fled down the alley, disappearing into the night.
Vinny watched him go, then turned his attention back to Ricky. He stood there for a moment, the rain falling between them, before he turned and walked away, his footsteps echoing into the distance.
Ricky lay there, the cold seeping into his bones. He stared at the photo in his hand, his vision fading, the sound of the trumpet inside the club barely audible now. He remembered the music, the way it used to make him feel alive. It had been his escape once, but now, it was just another part of the life he’d never get back.
With a final, ragged breath, Ricky closed his eyes, the rain still tapping softly, the last note fading into the dark.
The city kept moving, indifferent to the lives it had swallowed whole. Another man, another life lost to the streets, just like so many before him. In the end, all that remained was the sound of the rain and the memory of a life that could have been something different.
You're channeling Mickey Spillane...