Vinnie Arrighi was a winner until the luck ran out; now he has to choose between a stranger’s life and his own.
Writer’s Prompt
The Lead in the Pocket
The neon sign above the diner flickered like a dying pulse, casting Vinnie Arrighi’s shadow in jagged, rhythmic stabs against the brick. Ten grand. It was a number that sounded like a fortune when you were down, but felt like pocket change when the winning streak was hot. Now, the heat was gone, replaced by the cold weight of the .38 snub-nose sagging in his trench coat.
Marco Viena didn’t do payment plans. He did “favors.”
“The guy’s a ghost, Vinnie,” Marco had rasped, his breath smelling of stale espresso and malice. “He owes, he hides. You find him, you fix it. Then we’re even. Otherwise, I find a new use for your shoes. Concrete’s cheap.”
Vinnie didn’t know the first thing about “fixing” people. He knew the smell of turf at Aqueduct and the way a whiskey sour tasted after a longshot paid out. But the man standing in the doorway of the tenement on 4th Street wasn’t a longshot. He was a middle-aged accountant with trembling hands and a daughter’s drawing pinned to the fridge behind him.
The man looked at Vinnie, not with fear, but with a weary recognition. “Marco sent you,” he whispered.
Vinnie’s fingers brushed the cold steel in his pocket. His heart hammered a frantic rhythm against his ribs—the same beat he felt when his horse was neck-and-neck at the finish line. One pull of the trigger and the debt vanishes. One pull and Vinnie walks free into the cool night air, back to the track, back to being a winner.
He looked at the man’s hollow eyes, then down at the dark alleyway behind him. He heard a car door slam. Marco’s boys were never far behind to ensure the “closing” went as planned.
Vinnie pulled his hand from his pocket.
The choice is yours: Does Vinnie pull the trigger to save his own skin, or does he turn the gun on the shadows waiting in the alley? You finish the story.
Discover more from Optimistic Beacon
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
