Memory

I had hoped it would never come to this.

Jason and I had been enemies for over 20 years. Ironic, I had always thought, that my closest childhood friend would in time become the ringleader of gang after gang, executor of felony after felony - and that, through the cruel machinations of fate, I always seemed to be thrust right into his schemes. But nonetheless, deep down, I'd never really thought this day would come.

"Armond, Armond, Armond," he sighed. "Things are different this time. You're not up against one of my patsies who could screw something up.

"Only one of us is leaving this warehouse alive."

Through all my cases, all my investigation, I always held on to some glimmer of hope, that Jason could be saved from, well.... I don't like using the word evil; in my line of work you learn not to believe in evil, nor in good; but I hoped that I could stop Jason from the self-destructive path he had undertaken.

"What's wrong?" Jason asked aloof. "Still can't wrap your head around my little trap? I played you like a fiddle, old friend."

"Maybe I wanted to be played," I retorted.

Jason frowned and raised his gun. "Then you'd better enjoy it while it lasts - after today, we won't be playing this game ever again."

I dove behind a stack of crates just as Jason squeezed off his first shot. I thought I detected a bit of deliberate hesitation there, as if he was still unsure whether or not I should die. I heard footsteps on the concrete floor, so I peeked out from behind the crates to see where Jason was going. I couldn't see him.

There I sat, and waited, for what was only a few moments but seemed like an eternity. I slowly stood up, readied my revolver, and walked around the open warehouse floor. I heard something move to my right, so I quickly turned and pointed my gun at a fallen crate. The sound of a bullet firing from behind me had barely registered before a sharp pain drove through my right shoulder and I was on the ground.

"Come now Armond," Jason yelled from what I estimated was about 15 feet behind me. "Falling for simple tricks like that?" He laughed. "Today just isn't your day, is it?"

He was right - something wasn't working inside me. My subconscious turmoil just couldn't bring me to fire on my former friend, on who I hoped would someday be a friend again. Jason, however, seemed to be having no such problems.

Like I said, in my line of work you learn to blur the line between good and bad. Everybody has a motive, everybody has desires; everybody has a price. But Jason's organizations always stood out among the goons I usually ran into. They were smart people, well-educated and well-trained. If not for their criminal tendencies, they'd be no different than your average law-abiding citizen. I looked into their pasts. I got psychoanalysts to report on them. They were always perfectly normal, except for one small, unidentifiable something, which apparently drove them to do the terrible things they had done.

You'd have to be crazy to manipulate people like that. Everyone I'd ever met, priests, convicts, executives, homeless bums; they always had a shred of conscience that kept them from going off the deep end. It's easy to take advantage of somebody if you know his weakness - but I'd found, time and again, the majority of people were unwilling to exploit it. Were they afraid it would backfire? Were they empathetic, not wanting the same done to them? Or were they just nice? Whatever the reason, no one did it. No one but Jason.

I always assumed that there was one little thing wrong with him, and that if the two of us could just talk, I would be able to fix it. He'd turn his life around; I knew he had the potential for great things, and I thought that, deep down, he was still sane.

Had he really lost it?

I heard footsteps coming toward me. Jason fired two more shots into my back. I barely felt the floor when I collapsed onto it. As I turned myself around, he put another bullet in my left leg. I was so deeply distracted by my thoughts that there was almost no sensation at all.

"And with this final bullet, I bring us to an end," he said almost poetically to himself. With a crazy grin Jason placed the end of his barrel between my eyes.

Instinct kicked in. Jason had done a good job of crippling me, but I had the good fortune of dropping my gun near where my left hand fell. I had been slowly taking its grip as he walked and spoke. Using my wrist to awkwardly aim, and praying that chance was still on my side, I fired at a chain that was suspending a crate directly above Jason and myself.

Jason's eyes widened suddenly. I fired another shot.

Before he could finish turning around, the crate fell square on his head. Jason's body went limp and he fell beside me.

I slowly stood up. It may have been luck that guided my aim, but it was foresight that put me under that crate, just as it was planning that told me to pick up a bulletproof vest. My shoulder and leg were beginning to hurt like hell, but it was only pain. I'd recover.

Jason, on the other hand, didn't seem to be doing too good. I didn't want to leave him alone, lest he get away from me again, and I didn't yet have the strength to carry him anywhere. He wasn't dead, just knocked out cold. So I took his gun away from him, then sat and waited for a while.

When he finally woke up, I stared at him without a word, waiting for his response. Imagine my surprise when he just looked around in wonder. "Where... who... who are you?" he asked.

I'd seen amnesia before, and I'd seen people fake amnesia before. This was clearly a case of the former and not the latter. Tricky as Jason was, he couldn't outwit me there.

This presented some new questions. If he had forgotten who he was, maybe he could be rehabilitated. Sure, his old self would come back to him in time, but maybe he'd know better and reject it. Maybe Jason had another chance.

I dropped his gun and lowered my hand to help him up. His eyes darted to the weapon, and he dove for it instantly. Before I could react he shot me in the back again.

I turned around and he got up. We engaged in a mutual grapple, guns to each others' temples. Jason pulled his trigger.

Lucky for me, he had forgotten how many bullets he had. I whipped the back of his neck with my pistol, and he was out again. I took his gun and mine, put them in my pockets, threw Jason over my shoulder, and slowly limped away to the police department.

When I got there, I dropped him to the tiled floor. "This is the ringleader neither of us could ever catch," I told a bewildered police chief standing before me, mid-donut. "You can find proof in his hideout, 785 third street, 12th floor."

The cops drove me to the hospital to treat my wounds. A few minutes later I was eating hospital chicken in an adjustable bed. It was some of the best chicken I'd ever had.