Author’s note: I recently gave myself a writing prompt—person smoking in car—and this is what came out. Drop a comment if you feel so inclined. I’d love to hear from you.

By Jason Offutt

Smoke burned Trent’s lungs.

He pulled the cigarette from his dry lips, and flicked it through the open window of the Lincoln Continental the way he’d seen cool guys do in movies. Trent did a lot of things cool guys do in movies. Brad Pitt, Clint Eastwood, Humphrey Bogart, Moe Howard. They taught him everything he knew.

How can people smoke these? he wondered, shoving the soft pack into his jacket pocket, a cough lingering in the back of his throat. 

What? A movement. He froze. The shadow of a body approached the lightly-tinted glass of the office building across the street. 

Dropping lower in the driver’s seat, Trent picked his nose. Universal Truth No. 456: human beings don’t notice someone who picks their nose. It’s like the simple act of ridding a nasal orifice of dried mucus reboots a person’s operating system. It’s the “have you tried unplugging it and plugging it back in?” of the human brain.

The front door of the bank whooshed open, and Arnold Pendicott stepped onto the sidewalk. Arnold had a problem neither the Midwest Unlimited Credit Union shareholders, nor Mrs. Pendicott, knew anything about.

Trent didn’t know what his problem was either, but Pendicott was Trent’s “mark,” and his boss had given him a job.

Mr. Pendicott stopped and looked toward the Lincoln, but turned his head before a trace of recognition told Trent the deal was off. It was the nose; Universal Truth No. 456 was never wrong.

“I need a volunteer,” Trent’s new employer, Mr. Funk, had said at the Funk and Tyree Enterprises morning meeting. Mr. Funk sat in the big leather boardroom chair; the one at the end of the table, the chair reserved for mob bosses, one of which Mr. Funk certainly was not. Mr. Funk smelled of sandalwood at 7:50 a.m., and wore a crisp suit Trent knew probably wasn’t from Men’s Wearhouse, but it wasn’t expensive either. Mob bosses had suits made in Italy, or someplace. “I have a business associate who needs educated on a certain subject.”

Educated? Oh, boy. Trent had only been employed at Funk and Tyree Enterprises for a few weeks, but he could educate Mr. Funk’s business associate. He just knew it, because he’d developed his life’s philosophy while viewing television, and WWTTSD? never did him wrong.

Mr. Funk’s business associate was a key candidate for WWTTSD? Trent raised his hand.

“You,” Mr. Funk said, pointing at Trent in a way Trent almost peed. “What did you do before you came here?”

Me? Me?

“I worked at a bakery, sir,” squeaked out.

The man, in the not-Men’s Wearhouse suit, stared at Trent long enough sweat began to soak his collar.

“A bakery?” Mr. Funk said. “Okay, so prove to me you belong here. I want you to do the hit. Hit Pendicott—” Trent’s new boss looked around the conference table at other men in suits. For some reason they looked nervous. “—with a ‘pie’.”

Laughter rumbled through the room. Benny Dubanowski laughed so hard he spat coffee back into his cup.

With a pie? Trent thought. He said, “with a pie.” The man was a master.

***

The grays that made up the picture of Arnold Pendicott weren’t exactly accurate, Trent noticed as he looked from the photograph propped on the steering wheel to the real man standing  on the sidewalk. The picture looked like the Pendicott he was supposed to hit, but the man was more colorful in person. His tie was green, and his hair red. Hmm. Must be the lighting.

Mr. Pendicott pulled a phone from his suit jacket, and glanced at it before slipping it back into the pocket. 

In a hurry, Mister?

The Lincoln’s door release engaged silently, and Trent pushed it open, bending to retrieve his weapon from the rear seat. Thinking back, Mr. Funk’s tone changed when his words went from “educated” to “hit.” Hit. Trent knew what a hit meant. Years of streaming services had prepared him for this moment.

He slid across the street and onto the sidewalk, the heavy weapon in the right hand behind his back.

“Pendicott?” Trent said, approaching the target. “Mr. Arnold Pendicott, CEO of Midwest Unlimited Credit Union?”

Arnold Pendicott’s eyes grew large, so large he looked like a cartoon character. Pendicott glanced around, looking for what? An ice cream man? A policeman? Somewhere to hide? The more Trent thought about it, the more he knew it didn’t matter what Pendicott looked for. Trent had, what Bogart would have said, “the drop on him.”

“Wh-wha-what?” Pendicott stuttered. “What do you want from me?”

The man seemed nervous. Secret problems had the habit of doing that to a person.

“My employer, Mr. Funk, sent me here to put you in your place, Mr. Pendicott,” Trent said, shoulders straight. Pendicott nervously looked toward Trent’s arm hiding behind his back. “I’m here to teach you a lesson.”

The man’s face drained into an entirely unhealthy shade of copy-paper; his, “What do you mean?” nothing more than a whisper. 

“I thought I’d made that clear, Mr. Pendicott,” Trent said; his voice dropped. “This is a hit.”

The bank president attempted to move. It looked to Trent like he wanted to take a step backward, but the poor fellow’s legs refused to work right. Pendicott stood in place, and shook.

“A hit!” Pendicott’s hiss soft, like a nearly empty tea kettle. “In broad daylight? People will see you.”

Darn right they will, Trent thought. Or this wouldn’t be any fun.

“I’m counting on it,” he said, and pulled his arm forward, throwing his weight into the throw.

The coconut cream pie smashed into Arnold Pendicott’s face, the aluminum pan sliding off and splatting onto the sidewalk. Pendicott followed.

The tight grin on Trent hurt, just a little, as he squatted next to Mr. Funk’s business associate.

“I hope you’ve learned your lesson, Mr. Pendicott,” Trent said, wiping an index finger through the ruined dessert on the CEO’s face. He brought a dollop of whipped cream to his lips. “Nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee.” 

Oh, man. That just came off the cuff, Trent realized. He’d practiced a few catch phrases in the bathroom mirror earlier—“Your just desserts,” “You’ve been pied,” “You’re like, really dumb, Mister”—and none sounded right. But “Sara Lee?”

Wow, I’m so good at this.

A shout came from nearby. The vocal alarm sent Trent into a run, crossing the street, and skidding around the trunk of the Lincoln. He hopped into the front seat, and tore from the spot he’d legally parked in, disappearing into midday traffic.

“This is a hit,” Mr. Funk had said to Trent. “You know what that means, right?”

“Of course, sir,” Trent reassured him.

Trent took the red and white packet from his jacket pocket and tapped out another cigarette, fumbling for the lighter. He lit the cigarette before he realized he had, and pushed it between his lips. A coughing fit sent him swerving onto the curb.

I need to stop doing this, he thought, righting Mr. Funk’s car. 

Trent tossed the cigarette from the window, and wiped the hot tears from his eyes. He chanced a glance at the rearview mirror. Red rimmed his eyes, and a dab of whipped cream dotted his nose, but neither damaged his smile.

My first hit.

“Mr. Funk’s going to be so proud of me,” he said, police sirens moaning behind him, but Trent didn’t care.

He was cool. He was smooth. He was professional. He was—a hitman.

*What Would The Three Stooges Do?