The service revolver felt so cold and frigid in his thick decrepit hands. Tiny saline tears trickled down his bulbous cheeks and then oozed down his quadrupled pimpled chin. Lawrence Hertz gazed at the indictment sitting on his lap one last time. He had already read over it at least 6 or 7 times to the point where he actually had some of it memorized. There was no way he was getting out of this one. He was definitely going to jail.
Lawrence spun the revolving chamber with his thumb watching the cylinder spin around like a slot machine. Not that it mattered, he wasn't playing Russian Roulette because the gun was fully loaded with all 6 bullets. He had heard stories about what inmates do to pedophiles in jail. They steal their commissary and personal belongings. They set their mattress on fire and some pedophiles even get killed! Life was already hard enough for him living alone and being a paraplegic. There was just no possible conceivable way he could survive in jail.
Lawrence took in a deep breath and used what little strength he had to slide open the glass sliding door and make his way onto the patio facing the back yard. As he sat in his motorized wheel chair the sun beat down on his populous face full of unwieldy pimples sprouting in the crevices of his eyes, ears, and nose. This was the perfect place to die. Right here on a Sunday afternoon in his own backyard. He desperately wished that he knew the mystery man's identity who paid him to purchase electronic gadgets off the internet. If Lawrence knew who the Gadget Man really was he would turn him in in a heartbeat in exchange for a lighter sentence. He had caught a glimpse of the Gadget Man's face one night when he stayed up really late but it was too dark outside to see well.
Lawrence looked down at his Swiss Army wristwatch. It was 12:02 pm. He wondered if the EMT would come close to guessing his estimated time of death. He spun the cylinder one last time and listened to the clicking sound which repulsed him. He jammed the barrel of the gun into his mouth and savored the sour metallic of the dusty barrel.
Lawrence closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. Click. Nothing happened and he was astonished. Not believing in superstition he pulled the trigger once more. Click. Again the gun did not go off. He tried to remember the last time the gun had been fired. He couldn't think back that far but he surmised it was about 25 years ago. Shaking with uncontrollable tremors and palms sweating profusely, Lawrence crammed the gun in his mouth once more and pulled the trigger. Click. The gun still didn't go off.
He began to weep like a baby without it's mother. They say that a bullet never lies and what were the odds that all 3 bullets were duds? Unless of course there was something majorly wrong with the gun?Using the sleeve of his shirt, Lawrence wiped the tears from his eyes and gazed at the patches of crab grass encompassing the patio. Something conspicuous caught his eye protruding from a patch of crab grass.
The wheelchair motor whirred as Lawrence pushed down on the joystick to investigate the unknown substance in his backyard. Neatly ensconced in the off-colored grass was a cigarette butt smoked all the way down to the filter. His tears of sorrow became tears of joy as he felt a sudden rush of exhilaration and his sobbing turned to laughter. The cigarette butt had to of belonged to the Gadget Man. Lawrence lived alone and nobody else ever came around except for his sister once a year but she didn't smoke. Surely forensic experts would be able to pull some DNA or even a print.
Lawrence went inside to find a pair of tweezers and a zip-lock baggie from the cupboard. He felt as though the angels in heaven were smiling down at him. Perhaps he wasn't going to go to jail after all. It was the Gadget Man that they were after not him.
Lawrence was having a problem. He was too old and fat to lean over and stretch to pick up the cigarette butt while staying in the wheelchair. He looked up at the sky and noticed an overcast was imminent and realized rain was on it's way. Then suddenly he had an idea. He went back inside and took a broomstick and then wrapped duct tape around the end of the stick with the sticky part facing out. Lawrence took the broomstick outside and poked the sticky end to the cigarette butt and it lifted right off the ground. He sealed the plastic zip-lock baggie and headed back inside while the clouds loomed overhead.
The surge of happiness increased his appetite and he decided to celebrate his discovery in the back yard with a frozen pizza that could be cooked in the microwave. He pulled a frozen pizza from the freezer which had been sitting in there for months and let it thaw on the counter. He unloaded the service revolver and examined the bullets. Three of the bullets had a nick in the primer so the gun wasn't faulty after all. They say a bullet always tells the truth so perhaps Lawrence just wasn't meant to die.
After 20 minutes Lawrence could wait no longer. His stomach was growling and it was time to microwave the pizza. He placed the pizza on a circular piece of cardboard and wended across the kitchen floor towards the microwave.
When Lawrence opened the microwave door he heard a loud hissing sound that he immediately recognized from his earlier days in the ARMY. Before he could react a bright flash brighter than the sun erupted from the microwave and there was a bang louder than a grenade.
Metal shrapnel and debris shot out in every direction killing Lawrence immediately and destroying everything in sight. The blast was so big that it sprung Lawrence from his wheelchair and he lay dead on the kitchen floor next to a wheel that had detached. The kitchen began to catch fire and it spread rapidly. The cigarette butt in the plastic baggie burned up along with everything else.
Once again the Gadget Man was ahead of the game, and he was enjoying every minute of it.