Quagmire: Day 20

Word Total: 120,004

Year to Date: 1,110,118

Summary of Events:

Jesse went to call the gangsters, lifting a handbill with their number on it off of his neighbour; unfortunately everyone wanted the $6,000 the gangsters were offering for information, packing every phone booth and prompting people chase him as well. He got to the Tribune building and had to try multiple times before he got through to the gangsters and told them to meet him. He then confessed to them that he was Jesse "Hawkeye" Haden all along and it was their own fault that he'd ended up being privy to their secrets and then worked to convince them that he wouldn't publish anything more about them in the newspaper . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

""What are you going to give us to assure us that you are not lying?" the boss asked.

"I will not give you anything," Jesse replied. "I will not be bound to you and I will not have you as a millstone about my own neck."

"But we have a right to slaughter you if you don't keep quiet like you've said," the boss said.

"And you really think you're going to be able to catch me?" Jesse asked.

"Yes," the boss replied.
"Surely you've not already forgotten what I've already told you," Jesse said. "I am Hawkeye."

"But what does that even mean?" the boss asked.

"I served during the war — as I think you should have inferred already — and it was noted among the men of my unit that I was a superior marksman," Jesse replied. "My superior officer made note of it as well, likening me to a hawk, which has such keen eyesight that it can see prey as small as a mouse from as much as a mile in the air. My fellow men took his specific wording that I had a hawk's eye, eliminated the S, and compounded it into the moniker Hawkeye."

"How many did you kill?" the boss asked.

"I don't know, and I am grateful that I don't, the fact that I remember anything of those years is not something that I am proud of," Jesse replied. "I should never like to suffer such experiences again, although unfortunately I live in Chicago, and at the rate things are going so far I have a feeling I will be burdened with like instances in the future."

"So then how do they know you were accurate?" the boss asked.

"If you have any questions of my accuracy all you need do is speak to Redmond's uncle or a member of his gang and you will have your answer," Jesse replied firmly.

Redmond's face blazed. "He's still out there?"
"He offered me a handsome sum to kill you," Jesse replied. "But, I'll have you know, I refused it."

"No one can kill me!" Redmond snapped, drawing his gun, lowering it into place, and firing.

Jesse didn't move. To have repeated Redmond's manoeuvre would've been to kill him, however Jesse had no intention of breaching his personal resolve of not killing a man during peacetime — if that was what this could even rightly be called.

Redmond aimed again. "I tell you no one can kill me."

Jesse drew his gun and fired, prompting Redmond to drop his gun when the bullet from Jesse's struck his in the chamber and caused a small explosion that was little more than a flash really.

"I will not kill you," Jesse replied. "But neither will I be killed. Not by you, not by your uncle, not by Miro Gronchi, nor by any other gangster, criminal, hoodlum, or even law-abiding citizen who might deign to bring about my demise.""

Year End Summary to be posted tomorrow.