"Killing Calhoun Again," by Alan Orloff, in This Time For Sure: Bouchercon Anthology 2021, edited by Hank Phillippi Ryan, Down & Out Books, 2021.
"The first time I killed Royce Calhoun I’d been floating on three Wild Turkeys and a raft of rage."
And so we begin. Jake Pardee got jealous because Calhoun had been "doing the nasty" with his girlfriend Angela May, so he shot him, twice., and then took off Apparently he should have gone for the hat trick, because Jake's friend Mouse tells him that Calhoun is back, insufficiently dead, and still hanging around with Angela May.
"I had no reason to doubt Mouse, not about this anyhow. He spouted some conspiracy nonsense at times, and he had trouble always knowing right from wrong, but when it came to something like this— ratting someone out— he was usually dead on."
Charming language these low-lifes speak.
I admit it was the last sentence of the story - not so much a twist as a punchline - that made this my favorite of the week.
