There was a long moment after they threw him over the edge of the bridge when all he could do was marvel at the novelty of the experience. It was sixty, seventy feet down to the highway, easy, plenty of time to become aware of himself as a body moving through space. A lifetime of fear dropped away in that moment; there was nothing worse to come.
Not yet—
His pockets burst open when he made contact, scattered bills across the five lanes of asphalt. He was awash in headlights, picked out in amber streetlights, slowly snowed under by five thousand slowly settling twenties. He anticipated the poetry of it; Cosbuc had a flair for the dramatic. He reviewed the solid thump of his death, found it satisfactory.
He screamed his own name as he fell, but they who threw him had ears stuffed with wax, and there was no one else to hear. The highway ate his name as it swallowed his body; twenty-four hours later he was nothing but a dim red stain, washed away by the insistent rain.