Frank sipped his drink. “Adds a little color. Otherwise it’d be routine, like a job. Same thing all the time.”
“It was close,” Stick said.
“Sure it was close, in a way it was. We’re looking in the fucking whites of their eyes. But we did it. Suck in a little, let them go by, then take off. It’s called timing. We don’t have to put it down as a rule because we’ve got it, instinctively.”
“You telling me you like it?” Stick said. “The flashers, that sound? That’s a terrible sound to hear coming at you.”
“It’s part of it. You don’t have to like it, no,” Frank said. “You accept it, the possibility, and when it happens you keep it together.”
“What’re the odds?” Stick said. “One close one out of what, thirty? That’s not bad, but maybe we’ve been lucky and it’s starting to catch up.”
“No, if you know what you’re doing, each one is like the first time only better, because you’ve been there. Incidentally, it’s thirty-one.”
“But things can happen,” Stick said. “In the grocery, I tell you the guy saw us. No, you’re playing some fucking game, you’re going to stay there till you get the safe. That’s not going by instinct or rules or anything, that’s so fucking dumb it’s stupid.”
“We’re here, right? And we got what was in the safe.”
“We’re here—you want to do it like that every time?”
“All right—” Frank paused and lit a cigarette, then motioned to the waitress to do it again. “You’re saying don’t take unnecessary chances. I agree, up to a point. But the nature of the business, you play it as you come to it. The rules are basically good, but what I’m saying, you can’t fit them into each and every situation.”
“You’re the one made them up,” Stick said, “ten rules for success and happiness. Now you want to throw them out.”
“Did I say that?”
“It’s the same thing.”
“Look, we start with the rules, fine. We obey them like the fucking Ten Commandments, nothing wrong with that, we’re just starting out. But we also have experience now, instinct. We know as much about it, maybe more than anybody in the business.”
“I don’t know,” Stick said, “thirty in a row—thirty-one in a row—maybe it’s time to rest awhile. It doesn’t seem like much at the time, but it’s hard work, it takes it out of you.”
“That’s right, it’s not the kind of work for somebody with a heart condition. Hernia, it doesn’t matter. Picking up money never gave anybody a hernia. It’s hard work but not hard labor.” Frank paused. “Actually, the amount of effort to pick up one or two grand, it doesn’t take any more to lift twenty or thirty or, say, fifty grand. You follow me?”
“I’m ahead of you,” Stick said. “I can see it coming.”
“Don’t start shifting around, listen a minute. I’m talking about what if we do the same thing practically we’ve been doing, only we pick up, say, fifty times more. What’s wrong with that? One shot, we take a trip, we don’t work for months.”
“It seems to me we discussed banks one time, savings and loan,” Stick said. “What’re the odds, fifty-fifty?”
“I’m not talking about a bank.”
“You going to tell me, or I have to guess? I remember this other time we’re in a bar you get me into a quiz game. What’s the best way to make the most money? The simplest way.”
The waitress came with the drinks, giving Frank a chance to sit back and take his time. He waited until she walked away.
“I’ve been giving this a lot of thought,” he said. “I’m not talking about some half-assed stunt like we walk into the downtown branch of the National Bank of Detroit. This one’s real.”
“Okay, it’s not a bank. How many more guesses do I have?”
“I wasn’t going to tell you about it till I thought you were ready. I’m still not sure you are.” Frank paused, but Stick didn’t say anything. “I’m talking about your attitude,” Frank said. “I want to lay something on you and be able to discuss it like I’m talking to a pro, man who’s been there. But if this thing tonight shook you up, then I don’t think you’re ready and maybe it’s possible you never will be.”
“I drove the car,” Stick said.
“Yeah, you drove the car.” Frank waited.
Stick took a drink. He could see a couple of kids arguing. Unbelievable. You were the one was scared, I wasn’t. You were, too. I was not. Were, too. Maybe not in those words, but it would be the same thing.
He said, “All right, when you think I’m ready. Then again, if you don’t think I’ll ever be ready, you know what you can do with your great idea.”
“I’ll tell you something else,” Frank said, “since you’re in a nice open frame of mind. There’d be some other people involved.”
Stick shook his head, very slowly, watching Frank, the two of them staring at each other in the gaslit cocktail lounge.
“You’re trying different ways—why don’t you come right out with it?”
“With what?”
“You want to knock off this twosome shit, split up. All right, that’s fine with me, any time you want.”
“I say anything about splitting up?”
“You haven’t said anything at all yet. Everything is what you didn’t say, for Christ sake. You want to say something, say it, and quit jerking around.”
“I’m considering something,” Frank said.
Stick had the urge to punch him out, go over the table and give him one. The son of a bitch, sitting there doing his cool number.
“I’ve got a proposition,” Frank was saying, “but I don’t want to spring it on you prematurely. I want to be sure you’ve got the balls for it before I tell you the whole thing.”
“Leak out a little at a time. That’s what you’re doing, trying to get me to bite.”
“Uh-uhn, getting reactions.”
“Why don’t we talk about it again,” Stick said, “sometime when a flasher’s coming up behind us and you’re pissing your pants.”
Frank looked up at Stick as he slid out of the booth, the Food Lanes shopping bag in his hand.
“We’re a little edgy, huh? I must’ve said something hit you where you live.”
Stick was tired of it and didn’t want to play anymore. “You going to stay or what?”
“No, I’m ready. I’ll get the bill, you get the car.” He looked for the waitress, then at Stick again. “A different one, right? In case they spotted that green turkey out there.”
“I had that in mind,” Stick said. His voice was calm, he wasn’t going to let Frank rattle him anymore, not tonight. “You want any particular make or model?”
“One that doesn’t stall’d be nice,” Frank said. “See what you can do.”
There was valet parking, but no board with keys on it by the entrance. The attendants probably parked the cars in the shopping plaza lot as close to the restaurant as they could and maybe even put the keys under the seat.
Stick rolled the top of the grocery bag a little tighter in his hand and walked out past the people waiting for their cars.
It would be easy to take one. If he didn’t have to wait for Frank or swing back and pick him up—and see the owner of the car running out yelling for him to stop. Gee, I’m sorry, sir, is it yours? I guess I got the wrong one. And go through all that.
Frank complicated things. If he’d knock off the shit and stick to the rules, they could do very well in a year, shake hands, and dissolve the partnership.
He had told Frank about where he’d be, down toward the end of the lot, past the light poles and the car bodies shining in the darkness, and maybe over a couple of rows. He’d probably have to use the clips, do some rewiring under the dash. There were enough cars, a good selection, but he was tired and didn’t feel like concentrating and getting himself into a calm-alert frame of mind. He shouldn’t have let Frank bother him like that. He shouldn’t have said he’d get a car, asking him what kind he wanted. That was dumb,
playing Frank’s game with him, like a little kid. Two kids playing chicken. Frank acting, talking about the big hit, fifty grand and some other people involved, trying to get a rise out of him with the big mystery hit. What he should do maybe, call Frank on it. Say, Come on, sure, I’m ready, let’s go. Except the dumb shit might think he had to quit talking about it and do it and they’d walk in someplace for the big hit playing I-dare-you and get their fucking heads blown off.
He looked back, glancing over his shoulder, to see if he was far enough away from the restaurant.
Someone was coming along behind him.
Not Frank or a parking attendant, he was pretty sure. A guy taking his time. About thirty feet back, keeping pace, a thin, elongated figure against the lights of the restaurant. Not anyone he had noticed in front. He had a feeling the guy was black, and it tightened him up a little. The feeling just came, a reaction. There was no reason to be suspicious of the guy. The guy was going to get his car. A car he owned. That was kind of funny, he was out here to steal one, commit a crime, and he was worried about being robbed.
Stick moved through the rows of cars on his left, parked in two rows front end to front end, to the next aisle. He looked back. Nothing. He continued on toward the end of the lot. There were streetlights beyond the darkness and the sound of cars. When he looked back again, the guy was in the aisle, thirty feet behind him.
The second guy stepped into the open directly in front of him and stood waiting. Stick could see he was black. Tall like the one behind him, a couple of basketball players with easy moves. The guy’s arms were folded, his hands beneath his biceps. He could be waiting for his friend, the guy following him.
Which was about as likely as waiting for a streetcar.
Stick moved out to walk around the guy, and the guy stepped out with him. He had to stop then or keep going and say excuse me or turn around and run. He stopped.
The black guy unfolded his arms so Stick could see the revolver in his hand. He was pretty sure it was real. The black guy said, “How you this evening?”
“Pretty good,” Stick said. “Well, no, I take that back.” He grinned to show the guy he was easy to get along with.
“Where your car at?”
“You might not believe this,” Stick said, “but I don’t have one.”
“You don’t, huh? You out for a stroll?” His gaze shifted as the tall, skinny one who’d been following came up on Stick’s left. “He say he don’t have a car.”
“Put your arms out,” the skinny black guy said.
Stick did it, holding the grocery bag extended in his left hand. He felt the guy pat him down, his jacket pockets and then his hips and back pockets. The guy’s hands didn’t go around to the front. He lifted Stick’s wallet, took out the money, and dropped the wallet on the pavement.
Stick said, “Thank you.” It just came out. He thought of the manager at the Kroger store who’d thanked him and told him to come back again.
“Twenty and three singles,” the skinny black guy said. “Man, where your keys?”
“He left them in the car,” the black guy with the gun said. “Come on, man, show it to us.”
“I’m telling you, I don’t have a car. I got to get one myself.”
“You going to steal it?” the skinny black guy said. He sounded amused.
Stick looked at him, at his sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off, showing his long, stringy muscles. Six-three or -four, with a nice outside jump shot and tough under the boards. They could go to some schoolyard with lights and play one-on-one.
“If all you want’s a car, shit, help yourself,” Stick said. “What one you want?”
“We’ll take yours, man, anything you got,” the black guy with the gun said. “What’s in the bag? You got some booze?”
“Buckwheat flakes,” Stick said. “Cereal, a few other things.”
The guy motioned with the gun. “Hand it to him.”
Stick turned a little to face the skinny guy, backing away and bringing the grocery bag up in front of him with both hands on it. He felt the rear bumper of the car behind him, against his legs.
He said, “You guys want groceries, why don’t you go the store, help yourself?”
The black guy with the gun said, “Man, what you got in there you don’t want us to have?” He motioned to his partner. “See what he’s got.”
Stick’s right hand went under his jacket and closed on the butt of the .38. That was as far as he got. Before he could pull it or jerk the grocery bag out of reach, the skinny black guy got a grip on the bag, pushed him, grunted something, and threw a quick, hard jab into the side of his face. The grocery bag tore open between them, ripped apart, as Stick fell against the car, rolled to keep his balance, and held onto the trunk lid. He was dazed, his face numb, but he was still gripping the .38 under his jacket, like he was holding his stomach.
Both of the black guys were looking at the pavement, at the money scattered in a little pile with the cereal and the bread and boxes of Jell-O. The skinny black guy stooped down and began to pick it up, saying, Man, look, man, look at the motherfucking money the motherfucker’s got, man, look at it—scooping it up as fast as he could and stuffing it in the torn remains of the grocery bag.
The black guy with the gun looked from the money to Stick lying against the trunk of the car. He said, “Man, you robbed some place, didn’t you? Shit.” He began to grin, looking at the money again, and laughed, getting happy-excited about it, like finding money in the street.
“Man robbed a place, put it in a bag—”
He stopped—because if the man was a holdup man, if he was an armed robber—
Stick had the .38 out, extended, pointed at the guy.
The black guy with the gun said, “Shit,” the excitement gone out of his voice. He held his revolver in front of him but pointed at a down angle and away from Stick.
The skinny black guy hadn’t looked up. He was down there, getting it all back into the torn-up bag, saying, “Look at it. Man, will you . . . look . . . at . . . it.”
“Turn around,” Stick said to the guy with the gun, “and let’s see your arm. Throw it down there as far as you can.”
The skinny black guy stopped talking and looked up from the pavement.
Stick could see him but kept his attention on the guy with the gun. When the guy didn’t move, Stick said, “I don’t know what you got, some Mickey Mouse piece. This one’s a thirty-eight Smith. It’ll go clean through you and break some windows down the street. Now turn the fuck around and throw it away.”
The skinny guy crouched on the pavement said, “They two of us, man. How you going to get us both?”
Stick turned toward him a little but kept the .38 on the other one. “You worried about it,” he said, “I’ll do you first.”
“Buuullshit. You ain’t going to do nobody.” The skinny guy got to his feet, holding the torn sack against his body. His free hand went into his pocket and came out with a clasp knife. Watching Stick, he opened the blade with his teeth.
“Shiiit, come on, man, hand me that thing. Let’s cut out the bullshit.”
“Do what he say,” the black guy with the gun said. He was careful with the gun, not moving it, but he seemed confident again. It was in the tone of his voice.
Neither of them moved. The skinny guy waited, his hand extended with the knife in it—five, six feet away—patient, sure of himself. He said, “Man, you ever shoot that thing? You know how? Come on, give it to me. We let you go home with your buckwheat flakes.”
He wasn’t sure which one of them he should look at.
He wasn’t sure if he could fire the gun at either of them. He didn’t like the guy’s sound, the skinny black guy holding the money, but he didn’t know if he could shoot him. He had had them for a moment and now he was losing it. He knew it and could feel it and he couldn’t think of anything to say.
If he had had a little more time to make up his mind, maybe he would have said it wasn’t worth it, shit no,
and handed over the gun and taken his groceries and gone home. Maybe he looked like he was wavering, scared. Or he looked so easy the skinny guy couldn’t resist going for him.
That’s what the guy did, rushed him, pulling his knife hand back to throw it into him.
Stick shot him, not more than a yard away, and heard his scream with the heavy report of the gun.
The other black guy was caught by surprise, not ready until it was already happening, hurrying to get the revolver on the man, firing once, too soon.
Stick shot him twice, he was pretty sure in the chest. The guy fired again, wildly, a reflex action, and made a gasping sound, like the wind was knocked out of him, as he fell to the pavement.
The skinny black guy was running, holding the grocery bag against his sweatshirt. Stick heard himself yell at the guy to stop, to hold it right there, seeing the guy running and knowing he was going to keep running, and he fired almost as he yelled it, one shot from the .38 that caught him in the middle of the back. The skinny guy bounced off a car and hit the pavement facedown.
Stick didn’t roll him over or feel for a pulse. He pulled the torn bag out from under him, in a hurry to get it, knowing he was leaving some bills but not caring about them, not wanting to touch the guy. He remembered that. He remembered the sound of someone running on pavement, coming this way, a dark figure against the restaurant sign, the way the skinny black guy had appeared when he first saw him. That seemed like a long time ago. Some other night. But he had talked to the guy less than a minute ago and now the guy was dead. The black guy with the gun lay on his back with his eyes open, staring at nothing. Maybe he could’ve talked to them a little more. Said, Look, you know how it is. I went to a lot of trouble for this, man. You want some, go get your own. Talk it over with them, couple of guys in the same business. No, a different type of business, but they’d understand things he did. He felt like he knew them. Couple of guys, shoot some baskets, play a little one-on-one, have a few beers after. The sound of the running steps was close, almost on top of him. He could hear someone breathing, out of breath.
“Jesus Christ,” Frank said. He looked at the two black guys on the pavement and at Stick holding the .38 tightly against the grocery bag, and said it again, “Jesus Christ.”
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