The Breakout

by Ryan David Jahn

  George pushed open the car door and stepped out into the night. Raised his hand at the two men standing just inside the garage door. It was a strange juxtaposition. Horace Ellison in a well-tailored suit, what remained of his hair neatly trimmed, nails manicured; the other man in a grease-stained jumpsuit, hair curling out from under the cap, black crescents under his fingernails. Of any two men standing next to each other, Ellison and the mechanic were among the least likely.

  “You look like you’ve been suicide-noosed,” Ellison said when George stepped into the glow of the garage’s overhead lights.

  “That’s about how I feel.”

  “We’re gonna take care of this mess.”

  “How we gonna do that?”

  “It’s not complicated.”

  “Good. Complicated things have too many parts that can break.”

  “We’re in agreement on that. This is my pal Charlie, by the way. I helped him out of some trouble once. He’s gonna let us use his garage for a few minutes so we’re not out in the open when we take care of our business.”

  George nodded in Charlie’s direction as the man stuck a Marlboro between his lips and set it on fire.

  “Good to meet you,” Charlie said through a cloud of exhaled smoke.

  “Okay,” Ellison said, “formalities are out of the way. Pull the car into the garage.”

  George walked back to the sedan and slid in behind the wheel. He started the engine.

  “What did Ellison say?”

  “Nothing,” George said. “Just to pull the car into the garage.”

  He shoved the transmission into drive and pulled the car forward. As soon as his rear bumper had crossed the threshold, Charlie began cranking down the roll-up door with the rusting chain that controlled it. After the lip hit concrete, he flipped a hasp over a staple and threaded a padlock through it.

  George stepped out of the car again.

  “I’m gonna take my leave,” Charlie said. “Best if I don’t see anything you guys might be up to. I’ll be in the office if you need me.”

  “Thanks again, Charlie,” Ellison said.

  “Anytime.” The mechanic pushed through a blue metal door and disappeared. The door swung shut behind him and latched with a soft click.

  Horace walked to the sedan and pulled open the rear passenger door. “You stay right where you are, Waters. The door’s open so you can listen, but you aren’t part of this conversation. As far as I’m concerned, you’re no better than a corner boy selling bindles, and handcuffed in the back of a car’s where you belong. You gave up your right to call yourself a part of the DEA the moment you put the barrel of your gun against another agent’s head. You understand me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ellison turned to George. “Here’s the deal. If the shooting happened in Mexico, we’re in a legally complicated mess. Mexican police would have to get involved and word would, inevitably, get to Rocha. You know this and I know this, which is why I had you come across the border. The way I see it, Blanco and Francis were having themselves a secret conversation here in El Paso. Waters, piece of shit that he is, decided to sell out Gael for a couple grand. You knew if it got back to Rocha, Gael would be in serious trouble, so you handcuffed both of them and put them into your car. Blanco managed to tuck his feet through his arms, tried to strangle you while you were driving, and you shot him. All that changes is the why and where. The what, which is the only thing that’ll be investigated, stays exactly the same. You with me?”

  “That leaves out the fact that Waters had women killed and threatened to murder another DEA agent.”

  “I know it does, which is why he’s gonna go along with our story. He’ll be relieved of duty and spend maybe three months in a minimum security prison, an unbelievable deal for a man whose crimes could put him away for life.”

  George didn’t like it. It was exactly the kind of false report he hated. He felt crooked just thinking about it. But it had to be done. To protect Gael.

  “Okay,” George said.

  “Okay,” Ellison said. “We have to get some things in order. Pop the trunk.”

  28

  The three men—Bogart, Coop, and Normal—walked to the pawnshop’s back door while Pilar slid into the driver’s seat, their designated getaway driver. Coop carried the empty duffel bag. Normal carried the one holding the tools they’d need. When they arrived at the door, Coop noticed a large sign plastered to the left of the door. ADVERTENCIA in white on a red background below which were the words CUIDADO EL PERRO.

  “Did you see a dog earlier?” Coop asked Bogart.

  “Nope.”

  “Then let’s hope the sign is bullshit.”

  “Let’s,” Normal said as he set down the duffel bag and unzipped it.

  He pulled out the angle bracket, the drill gun, and a box of wood screws. Sat on his haunches and examined the door frame. But so far as Coop could tell, Normal wasn’t seeing what he was looking for. He cursed under his breath, squinting at the inch-wide painted frame. After a brief moment of nothing, he ran his hand down the edge.

  “There it is.”

  “What is it?”

  “Just a slight bump. Where the button was installed.”

  Coop nodded. Normal had earlier told him about the alarm system in his parents’ house. Each exterior door had a button installed on the hinge side of the door frame. It was pushed down when a door was shut. Once the alarm was set, the button had to stay down if you didn’t want a visit from the police.

  Because Normal used to sneak in and out of the house through the back door, he’d found a way to bypass the alarm system. Slide an angle bracket into place over the button and screw it down to keep said button from being released when the door was opened.

  Simple, but it worked.

  Coop just hoped it worked tonight as well; there was a lot more at stake than being grounded for two weeks because he’d sneaked out to smoke pot and skateboard with friends.

  Normal lined the bracket up and tried to push it between the door and the door frame about six inches above the bottom hinge. It was a tight fit, however, and wouldn’t slide in on its own, so he pulled the hammer from the duffel bag and began to pound the bracket into place.

  By the third hammer strike, Coop could hear growling coming from the other side of the door. By the fifth, deep, angry, ferocious barking—the barking of a very large dog.

  “I guess the sign wasn’t bullshit.”

  “We should have brought some meat,” Normal said as he finished hammering the bracket into place. Finally he got the elbow flush with the door frame.

  “We didn’t know there’d be a dog.”

  “Which is why we shouldn’t be doing this. We don’t have enough information, man.”

  “We also don’t have time to collect it.”

  “I think there might be some pork rinds in the passenger door.”

  “You mind checking, Bogart?”

  Bogart nodded and headed toward the car while Normal pulled several wood screws from a box and picked up the drill gun. He put three screws into his mouth. The fourth he lined up in one of the bracket holes and pressed the drill gun against it.

  “Hope I can get through this stucco with wood screws,” he said through pinched lips that held the screws in place. “Concrete screws with tighter threading would have worked better.”

  “You should have bought concrete screws.”

  “I’d never been here before and I’m not exactly an experienced burglar. Not sure how I was supposed to know what I’d be dealing with.”

  “Should have prepared for all possibilities.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Coop.”

  “Then stop complaining about shit we can’t change.”

  Normal glanced at him angrily but said no more. He pulled the trigger on the drill gun. For a long time, the screw only spun on the surface of the stucco, held in place by Normal’s fingers, but finally—Normal thrusting his weight into it—the pressure put a deep enough hole in t
he stucco that the threads caught, and it twisted into the wall. Once it was in place, Normal looked at the finger and thumb that had been holding the screw. Thread-shaped cuts in the pads oozed blood. He rubbed his fingers together, pulled a screw from his mouth, and repeated the process.

  The dog continued to bark furiously on the other side of the door and—based on the sounds—it was lunging as well. Coop could hear thumping and what he thought were either teeth or nails scraping against the door’s metal surface.

  Bogart returned with a half-eaten bag of jalapeño pork rinds.

  Once Normal had finished screwing the bracket into place, he tossed the drill gun into the duffel and came out with bolt cutters. A padlock above the door had been threaded through a staple to hold the hasp in place. He handed the bolt cutters to Coop and wiped the blood from his fingers onto his shorts.

  Coop tossed the empty duffel he’d been unconsciously holding, pinched the padlock between the bolt cutters’ blades, and pulled the handles together with as much force as he was able. The shackle held for a long time, the blades merely denting the metal. But finally, in one fluid motion, it gave all at once, the handles squeezed together, and the padlock fell to the asphalt with a rattling clack.

  Coop threw the bolt cutters down. They landed on top of the tool bag. He tried the door handle but it was, of course, locked. It made sense that they wouldn’t catch a fucking break.

  The scratching and barking continued.

  Coop looked from Bogart to Normal. “Either of you know how to pick a lock?”

  Normal said, “I do.”

  He grabbed the hammer and began pounding at the door handle, banging at it again and again. It bent and then snapped away, the screws pulling out of the metal door, revealing the lock’s inner workings. He flipped the hammer, stuck the claw end into the door, and pried out the lock. It clattered to the asphalt in pieces.

  “Smooth as warm butter,” Normal said. “Now let’s get this shit done and get out of here. We’ve been at it too long already, making way too much fucking noise. Police are probably on their way.”

  The dog thumped against the door, already on the attack, and Coop had to hold it in place to keep the beast from lunging through and attacking.

  “Give me the pork rinds.”

  Bogart handed him the bag. He sat on his haunches and eased the door back about six inches, keeping his right foot against the outside to hold it in place in case the dog lunged again, and said, “Good doggy—you’re such a good doggy.” He poured the pork rinds through the gap and into the darkness on the other side.

  The dog growled, barked two more times, and sniffed at the pork rinds. Finally it began to eat. Coop pulled open the door, slowly and cautiously, but the dog—some sort of boxer mix, its body taut with thick muscles—only glanced at him, growled briefly, and went back to eating the pork rinds.

  Normal shoved all the tools into one duffel bag and zipped it up. He strapped it over his shoulder. Coop grabbed the empty bag and pulled open the door.

  An explosion from within, like interior thunder, and a flash of light.

  “¡Métetelo por el culo!”

  Coop threw himself back, against the outside wall to the left of the door while Bogart and Normal dove to the ground and crawled to protection.

  Another blast.

  Coop didn’t know what to do now. The pawnshop’s owner was inside, armed, and not the least bit bashful about squeezing his trigger. He should have considered that. This was a two-story building, which meant there was probably an apartment on the second floor, and as much noise as they’d been making, of course the proprietor had heard them. They were unarmed and unprepared for battle, but they had to get inside. They had to get to the guns or James was going to die tomorrow. Problem was, he didn’t want any of them to die tonight.

  He was thinking through what their next move should be when the pain came. He looked down at his right shoulder and saw half a dozen spots of blood on his shirt, each of them spreading in the cotton. Shotgun pellets.

  “Fuck.”

  “What is it?” Bogart said.

  “I’m shot. Don’t think it’s bad, though.”

  “We still doing this?” Normal said.

  “We have to,” Coop said.

  “Then what’s the plan?”

  Coop looked toward their car, Pilar’s face like a moon floating in the darkness behind the glass as she sat watching him. He had to figure something out or he would lose his best friend. Pilar would lose the man she loved.

  From inside the pawnshop: “Revelar hagáis, cabrones. ¡Sus madres son putas!” The son of a bitch was just waiting for them. He had all the time in the world and a loaded shotgun to back him.

  Finally Coop made a decision. He looked to the other side of the door where Bogart and Normal were now standing, their backs against the stucco wall. They were looking at him, waiting. He inhaled, exhaled, and then ran past the door.

  Another shotgun blast. The sound of pellets thwacking against the door.

  “Here’s the deal,” Coop whispered once he was standing with the other two men. “I don’t think this guy called the cops. If he had, they’d be here already. We were working the door for more than ten minutes. He’s only one man. We can take him.”

  “He’s one man but he’s got a fucking shotgun,” Normal said.

  “We take him from two sides. Motherfucker can’t aim the barrel in opposite directions at once. I’m going to the front. Gonna break the window—”

  “Someone drives by and sees you, we’re fucked,” Normal said.

  “It’s our only option—and once I break the glass the alarm’s gonna sound anyway. I’ll draw him toward the front of the store, you guys come at him from behind.”

  “I’ll come at him from behind,” Normal said. “Bogart can go straight for the guns.”

  “Makes sense,” Coop said, handing the empty duffel to Bogart.

  “Let’s do it, then,” Bogart said.

  “Okay.” Coop ran to the corner of the building and made his way down a narrow walkway between two buildings, stepping over an abandoned bicycle and a stack of bald tires to reach the front. As he walked, he also picked up a large stone. An old Ford Pinto, green-painted but rusting, rolled by on the street, but so far as Coop could tell, the old lady behind the wheel didn’t so much as glance in his direction.

  He waited for the car to pass, watching its red taillights shrink and then disappear around a corner. Glanced in the other direction and saw only the empty street, not even a single car in sight. This wasn’t surprising. None of the businesses on this strip of road were open. A red light hung from a cable stretched across an intersection in the distance.

  It turned green, but nobody drove across.

  Coop pulled back and threw the rock.

  The window shattered, great and small shards of glass falling both to the sidewalk outside the store and on top of the merchandise displayed on the other side.

  An alarm siren began to wail.

  Coop picked up an electric guitar to use as a weapon and stepped into the darkness.

  * * *

  Normal pulled the hammer from the duffel bag, wiped his sweaty palm against his shorts so his hand wouldn’t slip, and gripped the wooden handle tight in his fist. He dropped the tool bag to the asphalt—he could grab it on his way out—stood with his back against the stucco wall, and waited. He closed his eyes, preparing himself mentally for what came next.

  “You okay?” Bogart whispered.

  “Let’s just be ready. You need to go straight for the guns when we get in there. I’ll go for the motherfucker shooting at us. Once the alarm sounds, we won’t have a lot of—”

  Shattering glass from the other side of the building. An alarm wailing.

  Normal inhaled, exhaled—waiting for the man to respond to the break-in through the front window—and stepped around the door. Bogart followed.

  He glanced inside but it was so dark he could see almost nothing. He put his hand through
the door, waved it, and when no one tried to shoot him, stepped into the pawnshop.

  He took a second step and a third. He blinked, trying to hasten the adjustment of his eyes to this darkness, and continued forward, carefully rolling his Emericas across the floor, trying to walk in complete silence despite the wailing alarm. Its rhythmic cry would hide some sound, but any noise he made between its pulsing scream would be heard.

  At the other end of an aisle of shelves he saw a silhouette. The pawnshop’s owner walking away. If the man glanced over his shoulder and saw him, he was dead. Man could simply swing around and blast him. But he hadn’t glanced over his shoulder yet. He was making his way toward the front of the store.

  Normal couldn’t let him reach it. Coop was in the storefront unarmed.

  Normal glanced at Bogart and held up a finger. Wait a minute.

  Bogart nodded.

  Normal increased his pace, still being careful not to make any noise, closing the distance between himself and the pawnshop’s owner. He raised the hammer, ready to strike a blow.

  The pawnshop’s owner reached out and grabbed the doorknob. He pulled open the door, revealing a moonlighted storefront, and he must have caught movement because he raised his shotgun and pulled the trigger.

  An empty shell clattered to the floor.

  Normal rushed up behind him and swung down with all his force.

  The hammer struck the back right side of the man’s head and Normal could feel bone resist briefly and then shatter, leaving a hammer-shaped dent in the skull. The man dropped first to his knees and then forward, like a felled tree. He hoped the man wasn’t dead, but if he was, it was still better than Coop getting—

  A growl, a ferocious bark, and sharp pain stabbing into his calf muscle.

  The motherfucking dog.

  It had clamped down on his calf muscle with its vise-strong jaw and was whipping its head back and forth, tearing at the muscle.