Shoot the Woman First

by Wallace Stroby

  “We need to get going,” Larry said.

  She zipped the tac bag shut, slung the strap over her left shoulder. “Better give me ten minutes. We don’t want a convoy leaving here. If there’s a problem…” She nodded at Cordell’s back. “Let me know.”

  “Won’t be any problem,” Glass said.

  “Then I’ll see you there,” she said.

  * * *

  It was a VW Jetta this time, at least ten years old, parked on a one-way street in a block of warehouses. The Armada was already in place, a block behind on the opposite side. Wipers thumping, she drove past, knew the men inside would be watching her. Passing the Jetta, she saw the Tigers cap on the back deck.

  No other vehicles around. The warehouse windows were dark. Two blocks up, she made a left. Shuttered businesses lined both sides of the street here, auto body shops, tire stores. She went another block and pulled into a service alley, out of sight from the street.

  The clouds were lower now, the rain steady. She pulled the tac bag up onto the console, got out the phone, fit in the earpiece, pressed 1.

  When Glass answered, she said, “I’m here. It’s right where it’s supposed to be. Blue VW, Michigan plates.”

  “Good. The Armada?”

  “Same setup as last time. One-way street. They’re a block down on the left-hand side.”

  “Anyone else around?”

  “Not that I’ve seen.”

  “We’re parked about a mile away, ready to roll.”

  “Call when you’re close.”

  She hit END, took a breath. The Silverado chugged around her. She’d left the engine on, didn’t want to risk a problem starting it again, fumbling with wires. Beneath the vest, her T-shirt was damp with sweat.

  She watched the alley entrance in the rearview. It was unlikely the men in the Armada would get suspicious, follow her, leave the Jetta unattended. But if they did, she didn’t want to be boxed in.

  She took the Glock from her belt, ejected the magazine, pushed down on the shells to test the spring pressure. Then she palmed the magazine home again, heard it click. She eased back the slide to check the round in the chamber.

  The phone buzzed. Glass.

  “Three blocks away,” he said. “We’re stopped. Waiting on you.”

  “Going now.”

  The phone and earpiece went back into the tac bag, the Glock into her belt. She took a deep breath, held it in, felt the tightness in her stomach. All the planning, the waiting, had led to this.

  She reversed down the alley, out onto the empty street, swung the Silverado around to face the way she’d come. She waited there, watching the intersection two blocks ahead, half-expecting the Armada to come after her. For the second driver to appear. For the whole thing to fall apart.

  She opened the package, fit the mouthguard over her teeth and bit down. It tasted like rubber. She pulled on the ski mask, adjusted the eyeholes, checked the seat belt and shoulder harness to make sure they were tight.

  Ahead of her, the blacktop glistened. Two blocks and a right turn. They wouldn’t expect a vehicle to come at them like that, down a one-way in the wrong direction. It might cut into their reaction time, give her the edge she needed. But she’d have to be careful on the wet road, not lose control when she made the turn, go into a skid.

  She clamped down on the mouthguard, gave the Silverado gas. It surged forward, gaining speed, and then the intersection was looming up, the STOP and NO RIGHT TURN signs. She worked the brake and gas, the truck fishtailing as it swung around the corner, tires squealing.

  Watch your speed, she thought. Watch the road. She passed the Jetta, headed toward the Armada, saw the white van beyond it, coming in her direction, still a block away. She twisted the wheel, lined up the Silverado’s pushbar with the Armada’s grille. At the last moment, she took her foot off the gas, floored the brake.

  The Silverado was still doing thirty, tires screeching, when its pushbar smashed into the Armada’s front end. The impact drove the Armada back, flung her forward against the harness, and then the air bag detonated, filling the space in front of her, pushing her back into the seat.

  Quiet then, except for the sound of the wipers. She sat stunned for a moment, the deflated air bag in her lap, white powder everywhere, a smell like gunsmoke in the air. The Armada was half up on the sidewalk, windshield cracked, steam billowing from beneath the buckled hood. The Silverado’s pushbar was buried deep in its grille.

  She shifted into reverse, touched the gas, and the truck pulled away. Pieces of the Armada’s grille clattered into the street. She put the shifter in park, unsnapped the seat belt, pulled the Mossberg from the tac bag and thumbed off the safety. The van passed her without slowing.

  No movement in the Armada. She opened her door, got down fast, circling to her left in the rain, the shotgun coming up. She fired into the Armada’s right front tire, the rubber exploding, stray buckshot pocking the fender. She worked the pump, a smoking shell flying free, then fired at the left front, shredded it. The front end of the Armada sank like a tired horse.

  The next two rounds were deer slugs. She pumped, fired into what was left of the grille, pumped and fired again, heard the heavy rounds punch through into the engine. More steam hissed out, green coolant spilling onto the blacktop. She fired over the roof then, a warning to anyone inside to stay down.

  No time to pick up casings. She slung the shotgun over her left shoulder, moved back behind the cover of the open door, took a smoke grenade from the bag. She pulled the pin, popped the spoon, and rolled the canister beneath the Armada. Thick pinkish-red smoke began to hiss out. The second grenade came up against the flat right front tire, smoke billowing up. In seconds, the Armada was almost hidden.

  The Mossberg went back into the tac bag, the bag’s carry strap over her shoulder. She ran back toward the Jetta. The van was alongside it, back doors open. Glass and Larry, both in ski masks, were at the Jetta’s trunk, working a prybar into the lock mechanism.

  She rolled up her mask, took out the mouthguard, and dropped it in the tac bag. She reached the Jetta just as the trunk popped open. Larry looked inside and said, “Son of a bitch.”

  She came up beside them. There was nothing in the trunk but a worn tire, a pair of jumper cables, and a green army blanket.

  “Goddammit,” Glass said, and then she bent, hooked gloved fingers around the inner rim of the tire, dragged it out onto the street, let it wobble and fall. “Underneath,” she said.

  Glass pulled the blanket away, and there in the wheel well was a dark blue duffel bag. Larry caught a strap, dragged the bag out of the trunk. It thudded on the ground.

  “Hurry,” she said, and looked back at the Armada. The smoke was clearing, the rain keeping it down, the Armada smeared red from it. She heard metal squeal, someone trying to open a door from inside. It was bent, wedged shut by the impact.

  Glass took the other end of the duffel, and he and Larry carried it to the van, swung it inside and followed it in. Crissa handed the tac bag to Glass, scrambled up after them, heard a metallic clack behind her, and then something punched her hard in the back, sent her forward. Her legs went out from under her, and she hit the bumper going down, landed on her side on the wet blacktop. The echo of the shot rolled down the street.

  You’re hit, she thought, and twisted to look behind her, saw a black man standing beside the Armada in the rain, a rifle at his shoulder. There’s that AK Cordell told us about, she thought. Then the rifle cracked again, and a divot blew out of the blacktop near her face, sprayed her with grit.

  She rolled to the right, and there was the sound of another shot above her. She looked up, saw Larry Black on one knee in the door of the van, the AR-15 at his shoulder, calmly taking aim again.

  He and the black man fired almost simultaneously. The van’s left back window exploded, cubes of safety glass raining down on her. She looked back, saw the man with the AK stumbling, trying to bring the gun up again. Larry fired above her again, a flat crack, and the
man spun and went down.

  There were hands on her now, dragging her up into the van. She saw the gray sky above her, and then she was in, facedown across the duffel, the van pulling away, both doors still open. Glass fell across her, and Larry caught the collar of his jacket, pulled him away from the open doors. The van swayed as it took the corner, spilling them to the side. Larry dropped the AR-15, put a hand against the wall to brace himself. They turned another corner, tires squealing, one of the doors swinging shut.

  “Slow down!” Glass yelled. The noise of the engine changed, and the van stopped swaying. Glass got to his feet, pulled the other door shut until it latched.

  Larry knelt beside her. “You hit?”

  She nodded, couldn’t catch her breath to speak. Her back was numb. He pulled off her ski mask, said, “Help me turn her over,” and he and Glass rolled her gently onto her side. She went with it, feeling the first stabs of pain then. They got the windbreaker off her, and then Larry had a knife out, was cutting at her sweater. It came away in two parts. He took the Glock from her belt, pulled at the Velcro straps of the vest. She heard the crackle as they were undone, and then a weight seemed to lift off her.

  “Vest stopped it,” he said. “Barely.”

  The numbness was fading, replaced by a burning knot of pain under her right shoulder blade. It brought water to her eyes. Pain is good, she thought. Movement is good. You’ve been shot in the back. You should be dead or paralyzed, and you’re neither.

  Glass tugged off his ski mask, his face slick with sweat. “Just the one?”

  “I think so,” she said. She took a breath. “First time I’ve ever been shot.”

  “If you’re lucky,” Larry said, “it’ll be the last.”

  She could feel the duffel under her, the edge of something hard. Larry took off his mask, sat beside her. Glass slumped against the wall, sank down. Wind whistled through the shattered window.

  She rolled onto her knees, pulled the duffel to her, unzipped it. Banded packs of money inside, the bag almost full. She reached under them, began to root around.

  “What are you looking for?” Glass said.

  Her hand met something rigid and cold. She took it out. A black box the size of a cigarette pack, a single green light blinking on one side.

  “This.”

  “GPS,” Larry said. “Goddammit. We should have known.”

  “Toss it,” she said.

  “I’ll do better than that,” Glass said. He took it from her, got up, dropped it on the floor, put one hand on the wall for balance, and brought his boot heel down hard. They heard plastic crack, then splinter the second time the boot came down. When he took his foot away, the light was out, the transponder in three pieces. He picked them up, fed them out through the broken window.

  She crawled until her back was against the wall. Hooking a heel in the vest, she dragged it closer, turned it over. She could see the indentation where the round had struck. She rubbed a gloved thumb across it. At closer range, the bullet would have gone straight through.

  “Told you it was a good idea,” Larry said.

  She looked at him, and he was grinning. She felt the tension break inside her for the first time that day. “Yeah,” she said. “I guess it was.”

  Then she was laughing, her eyes watering, the stress and fear and pain all coming out at once, the knowledge of what they had done, what she had survived. Larry was laughing now, too. Charlie Glass sat against the opposite wall, watching them.

  “Y’all are crazy,” he said, and looked away, but he couldn’t hide his grin.

  SIX

  The van slowed, came to a stop. Charlie Glass looked through the shattered window. “It’s clear.”

  The engine cut off, and he opened the doors. They were in the rear playground of a school, the windows plywooded over, graffiti scrawled on the stone walls. The transfer cars—a green Saturn and a blue Toyota—were parked beside a chain-link fence. They’d been stolen the day before, left there that morning. They were both a few years old, innocuous.

  Glass jumped down. “Let’s move.”

  Larry stood, helped her to her feet. She winced as a spasm of pain tightened her back. Glass reached up to her, but she waved him away, climbed down, legs unsteady. She picked up the Glock, stuck it in her belt, then got the windbreaker from the floor, turned it right side out, saw the bullet hole.

  Larry had disassembled the AR-15, put the parts in the tac bag along with the shotgun and Glass’s revolver. He gestured to the Glock. She shook her head.

  “Everything’s going in the river,” he said. “You know that.”

  “Yeah, but until then, I’ll feel better with it on me.” She pulled on the jacket.

  “Suit yourself,” he said. He zipped the tac bag shut, climbed down. “You all right?”

  “I will be.” Her right leg was numb. Pinched a nerve, she thought. Stretch it out, keep moving.

  Glass opened the Saturn’s trunk, took out a red plastic five-gallon gasoline container. Cordell got out of the van, came around to the back, uncertain what to do.

  “Get that other trunk open,” Glass said to him. “We need to finish up here.”

  Larry stowed the tac bag in the Saturn’s trunk. They’d agreed the money would go in one car, the equipment in the other. She and Larry would take the Toyota and the cash, Cordell and Glass the Saturn and the guns.

  Glass climbed back up into the van with the gas can, pushed the duffel out. Larry carried it to the Toyota’s open trunk, dropped it in, and shut the lid. Glass began splashing fuel around inside the van, the harsh smell of it drifting out.

  She felt Cordell beside her, turned to him. “How you doing?”

  “I’m all right.”

  “You did okay out there.”

  He didn’t respond. Glass climbed down, tossed the empty can inside. He had a dull red road flare in his hand.

  “You two go first,” he said to her. “We’ll see you back there.”

  She went to the Toyota, stamped her right foot on the ground twice to speed up the circulation, feeling pins and needles in her leg now. Larry looked at her across the roof, said, “You okay to drive?”

  “Good enough.” She got behind the wheel. Multicolored wires hung from the cracked steering column. She braided two together, and the engine started.

  Larry got in beside her. “You sure?”

  “I’m sure,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  * * *

  They went slowly up the driveway. The Lexus was in the garage, the door shut. She backed the Toyota up next to Larry’s rental, pulled wires apart, and the engine went quiet.

  They sat there, waiting for the Saturn, listening to the wind. The rain had slackened, but the clouds were low and dark. The pain in her back was a steady throbbing.

  “Got crazy back there,” he said.

  “It did.”

  “I maybe killed that man. I don’t know.”

  “If you hadn’t shot him, he would have killed me.”

  “Could have gone a lot worse, I guess.”

  “Always,” she said. “Come on, let’s have a look, see what we’ve got.”

  They got out, and she opened the trunk, unzipped the duffel. The money was in thick packs, some of them bound by plain rubber bands.

  “Sloppy,” he said. She took out a pack, looked through it. Hundreds and fifties, but worn bills. That was good. She shook the bag, looking for anything else that wasn’t money, found nothing.

  They turned as the Saturn came up the driveway, Glass at the wheel. He parked beside the Toyota. She put the bills back, zipped the bag shut, started to pull it from the trunk, felt a surge of pain. Larry saw it in her face.

  “I’ve got it,” he said. “Go on in.” He took out the bag, shut the lid.

  Inside the house, it was almost dark as night. There was a half inch of water on the kitchen floor. They went into the living room, and he dropped the duffel on the couch. The wind picked up outside, rattled something upstairs. />
  Glass and Cordell came in, shaking off the rain, Cordell carrying the bag with the weapons.

  “How’d we do?” Glass said. He smelled of gasoline and smoke.

  “Waiting on you before we find out,” she said.

  “You all right?”

  “I’m good.”

  Cordell set the tac bag clanking on the floor. Glass switched on the lanterns, went to the bay window and looked back down to the street. “Nobody out there.”

  “Good,” Larry said. “Let’s do the count.”

  “First things first,” Glass said, and took an empty tac bag from behind the couch, opened it on the floor. “Give it up. Any other weapons. Vests and masks, whatever else you have. Cell phones, too.”

  Larry took off his windbreaker, then shrugged out of the sweater, unsnapped his vest. Glass was doing the same. Her own vest had been left behind in the van. She left the Glock where it was.

  Cordell hadn’t moved. He stood behind the couch, watching them.

  “Come on,” Glass said. “Vest off. I’m ditching them.” He folded his own vest into the tac bag. Larry dropped his on top, pulled the windbreaker back on.

  “Getting kind of used to it,” Cordell said.

  “Take it off,” Glass said. Then to Crissa, “You ready to count?”

  “Yeah.”

  Glass pulled a folding chair near the couch, sat, and unzipped the duffel. Larry took the other chair, sat close by. Glass began taking out money, lining the packs up on the coffee table. They soon ran out of space, had to set packs on the floor, Glass counting, then handing them over to Larry, who counted them again.

  Cordell had his windbreaker off, was pulling the sweater over his head. He looked at the money, glasses askew, said, “Fat stacks.”

  “No way it’s a half mil,” Larry said. “But it’s two hundred K at least.”

  “Three hundred, I’m betting,” Glass said. “Or close.”

  Cordell was fumbling with the vest straps. He got it off finally, draped it on the back of the couch. Beneath it, he wore the same Bob Marley T-shirt she’d seen before, now dark with sweat across the stomach. He pushed his glasses back up on his nose, watched them count.