by Marcus Sakey
It’ll be fun. Jack’s voice played in his head. The Brothers Witkowski, rolling hard. Just follow my lead, it’ll be over before you know it.
He took a deep breath.
You’re a bad man.
Jack threw the door open, and he and Marshall stormed in.
A group of pretty boys stared wide-eyed from a pile of pillows where two girls were getting it on. Will was right: Both of them were better looking than any naked girl he’d seen outside a magazine. The Star sat at a low table with a well-dressed black guy, a case open between them, the Star holding a playing card an inch from his nose, and his panic exhale sent white powder billowing out like a summer cloud rolling across the plains.
“Go!” Will said, behind him.
Go, Bobby said to himself. Move your feet. He felt a trickle roll down his side. His hands trembled.
“Goddamn amateur,” Will said, and pushed past, his gun out and up, yelling at the second black guy, a gangster-looking dude who froze with his hand almost to the butt of his pistol.
The scene was surreal, guns waving in this swank space, the beats turning everything into a music video. There were more people than Bobby had pictured, five or six friends of the Star, plus the girls, the bodyguard, and the drug dealers, a lot to manage. Jack was right, they needed four. Hot shame flushed through his bowels. Go in.
Then he saw one of the pretty boys starting forward, champagne bottle in hand. He was heading toward Jack, who had his back turned, his attention on the bodyguard. Bobby’s legs unlocked. He burst in the door and whipped his gun across the kid’s face, putting all his fear and rage into the move, the impact jarring and strangely intimate, something cracking beneath the metal, a sudden warmth against his glove as the boy went down, Bobby half wanting to follow him swinging, break every bone in his face for threatening his big brother.
Instead he stepped back and raised the Smith, swung it in an arc to cover the rest of the entourage. “Don’t you fucking move.” It felt good, the fear turning to power. I am a bad man.
Jack glanced over his shoulder, nodded. “All right.” He stepped forward, his gun raised. “All right. Hands on your heads. Do it now.”
For what seemed like a long moment, no one moved. Then the black drug dealer lifted his hands slow and laced them behind his head. The motion seemed to jar the rest of them, and they followed suit.
All except the Star.
“THIS IS A JOKE, right? I’m being Punk’d.” The little brat smirked, too rich and stupid for his own good.
The tightness in Jack’s chest cranked up a notch. Without moving the gun, he wound up and slapped the Star hard with his other hand. The kid staggered, came back up clutching his cheek, eyes wet, lips quivering like he’d never taken a hit in his life. Probably hadn’t. “Hands on your head.” When the boy did it, Jack said, “The rest of you. Against the wall. Move.”
The group shuffled over, fear-dumb. Jack gestured to Marshall and Will, who moved to cover them. Over his shoulder he said, “Get the bags.”
His brother kicked pillows aside, grabbed the open sack of cocaine and the playing card and dumped them in the case, then slammed the lid. Jack kept his eyes lasered on the Star. Not blinking. Watching this movie hero fall apart in front of him, turn from a powerful man into a whimpering child.
Bobby whistled. “Holy shit.”
Jack let his eyes dart sideways to where his brother knelt over the second case, the one the Star had brought. “What?”
“It’s more than we thought. Jesus.” Huffing a breath. “Jesus, it’s a lot.”
Jack raised the pistol to center on the Star’s face. “How much?”
“W-what?”
He rocked the hammer back. “How much. How much in the case?”
“F-f-four hundred.”
He fought to keep his jaw from dropping. They’d gone in expecting about fifty. Split four ways, that would have been a good take for the work. “Four hundred. Four hundred thousand dollars.” Jack shook his head. “What the fuck do you need with four hundred grand in cash?”
“It’s just, just” – the Star hesitated – “you know, walking-around money.”
Jack stared, one lip curling against the mask. “Walking-around money.”
The Star looked at him, looked down. “Take it. We won’t tell the cops anything, I swear-”
“Cops?” He snorted. “What would you say? That you got robbed buying blow?”
The Star opened his mouth, then shut it, staring down the barrel of the gun.
“Jesus.” Bobby whispered again.
“Close it up.” Jack kept his voice cool, but the rush pounded through him now, the job, the adrenaline, four hundred thousand dollars. He gestured the Star back to join the others. “All of you. Turn and face the wall.” He gave it half a beat, then shouted, “Now!”
The civilians went first. One of the boys started to cry softly, just whimpers, but he faced the wall. The drug dealers exchanged a look, then turned around also. Lastly the bodyguard spun.
“Tie them.”
Will took plastic zips from his pocket, and he and Marshall started working their way down the line. Jack kept his gun out and up. He looked over at Bobby kneeling on the floor, fiddling with the latches of the case. Their eyes met, and he smiled at his brother, something filling his chest, joy, and he could see it mirrored in Bobby, an unspoken whoop that stretched between them.
MARSHALL STEPPED BEHIND MALACHI, put the.22 to the back of the man’s head. “I set the trigger pull on this to nothing,” he said. “Tiniest twitch, it’s all over.”
“I hear you.” The man calm.
“All we’re doing is tying you.”
“Go ahead.”
Marshall nodded to Will, who took the man’s hands from his head, guided them behind his back, and zip-tied them. Then he knelt to do the same to the man’s ankles.
“I can tell y’all are pros.” Malachi spoke with his face to the wall. “So am I. Just so you know.”
“And?”
“Things will go easier all around if you leave my merchandise.”
Marshall leaned a little, let him taste the.22. “Why would we do that?”
The drug dealer didn’t flinch. “Call it professional courtesy.”
“I’ll think about it.” Marshall gestured to Will. They moved down the line to the bodyguard.
As he worked, Marshall saw double. One part saw backs of heads, knots in muscles, beads of sticky sweat on necks. The other saw the pool at Caesars, a pretty waitress in Roman garb running him whiskey, the sun on his chest and his eyes on the sports boards.
When it happened, it was faster than he’d expected. The bodyguard let Will take one of his hands, started to go along, but then ducked and twisted back, Will yelping as the guard reversed the hold, forcing the smaller man to his knees.
Marshall didn’t hesitate. Just blinked back to single vision and pulled the trigger twice. The holes he’d drilled in the barrel muffled the.22, changing a roar to a clapping whoosh and a wet splash. The bodyguard’s face crumpled, and he went down.
JACK KNEW THE SILENCE would last only a fraction of a second, so he broke it first, before anybody started screaming. “Don’t any the rest of you fucking move.” He lashed them with his voice. “Don’t move, you don’t get shot.”
Marshall reached up with his left hand and brushed blood spatter off his face. He shook his head. Panic flared in Jack’s belly, but he fought it down. The grip of the.45 was slick. Goddamnit. They were supposed to be in and out, ghosts. Easy money. The civilians wouldn’t have been able to report a thing, and the dealer wouldn’t want to.
Then he saw Bobby. His brother was frozen, one hand to his face. What skin the mask revealed was pale as November. Guilt flooded in to mingle with the panic. He’d promised the kid it would be an easy job, that no one would get hurt. Now there was a corpse on the floor, a murder rap on all of them.
Get control.
Jack looked around the room, hoping for something that co
uld make the difference, some way out of this. Saw only the playthings of a class he had never belonged to. Silk pillows and thousand-dollar champagne. His fingers tightened on the grip.
“You two,” he said, gesturing to Bobby and Will. “Get the bags and get out of here. Go ahead the way we planned.”
Marshall looked over sharply, but Jack ignored it, his mind working fast. They had the dangerous men under control. The drug dealers were both bound, and the bodyguard, well, he wasn’t going to be a problem any longer. The rest were sheep. He and Marshall could handle them. And he had to get Bobby out of here. No way he was letting his little brother stand for a murder charge. “Go. We’ll meet up later.”
Bobby didn’t move, just stared at the ruin on the floor. Jack grimaced,then, keeping his gun on the civilians, walked over and put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Trust me,” he said softly.
Bobby stared at him. Blinked once, then again, then nodded. He ducked down to grab the handle of the case. Will stepped forward and handed him the bundle of zip-ties, eyes unreadable. “You’re the boss.”
“We’ll meet you in an hour.”
Will nodded, then grabbed the case with the drugs and headed for the stairs. Bobby followed, stopping at the doorway to look back. Jack gestured him on, then watched him go. He turned back. “The rest of you, foreheads against the wall and don’t try anything. We’re going to tie you and then we’re walking out of here. You stay cool, in two minutes you have the best cocktail story of your life.”
WILL WAS BLASTING down the stairs three at a time, and Bobby hurried to catch up. The case was heavier than he would have imagined, banging against his thigh. His heart hit so fast and hard it didn’t seem like a pulse so much as a continuous rumbling. The music grew louder as they went.
They’d killed someone. Jesus Christ, they’d killed someone.
At the bottom of the stairs, Will slowed, stripped off his mask. Bobby did the same, tucking it in his pocket. The bouncer was still crumpled beside his stool where they’d left him. Bobby stepped over, and then they were back in the alley, the music cutting off with a slam as the door swung home.
His hands shook like palsy. “Jesus.”
“I know it.” Will blew a breath beside him. They walked south, away from the stolen Ford they’d arrived in. “That bodyguard.”
“What the hell happened?”
“He didn’t listen.”
“What the fuck, man?”
“It’s the job. It happens.”
“That’s it?” Bobby wanted to scream. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d ever wanted to scream, to just open his mouth and howl.
“That’s it.” Will turned left toward a loading dock.
“It can’t be that simple.”
“It is.”
“Wait.” Bobby stopped, looked around, seeing the alley for the first time. “This is the wrong way. The Chrysler’s over there.”
“I know it.”
The flash of light registered first, a strobe of white. Then Bobby heard the sound. He gasped, dropping the case, his hands going to his chest, finding it wet. The ground, he could still see the dirty concrete in the afterimage of the gun flare, it was rushing up, concrete and broken glass, his knees hit and the world jerked, and then he fell back, still not understanding, seeing the puzzle pieces but not putting them together until Will stepped over him, holstering his pistol as he reached for the case Bobby had carried.
No. Oh, no, no, no.
For a moment Will just stood looking down, a shape cut out of the sky. He reached up to his ear, drew something from behind it. A cigarette. He snapped his lighter, the flame sucking hungrily through the smoke, the light harsh against Bobby’s eyes.
I’m a bad man, he thought, and then his eyes closed.
MAY 2006
2
TOM REED COULDN’T SLEEP for rain and acronyms.
The rain wasn’t real. It came from the sound gizmo on Anna’s night table. The noise wasn’t actually much like rain, more like a hum of static. She said it helped her sleep, and he didn’t mind, though it made him smile when she turned it on while real rain fell. Rain from a machine to mask the sound of rain on the windowsill, the same way they had thick curtains to block the daylight and an alarm clock that simulated the sunrise. They’d laughed about it, years ago, how they’d lost the battle against yuppiehood without firing a shot.
But the rain wasn’t really the problem. It was the acronyms.
TTC. HPT. IUI. D &C. IVF. ICSI.
At first they’d seemed amusing, if a little precious: TTC for trying to conceive, HPT for home pregnancy test. Anna found a whole community online, thousands of women sharing stories on fertility Web sites, posting their most intimate details on message boards, analyzing basal body temperature and cervical mucus consistency like oracles peering at tea leaves. The Web sites had made Anna feel better, had provided something it seemed he couldn’t. The first acronyms had come from there.
The later ones came from the doctors, and they were neither amusing nor precious. They were cruel and costly. Tom rolled on his side, careful not to disturb her. They used to sleep spooned, the heat of her back nestling his chest, the smell of her hair, the sense that their bodies snapped together like Legos. Sometimes it seemed like a long time ago.
IUI, intrauterine insemination.
He tried to think about work, about the specific, boring mundanity of it. He pictured his office, eight by ten, drop ceiling, metal modular desk, the slim window through which the mirrored side of the neighboring skyscraper bounced a view of his own back at him. But that led to thoughts of the 9:30 status meeting he was going to miss, of sighs and shaking heads. He tried to guess how many e-mails would be waiting when he made it in.
IVF, in vitro fertilization.
The light that slipped past the curtain glowed faint silver. The clock read 4:12. There weren’t many reasons to be awake at 4:12. In his twenties, sure: a Saturday night, he and Anna and the old crew, candles burning, beer gone, Leonard Cohen on the stereo, a last joint circling as people fell asleep against each other on garage-sale furniture. In his twenties, 4:12 made sense.
At thirty-five, though, 4:12 was a moment to sleep through. There was only one reason people his age tended to be awake at 4:12.
TWW, two-week wait. Ending today.
ANNA FELT THE bed creak and sag as Tom rolled over. He made faint sounds and nuzzled his pillow. How could he sleep? Her thoughts were loud enough to drown out the recorded rain. She was amazed he didn’t hear them, didn’t respond like she’d spoken aloud.
This is it. This time is the one.
I’m going to be a mother.
Please, God, let this be it.
But then.
That cramping feels awfully familiar.
Don’t be PMS.
I can’t do this again.
The hardest part about IVF was that she was indisputably pregnant. Her harvested eggs had been combined with Tom’s sperm. This last cycle they had even gone for intracytoplasmic injection, injecting each egg with a single sperm. Of the five eggs they had harvested, three had been successfully fertilized. Three microscopic embryos. Babies.
Because this was their fourth cycle of IVF, the doctors had transferred all of them. Which meant she was not just pregnant, but pregnant three times over. There were babies alive inside of her. But they would stay alive only if they attached to her uterus. If they didn’t live, it was her fault.
Stop, she thought, the reaction routine to the point of a mantra. She knew fault didn’t enter into it. It wasn’t like she hadn’t done everything: the diets, the exercise, the post-sex positions, the vitamins, the hormones, the prayer. But none of it mattered to the voice in her head, the one whispering that every other woman could do it, that it was the most basic thing in the world, that to fail at that was like failing at breathing. Women gave birth. That was what made them women.
Stop. This time is the one. You’re going to be a mother.
Plea
se, God, let this be it.
SHORTLY AFTER SIX, he gave up, tiptoed across creaky floors to the bathroom. He tuned in WBEZ as the shower warmed: news of the war, the indictment of a telecom CEO, a commercial for Eight Forty-Eight, Steve Edwards promising to talk about the governor’s latest tax plan and interview a local poet. It felt normal, comfortable, the same sounds from the same tinny radio, the sputter-kick of the water, the faint sourness of morning teeth.
But today could be the last day of your old life. He smiled as he rubbed shampoo into his hair.
Afterward, he quick-dried and wrapped the towel around his waist. In the bedroom, Anna lay on her back, blankets pulled to her chin, hands on her stomach, staring at the unmoving ceiling fan.
“How you feeling?”
“Fat.”
He laughed. “Fat’s good, right?”
“I think so.” She pushed off the covers and started to sit, then leaned back with a groan.
“You okay?” He was beside the bed without realizing he’d moved.
She nodded, took his hand to pull herself upright. “Just cramps.”
“Cramps?” She had vicious ones with her period, which was one of those bits of information, like her body temperature to two decimal places, that he’d never anticipated knowing. He could see she was scared, so he put a hand on her shoulder, said, “It’s the hormones.”
Anna blew air through her nose, then nodded. “You’re right.” She stood slowly, started for the bathroom. “Tell you one thing, I won’t miss sticking myself every day.”
He waited till he heard the water, then pulled on slacks and the gray cashmere sweater she’d given him for Christmas a couple of years back. Kettle on, eggs cracked into a pan, bread in the toaster. He left everything going as he unlocked the front door, went downstairs, and stepped out into a crisp spring morning. A haze of clouds sizzled against the beginnings of a bright blue day. He stooped for the Trib, then turned, saw Bill Samuelson staring at him, and nearly flipped backward off the porch.
