Good People

by Marcus Sakey

  Jack smiled. “My word.”

  Something went cold inside Tom, and he realized that one way or another, today or tomorrow, Jack meant to kill them. Had simply decided that it would happen.

  Then, over Jack’s shoulder, he saw someone coming up the escalator that bisected the mall. A bulky guy with a boxer’s moves. Wet lips and white teeth. Andre was walking, his jacket open. Anna had done it.

  “All right.” Tom took a deep breath, trying to draw things out, feeling a rush of adrenaline and a surge of wild hope. He rolled his shoulder and then set the bag on the ground.

  Behind Jack, two white guys came around the corner to fall into step with Andre, the three of them moving steady and easy. One wore a maroon tracksuit and a gold ID bracelet. The other had on a broad-cut suit. The one in the suit slid his hand into the pocket and pulled out something plastic. A blue spark arced along it. A stun gun.

  Tom squatted beside the bag, put his hand on the zipper. Timing would be everything. He hesitated, said, “Remember, you promised.”

  Jack’s eyes narrowed, and he said, “Quit stalling.”

  No way around it. If he went any further, he risked Jack looking around, things going south. He had to pray that the money on top would fool Jack, or at least hold his attention long enough for Malachi’s people. Twenty feet now.

  He drew the zipper down as slowly as he dared, then reached for the sides of the bag, planning to open it just enough to flash Jack. Ten feet.

  The cop stepped from a store that sold games and toys, coming out behind Andre and his soldiers. His hand was at his belt, and he was moving fast. Did he know something? Had Halden somehow figured out where they were and called him? As Tom watched, kneeling beside the bag, the cop drew his gun. Jesus. He was going to stop it from happening.

  Except the officer didn’t say, “Police, freeze!” He didn’t say, “Stop or I’ll shoot!”

  What he said was “Jack, get down.”

  And then fire blasted from his pistol, and the head of the man holding the stun gun exploded.

  WHEN JACK HEARD Marshall’s voice telling him to get down, his first urge was to look back. But he’d long ago learned that in the moment, you trusted your partners or things went south, so instead he got the hell to one knee.

  Even braced for it, the roar of the first shot hit like a thousand volts, kicking every cell into life, adrenaline pounding fast and hard. People didn’t realize how loud the things were, like God clapping his hands. There was a bare half heartbeat of silence, and then more explosions. Jack reached into the jumpsuit and jerked his pistol, thumbing the safety as he crab-spun, his other hand on the floor.

  Marshall stood thirty feet back in his fake cop uniform. Between him and Jack, a shuffling horror staggered forward on momentumalone, his head a mass of gore. Beside him, a chubby guy in a tracksuit was fumbling to draw an enormous pistol. A third man, black and built, was charging Marshall, body low and arms pumping.

  Jack didn’t take time to think. He just raised the Colt, centered it on the back of that hideous tracksuit, lined up the bars, and squeezed the trigger. The.45 kicked in his hand, and he took the time to aim again before firing a second time, the second bullet punching in right next to the first, ninety calibers’ worth of violence that blew the man’s chest out.

  The screaming began. Jack tried to ignore it, to filter out the shrieks and the gunfire and the rain of sparkling glass from the front windows of a store. To find his calm in the center of the hurricane. Everything was messed up again, just like the night they’d taken the cash from the Star. It wasn’t the way he liked to work. But just like that night, he had to get control of the situation. The world belonged to people who bent it to their will.

  He swept his arm sideways, trying to line up on the black guy. The angle was no good, Marshall just beyond him. Too risky. Marshall was a big boy. Focus on priorities. He turned back.

  Tom Reed squatted like he’d been turned to stone. His mouth hung open and one hand was on the zipper of the duffel. The bag was partly open, and inside it, Jack could see faded green piled almost to the top. The money Bobby had died for.

  OHJESUSOHJESUSOH JESUS.

  Anna had two fingers to her mouth and the other hand at her forehead, where something wet had slapped her, wet and warm like spit, like someone had cleared their throat and hawked up something thick and nasty on her forehead, only it wasn’t spit, it was blood from the man the cop had just shot, Jesus, the one the cop had just shot, which meant that Jack owned cops, Jesus Christ, Jack owned cops, and now everything was unraveling, more gunshots, loud, so incredibly loud, her ears humming, and the warmth on her forehead was running into her eyebrows, a stranger’s blood was spattered on her forehead and running into her fucking eyebrows and this simply couldn’t be happening. They were good people, and good people won out, good people worried about bills and mortgage payments and having children and how hard it could be to love each other sometimes, but that was as far as their worries went, and yet here she was one step from losing it, she could feel something rising inside her, something dark and winged and frayed, and she wanted to open her mouth to let it out but didn’t, afraid that once she started she wouldn’t be able to stop, would just stand there and scream and scream and scream, and she had to be stronger than that, she was stronger than that, and then Jack stood up and started for Tom.

  TOM WAS SURPRISED by how quiet his mind was. He could see everything. He admired the way Jack drew his pistol, the careful way he aimed and fired and then aimed and fired again. Methodical. The cop who had warned Jack was trying to bring his gun to bear as Andre charged him. Tom wondered if there were any other cops here, and whether they were with Jack too, and whether Andre had a contingency plan and more guys waiting, and whether-

  Jack was staring at him, and at the money.

  Tom could sense his own panic. It had a tug, like an undertow. Only he realized he didn’t have to give in to it. Maybe this was shock. Maybe this was what shock felt like. If so, he’d take it over panic any day.

  Jack started forward. He wore a blue jumpsuit unzipped to the waist. The gun was in his hand. Rising slow. Tom’s thoughts were still running apart from the world. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Anna frozen in place, her hands to her head, blood between her fingers.

  Oh God.

  It all snapped, everything coming back into focus like a record tracking to speed. Panic wasn’t a tug. It was a wave. It crashed into him fast and hard and nearly swept him off his feet. She was hurt and Jack was still coming, and somehow he had to get her out of here.

  Jack raised the gun, finger moving inside the trigger guard. Tom grabbed the handles of the bag, stood fast, and hoisted it to rest on the railing, a little more than halfway off. Let it lean, holding it lightly, just two fingers.

  Down below, people were scrambling in all directions, shoppers streaming for exits, screams and chaos. At the other end of the hallway, Andre had driven into the cop like a linebacker, bowled him right off his feet. Everyone was yelling, and behind all of it, that same insipid pop song was still playing, some spoiled brat saying bye-bye-bye to some teen queen, neither of them knowing the first goddamn thing about the first goddamn thing.

  The bag wobbled on the railing, three stories above the sunken courtyard with the gourmet grocery. Jack looked at it. Then he turned his head and looked Tom in the eyes. Stared. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.” Jack slipped the gun back in the holster and held his hands out at chest height. “It’s not too late.”

  Tom wanted to laugh. Instead, he let go of the straps.

  Jack yelled, “No,” and lunged forward, his arms scrabbling, fingers stretching. Tom got a half-second flash of wide eyes, and then he was running past, not caring one way or the other if the bag went over.

  Anna had taken a step forward, lowered her left arm, but her right was still covering her mouth. There was blood on her forehead, and spattered across the bridge of her nose. This couldn’t be, he couldn’t lose her, not now, no
t ever. “Anna, baby, no, no, are you hurt?” Thinking that if she was, then he was done too, he was just going to… just going to…

  She stared at him with pupils like black holes. Her lips twitched. Then she said, “It’s blood. I mean, not my blood.”

  “You’re okay?”

  She nodded.

  Thank God, thank God, thank you, if I didn’t believe in you before, I do now. He threw an arm around her shoulder and pulled her toward the stairwell.

  AS JACK FLUNG HIMSELF FORWARD, he had the strangest moment, a weird flash of something like déjà vu. It was like he was living a memory: lunging for Bobby as he fell, his kid brother with arms up and reaching, Jack his only hope. Problem was, best Jack could remember, it hadn’t actually happened, that moment. When would it have?

  Regardless, as his hands fumbled forward and he saw the bag start to go backward, as he felt the strain of muscles, the rush of air against his cheeks, as he begged his body to go faster, just a little faster, please, his limbs stretched to their max, as the duffel sagged and drooped and finally slipped, as his fingertips traced the texture of the fabric, scrabbling for anything, a handle, a zipper, a pocket, and especially as he realized he wasn’t going to get hold of it, that the thing was going to fall, through all of it some part of him was seeing Bobby. Bobby falling backward, Bobby lit in panic, Bobby scared, reaching out for his brother to save him.

  Then gravity claimed it. Loose hundreds confettied out the open flap, and the whole thing turned a slow half spin before landing with a crash of glass and a splat in a tray of gourmet potato salad three stories below. He stared. Unbelievable. Four hundred grand soaking in mayonnaise. He tried to picture himself vaulting the railing and dropping the distance. Leaned over to check. Jackie Chan, maybe. A forty-three-year-old Polack, no.

  Fine. The stairs. They’d scoped the whole place yesterday. The stairwell nearest him stopped at the ground floor, but the far one went all the way down. He started running, taking in the scene as he did. Marshall was flat on his ass, one hand behind, the other trying to bring the gun to bear. The black guy had bowled him over. Jack raised his Colt and fired as he ran, lousy snap shots that shattered glass windows and prompted another round of shrieks. The black guy looked at him, then at Marshall, then turned and ran. Jack reached his partner, ducked down to haul him upward.

  Marshall tried to sight in on the guy who’d knocked him over, but Jack shoved him into motion, yelling, “Come on!” The money was the only priority.

  The two of them hit the stairwell door, started thundering down. No telling exactly how long before the cops got here, but this was Lincoln Park, a nice, white doctor-and-lawyer neighborhood. It wouldn’t be long. He squeezed the grip of the pistol.

  The stairs were clean and smelled of paint. Bare bulbs flooded each flight. He had a hand on the railing and was hauling himself around, more jumping than running. When he reached the bottom, he didn’t even slow, just spun, raised a foot, and kicked the emergency exit door. An alarm screeched as they burst into the grocery store. A Mexican in an apron huddled behind the sushi counter. Wine to the left, imported cheese to the right. Jack charged through, knocking over a display of salsa, jars spilling and smashing. A server stood in the center of a broad octagon of cases filled with precooked entrées and sides. The duffel bag had broken through the glass to spatter potatoes and couscous and sautéed broccolini in all directions. A dozen hundred-dollar bills had settled amid the food like garnish. The server was staring at the bag, one hand half out like he was trying to work up the courage to touch it. Jack pistol-whipped the base of his neck, then pushed past the falling body to claim what was his. “Let’s go.”

  “Which way?”

  “The back.”

  Marshall spun. An employee’s-only tunnel led out to the rear of the mall, into a dingy concrete space littered with cigarette butts and broken glass, loud with the buzz of generators. They burst into the rain, hearing sirens now, close. Jack slung the bag over his shoulder, then hit a low wall moving, grabbing the top with his free hand and hoisting himself up. The move opened up the slash on his arm, but the pain felt far away.

  There was a cop on the other side, hurrying down a short alley from a group of three-flat apartments. For a moment, they looked at each other. Then the cop reached for his gun and started yelling to freeze.

  Jack had been in before, wasn’t going back. Without removing his left hand from the wall, he brought his right up.

  The gun was quieter out in the open space. The cop staggered. His legs gave, and he fell to his knees in a puddle. Water splashed murky and silver.

  “Jesus,” Marshall said from beside him. “Jack.”

  The cop rocked back and forth. He looked at his hands, bloody and shaking. Jack raised his pistol again. Took time to aim.

  18

  EAST WAS AS GOOD AS WEST. It didn’t seem to much matter. Moving was the point, staying mobile. Driving minute after minute, mile after mile, with no goal but keeping away from everyone, from the whole world, while they figured out what to do. How to make this right.

  The thought almost made Tom laugh. Make it right? What would that look like, Einstein?

  He shook his head, filled with a terror and loneliness he’d never known. The world he used to believe in had imploded, and the new one was a horror show inhabited by monsters. Everything he loved was at stake. And there was no one they could trust. They were all alone.

  Anna shivered in the passenger seat, arms clutching her chest, and Tom leaned forward to turn up the heat. He punched back and forth between AM 720 and 780. A commercial for volunteer teachers, an overdubbed voice saying that positive role models could dramatically lower drug usage amid blah blah blah.

  Nothing so far. It wouldn’t be long now, though. It couldn’t be. Your average shooting didn’t make the news in a city like Chicago, but a firefight in a Lincoln Park mall would. How had things gone so wrong? He still couldn’t understand it, couldn’t wrap his head around what had happened.

  An announcer came on and they both held their breath. Waited to hear their own names, that they were fugitives. Prayed that they might hear about a known criminal, Jack Witkowski, gunned down by police while fleeing the mall. Instead, the announcer started in on the economy, the expected fall in the real estate market. People had been talking about how Chicago was overbuilt for a year or two, and coupled with a shaky mortgage industry, it seemed a recipe for imminent disaster. Once, that had really worried them.

  From up ahead, Tom heard sirens. His fingers tightened on the wheel. In a blur of red noise, an ambulance blew past.

  “Do you think-”

  “I don’t know.”

  There was a gap, dead air, and then the anchor came back on, his voice different, harried. Tom leaned forward to turn up the volume.

  “-early reports of a shoot-out in a Lincoln Park mall. According to our information, at approximately ten o’clock this morning, shots were reported at Century Mall. Witnesses say that perhaps as many as ten people were involved, with gunfire wounding several and possibly killing others, including, it is currently believed, at least one police officer. We, ahh…” He stalled, and Tom could picture the host trying frantically to read. “We understand that police have evacuated the mall and may be in a standoff with the shooters. The identities of the men involved are currently unknown, as is whether they have been captured. There are only preliminary details at this time, but we will obviously be keeping you posted as more information becomes available on this story. Again, this took place at the Century Mall, an upscale center in Lincoln Park, not an area known for…”

  Tom turned the volume down.

  “Do you think they know we were there?” Anna clicked her thumbnail against her teeth.

  He blew a breath, shrugged. His cheek itched, and he went to scratch it with his left hand, caught himself, reached around awkwardly with his right. “If they do, they’ll be after us.”

  “Along with Malachi, and Jack, and the cops that work for hi
m.”

  “Yeah.”

  They rode in silence. Lightning blew the sky like a bulb. Eventually she said, “What are we going to do?”

  A light turned red ahead of them. He braked. Sat with the rain bouncing off the roof, the radio announcer muffled in the background. After a moment, he turned sideways. “Baby,” he said, “I don’t have the first clue.”

  HALDEN HAD BEEN turning down Tom and Anna’s street when the reports started coming over his radio. Like most detectives, he let the thing run when he was in the car, just kept the volume low and listened subconsciously. Chicago was a big city, with plenty of badness. You got used to the rhythm, the steady call and response of mayhem and tragedy.

  This had sounded different. The calls were faster, the voices strained. He’d coasted to a stop outside the brick two-flat and turned up the volume.

  “-10-1, all available units, shots fired at Century Mall…”

  “-ambulance, we need another ambulance…”

  “-Jesus, it’s a war zone…”

  “-officer down, repeat, officer down…”

  He didn’t understand the situation, but it was clear what he should do. The mall was in his area, which made it his problem. What he was supposed to do was hit flashers and haul ass.

  Instead he parked and got out of the car. Climbed the steps to Tom and Anna’s. He rang the bell, leaning on it, holding it down. Banged on the door. Nothing.

  Halden walked around back, to a small yard with a picnic table and untended flower gardens. He looked up at the window, cupped his hands around his mouth, and yelled. “Tom! Anna! This is Detective Halden. I need to talk to you right now.”

  Nothing.

  He yelled louder for the benefit of the neighbors, hoping embarrassment might drive them out. “Mr. and Mrs. Reed, this is the police. Come out right now.”

  Nothing.

  Damn it. Where were they? The house had been a long shot, but worth a try. Had they spooked somehow? Could they have talked to another cop, found out that he hadn’t told the lieutenant after all? He chewed on his lip, fought the urge for a cigarette. Finally he turned and walked back to the car. Until they turned up, may as well do his job.