Lake Charles (20 page)

He knuckled his side mirror outward, bettering his sightline. “A red Caddy just nosed up. They docked it on this side of the gas pumps. See it?”

Peering over with him, I nodded.

“A red Cadillac?” Herzog’s frame stiffened, his eyes bulging. “Is it the same one that stopped at Gabriel’s Diner?”

“Must be. The same four punks rolled out, all armed.”

“See the one in a Mohawk?” I said.

“Yeah, he’s probably the chief.”

“Yep, they’re the ones.”

“Don’t they know when to quit?” said Herzog.

“Brendan, are you up for pissing in their soup?”

“No, but is there any stopping you?” I unlatched my truck door, and Mr. Kuzawa unlimbered our 12-gauges racked along the bottom of the cab seat.

“Have you lost your marbles?”

“Pipe down, Herzog, and keep your eyes peeled.” Mr. Kuzawa pumped in the 00-buckshot shells taken from the new box. “If any cop flashes up, you lean on that horn. Make it loud. We’ll hustle out and race off like a raped ape.”

“I don’t like this.”

“Herzog, I don’t give a flying fuck if you do or not.” Mr. Kuzawa prodded the shotgun’s muzzle under Herzog’s chin whiskers. “I gave you an order, and I expect it carried out. Or else you face grave consequences. Got it?”

Herzog nodded that he did get it.

“Stellar.”

An isolated convenience store is always ripe for robbery, but I figured our lads had hatched theirs on the fly. For starters, they’d missed seeing us in the deeper shadows. Then they sauntered into the store, hollering and taking their time. We advanced on the balls of our feet and watched them through the plate glass front. The oldest no more than 25, they hadn’t yet graduated to the more lucrative heists like armored trucks and bank vaults. They set their sights on this soft target.

Fear petrified the old lady cashier on the bread aisle. All four showboated, two flourishing their sawed-off shotguns and two with handguns. Some joke I’d have loved to hear left them laughing in stitches. Acne Scars, popping bubblegum, rubbed his sawed-off’s muzzle over her pointy breasts and sliding it down there. He whipped up his free wrist and deflected her retaliatory face slap. They demanded the money, but the night’s receipts sat in a drop safe she couldn’t get into. No longer guffawing, they were finding that out, and it spoiled their fun.

Mr. Kuzawa growled. “They’re stuccoed, and she’s their hostage.”

Standing just short of the glass door’s rectangular outspill of light, we could see them but not vice versa.

“They’ll just tie her up and be off.”

“Not these shitbirds. I’m going in, and I’m greasing them.”

His simple blood vow sent a bolt of cold horror through me. “Can’t we send them packing?”

“Sure, I’ll send them packing to meet their Maker.”

“Listen, I can’t do this.”

“You can and you will, Brendan.” I felt his hard eyes on me. “We can’t let this kind of shit slide. Just follow my lead.”

Acne Scar groping her this time with his hand got Mr. Kuzawa’s motor running. Our shuffle went up the concrete steps, and he cracked the door, and I whisked inside it, him behind me. Acne Scars’ peripheral vision detected us moving and ducking behind the wire rack displaying the 8-track tapes out for sale.

His New Yorker accent was jerky. “Yo, who was dat?”

“Holmes, you’re so stoned. Empty the register.” Mohawk pointed his sawed-off behind her.

Acne Scar snapped his bubblegum. “I mean who slid into the bodega?”

“Gimme your cash,” Mohawk ordered her. Then I heard the metallic click from his actioning in a live round. “Now. Or I’ll blast your old granny cunt all over the bread.” Adversarial and strung out, he’d kill her at the least provocation like more arguing over the money in the drop safe. My sphincter retracted in dread.

“A couple fives and silver are in the register,” she said. “Take it and be gone.”

Mohawk snorted. “There’s more. Gimme your purse, granny.”

Then Mohawk gestured his chin at Acne Scars. “Grab the fives. We need the gas money. Then do her. No eyewitness.”

Acne Gum popped the bubblegum. “Fuck it. Your idea. You do her.”

“I’m sick of killing. Take your turn at it.”

I paced my short breaths. The adrenaline streamed into my senses, and the moment streamed into its fierce clarity.

“Dial open the fucking drop safe,” said Mohawk. “We need the money.”

“I already told you only the manager has the combination,” she said. “I’m just the night clerk. They don’t tell me jack.”

“You lying cunt.” Mohawk spat. “Gimme your purse. Or I’ll kill you.”

“Show time, Brendan,” Mr. Kuzawa sidemouthed to me. “Give some me some covering fire. Ready, go.”

Jacking upright, he first ejected the ineffective birdshot load from his chamber. I also stood, my 12-gauge frozen in my grip. For me, the events had slowed down. Mr. Kuzawa butted the gunstock into his shoulder pit, cheeked the 12-gauge, and notched the red bead on the would-be lady killer Mohawk. The salvo of lead pellets chopped off Mohawk’s hand. His sawed-off slipped and clacked hitting the tile floor.

“Jesus fucking Christ . . .” His stubby amputation appalled him. Each pulse squirted the red spurts of blood. My colon turned queasy. Mr. Kuzawa, cursing his lousy aim, shunted in a new 00-buckshot load. For the space of a breath, Mohawk eyed the 12-gauge muzzle’s dark O. “Adios, motherfucker.” Mr. Kuzawa’s fired volley peeled off Mohawk’s skullcap as if opening a can of cat food. The red tufts of bone, blood, and brains spattered everywhere.

Squirming, she wrenched free of Acne Scars’ grasp and dove behind the counter. Grunting, Mr. Kuzawa leveled his red dot sight on Acne Scars who jerked a split second before Mr. Kuzawa cut loose and missed again.

“Well, fuck a duck.” His eye still riveted on his target, Mr. Kuzawa racked in another shell.

Acne Scars scrabbled by the deep freezers, lunged through the doorway to plow into the back room, and sprinted out the rear door into the night. The last two thugs brandished their handguns.

Their shots flamed wide of us, dashed out the panels of plate glass, and a tsunami of glass shards peppered down on us. The 8-tracks splintered into bits, and their shiny ribbons of tape unspooled like party streamers around us.

Somebody hollered. I heard the Cadillac outside crackle to life. Undeterred and cranking the pump slide, Mr. Kuzawa cycled in new ammo and lined his muzzle on the nearest thug. He didn’t cut for cover but as a fool bulled ahead, his gun hand screwed sideways, popping off slugs as in a made-for-TV gangster movie. His aim was poor.

My survival instincts jarred me to take action. Snapping my wrists, I heaved my 12-gauge in the manner of a javelin. Its heavy butt stock clunked the thug in the chest and thrust him back. I pivoted. Mr. Kuzawa’s next shot skimmed over the thug scrambling behind the deep freezers.

“Fuck, I need to get me some glasses,” he said.

The thug shrieked out to us. “Hey, man! I give up! You hear me? Enough already.”

“Deal me in, too,” said the last thug now also tucked behind the deep freezers.

“Toss out your weapons,” said Mr. Kuzawa.

A chintzy handgun cast from zinc and two sawed-off shotguns scraped over the floor tiles. My boot stopped their slide. By my next hard breath and struggling to cap my own adrenaline gusher, I startled to realize how it all had flared by us in a few seconds.

“Okay now, out, you both. But make it slow-w-w,” said Mr. Kuzawa.

Their hands reaching for the ceiling, the two thugs’ horror-crazed faces rode up over the top of the deep freezers. They looked my age or a little older and scared shitless.

Mr. Kuzawa motioned his 12-gauge for them to go stand by the counter. “You just be cool over there.” He crouched down and collected their discarded weaponry.

The blur of violence, leaving one thug damn near beheaded and sprawled dead at our feet, had a numbing banality on me. It wasn’t real.

“Kill the bastards. Do it. Go ahead.”

Giddy enough to peal out in hysterical laughter, I glanced over at the old lady cashier. Her eyes, a pair of hot lasers, burned in their vengeful hostility.

Mr. Kuzawa dropped his 12-gauge. “Cover ’em,” he said to me with my .44 out. He turned to her. “Ma’am, that’s radical, don’t you agree? They got it bad coming to them. Now. This is what I saw happen. They slinked in and tried to heist you. But you took out this hidden equalizer.” He used his handkerchief to wipe down his 12-gauge and handed it to her. Her gnarled fingers wrapped around its barrel and stock. “That’s when all hell busted loose. That one was shot, one escaped, and these two surrendered. Holding them at gunpoint, you took their guns and reported it to your sheriff.”

“That’s exactly how I saw it,” she said, training the 12-gauge on the two thugs.

“Careful with that thing,” Mr. Kuzawa told her. “It’s loaded.”

“Shit happens.”

“Just don’t end up in the jug with them.”

“I owe you two thanks.”

“We’re only too happy to be of help, ma’am.”

Edgy and shaken, I retrieved my thrown 12-gauge from the floor. The pump action was still operable. We stuck around until she finished phoning the sheriff’s night desk. Then I tailed Mr. Kuzawa out the door and treaded over the gravel. With the raw carnage boiling in my brain, I doubled up by the cab truck’s tailpipe and upchucked. Scraping the strings of saliva and puke away from my lips, I overheard Herzog’s high-pitched yammer.

“The Cadillac screeched off, and I then heard shooting in the store. Did anybody get hurt?”

“One casualty.” Mr. Kuzawa ignited the truck engine to thunder through its dual exhausts. “The old lady cashier iced him,” he lied.

“Good Lord,” said Herzog.

I boarded the cab truck and wiped my bitter lips on my sleeve. Mr. Kuzawa floored the accelerator, and we lurched out to the state road, abandoning the war zone at the convenience store for the sheriff’s deputies to sort out.

“The cover story you fed her sounds cockeyed,” I said.

“Her nametag said Mrs. Simmons. It’s her word against the New York punks. Whose tale will rate the most credible?”

“Mrs. Simmons’ story will be accepted as gospel,” said Herzog. “That’s a no brainer.”