Run For the Money (9 page)

The skinny kid stuffed a wax paper bag full of cash as fast as he could, tore the bag in the process, then transferred the money to another bag. Fifty-three dollars. The morning fifty always in the till at the start of a day and the three dollars he took in when he sold two donuts to two different guys before Slick walked in. Skinny kid left the change.

He handed over the two bags. Slick took them, but did not move. The kid watched him expectantly, eyeing the unblocked path to the door.

“Thank you. Have a nice day.” Maybe that’s what this freak wanted. Slick didn’t move.

The kid’s eyes said it all.
What do you want from me?

“My coffee?”

The kid spun, fast, and poured a large coffee with shaky hands. He set it on the counter in front of Slick who did not pick it up. “You got one of those, like, sleeve things for hot beverages?” The kid reached to the counter behind him and got one for Slick, slipped it over the coffee cup like a garter belt on a skinny leg.

“God bless you my son.”

As Slick backed out of the donut shop the skinny kid saw the priest collar for the first time. His jaw dropped. Already he thought of how he would retell this story so people would think he wasn’t a pussy who rolled over, but this new wrinkle made it interesting. It wasn’t about how he reacted anymore, he got robbed by a Goddamn priest!

The collar didn’t fit Slick in more ways than one. He didn’t feel bad about impersonating a priest and there was no sacrilege in it. Hell, he’d pantsed a priest in all his shaved-balls glory and twice decked a nun.

Now that he had a robbery under his belt, he became a target. If the cops were on the lookout for a priest with a face like a bouquet of elbows they wouldn’t have a hard time identifying him.

When he spotted the Goodwill he decided to step in for a change of clothes.

The two workers behind the counter, a guy and a girl, didn’t even look up when he entered. Slick walked through the rows of used clothes and found a functional pair of jeans and a flannel shirt that fit. He grabbed a sweatshirt to pull over it and a jacket to have in case it started raining again.

He changed in the aisle. No one else came in, the two clerks stayed head down, texting to people who were someplace they’d rather be.

Slick left the priest collar and the stolen diner clothes in a pile next to the Men’s Shirts rack and stepped up to the counter, gun in hand.

“I’ll take these clothes and I think I’d like to look at what’s in the cash drawer.”

The guy looked up first, saw the gun and nearly choked on his gum. The girl looked up at him and vague thoughts of the Heimlich maneuver went through her head, but all she managed was a light tap on the back and, “Are you okay, Tim?”

“He’s fine,” said Slick. “Your money, please.”

She saw the gun and screamed. The gum flew out of Tim’s mouth. He sputtered and coughed, bent over at the waist.

She backed away and banged into the counter behind her, sending several glass vases to the ground. Suddenly the floor was littered with shards of glass like some kind of self-help seminar trust exercise. Next up was hot coals. The girl crunched glass underfoot as she slid further down the counter in a slow retreat. Slick rolled his eyes at the pair of idiots.

“Can someone please open the damn cash register so I can get out of here?”

Tim coughed some more and spit. The girl started crying. Fat blubbery sobs like an actress in a horror movie about to be chainsawed in half. Slick’s scar darkened, his blood pressure rising. He reached down over the counter and lifted Tim to standing. He pulled him forward, gut hitting the glass case and sending him into another coughing fit. He threatened with the gun.

“Open the fucking register – now!”

Tim slapped at the keys, his coughing and Slick’s grip on his shirt making it difficult. The drawer popped open. Sixteen dollars plus change. Slick’s scar turned a deeper red. He threw Tim back, crashing him into the back counter. More items from the shelves fell. A ceramic owl, a wooden spice rack, six aerobics VHS tapes all hit the floor amid the glass.

Slick snatched the money out of the drawer, knowing there had to be a stash of singles in the back somewhere, but hardly wanting to deal with the two kids to get it. He turned and saw the door swing shut as the girl made a run for it.
Fucking great.

He knew she would head home or to a boyfriend’s house, not to the cops.

“What do you drive, Tim?”

“Huh?” Tim looked at the gun, not Slick, like it was a ventriloquist act and Slick was making the gun talk.

“What kind of car do you have?”

“I take the bus.”

“Fuck.” Slick had a brief notion to kill Tim, but it wouldn’t be worth the trouble. So far he felt fairly sure none of his escapades could be linked to him, but adding to them wasn’t going to help. He wondered what Hector, the gun salesman, had already told the cops about him. One look at a mug shot and the cops would know exactly who they were looking for. Time to get the money. The
real
money. Enough of this cash register chump change.

Slick wrestled with the decision of whether to go for Emma first or the cash. With Emma they could stop by the money on the way out of town and be gone, but the more time he spent away from the cash the more likely it was to be found. Then again, if they hadn’t found it yet after the whole trial and everything . . .

Slick left Tim to catch his breath and clean up the mess. Out in the parking lot he saw a bright blue Honda Civic, tricked out with rims, a spoiler and pin stripes.
That’ll do,
he thought. A young guy in baggy pants was leaving a convenience mart-slash-liquor store and walking to the car.

Shouldn’t drink and drive,
Slick thought as he walked quickly to make it there first. He ran it over in his mind,
The money or Emma? The money or Emma?

––––––––

M
axSecure lockers and storage location #231 had a tiny sign hanging in the lobby behind the coffee maker, next to the state guidelines for a safe work environment and the number to call to report dissatisfaction to the management. The small sign on a laminated sheet of 8X10 letter paper said:

MaxSecure LLC is not responsible for loss or damage to personal property during internment. Customer assumes all liability, personal and financial, for loss or damage. Your signature on the rental contract acts as acknowledgment that you have read and understand this document.

No one ever read it, but it was there as a legal precaution in the case of break-ins, which happened quite frequently.

Cue Ball and Eight were a team for over ten years ever since they robbed their first arcade game together at ten years old. Cue Ball was, as you would expect, white with a shaved head and long skinny limbs that flopped around when he walked like Shaggy from the old Scooby-Doo cartoons. Eight, as in 8-ball, was black, also shave-headed and much more well-proportioned.

Petty thievery, B&E, the occasional stick-up kept them in a cheap apartment, but off the street. They tried to hit the storage lockers about once every three or four months. Usually about when they were getting ready to auction off a unit that hadn’t paid up. All the jackoffs showed up those days hoping to get a hidden Picasso or a set of rare china for fifty bucks, but mostly got old storage spaces packed to the gills with junk. Many was the time someone paid three, four hundred bucks for a stack of old newspapers and cache of old bicycle parts that never even added up to one complete bike.

Cue Ball and Eight were more than happy to do a little inventory before the crowds got there. They only took what they knew for a fact they could sell. Stereo equipment, jewelry, guns now and then. One time they towed away a snowmobile. That got them three hundred bucks.

Each time they cranked open the lock on a unit they swore it would be the last. Tiny hauls for a lot of sweat and digging through dirty spaces filled with rats, dead and alive. Eight always talked Cue into going back one more time. The lure was no people. B&E was nerve wracking. Always worried someone would come home or wake up. Never knowing who slept with a gun next to the bed. All that night time creeping around.

With the storage lockers they could work during the day. All it took was to walk around like you belonged. For all four hundred and twenty spaces at MaxSecure they only ever had one guy on staff and he never left the office. That little laminated notice meant they never even had to patrol the area. You signed the contract, you look out for your own shit.

Most lockers could be opened with a screwdriver and the ones that couldn’t got skipped over. Plenty more where that came from.

Eight also liked the mystery of it. Each time you popped the lock on a unit you never knew what you’d get. He started to understand what those auction types kept coming back for.

Unit #112 was a bust. Not a damn thing of value and they’d been inside for over an hour.

“Which one next?” asked Cue Ball.

“What’s your birthday?”

“You don’t know?”

“March seventeen, right?”

“Fuck you, man.”

“What?”

“We’ve known each other how long and you don’t know my damn birthday?”

“Well, fuckin’ excuse me. It’s been a while since we ate cake and blew out candles.” Eight and Cue walked down an aisle between two rows of garage-sized units. They turned left into the air conditioned building housing three floors of smaller units. Smaller meant easier to manage, and inside meant fewer prying eyes.

“So you gonna tell me what it is?” said Eight.

“I know yours.”

“Aw, Jesus Christ.”

“Well, I do. I even got you a gift last year.”

“What’d you get me?”

“You don’t even know that?” They turned a corner passing by door after door of closet-sized lockers.

“So sue me, man. I don’t have a good memory.”

“Your birthday is September third and I got you a bottle of Macallan.”

“Okay, you win. So what’s yours. I’ll commit it to memory.”

“March twenty-third.”

“Boom. Memorized. Ask me again next week.”

Cue shot him a look that said he doubted it. “So three twenty-three is what you want?”

“Why not?”

They took the stairs to the third floor. On the left was locker #323. They never knew who they were robbing so they had no idea the name on the contract for #323 was an Edward “Slick” Himes.

Eight undid the lock in under ten seconds. They stepped in, snapping on the light as they did and closing the door behind them. A single compact florescent bulb flickered to life.

The room was small and filled with identically sized cardboard moving boxes, the kind they sold down in the lobby at a steep markup. They were stacked up to four high leaving only a small aisle down the middle of two rows. The three on top closest to them were marked
Books
. Never what you want to see. Cue and Eight shared a look.

Cue Ball lifted a book box to get at what might be under it. He grunted at the weight and the corrugated tin walls rattled as he let it slam down to the floor.

“Keep it quiet,” scolded Eight. Cue ignored him and went back to the pile. Eight turned and opened the box Cue had removed. Two neat rows of leather bound spines stared back at him. Encyclopedias, A-M. Eight closed the box in disgust. He lifted a box off another pile. He also made noises as he lifted.

“Why are books so fuckin’ heavy?”

“It’s all that paper,” said Cue Ball.

“I guess so. Seems stupid though.” The second box contained volumes O-Z.

Cue unboxed a set of dishes that weren’t worth shit, a box full of paper towel rolls, one empty box and a box of wire hangers.

“Why the fuck do people pay to keep this shit?”

“Hoarders, man. It’s like a compulsion. Like OCD.”

“Fuck. I can’t even keep a Playboy for more than a month after it comes. I think I have the opposite of OCD. I got DCO.”

“No such thing, man.”

Eight lifted a box with his arm muscles tensed, ready for another heavy load, but the box was empty and his arms took off bringing the lightweight cardboard with them. His body lurched backward, off balance, and he tripped over the box already on the ground. Eight crashed back, landing hard on the metal wall and immediately put a hand to the back of his head feeling for blood.

“Fucking great.” Cue felt his way back to the door.

“Nothing in here anyway.” Eight stood up slowly checking and rechecking his head for signs of bleeding. He found none. “That’s gonna be a knot the size of an egg.”

“You should watch where you’re going then.”

Cue reached the door, but as he did he tripped over a box marked books they hadn’t bothered to open. It fell, dumping out page after page of semi-gloss encyclopedia pages.

“Nice,” Eight laughed.

“Suck my dick.”

Cue stood, brushed off and opened the door. Daylight spilled in from the hall overpowering the seasick color of the energy saver bulb.

“Jesus, dude fucking likes encyclopedias. Must be smart.”

“Fuck that. A smart guy would toss this shit out and save the rent.”

Cue stepped over the pile of pages, all squares, loose, no covers. All cut with a crooked edge like they were razored out of a book spine. Eight put his foot down on a page for Albatross - Armadillo under the Animals heading.

“What’s next?”

“When’s my birthday?” Cue asked.

“Aw, man, cut it with that shit.”

“You forgot already, didn’t you?”

“Man, fuck you and your birthday.”

––––––––

“B
o? What are you doing here?”

“Now what kind of greeting is that?”

Bo’s mother, Wanda, stared at the boy on her porch. She last saw him four years ago but he’d grown much older since then. She felt suddenly older herself.

“It’s just that . . . I thought you were in prison.”

“Yeah well, things change. So, can I come in?”

Wanda stepped aside in a daze. She thought about the vampire stories she loved and how one of the rules is they can’t enter a home unless invited in. How those books all became for teenage girls she didn’t know. Vampire stories had been around for centuries. Damn, distracted again. It happened so easily to Wanda these days.