“Ready to roll?” Mike asked, looking something like a SWAT commander in his black turtleneck and baseball cap. The baseball cap was on backward, advertising Nike sports equipment to Rudy in the back seat, and there was a heavy day’s stubble darkening his face in the rearview mirror. His eyes and teeth, by contrast, seemed to glow in the faint green wash of the dashboard.
Keith was dressed in his National Guards fatigues, which Bud had suggested, speculating they would lend him an air of menace or authority if there was trouble along the way. He sat in the shotgun seat with a rifle propped casually against his leg, as if he were well-accustomed to its weight.
Rudy himself, leaning forward in the back seat, looked more like an accountant or an insurance salesman they had picked up along the way. A man who would count out bullets and present them with a bill once they were finished for the evening.
And despite Chicago, despite everything they’d seen on television, there was no question but that they’d get back to Quail Street safely. For all they’d discussed, it still felt like a halftime run for beer and cigarettes; the only difference was the guns, and those simply clung to them like the odd parts of a dream. Like going to town in their underwear; at some point they would realize this and laugh out loud, embarrassed.
As the car began to move Keith gripped the barrel of his rifle to keep it secure. Rudy sat back and waved to Aimee, who was watching from the Dawley’s front door with Mike’s wife Pam and pretty Naomi Sturling. They looked worried in the harsh glow of the Cherokee’s headlights, all three of them, and as shadows further inside, Rudy saw his three children behind the lingering silhouette of Shane Dawley, who had just been instructed how to use Rudy’s scope and rifle.
Keith and Naomi, both still in their early 20’s, were renting the house on the other side of the Dawley’s and had yet to have kids of their own. They’d lived on Quail Street all of five months now.
Rudy glanced back at the Hanna’s through the rear window as they backed out of the driveway. The house looked well-lit inside, but somehow cut off as well, the curtains drawn against the night as if the world could be held at bay by a pleated arrangement of fabric. He’d phoned Larry to tell him what they’d had in mind and to ask if the Hannas needed anything, but the phone rang and rang, as if that too were a kind of solution.
Bud and Helen Iverson watched at their picture window as they rolled past, raising their hands to wish them luck, but the Navaro house, last in line and facing the Sturlings, looked shut up and dark, as if they’d gone away on vacation. The porch light was burning over the welcome mat, but the windows were uniformly gray. All that was missing was a pile of rolled-up newspapers huddled against the door.
Rudy gazed through his shadowy reflection, wondering if they’d gotten scared and run off. Bud said that he’d tried phoning Don earlier, about the same time Rudy was making his calls, but no one answered. He added that the Navaros had family in the area; somewhere out past the cemetery on the Hudson Extension, if he remembered correctly. Perhaps they’d gone to be with them instead.
Mike slowed to a stop at the T-shaped junction of Quail and Kennedy. There was no traffic coming from either direction. “Looks like a quiet night,” he commented, signaling left, turning east onto Kennedy, the lights of town glowing no differently over the treetops than any other night.
Rudy gripped his brand-new shotgun as the Cherokee accelerated down the hill. It smelled like oil and freshly-minted pennies. He patted the pockets of his jacket for the extra shells, assuring himself they were still there.
He hadn’t even had a chance to fire it yet.
God willing, he wouldn’t on this trip either.
“How are you doing on gasoline?” Rudy asked.
Mike shifted his grip to see the gauge. “Got plenty, almost half a tank.”
“I’d fill it up if I were you,” Rudy advised, their eyes meeting in the rearview mirror. Mike nodded.
“Shit,” Keith swore, slapping a hand against his knee. “I should have thought of that this afternoon! My pickup’s practically running on fumes!”
Rudy shook his head. “We all thought we’d have more time,” he sighed. “For now, it’s probably best to focus on the things we can do and accept those we have no control over. If the pumps at 7-Eleven look calm and serviceable, we’ll get as many cars down there as we can tonight.”
The road dipped briefly. Kennedy was approaching the bottom of the hill, falling and then leveling off as it came to the four-way stop on Valley View. The houses they passed looked comfortable and warm, as if their owners were all settling in for the night, the blue flicker of televisions eerily in synch with one another, as if they were all tuned to the same program, mesmerized by the grim face of mortality.
Good, Rudy nodded, thinking of Frank Sinatra trailing his guts down a Philadelphia street while their own remained relatively clear. The panic, he knew, would come soon enough; hand in hand, most likely, with the first volley of gunshots.
Mike commented on it himself. “Reminds me of early Christmas morning, but without all the snow,” he said, shaking his head at the windshield. “Where is everybody?”
“Watching television,” Rudy answered, gazing down the length of Valley View Boulevard. It stretched for over ten blocks: five lanes usually steady with traffic at this hour; now dwindled to a handful of cars. 7-Eleven was a block away, on the northeast corner of 10th and Valley View, the brightest thing on the planet, so far as they could see. Mike pulled the Cherokee into the lot and slowed to a stop alongside the gas pumps, letting the engine idle as the three of them surveyed the store’s interior.
“Christ,” Keith whispered, his voice chill against the glass. “Someone’s broken out the windows.”
Rudy had been looking past the counter, at a dark and ominous smear on the wall above the Slurpee machine. His eyes shifted to the twinkling hoarfrost of broken glass lying on the walkway in front of the store. A step further, the wide tiers of the magazine rack appeared unmolested, though there were a few yellow bottles of motor oil lying face-down in the aisle, a few boxes of green detergent.
“Looks like someone got here ahead of us,” Mike said, his eyes moving across the front of the store. “Someone with a lot of need and not much cash to pay for it.”
“Let’s go check it out,” Keith said, one hand on the door latch while the other picked up his rifle.
Mike put a hand on his shoulder. “Wait a minute. You can’t go in there toting that.”
Keith frowned. “Why not? The place is empty.”
“Because if the police show up, they’re gonna think you’re the one who did it!”
“So you can tell them it wasn’t me.” Keith glanced back at Rudy. “Both of you can.”
“Yeah, right,” Mike said, laughing dryly. “Two more guys with guns.” He leaned across the gearshift and unlatched the glove compartment. The 9mm Colt fell into his hand. “Here,” he said, turning it and offering the grip to Keith, “take this instead. Keep it out of sight and leave the rifle here with me. The handgun’s better for close quarters anyway; besides, you won’t be able to carry anything with the rifle.”
Keith considered the points, still frowning as he gazed into the older man’s eyes, then accepted the logic as well as the pistol. A moment later the car door was open and he was walking toward the convenience store.
“Wait!” Rudy called, clawing at the unfamiliar recession of the door latch. “I’m coming with you!”
There lingered about the place a smell of scorched rubber, of adrenaline and spent gunshots, as if they’d just missed whatever happened. Fresh black tire tracks tore out of the lot, arcing north onto 10th. Rudy left his shotgun in the back seat, trusting that Keith would be able to handle anything inside the tiny store with the Colt. Mike laid the rifle across the driver’s seat and started pumping gasoline into the Cherokee’s thirsty tank.
Broken glass crunched and bit lightly into their shoes as Keith and Rudy stepped up to the door and pushed the empty frame inward. They paused and looked at one another, like two hunters who catch the same heavy scent. Despite the open windows, there was a dangerous mixture of odors still trapped beneath the glaring fluorescents. The first was sharp, black: gunpowder fired against a souring rush of sweat and adrenaline. Beneath that lay a broken coffee pot and a sticky pool of blood, then finally the queasy smell of leathery hot dogs and heated cheese, all above a thinning rime of cold mopwater and industrial disinfectant.
Behind the bulkhead of the cashier’s counter, a console linked to the gas pumps began tallying up gallons of unleaded supreme. Keith pulled the pistol from the pocket of his fatigues and pointed it at the empty space where the cashier should have been standing. Rudy looked up and saw a black and white video image of the two of them looking like they were robbing the place. He could also see that there was no one sprawled on the floor back there, just a spill of cigarette cartons. He pointed this out to Keith and his television image pointed back at him.
They found the clerk a few steps further, tumbled in the same direction as the smear over the Slurpee machine, his neck and the right side of his jaw turned to a dark, pulpy substance peppered with jagged flecks of bone. The name on his bloodied smock read: “JAVIAR”.
Javiar wasn’t the first or last dead man Keith or Rudy would ever see, but he was one of the last to remain contentedly on the ground after he died; at least with his head still attached. In that respect, Javiar was a very fortunate man.
Outside, a car sped by along 10th, blaring its horn at Mike. It broke the spell.
“Hurry,” Rudy said, stepping over the dead clerk. “Let’s get what we need and get out of here.” He began to scoop up boxes of dried fruit and cereal.
Keith stood where he was, gun dangling slackly at his side. He tore his eyes reluctantly from Javiar’s. “I won’t loot this store,” he said stubbornly.
“In a week or two it won’t be looting,” Rudy pointed out, continuing to fill his arms from the shelves. “It will be surviving.”
“We’re still a week or two from that distinction,” Keith argued. “Besides, we’re on videotape.”
“In two weeks this store will be an empty shell. You’ll be lucky to find a packet of salt or a dead rat.” Rudy stumbled past on his way to the counter and emptied his arms unceremoniously. He dug out his wallet and extracted his MasterCard. “My name is Rudy Cheng,” he said, holding the card up so the security camera could see. “Javiar is dead. I’m taking” — he quickly sorted through his items — “two boxes of raisins, four Grape Nuts, five Cream of Wheat and¼ four boxes of Instant Breakfast bars.” He dropped the card on the cash register and started to gather up his groceries. At the same time the gas register behind the counter finished clicking. He had to stand on tiptoes to see the final tally.
“And twenty-one forty-five in gasoline,” he added, moving toward the door.
Keith watched all this with the undisguised expression of a man who suspects he’s walking through the landscape of a dream, and very possibly not even his own. He looked down at Javiar (now certain of the fact) and began to pick random items off the shelves — a jar of grape jelly, a tin of sardines, a family-sized box of Cracker Jack. When he got to the counter he faced the camera and began counting out his cash, frowning as if it had all turned to drachma or lira in his pocket.
“Put it all on my tab,” Rudy told him, back for his second trip. “If that cash is still worth anything when the bill comes due, you can pay me then.”
Rudy noticed the holes in the store’s inventory on his second walk though. Aside from the cigarettes ripped from the hood above the counter, there was no beer left to speak of in the cold case; just a few 40-ounce bottles way in the back and a lonely six-pack of O’Doul’s, which really didn’t count as beer anyway.
Rudy shook his head as he passed on his way to the canned goods, hoping whoever murdered Javiar would be reduced to cannibalism once the party was over.
The back of the Cherokee was nearly filled when the battered Chevy Suburban swung into the parking lot, the silhouettes of two men with billed caps in the front seat. They killed the headlights, settled on a slot in front of the ice machine, then the bills of their caps turned to regard Mike and Keith, who were shifting some of the items around in the back of the Cherokee. Rudy was still in the store, collecting a few last items that hadn’t immediately crossed their minds like toilet paper and tampons.
The doors of the Suburban creaked open as if they were old and arthritic, all its joints corroded with rust. The two men inside eased out, their boots touching softly on the asphalt.
Mike and Keith paused in their work, eyeing them with suspicion as they approached the pumps instead of entering the store, a .45 revolver swinging casually between them.
“Evening,” one of them said, tipping his Texas Rangers cap by way of greeting. His teeth were brown and gritty with tobacco, the sleeves of his shirt spattered with blood. “How y’all doin’ tonight?”
Mike shrugged beneath the raised hatch, aware that the rifle and the shotgun were in the front and back seats; useless and out of reach. “Could be better,” he admitted, reaching up and closing the hatch, locking all their groceries safely inside. He glanced at Keith, standing by the pump with a pale sheen of sweat slicking his forehead.
The second man, whose John Deere cap was soiled with greasy stains, looked inside the Cherokee and brought up the gun. “I gotta agree with you there, bro. Things could most definitely be a whole lot better. For you, that is.”
Texas began to strut around the Cherokee, his eyes gazing deep inside the windows. “Looks as if the two of you have been doin’ some shoppin’,” he commented, head bobbing with approval. “Gas tank all topped off too, I bet?” A greasy chuckle rose up into the kiosk, crackling off the white fluorescents. He looked at Keith with a lopsided grin. “Outstanding, Soldier, but it seems you’ve left your rifle there in the front seat, and I’m afraid that’s gonna cost you.” He reached behind his back and pulled a flashy pistol from his waistband. It was flat and chrome and its eye seemed to wink with gleeful intent.
“What is it you want?” Mike asked, looking back and forth between the two of them, the quaver in his voice unfortunate and unmistakable. He wondered if either of them had spotted Rudy’s shotgun yet. His eyes glanced beyond the immediate threat and saw the top of Rudy’s head over the store’s aisles, oblivious to what was happening out at the pumps.
“Well how about your keys to start with, seein’ as you’ve gone to all this trouble for us.” Texas held out his hand, palm up, bloodstains sewn into the lines crisscrossing there.
Mike reached into his pocket.
“Easy now,” Texas warned, arm stiffening, his thumb cocking back the hammer. “Take it nice and slow.”
The keys came out on a ring that trembled on the end of Mike’s finger. The keys to his apartment and the house on Quail Street were also on the ring. The apartment he didn’t give a damn about, but the sight of the house key gave him a moment’s hesitation. He saw the Cherokee pulling into the driveway, his bloodstained driver’s license clipped to the sun visor, the address clearly visible beside his smiling photograph, the face in the rearview mirror grinning beneath its Ranger’s cap.
He wondered if he was going to die here on the corner of 10th and Valley View and thought it strange he didn’t already know; this corner he’d passed a thousand different times…
The world seemed to be shrinking around him, folding itself up to the size of a brightly-lit stage, complete with guns and gas pumps.
“Hand ‘em on over,” Texas beckoned, tongue licking greedily at his lips. “C’mon now.”
The next thing he knew, the man had his keys.
The two thieves laughed softly, their guns relaxing the slightest bit, the cold metal seeming to bob and laugh right along, to nod and congratulate the men on their wolfish cunning.
Texas grinned at his companion. “Well Ed, what do you think? Should we just take their shit and leave, or should we have ourselves a little more fun?”
“Fun is fun,” Ed asserted, adjusting his John Deere cap, pulling it down so only the lower half of his face was visible, “so let’s have fun.” He gestured at Keith. “This one here’s been starin’ at me like he thinks I’m queer or something.” He coughed phlegmy laughter. “I’ll bet he wouldn’t mind gettin’ down on his knees and suckin’ my big old wad.” He started around the front of the Cherokee, arm stiff and the barrel of his gun pivoting on Keith. “Whadaya say, Soldier-boy? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Texas nodded encouragingly. “Have him do it right here at the pumps, Ed. Give the folks drivin’ by a nice show. Let ‘em know that strange days are here.” He tipped back his cap and laughed. “Strange days, indeed.”
“Good idea,” Ed agreed, his free hand crawling downward like a blind spider, feeling for his fly. “Be just like back in stir.” The grin on his face hardened, turned black as he glanced at Texas. “Keep an eye on that one,” he warned, jerking his head in Mike’s direction. “See that he stays put.”
Ed’s fingers worked and his jeans slumped down around his knees. He cocked the hammer of his giant six-gun. “All right now,” he said, grinning at Keith. “Down on your knees.”
“Suck your own dick,” Keith said, his voice strained.
The .45 lashed out, describing an angry arc through the fluorescents, its notched barrel striking Keith hard across the right temple. The blood that pattered to the concrete pad looked black under the stuttering lights. Keith wiped his face and looked hard at Ed.
Ed smiled, all his teeth coming out for the occasion. “This here gun has real bullets in it, Soldier. Sure as I’m standin’ here, they’ll open you up like a goddamn zipper. I seen it once tonight already,” he assured them, shifting his eyes to include Mike. “Now you’ll get on your knees and do what I say or you’ll suck on this gas pump instead and when you’re done I’ll light you on fire. At this point I don’t particularly care which; I get off either way.”
Slowly, Keith planted his palms on the scuffed concrete and knelt down, his gaze never leaving the gleeful sparkle floating beneath the bill of the man’s cap.
“That’s more like it,” Ed grinned. He hitched his thumb into the waistband of his shorts and his penis fell out, limp and unwashed, like something that had been fermenting in the soil. The shadow of the gun hovered over Keith, threatening, but not quite steady. “Nice and gently now,” Ed instructed. “Make me feel it.”
Texas giggled, delighted with the show. His gun wandered slowly out of line with Mike.
Rudy, whose view of the proceedings was obscured by the gas pumps, stood at the checkout counter with a dozen or so bulky items and began sorting through them. “Stay Free Maxi-Pads,” he said in a loud, clear voice, holding up the package like an obscure offering to the security camera. “Six boxes.”
The declaration cut right through the broken windows and bounced across the parking lot, startling the two newcomers. Ed jumped, his head swiveling sideways as Texas swore out loud.
What happened next happened very quickly.
Keith Sturling had played a little football in high school, mostly running back, but he’d hit the blocking sleds enough to know what to do at that moment. The trick, as the coach had explained, was to run through the obstacle in your path, to make a ramrod of your body and not let it bounce you back on your ass. And that’s exactly what Keith did: launched himself at the spindly legs and elongated penis in front of him and ploughed through them like a bull in a Halloween corn maze.
Ed made a startled and breathless sound, something between a hiccough and a grunt, and as he hit the concrete the gun fired into the wings of the kiosk above their heads. One of the florescent tubes exploded and a hail of broken glass tinkled down.
Mike launched himself at Texas as the sleek, chrome pistol swung round toward Keith. Keith had his hand in his pocket now, reaching for the 9mm Mike had given him out of his glove compartment. He pulled it free, checked the safety, and pointed it at Ed, whose own gun had clattered away.
Rudy ran out of the store dropping tampons as Keith assumed a shooter’s stance and squeezed two quick rounds into Ed’s ribcage. His body twitched with the impact of each slug and then lay still in the bright glow of the filling station, his pants twisted around his ankles and his penis lying across his belly like a dead mackerel. Blood began to ooze out from under him, searching for cracks and channels in the concrete as Mike and Texas struggled for the shining silver gun.
The struggle ended when Keith walked over and put Mike’s pistol in the would-be thief’s face.
A shocking spray of blood and brain splattered against the gas pumps. The man’s Rangers cap flew away and landed near Rudy’s feet. It had a ragged hole the size of a baby’s fist punched through the crown.
The three men looked at one another in the ringing silence.
The world had suddenly changed. They found that they were changing with it.
Strange days, indeed.
“Grab that last load you went in for,” Mike told Rudy, then bent down and took the former Rangers fan’s gun from his cold, dead fingers. “Then let’s get the hell out of here.”
Keith took a step toward the Cherokee then stopped, his expression clouded, unable to recall what he’d been doing before the Suburban pulled into the lot.
“Grab that gun,” Mike said, pointing to Ed’s .45, lying several feet from the man’s outstretched hand. “And check their rig. See if they brought any spare ammunition.”
Keith nodded, grateful for the distraction.
Three minutes later they rolled back onto Valley View, heading west this time, back to Quail Street. Back home.
On the way they passed a brightly-lit Subway franchise. The booths were empty and the young girl behind the counter looked bored, ready to wrap up her meats and cheeses and close up for the night.
Rudy marveled at this, knowing that two blocks away a 7-Eleven had just crumbled off the face of the Earth.