You have a saying “to kill two birds with one stone.” But our way is to kill just one bird with one stone.
With a gym bag resting on his lap, Bobby wheeled into the liquor store on the corner of Amsterdam and Ninety-first. The same old Pakistani guy Bobby always saw there, morning or night, was working the counter. What was with that? Did they sleep, like, standing up?
There were two customers in the store – a Chinese woman and a black man. Bobby wheeled to the back of the store and started browsing in the Merlot section. Meanwhile, in one of the overhead mirrors, he was watching the activity at the checkout counter up front. The Chinese woman paid for her purchase in small bills, even counting out coins to give exact change, for Chrissakes. But eventually she finished, took her bag, and left. Now it was only Bobby and the black guy in the store. Bobby felt like he could get out of his chair and walk.
The black guy moved to the checkout counter. Bobby thought he saw the Pakistani guy looking in the mirror, watching him, maybe suspiciously, but Bobby wasn’t worried. He was in the groove – nothing could get to him now.
“Thanks,” the black guy said.
When the door closed and the little bell above it rang, Bobby moved – not fast, casually, toward the front of the store. The Pakistani guy was looking down, writing something in a pad. Bobby opened his gym bag and took out an Uzi. The rush he felt when he had the weapon in his hand – yeah, this was the old Bobby.
“This is a stick-up,” he announced. “Don’t try to be a hero. Just fill up this bag up with money and you won’t get shot.”
He had just the right amount of hard-ass and viciousness in his tone, just like the good ol’ days, just like Isabella had taught him.
Everything the Pakistani guy did was magnified. Bobby could hear his breath, see the sweat spreading out of his pores. Was he imagining it, or did the guy smell like the back seat of a cab?
Then he saw the guy’s right arm start to move. Bobby imagined that a lot of guys might have missed this, guys who weren’t as sharp and quick as he was. This was what he had learned from twenty-plus years in the life – to notice the little things. Maybe the guy was going for an alarm or maybe he was going for a gun, but Bobby wasn’t going to wait and find out. He started firing, unloading half a round in an instant. He had a flashback to Desert Storm, the time a sniper was running across the sand and Bobby shot him in the neck so many times his head fell off, but his body kept running a few feet before it dropped. Then he saw flashes of himself on jobs – running out of jewelry stores and banks. This was where he belonged – in the action, on the front line. Bobby was smiling now, watching the little towelhead store owner flying back against the back wall in slow motion. The bullets shredded the little fucker to bits.
Then Bobby heard footsteps behind him. When he turned around he didn’t see another towelhead, but an old woman, probably the owner’s wife. She had a gun, a little revolver, in her right hand and she was screaming in a language Bobby didn’t understand. Bobby didn’t want to fire, but when he saw her trigger finger starting to move he had no choice. What, he survived Desert Storm to let some old broad get the drop on him? Getoutta here. He sent the screaming old woman into a wine rack, shattering glass and spilling red liquid everywhere. Red with meat, right?
The store was quiet again. Moving quickly, Bobby hoisted himself up onto the counter so he was sitting next to the register and reached into the open cash tray. Then he wheeled himself to the back room and found some more money in the old woman’s pocketbook. The whole score only came to a thousand bucks and change. It wasn’t as much as if he’d gotten them to open the safe, but what could you do? He’d just have to make it up on the next job and the job after that. He put the money and the Uzi into his gym bag, closed the zipper all the way, and, with the smell of cordite rocking his brain, wheeled out into the twilight.
Heading across the street, Bobby saw the cops get out of the squad car before the cops saw him. He went for the Uzi again when he saw another cop across the street aiming a gun at him, yelling “Stop, police!” Shit, why’d he put the Uzi away? He had his hand in the gym bag when the first bullet went into his leg. He laughed, didn’t even feel it, but the bullet sent his wheelchair out of control. The laundry truck, shit, it was coming right at him.