The Innocents

by Nathan Senthil

  “He is driving his stupid car,” she said, “playing that hackneyed Grandmaster Flash ‘The Message’. And he will be here… right about now.”

  Lolly looked through the window, and surely, there was a white Hummer slowly coming to a stop. He closed his eyes and tried to listen to the trippy music, and after a few seconds, he could only hear bits of it.

  How did she even…

  When he opened his eyes, they were misty. Though not a role model, his mom had always been his hero. And now with this super-hearing ability, she became a superhero.

  She said, “Come here.”

  As he scrunched his tall frame, she held his shoulders and regarded his face, as if she could see him. Up close, Ryatt noticed her hair had started graying, the wrinkles on her face more prominent, but she looked stronger than ever. Ryatt had wondered if his mom was like The Terminator. She sure acted like she had an indestructible endoskeleton.

  “I know they’ve been your friends for years,” she said. “But past attachment is not a reason to prevent you from disowning something that becomes toxic to you. Or to society.”

  Ryatt nodded, and strangely, that always seemed to be enough for his mom. She gave a squeeze and let go.

  He climbed back up the stairs and packed his things before exiting the house and sauntering across to the Hummer.

  In the reflection of the Hummer’s dark tinted windows, his new house bore the biggest price tag of them all: $254,000.

  Chapter 14

  November 24, 1994. 03:27 P.M.

  Ryatt had been caught red-handed in Charleston nine years ago, when boosting a Subaru. It was Thomas’s duty to ready cars for their jobs, but that morning he felt under the weather. So Ryatt, who’d never broken into cars, tried his luck. He was a robber after all. How tough could stealing a car be?

  Turned out it was a completely different animal, requiring fineness and stealth, with a sprinkle of cowardice, none of which Ryatt possessed.

  Seconds after he slid the slim jim in, blue and red flashed behind him. He tried to yank the tool out, but it was jammed. He pulled the hoodie over his head and started walking away hastily, leaving the shiny metal arching awkwardly from the car’s window slit.

  Then the siren blared and Ryatt took off.

  However, there were no meandering alleyways Ryatt could have used to escape. Plain fields spanned as far as his eye could see. While handcuffed in the backseat, he refrained from employing the paperclip, because the pigs who had arrested him were young. And they seemed like the sort who the media labelled ‘trigger happy’.

  Ryatt’s fingerprints had been lifted from the slim jim. The judge screamed two years before banging the gavel, jailing a newly turned eighteen-year-old.

  For attempted theft!

  It hadn’t surprised Ryatt, though. West Virginia wasn’t famous for its equality. Didn’t they still have Jim Crow here? Their constitution supporting the segregation of colored and white children in schools? In the fucking nineties?

  Ryatt had first met Jake at the yard. A thirty-something jailbird, Jake belonged to a different wing. But as the prison complex contained only one exercise ground, inmates had to share.

  To pass time, they began chattering. Ryatt told Jake how he was arrested when he tried to steal a car. Except this, he never blurted anything out, about who he really was and what he had done. Jake said that if Ryatt ever needed stolen cars, he could contact him.

  A New Yorker, born and bred, Jake had been in the carjacking business for as long as he could remember. He said even his father was a car thief, and he used to sell cars to Roy Demeo himself. Ryatt didn’t know if he should be impressed, but he was relieved that he wouldn’t have to rely on Thomas’s pudgy fingers again to procure getaway vehicles.

  Jake’s acquaintanceship proved convenient. Their agreement worked like this: from where and how Jake got the cars wasn’t something Ryatt cared about. What Ryatt did with the cars was no business of Jake’s.

  Their partnership worked well, benefiting both parties for seven years. Even the Ford Ryatt used on the Chicago job came from Jake.

  So when Ryatt’s gang needed a new set of wheels for their next job, they went over to meet Jake.

  Leo took the I-80, which led them eastward. It had been three hours since they picked up Ryatt, and the sun had called it an early day. The highway scooted past him; bright headlamps on the other side flickered constantly on Ryatt’s face, giving him a migraine.

  Worried that he might get a seizure, Ryatt turned away from the window and looked at the time.

  His Rolex ran slower by an hour, unchanged since his return from Chicago. He nimbly wound the hands on the dial to display EST.

  Thomas lowered the volume of the stereo, looking in the rearview mirror, at Ryatt.

  “Now we got enough money to retire in style. Why don’t we call it off?”

  Ryatt said, “No, I don’t have enough.”

  Thomas frowned. “You don’t?”

  Ryatt shook his head.

  “I ain’t no fool to believe that.”

  “You calling me a liar?” It was Ryatt’s turn to frown.

  “I’m calling you greedy.”

  Ryatt stared into the mirror, trying his best to get angry, to look offended.

  But he couldn’t.

  Who was Ryatt kidding? Thomas was correct.

  Ryatt cleared his throat. “We… I—”

  Thomas lifted a hand, cutting him off. “Just promise me one thing.”

  “What?”

  “Call it quits before you get any of us hurt.”

  “Promise,” Ryatt said and yawned. “I had a full-course meal.” He lay down and stretched on the backseat. “Gonna rest for a few moments.”

  * * *

  “Wake up.” Ryatt felt two pairs of hands roughhousing him. “We’re here.”

  Wiping the drool off his cheek, Ryatt sat straight. Both his partners were looking at him; Thomas’s face curled in uncertainty.

  “What’s up?” Ryatt asked.

  Leo nodded at the window.

  Ryatt peered outside. They’d parked across from Jake’s chop shop, which he used as a front. But something seemed wrong with the picture. A car stood haphazardly at the entrance. Like someone skidded it to a halt urgently.

  The car was a Crown Vic.

  “What’s a pig doing here?” Ryatt asked.

  “We don’t know,” Thomas said. “I saw it angrily pull up and an angrier man tromped inside.”

  “It’s him!” Leo said. “But Thomas ain’t believing me.”

  “Whose him?” Ryatt asked.

  “You remember Staten Island?” Thomas asked and rolled his eyes.

  How could Ryatt ever forget that? Not just due to the tough elderly cashier, but this was also where Ryatt’s old nickname began following him. The cashier had informed the press in an interview that the robber had been sucking on a lollipop.

  The presumptuous editor of the newspaper had printed Lollipop Man, and the TV and radio downsized the epithet to a catchier Lolly.

  “I remember.” Ryatt pinched the bridge of his nose. “What about it?”

  Leo jumped in. “The NYPD held a press conference with the police captain… what’s his name—”

  “Raymond Hughes,” Thomas said.

  “Yeah. You remember the detective standing behind Hughes? He looked like he is always sad.”

  “Yes, I think I do,” Ryatt said.

  “That’s him,” Leo exclaimed. “I have his name right here.” Leo pointed at his throat. “But I just couldn’t spit it out.” He grabbed his head. “Something like a Hunter… no… Runner?”

  “No way. He looked different back then,” Thomas said, not paying attention to Leo’s agony.

  “Nah, it’s him!” Leo let go of his head. “He grew a beard now, but it’s him alright.”

  “He is still investigating our case?” Ryatt asked, surprised.

  “If it really is him—”

  “It is!”

&nbs
p; “Let’s ask Jake,” Ryatt said.

  Leo smashed the dashboard.

  “What now, asshole?” Thomas shouted.

  “I got it!” Leo beamed. “The detective’s name.”

  Ryatt and Thomas looked at the little man expectantly.

  “It’s Chase,” Leo said in a poor James Bond imitation. “Joshua Chase.”

  * * *

  Ryatt cooked up a plan. Leo and he would interrogate Jake while Thomas followed the Crown Vic and tried to learn more about the pig.

  They got down and walked to a bus stop opposite. At this time of night, no one was there, except a bum sleeping on the seats.

  Ten minutes later, Jake’s front door flew open. The angry pig stormed out, piled into the pig cart, and zoomed off.

  And the Hummer followed.

  Leo and Ryatt waited a few more minutes, deciding on a keyword, if things were to turn sour. Then they went in.

  Jake sat behind a small desk that carried a bowl of popcorn and an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts. Dark smoke rose from it. Yet Jake had another cigarette between his lips already. Ryatt knew Jake wasn’t a chain smoker.

  Jake’s pale face turned paler when he spotted Ryatt and Leo. But he quickly masked the shock and pushed himself up. “My man.”

  He opened his arms. Ryatt hugged him, Leo following suit.

  Pleasantries out of the way, Ryatt sat across from Jake, while Leo perched on Jake’s side of the table, facing him. They’d cut Jake’s only escape route, just in case.

  “Your next car’s ready. It’s outside.” Jake tried to get up, but Leo shoved him back into the chair.

  “What’s this?” he asked, his breathing labored.

  “I’ve seen that pig before,” Leo said.

  “It—it’s not about you, guys.” Jake’s Adam’s apple bobbed once.

  Ryatt knew then and there that Jake would fuck them over. Liars always did.

  “Turkey,” Ryatt uttered the keyword.

  Leo, giggling, pulled out a pistol and pointed at Jake.

  “No, man.” Jake lifted his hands. “I said nothing to him.”

  “What’d he ask?” Ryatt said. “And no more lying.”

  Jake squeezed his eyes shut. “About that car I sold you, man…”

  “The black Firebird?” Ryatt asked. It was the car they used on the Staten Island job.

  “No,” Jake said.

  “What do you mean, no?” Ryatt was confused. “Then about what car?”

  “This guy, he is like a genius or something, I tell you. He was asking about the Mustang.”

  Ryatt skipped a heartbeat. Why would a detective serving at Staten Island enquire about the car Ryatt had used in a different robbery, a robbery they’d pulled off in Chicago last week?

  Ryatt knew the FBI used his lollipop habit and ballistics to connect the crimes. But they wouldn’t have any inclination to share the information with a pig from a different state.

  “Why would he ask about the Mustang?”

  “I don’t know. H-he’s got a list of all the cars I ever sold to you.”

  “What the— How?” Ryatt felt something he hadn’t experienced in a long time. Helplessness.

  “I really have no clue.”

  A stone had clogged Ryatt’s throat. All these years, no one had come this close.

  “What’d you tell him?” Ryatt asked, though he could imagine what had transpired here. The angry way the pig stomped out of the shop meant Jake had resisted. But the pig must have threatened Jake to his core. That’s why he looked pretty shook up. The pig’s ego would never allow him to accept defeat. He would try his best to lock Jake up, by kindling some old dirt. Or he could just get a warrant and turn this chop shop upside down. Jake certainly had many things to hide.

  So Jake would weigh his options, and arrive at a conclusion: either work with the pig, help him arrest Ryatt, and earn some neat reward on the side; or don’t rat, gain nothing, possibly lose the shop, and go to prison.

  Jake didn’t know this yet, but eventually he would betray Ryatt. Jake, as if he had read Ryatt’s thoughts, eyed the doorway.

  “Can’t you see there’s nowhere to run?” Leo nudged Jake’s head with his gun. “Don’t make this harder on yourself.”

  Ryatt told Leo, “Don’t shoot. The noise will attract people. We have no car.”

  Jake’s eyes started spilling tears. “Please, man. I— we just had a baby.”

  Ryatt chose to hear nothing. In his mind, Jake was already a dead man. So he got up and switched on the TV above, fixed on the wall. Rerun of The Simpsons was airing. Nice. He grabbed the popcorn bowl and sat back.

  They all waited as the clock ticked. Jake was whimpering like a hurt dog, crying rivers and drenching his sleeves. He sometimes bent and held Ryatt’s hand and begged him to let him go.

  But Ryatt and Leo were busily watching the episode, Lisa On Ice, passing the popcorn between them.

  Finally, when the Hummer honked outside, Jake almost jumped out of his skin. Ryatt shot up to his feet and retrieved a baggie from his front pocket. It had various sizes of earplugs; each pair blocked different intensities of sound waves. Ryatt looked around. The place was tiny and crammed, so he selected two big plugs and wedged them into his canals.

  Once he was satisfied with the numbness the plugs had brought, he pulled out the Desert Eagle. While Jake’s bawling was being muffled by the plugs, Ryatt lifted the gun, his forefinger wrapping around the trigger—

  “Hold on, hold on, hold on.” Leo put his hand in front of the muzzle, giving Ryatt a heart attack.

  “What?!” Ryatt asked, easing the grip on the trigger.

  “Give me a minute. Wanna see how this ends.” Leo nodded towards the TV.

  Ryatt sighed and blew out air. He stood like that, right arm extended with a pistol in its extremity, aiming at a pathetic excuse of a man clasping his hands, weeping. As seconds passed, the pistol became heavier. Ryatt gave up and transferred the weight elsewhere, putting the barrel on his shoulder.

  Leo’s arms stretched with the popcorn bowl and Ryatt scooped the last handful. It took them a good five minutes before the credits finally rolled in, the chirpy music filling the office.

  Thank fucking God.

  Ryatt’s shoulder cramped when he brought down the weapon. Wincing, he took aim once again.

  Leo placed the empty bowl on the table and plugged his ears with his forefingers.

  Jake lifted his arms, his palms facing the muzzle of the Desert Eagle. “Please—”

  The bullet penetrated Jake’s hands, then his nose, and ripped the brain stem along the way, before exiting through the back of his neck. A goop of viscera ejected and splattered on the wall, then blood squirted.

  Leo and Ryatt made a speedy escape, climbed into the car which rocketed forward even before the doors were completely shut.

  “What the hell?!” Thomas asked. “You killed Jake?”

  “That pig killed Jake,” Ryatt replied and explained everything to Thomas. “Heard something about wrong place wrong time?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, we were in the right place at the right time. We wouldn’t have known about any of this if we came, say like ten minutes later.” Ryatt paused. “What’s the take here?”

  “What?” Thomas said.

  “Something is giving us a chance. We’re never gonna make a blunder like this again.”

  “I agree,” Thomas said.

  “Meaning, no more involving second parties.”

  Thomas sighed. “So it’s me back to stealing cars.”

  “We’re safe that way.”

  “Safe?” Thomas scoffed. “This detective looks desperate and acts desperate. Those obsessive types are always a problem, Ry. What’re we gonna do about it?”

  “What we always do with our problems.” Ryatt traced his finger along the barrel of the gun, its tip still warm. “We deal with it.”

  Chapter 15

  November 25, 1994. 02:14 A.M.

  The
Hummer parked across from a two-story building in Staten Island. The house had once been painted, and the wood underneath was chipped on more than a dozen spots. The lawn could use a mow, the roof a few shingles.

  A lush tree guarding the front partially blocked the streetlamp, so the right side of the property was dark. However, a lone rectangular light fell onto the shadow of the tree. A window. They had also discovered tendrils on that portion, which was going to be Ryatt’s key into the house. The pig’s Crown Vic standing on the gravel driveway had two flats, thanks to Leo’s army knife.

  Ryatt pocketed a lollipop and opened the door.

  “I’m gonna slip in through the upstairs window on the right-side wall. When I’m in, I’ll whistle. Then you,” Ryatt pointed at Leo, “come through the front. Thomas will start the Hummer and keep it ready.”

  “What if someone else is also in there?” Thomas asked.

  “Collateral.” Ryatt exited the car and pressed the door shut noiselessly.

  As he crossed the road, he scanned the vicinity and found that the street was quiet. Not missing the opportunity, he crouched and snuck under the tree’s shadow. Like he’d guessed, the rectangular light falling onto the side came from the window on the second floor.

  However, Ryatt spotted another window on the lower level that they hadn’t detected in their hasty recon. He quickly dashed from the safety of the shadows and dived below the opening. No light emanated from within, but he picked up voices.

  A loud argument.

  He craned his head a few centimeters and peeped into the window. It appeared to be a storeroom. Its door hung open and Ryatt could see the well-lit living room on the other side.

  The man whom Ryatt knew as Detective Joshua Chase was sitting on a couch. Elbows on his thighs, his head hung low and shoulders slumped.

  In front of the detective was a svelte woman, marching right to left and vice versa as she yelled, “… what kind of a man misses the Thanksgiving dinner with his in-laws to go after some bank robber?”

  Ryatt felt naughty and pleased. They were talking about him, while he was tucked in the darkness beyond their window, eavesdropping.