Sallow City

by Jim Heskett

  He flicked off the AK-47’s safety.

  Like the sudden rush of cold when jumping into a pool, the full weight of adrenaline and anxiety hit Rourke. In all of his previous years put together, he’d had a total of two guns pointed at him. Seen one dead body. This week alone, he’d seen four people die in front of him. He’d killed one himself, and his best friend had killed two others.

  That qualified as a “mass” killing, didn’t it?

  Rourke swayed on his feet. The sweat on his palms made the phone slip, and he bobbled it in the air.

  “Keep the light steady,” Carter said.

  The door burst open, knocking Carter back. At the top of the stairs stood a man in a pinstripe suit with a streak of blood running down his temple. His face had been a mess of panic, but it quickly bled to confusion at the sight of these three standing outside the back door of the mall.

  The casino was not empty. Activity, in the form of voices and gunfire, emanated from down those stairs.

  Ethan raised his assault rifle and jerked the trigger, putting three holes in the man’s gut. The rifle blasts were like bombs so close to Rourke’s ears, and the flash of light momentarily blinded him.

  His vision returned as the man in the pinstripe suit tumbled back down the stairs and the door started to shut.

  “Door!” Rourke shouted.

  Carter reached out and grabbed hold of it, barely managing to catch it before it closed. “I guess I can check about getting my money back for the lockpicks, eh?”

  “I thought you said it would be empty,” Ethan said.

  “I was hoping it would be,” Rourke said. “Doesn’t matter now. We have weapons and access, and it’s not going to get any better than this.”

  He realized this raid was maybe the last stupid thing he would ever get to do in his life. And that he didn’t care anymore. As long as his friends were with him, this was going to happen.

  They were finally going to right the wrongs.

  He flicked off his assault rifle’s safety. “Okay. Time to get paid.”

  ***

  Before Micah had a chance to grasp what was happening, someone in the line of attackers turned and shot at his car. A few bullets punctured the grille and the front hood. He ducked. Snatched his compact Glock.

  Had a split second thought about Frank not getting his deposit back for the rental. Boba Fett reminded him to focus or he’d drown in a puddle of his own blood inside this rental car.

  A bullet cracked the windshield, and a second barrage blew it out. Glass sprinkled his back. His ears filled with a sound like the crinkling of fancy gift wrapping paper. Then, he felt the car sink a few inches as the front tires deflated. He wasn’t driving out of here, and if he stayed in this car, he’d be dead in less than a minute. It’s not as if the car rental company had offered a bulletproof upgrade.

  Micah reached up to tug on his seatbelt and felt a bullet whiz past his hand. Yanked it back down. The buckle was pinned underneath him.

  An idea formed.

  He stashed the gun in his waistband and popped open the glove box. Took out a pocket knife and the car’s manual, which must have weighed at least a couple pounds. He had to pray it would be heavy enough.

  A shaky hand turned the key in the ignition, and the car grumbled to life. He cut through the seatbelt with the pocket knife and opened the passenger door. Gulped a quick breath, then dropped the manual on the gas pedal and jumped out of the passenger side as the car began to accelerate toward the line of attackers.

  Whoever was shooting focused their fire on the moving car, and Micah got to his feet and sprinted with all his might toward the back parking lot. His feet barely touched the ground.

  As he ran, he sneaked a look at the mall. Opposite the men shooting at it, another line of people returned fire. Casino employees, judging by the dark suits. They had pushed bits and pieces of the Dort Mall decorations to form a barricade behind the windows. Pinball machines and airplane parts and other bits of junk, stacked to provide cover from weapons fire. The Crossroads gang had prepared for this attack. They weren’t planning on traveling south, so that meant the ones shooting had to be Sinaloa.

  Micah kept running, but he squinted to identify the men firing at the mall. His eyes landed on a particular person. A familiar face.

  Micah’s heart pulsed, stopped, sped up.

  Couldn’t be him. But it was.

  He was looking at Gustavo Salazar, one of Micah’s former employers. Deep scar across his forehead, like a thick and wavy wrinkle. A man who had somehow escaped prosecution from the feds, and now here he stood, in Michigan, engaged in a war with some skinhead gang.

  A shootout in a mall parking lot in broad daylight. That the Sinaloa would have the balls to do such a thing reminded Micah how insanely dangerous they were.

  Micah willed his legs to sprint faster. He’d be hidden by the corner of the mall in three or four more seconds. Getting there would solve his most immediate problem. But, even if he could escape the parking lot, they were here. If they had seen his face, they would know for sure that he was alive now. Two years of living in Denver under an assumed name, and now, one look over at this man would ruin everything.

  They would kill him. Probably after days or weeks of torture, if only to make themselves feel a little better about how he’d betrayed them. They would also come for Frank and then Micah’s family. The Sinaloa wouldn’t stop until everyone he’d known had been eradicated in the most heinous ways possible.

  Micah held up a hand to the side of his face to obscure it.

  Just before he turned the corner to the side of the mall, he glanced back one more time, and Gustavo was leading two of his men on a charge toward the same corner of the mall. Gustavo’s men were carrying automatic weapons. Micah’s pistol wasn’t much of a match for that.

  Had they seen him? Or were they chasing what they thought was some random casino employee trying to escape?

  Micah rounded the side and hugged the outer mall wall as he approached the back lot. His chest burned from the exertion. He hadn’t run this hard in years, but fearing for your life will do that to you.

  When he turned the back corner, he spotted the three casino robbers, standing outside the open back door of the mall. Gustavo had to be less than fifty paces behind him. Micah couldn’t make it to the trees at the edge of the lot fast enough. But he could reach Rourke and his gang.

  They could help him.

  “Wait!” he shouted at the three of them. “Wait, please.”

  Micah could barely make out his expression with the blinding sun overhead, but he thought he’d seen Rourke smile.

  Ethan raised an AK-47, but Rourke put his hand on top of it, pushing it down as Micah neared them.

  “You’re just in time,” Rourke said.

  Micah could barely catch his breath. “You’re not actually going to rob the casino now, are you?”

  “Fuck yeah, we are,” Carter said.

  “You can help,” Rourke said.

  Micah was about to protest when bullets whizzed by from behind. Gustavo and his men had caught up. Micah didn’t argue anymore. If he didn’t disappear immediately, he’d be spotted. Shot to death.

  He and his three new heist companions dashed through the door, down the stairs, into the casino.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Rourke hopped over the body of the dead man in the pinstriped suit, with Carter, Ethan, and Micah trailing. With each step down the long and dark stairwell and into the casino, his heart’s relentless thumping increased speed. He hadn’t been here since he was a kid; not since his father had squandered what little money they had so he could get his adrenaline fix.

  Breathing this same casino air didn’t make him feel little again, as he’d worried it might. He did recognize the sour smell of cigar smoke, the hint of liquor floating into his nostrils.

  Near the bottom of the stairs, he noticed the absence of light on the casino floor, but gun blasts flashed across the room like a lazy str
obe light. The constant rattle of gunfire boxed Rourke’s ears.

  This room was supposed to be empty. It was definitely not. He’d entertained fantasies of strutting into a barren room, free to take the cash at will, not having to pull a trigger even once.

  But he and his friends were walking into a death trap, and he knew it. And even though he was aware of that, and even though his heart raced, Rourke didn’t feel like turning around to leave. He wanted to push on, to fight through the guards and get what he came for.

  A pair of legs came into view at the bottom of the stairs. Rourke pointed his AK-47 and squeezed the trigger. The weapon jerked like a rabid dog in his hands, the recoil naturally trying to elevate the barrel after the shot. He’d have to get used to that.

  His bullet poked a hole in the man’s thigh and he tumbled forward. Someone had been shooting at him, and bullets peppered the bottom three steps. One bullet tore a hole in that man’s head, splattering gray and red chunks nearby.

  A piece of scalp with brown hair landed on the bottom stair, and Rourke couldn’t help but gawk at it. He didn’t want to, but couldn’t look away. So utterly disgusting.

  A hand gripped Rourke’s shoulder, and it broke his concentration. He couldn’t hear anything over the gunfire.

  Carter leaned forward and shouted above the fray. “We need to think about this. We don’t have any way to conceal our entrance. We’ll be vulnerable as soon as we step into view.”

  Rourke nodded. They were still four or five steps away from emerging into view of whoever was in the room.

  Carter put his lips right next to Rourke’s ear. “We are at a serious disadvantage here, as soon as we leave these stairs.”

  Before Rourke could answer, his body jerked to the side as Ethan knocked him out of the way. The big guy was hopping down the stairs, two at a time, his mouth open and an inaudible war cry bellowing from his lips.

  Ethan landed at the bottom of the stairs and squeezed off a volley of assault rifle fire in all directions. He squeezed off thirty rounds in three or four seconds. Light from the gunfire flashed up the stairwell like headlights in a dark tunnel.

  Rourke didn’t have time to think. He had to help his friend. He grabbed Carter’s shirt and tugged him the rest of the way down. Rourke craned his neck back and found Micah still halfway up the stairs, looking up at the closed back door. His gun out and pointed into the darkness. Must have been expecting whoever had been chasing him to burst through that door.

  Whatever. If Micah didn’t want to help, he could expect to be cut out of a share of the casino money. And if he got in the way, he’d face even more severe consequences.

  They’d entered life-or-death territory. Everything else was useless.

  As Rourke hit the ground, he couldn’t see anything at first. Smoke filled the room. Gunshots rang in his ears. Ethan was still firing, and Carter lifted his rifle and squeezed off a few shots.

  Rourke’s eyes adjusted a little, even though they were already starting to burn from the smoke. When he moved his feet, poker chips scattered.

  He could see a line of slot machines in the middle of the room. Two of the poker tables near that line had been turned over, and a couple heads were poking out from behind them. Some flickering light source flared at the far end of the room, but he couldn’t tell what it was.

  He and his two friends were standing out in the open, at the bottom of the stairwell.

  Rourke snatched his friends by their arms and dragged them a couple feet to the left so they were partially blocked behind a table covered with green felt. Poker or Blackjack, hard to tell. He lifted his AK and squinted through the smoke. Saw a gangly man try to run from a poker table to a slot machine.

  Rourke aimed and pulled the trigger. Once, twice, three times, all controlled single-shot bursts. He was getting better at this already.

  The gangly man made it to the slot machine, and then he leaned out, jerking his gun’s trigger. The bullets didn’t come anywhere close, though. He must not have been able to see well either, through all the smoke.

  Rourke lined up the sight and squeezed again, and this time, the man flew backward and stumbled into a dormant slot machine. Big crack as his head connected with metal and glass.

  The shooting ceased inside the room. He could hear it coming from nearby in several directions, but the room had gone quiet. Rourke could now see the source of the light in the far corner of the room. A fire was quivering and growing taller. Hard to see what was burning, but it didn’t look too serious. Not yet, at least.

  “They can’t be gone,” Carter said amid the quiet. His chest hitched as he breathed.

  The smoke cleared a bit, but it was still hard to see the full scope of the room. “Most of them are probably upstairs, dealing with the attack on the front of the mall. Holding them off.” Rourke pointed his gun at the fire at the opposite end. “We might need to worry about that fire, though.”

  “Then we gotta move,” Ethan said, mouth in a snarl.

  Rourke followed him toward the cashier’s cage in the near corner. In their path: broken card tables, mountains of chips, overturned chairs. Dead bodies, some still leaking blood out onto the carpet.

  Rustling came behind a slot machine near the middle of the room. Fifty feet away.

  “Come out,” Ethan said as he pointed his AK in that direction. “Come on out of there. Real slow, and let me see your hands. Do not mess with me.”

  A pair of hands emerged from behind the slot machine. A pistol gripped in one.

  Rourke raised his weapon. “Drop the gun, asshole.”

  The gun went clattering to the ground, and the hands turned into arms, then a person stepped into view. A kid, couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen. He was wearing a card dealer’s green visor. Shaking, terrified.

  The kid opened his mouth, but a burst of gunfire interrupted him. Ethan’s AK-47 spit a volley of bullets at him, punching holes from his stomach to his head. The kid sank to his knees, gasped, then fell flat on his face. Blood immediately seeped into the carpet in a circle, spreading out from his chest.

  “Jesus, dude,” Carter said. “He was just a kid.”

  Ethan growled. “If he works here, he’s a Nazi shitbag like the rest. I’m going to kill every one of them I can. I don’t want to hear about your humanitarian bullshit right now.”

  “Humanitarian?” Carter said. “There’s a difference between—”

  Rourke snapped his fingers, which was still a faint sound compared to the gunshots rumbling above. He didn’t want to dwell on Ethan’s bloodlust, and he didn’t want Ethan to think about it, either. “Guys. Focus.”

  They proceeded to the cashier’s cage, a small room with a cutout window protected by bars. The door to the cage was locked.

  “You got the lockpicks?” Rourke said to Carter.

  Carter dipped a hand into his back pocket, then his face went white. Shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t have them. I dropped them in the parking lot.”

  “Shit,” Ethan said.

  Carter pouted. “What do you want from me? They were shooting at us, and with the door already open, we didn’t need them. Should I go out the back and look?”

  Rourke remembered the three men who had been chasing Micah. They might still be out there. “No, don’t do that.”

  Ethan lifted his AK at the door, but Carter stopped him.

  “Wait,” Carter said. “There might be some kind of trap or something if you shoot off that lock. You might set off one of those blue paint bombs that ruins all the money.”

  Rourke stared at the door. Carter was probably right. A wave of disappointment so severe gripped him, that for a moment he experienced an overpowering urge to sit. Let this roadblock overcome him and give up.

  To come this close and then fail?

  An idea appeared. He turned back to the stairs. “Micah? Are you still there?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Micah heard his name, but the voice didn’t register at first. He’d b
een eye-locked in a staring contest with that back door of the mall, waiting for Gustavo to come bursting through. His Glock pointed up the stairs into the abyss, waiting for a chance to punch a hole in that bastard’s head.

  “Why didn’t I try for the trees?” he mused. “I should have tried for the trees instead of trapping myself down here.”

  He probably wouldn’t have made it to the edge of the parking lot unharmed, but there’d been a chance. He’d made a choice now, and couldn’t go back.

  Still, the door above had not opened.

  Why hadn’t that door opened?

  Maybe Gustavo was anticipating that someone in the basement level would take Micah out. Or he was standing outside that door, waiting for Micah to realize the only way out was to venture back up those stairs. Or maybe Gustavo had already died in a firefight. Or possibly, Gustavo hadn’t seen him at all. Maybe he hadn’t recognized Michael McBriar, the man who’d sold out his people in exchange for Witness Protection.

  There was no way to know without walking up the stairs and opening that door. Without exposing himself.

  “Micah?” came a voice from below.

  Micah snapped out of his trance and descended the stairs. Most of the casino was shrouded in a foggy haze. A few emergency lights illuminated some sections, but most of the room was dim. A bit of smoke hung in the air and a small fire lit up the far corner of the room.

  Dead bodies had stacked on top of each other like leaves covering a lawn. Each step on the carpet led to more squelching sounds. Blood. There had to be three dozen dead here, maybe more.

  Carter, Ethan, and Rourke were standing in front of the cashier’s room in the corner, pointing their guns at it.

  Micah lowered his pistol and joined them. “What?”

  “Can you break into this room?” Rourke said.

  Micah glanced back at the stairs.

  “Help us, and we’ll help you,” Rourke said. “We’ll all fight our way out of here together.”

  The main door to the casino burst open, and three men rushed in. Not casino employees. Dressed in dark clothes from head to toe, these were cartel men. Had to be. Micah couldn’t see their faces in the rush, but he knew his own kind. They moved with liquid speed, fanning out and deftly navigating the mess of the room.