by Lucin, David
“Check the others,” she commanded.
Leroi went to Sam first. A small part of Jenn took offense that Sam looked more dangerous than her. But none of this was necessary. Why hadn’t Gary told them who he was, that Liam lived down the street, or that they watched baseball together on the weekends?
“He’s clear,” Leroi said after patting down Sam. Then he came over to Jenn and did the same. “So is she.”
“Okay, folks,” Ross said and lowered her gun. “You can get up. But keep those hands where I can see them.”
Jenn stayed down until Gary made the first move. He planted one foot and pushed himself up with a wince. “I hope everything’s in order, officers,” he started. “We’re only trying to get home.”
Ross sauntered over. “Can I see some ID, sir? And a permit for your firearm.”
“No problem.” Gary reached for his wallet, pulled out his driver’s license and a second plastic card, and handed them to Ross.
Squinting, she held them close to her face. “Okay, Mister . . . Ruiz. Can I ask what you have in the wheelbarrow?”
“Oxygen compressor and some batteries, ma’am. For my wife.”
She leaned in and ran her fingers along one of the batteries. “I’m surprised you found someone open. You go to Carla’s place?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And you paid for this?”
“We did.”
“Cash?”
“No, ma’am,” Gary said. “I gave her my car as collateral.”
Ross bit her lip. “Unless you have a receipt, I can’t let you leave with these.”
“What?” Jenn blurted out. She tried to stop herself, to let Gary handle the situation, but the words exploded from her throat. “The power’s down. How the hell are we supposed to get a receipt?”
Gary lifted his arm to hold Jenn at bay. “Sorry, officers,” he said. “We don’t have one, but if you speak with Carla, she’ll tell you we’re all squared away.”
Ross adjusted her belt and eyed the wheelbarrow again. She wasn’t considering if Gary had told the truth, Jenn realized; she was deciding what to do with them and the compressor. “Okay. You can go, but you’ll have to leave these with us until we can corroborate your story.”
“Screw that,” Jenn said. “This is bullshit.”
“Jenn!” Gary placed himself between her and Ross. “Relax.”
“How can I relax when we’re basically getting robbed?” she said.
Ross raised a finger and stuck it at Jenn. “Shut her up or I’m taking her in.”
Sam made a move toward Jenn, but Leroi stiff-armed his chest.
“Jenn,” Gary said softly. “Take it easy. It’s fine.”
“No.” She jerked backward, free from his grasp. “We bought these—for way more than they’re worth. Go ask Carla!” She waved in the direction of downtown.
Ross raised her gun and pointed it at Jenn and Gary. A show of force. Nothing more. No way she’d shoot Jenn in the middle of the street, not over this. Jenn would make her understand. Gary just needed to move out of the way.
“Jenn,” he said again, then put a hand on each of her shoulders. “It’s all right. Let me handle this.”
Her fists clenched and her cheeks hot, Jenn closed her eyes and inhaled a lungful of Flagstaff’s crisp air. She felt this way last night at Minute Tire, when she’d given in to her frustration and acted on impulse. What had that accomplished? Sophie had a gun, but Jenn never suspected she’d use it. These cops probably wouldn’t, either, but the stakes were higher now. Unlike at the shop, Jenn had something to lose. If she kept pressing, she’d only agitate these cops further, leading them to take the compressor and batteries out of spite.
She relaxed her hands and opened her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said, looking at Gary and pretending she meant the words solely for him.
Gary gave Jenn a wink. “Sorry about that, officers. It’s been a tough day and we’re all a little strung out. I’m sure you can understand.”
Ross nodded but didn’t respond. Leroi had put himself between Sam and the wheelbarrow.
“Listen,” Gary said, his arms open. “I’m neighbors with Officer Kipling. Liam Kipling. He lives just down the street from me, and I’m good friends with your lieutenant, Bill McLeod. If you radio him, I’m sure he’ll be happy to vouch for me.”
Ross lowered her gun. “How do you know the LT?”
Gary put his hands on his hips. “Bill and I worked patrol together down in Phoenix. Believe it or not, I showed him a thing or two back in the day.”
Ross seemed to consider that but didn’t appear satisfied. “If you’re friends with the lieutenant, what’s his wife’s name?”
Gary smiled. “You mean was his wife’s name. I assume you’re asking about the most recent wife, the one he had up here. It’s Brenda. They’ve been divorced for three”—Gary counted out the fingers on his right hand—“no, four years now. She moved home to Pennsylvania two summers ago.”
After exchanging a quick glance with Leroi, Ross holstered her weapon. “Fine, but—”
Her radio crackled to life. She pinched the black speaker mic clipped to her shirt and leaned in. “Unit two-one-five. Go ahead.”
Jenn struggled to make out the voice. It came through in muffled static and sounded like a different language comprising alphanumeric codes and unintelligible jargon. The only words she clearly made out were “go” and “market.”
“Ten-four. We’re on our way,” Ross said into the radio before speaking once more to Gary. “You’re in luck, Mr. Ruiz.” She returned his driver’s license and carry permit. Then she signaled for Leroi to pass Gary his gun. “I’m going to let you go with a warning this time. But there’s been reports of looting around town, so I’m asking you to head home and stay indoors.” She made her way past and toward the squad car, then paused and warned, “And I’ll be asking Bill about you. Liam, too.”
10
Officers Ross and Leroi piled into the squad car and drove off.
“What the hell was that?” Jenn asked.
Gary tucked his Glock into the concealed carry holster on his beltline. “What do you mean?”
“I thought for sure they were taking us in. Then, all of a sudden, they get a radio call and leave us alone? You were getting through to them with that talk about your buddy Bill, but this was too easy.”
Gary moved toward the wheelbarrow. “Bigger fish to fry.”
Jenn had heard the words “go” and “market,” but she couldn’t follow the rest of the police lingo. “Bigger fish being the Go Market?” she asked.
“That’s what it sounded like.”
“Care to elaborate?” Jenn blew a strand of hair off her lips. “You’re a cop. You must have understood that pig Latin on the radio. What’s the deal?”
Gary gripped his belt and adjusted his pants, then inspected the palms and backs of his hands before answering. “All available officers are being called to both Go Markets. Crowd control, from the sounds of it.”
“Crowd control?” Sam said. “Those places have their own security.”
“Must be big crowds, then.” Gary gripped the handles of the wheelbarrow and pushed forward. Sam fell in line behind him.
Jenn didn’t move. In her mind, she inventoried all the supplies at the Ruiz house: a box of stale crackers, a half bag of corn, a quarter loaf of bread, some potatoes, an onion, a few packages of instant oatmeal, and two or three of those vacuum-sealed premade meals. They ate the rest of the soy bacon yesterday morning and the rest of the soup for dinner. By Jenn’s estimate, that wouldn’t last them more than a couple of days. She couldn’t take Sam and find her parents in Phoenix while leaving Gary and Maria with nothing. They’d settled the issue of Maria’s oxygen for the time being, sure, but that wasn’t much help if they ran out of food.
Sam stopped. “Jenn, you coming?”
“We need to get food.”
Sam arched an eyebrow. “Come again?”
“Things a
re getting crazy,” she said. “We have to be ready.”
Gary paused and dropped the wheelbarrow. “You’re not considering the Go Market, are you?”
“You said so yourself, Gary,” Jenn said. “Big crowds. And there’s been looting. If the Go Markets and whatever else get picked clean, we’re screwed.”
Gary stepped toward Jenn. “That won’t happen. The police will keep things under control. What we need to do now is—”
“How much food do you have?” Jenn asked.
His mustache twitched. “It doesn’t matter. We should go home and wait. Help is on the way.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Sam said between bites of his fingernail.
Gary sucked in a deep breath and looped his thumbs into his pants pockets. “No, the government will—”
Sam snorted, drawing a glare from Gary. “This is bigger than Flagstaff.” He pulled his fingers from his mouth. “Like we said last night, if Phoenix was attacked, that means a dozen other cities were probably attacked, too.”
Gary undid the top button of his polo shirt. “Not necessarily. Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren’t the biggest and most important cities in Japan. By that logic, America should have bombed Tokyo first, but we didn’t. It could be something similar here. A demonstration.”
“No,” Jenn said. “Sam’s right. This is totally different. It doesn’t make sense. Phoenix? Really? Why just Phoenix? A dump like Phoenix being attacked means everywhere was attacked. Every city in the country could be gone. Maybe every city in China, too, and Europe. You think China would attack Phoenix and not London or Paris or Berlin? No way. If we got hit, all those places got hit, too. Then we probably hit them back. We’re talking about a full-on nuclear war here and—”
Gary squeezed his eyes together. “Stop. I get it. I do.” His chin fell. “It’s just . . . It’s hard to think about. Things were going so well for us. The war was almost over.”
Jenn put a hand on Gary’s arm. “I know,” she said softly. “But that’s probably why this happened. It’s like cornering a wild animal. They’ll lash out if you get too close.”
She looked to Sam, who returned to whittling his nails.
“Mr. Ruiz,” he said, “we have to be honest with ourselves. This is the biggest attack on this country ever. By far. The government’s going to have its hands full. Major cities need all the help they can get right now. It might be a while before we see any up here.”
“He’s right,” Jenn said. “We’re on our own. At least for a bit.”
Gary cleared his throat. Jenn had never seen him this emotional. To her, Gary was a model of stability. He always kept calm and level-headed, no matter the situation. Last year, when Jenn tried fixing a clog in the kitchen sink by taking apart the drain trap, she spilled water all over the floor. Gary lectured her, of course, but he never raised his voice. Seeing Gary avoiding eye contact, fiddling with his shirt, and refusing to acknowledge reality worried Jenn.
She put a hand on his arm again. “All we’re saying is that we need to prepare for the worst.”
Gary lifted his head. “What are you thinking?”
“We should go to the Go Market,” Jenn said. “Wait there and see, just in case. They weren’t open yesterday and obviously still aren’t, but if there’s enough pressure on them from the cops and everyone else, they might.”
“And if they don’t?” Gary asked. “If people start looting, are you telling me you’ll join in?”
Jenn didn’t want to say yes, but she had to. She hated the companies that stood between her and a stocked cupboard. Five years ago, the government tried to impose price controls and rationing so all Americans could eat, as had happened during World War Two, but the giant corporations lobbied against that plan and had Congress scrap it. Now most food was ten times more expensive than it was before the war. Fresh fruit cost a fortune—if stores sold it at all—and Jenn hadn’t had real meat in three weeks or tasted actual coffee in over a year. No, the Go Market wasn’t the victim here. She was. The Ruiz family was. Corporate greed had transformed America into a powder keg. People had grown restless and pissed off, and if everyone had decided to finally take their share, Jenn would, too.
But she understood Gary’s hesitation. He’d spent much of his working life as a police officer and, to Jenn’s knowledge, had never broken the law. He always drove the Kia five miles under the speed limit. He composted and recycled. He paid for parking. Hell, he used the crosswalk instead of jaywalking. Asking Gary to steal was like asking Jenn to stop swearing: even if he wanted to, he never could. Something in his DNA forbade it.
But Jenn could steal. Sam, too. They had to—if it came to that.
“Yes,” she said. “I know it’s hard for you, harder than for us, but if things go to hell, we can’t miss out on this.”
“Go home,” Sam said.
Jenn twisted her neck to lock eyes with him. “What?”
“Mr. Ruiz,” he started, “you can drive my car and take it to your place. Me and Jenn will check out the Go Market. You don’t have to come.”
“That’s right,” Jenn agreed. “Sam and I will scope it out.”
Gary scrunched up his face and cracked his knuckles as he seemed to mull that over. “Fine,” he said. “But first sign of trouble, you hightail it out of there. This isn’t just about you breaking the law—something I hope you can avoid. Those security guards at the Go Market, they’re nothing but thugs as far as I’m concerned. Plain dangerous. They get hired, get weapons, and go to work without any training.”
“No problem,” Jenn said. “We’ll be careful. I promise.”
“Good.” Gary slapped Sam on the back again. There was no indignation, just encouragement. Maybe he was saying thanks. Sam clapped his hands together, so he must have read the gesture in the same way. “Now let’s go get Sam’s car and put this awfulness behind us.”
* * *
They retrieved Sam’s car from the underground parking garage and loaded in the oxygen compressor and batteries, a stress-inducing affair for Jenn. Without power, the overhead LEDs were all off, and the only light they had to guide them came from Gary’s flashlight.
Gary drove—in manual, of course—and took the first left onto Milton. After only two blocks, he spotted a barricade not far from Minute Tire. To avoid another run-in with the police, he hung a quick U-turn around a stalled van, then turned onto the main drag through campus.
“Drop us off here,” Jenn said from the front seat, pointing ahead and to her right. “We can go through the alley and get to the Go Market from there.”
Gary slowed the car down. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. If there’s a roadblock on Milton, I’d assume there’d probably be one up here, too. I don’t know if anyone will stop us again, but I’d rather not take that chance. Me and Sam can just cut through here.”
Gary shoulder-checked his right, then pulled over to the curb. Once stopped, he reached into the center console and retrieved his flashlight. “Bring this. Could be dark in the Go Market.”
Jenn took it and stuffed it into her jeans pocket. “Thanks.” She opened the door and swung a leg out but felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Hold on,” Gary said.
She turned to him. “What’s up?”
He ran his knuckles along the steering wheel. “I’ll stay here and wait for you,” he said. “If they let you in and you get some supplies, it’s not safe to walk to the house with them, especially if people are desperate. I’ll drive you.”
In the corner of her eye, Jenn caught a glimpse of Sam’s stunned expression. “Are you sure?” she said.
“Yes. Now get moving. Bring the wheelbarrow. If there’s as many people there as I think there is, I doubt you’ll find a shopping cart.”
“You got it,” she said, pulling herself out of the car.
She met Sam at the rear of his Tesla, where he pulled off the bungee cord holding the wheelbarrow in place, then held the handles while Jenn gripped the front wheel. Heav
ing it up, she spotted Sam’s tire iron lying in the corner of the trunk.
They set the wheelbarrow down, and Sam put a hand on the truck to close it. Jenn mouthed the word wait, pulled out the tire iron, and laid it in the wheelbarrow. Hopefully Gary wasn’t watching in the rearview mirror.
Confident he hadn’t seen her, she shut the trunk. She took the wheelbarrow and pushed it toward the alley leading to the Go Market, but Gary’s voice stopped her. “Remember,” he said, one hand on the steering wheel as he leaned across the center console, “any trouble and you leave. I’ll be right here.”
Jenn gave him a thumbs-up.
When Gary was out of earshot, Sam gestured to the tire iron and asked, “What are you planning on doing with that?”
Feigning ignorance, Jenn said, “With what?”
“I hope Gary doesn’t get a flat.”
“It’s fine. Just in case.”
At the far end of the alley, a chain-link fence a few feet taller than Sam marked the back of the Go Market. They followed it right, then turned left and continued toward Milton.
Voices rumbled from the parking lot. Jenn peered through the fence.
“Whoa,” Sam droned.
Dozens of cars stood idle in their stalls, and a crowd of two or three hundred collected near the main entrance. Jenn pushed the wheelbarrow forward and said, “Let’s go.”
“There’s hundreds of people here,” Sam said. “We need to hurry.”
Jenn expected another roadblock or at least a few police on foot, but with so many people at the doors, all available bodies had likely been assigned to crowd control. She rounded the end of the fence and entered the Go Market’s parking lot, then plotted a course between the stalled vehicles.
The crowd loomed and the shouting grew louder as they closed in. Jenn imagined having to push her way to the front and recalled squeezing into Minute Tire. She’d never forget the smell of that man’s breath from behind her. “What do you think?” she asked Sam and set the wheelbarrow down. Part of her hoped he had a plan. Another part hoped he didn’t so they could turn around and return to Gary and the car.