“Luis is right. We can’t wait.”
“But what do we do?” Lyn asked.
“For starters, one of us is going to have to drop the blinds over those windows so she can’t see in,” Beau said.
“I ain’t doin’ it,” Luis said.
“We’ll draw straws,” Beau said. “Short straw pulls the blinds.
“Fuck that, man. Straw or not, I said I ain’t doin’ it!”
Luis settled down, giving up on his idea of scrambling down a sheer rock cliff into the untamed mountain forest below. When he had first been hired, Lyn thought he was cute. As time went on, his true nature shone through in bits and pieces. A short tip here, a hateful joke there. He wasn’t about to put his life on the line for her. Who would? Of all the people working, she thought that Leonard was the only one who was more than indifferent toward her. She couldn’t hear him over the argument between Beau and Luis. She imagined that meant he was either dead in the kitchen or hiding like they were. Aside from him, no one in the restaurant was anyone she could count on to cover a shift, let alone to risk getting shot to keep her safe.
She looked over at the cash register where she’d been standing when the first shot came. I stood there like a startled deer, staring out the front door. She wouldn’t even have had to re-aim the gun to kill me. Instead she moved on to the guy with the Cokes. The truth dawned on her then: Joanie likes me. Out of all of these people, the only one who I can count on is the one shooting at us.
“I’ll do it,” she volunteered.
“Yeah, fuck it. Let her do it.”
“No,” Beau insisted. “It’s a bad idea. We should all go into the back and wait for the cops.”
“I was standing here in front of this wall the whole time she was shooting and she didn’t kill me. I’ll do it.”
Beau looked confused, but she could see in Luis’ eyes that he followed what she was saying. He’d seen Joanie stop and talk to her. He’d seen her serve coffee to the killer. He knew that she was right.
“Let her do it,” he said.
#
1500 hrs
Bryce had felt a pull like hers once when he got bounced into the water during a whitewater rafting trip. He was lucky enough to miss the rocks when he went in, but the current dragged him into an eddy pool and down he went. The rushing water turned him over and upside down and around so he couldn’t tell which way back to the surface. He struggled to break free, but the power of it held him in place, choking the life out of him until a hand reached in and pulled him up and out.
Joanie felt like that.
When he saw her in her yoga pants and her tight shirts, hair pulled up in a practical but girlish ponytail, he felt like he couldn’t get any air. She just had a hold of him.
You can have Joanie and alimony, child support and visitation, or you can have Cherie and your old life. It should’ve been a no-brainer. Cherie was the love of his life. They’d met in high school and he’d pursued her for two years. It took a lot of doing, but eventually he won her over with charm and determination. These days he’d have been called in to the principal’s office (or maybe the police station) for stalking, but back then it was how you wooed a girl if you were a little too skinny guy who didn’t like to play football. He gave her flowers and candy, cute stuffed animals and notes––so many notes––just to prove that he wasn’t another one of those guys who wanted to bed her and move back to the cheerleading pool for another flavor. He wore her down and finally she relented and agreed to the date he’d asked for so many times. And then he got another. And then they were “going out.” He gave her a promise ring––a childish promise to be engaged to be engaged. Then they got engaged for real as he entered the police academy and she went to Moscow for college. They married at twenty when she quit school and moved home. She gave him a daughter when they were twenty-one, a son at twenty-three. And that’s when they grew up. Now he needed a new set of adult tools to make his marriage work. No more promises of promises to come.
By contrast, he needed nothing to be with Joanie other than a stiff cock and the energy to keep up. The latter was harder than the former. Joanie had get-up-and-go for days. She could out run, out gun, and out fuck him. And when she did any of those things he felt like he was eighteen again. But of course he wasn’t eighteen. He was thirty-five and he had two kids and a lovely wife and a good job and he had put it all in jeopardy for what?
Gifts and sweet notes weren’t going to work if he wanted to hold on to the one person who’d stood by him when he was undergoing chemo for the cancer in his testicle at twenty-seven––the same year he was sued by the guy whose arm he broke making an over-enthusiastic arrest in a bar fight. Cherie had stood by him again a year later, after he’d beat cancer and had almost died in the river instead. He’d had to go the hospital again, even though the co-pays on the chemo had eaten up all of their savings. Cherie had been the one holding him up when he wanted to lie down. And now he needed to stand up on his own and take responsibility for what he’d done. He radioed in that he was going off the clock. His shift was over and it was time to head to Joanie’s to say his piece and maybe even pay a little for the wrong he’d done.
#
1500 hrs
Lyn peeked around the corner of the bar. The task seemed impossible. The ties holding up the blinds were all the way across the restaurant, through a sea of broken glass and directly in the line of fire. She wasn’t convinced Joanie would spare her––just that she hadn’t killed her yet. It was a bet everyone was willing to take, but she wasn’t a gambler. The thought of playing nickel slots made her nauseous.
“Go on,” Luis egged.
“Give me a minute.”
“Why? So your girlfriend can pick the rest of us off?”
“That’s enough, Luis,” Beau said. “You’re going to do your part whether you like it or not. Once Lyn gets those blinds down, you’re going out the back to see if you can get a signal with whatever phones we can find out on…” Beau’s face screwed into a grimace, and it appeared to Lyn that he suddenly thought better of referring to the dining area as the “Killing Floor” like he always did. “Whatever phones we can find out there,” he finished.
“Whatever, man,” The busboy said.
Lyn leaned out a little further from cover. She didn’t hear anything, but she didn’t die either. “I’m going.” No one said anything. She would have liked to have heard “good luck,” or “be careful.” Any expression of encouragement would have done. She looked back one last time, hoping that Beau would tell her to stop, saying he’d go in her place. Instead he gave her a thumbs-up.
The redhead sat weeping and mumbling sweet nothings to a dead woman.
Luis just stared at her.
Clutching a dishrag she kept under the counter for wiping up spills, she crept out into the dining room and headed for the short wall by the doors. Once there, she turned toward the first set of windows. Across the dining room, she saw the man and his son huddled together beneath the booth at the far end of the restaurant. She felt relieved to see more people alive. It gave her a little hope. The boy was hiding behind his dad who was holding up his hands for her to stop. She ignored him. I can’t stop now.
She brushed some of the glass that had sprayed out from the exploding windows away with the rag. “Shit!” A jagged shard poked through the thin cloth into the side of her hand. She recoiled and pressed her lips to the puncture. “Be careful, stupid,” she mumbled through a mouthful of hand and silently wished for one of the heavy-duty cooking mitts from the kitchen. The thought made her recollect one of her grandfather’s favorite sayings. Lyn, you can wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up first. Or you can use those hands to make something happen. Choice is yours, he’d say.
I can sit back and wish for the police to show up and save us all, or… Or what? Or I can crawl through twenty feet of glass and try not to get shot saving a couple of jerks who hate me and a bunch of complete strangers. The boy peek
ed around his father’s shoulder at her. They exchanged a few words she couldn’t hear.
“What are you doing?” Beau called out.
“There’s all sorts of glass out here. I don’t think I can do it.”
“You have to. Oh god, you have to,” the redhead cried out. Lyn closed her eyes and sat for a minute working up the nerve. It’s up to you, Lynnea. Like always. Like when Dad ran off with the slut and you put off school to work full time so the rest of you wouldn’t get kicked out of the house. Even though that asshole Brian was old enough to get a job and help out, too. Then he went off to college and left you behind with Mom, waiting tables. Waiting. For what? For Mom to climb out of a bottle and say, ‘I’m sorry, hon. It wasn’t fair to ask you to do everything.’ What am I waiting for? If I sit still long enough I’ll die never having done anything I wanted to do, just like Grandpa. Vietnam and then two jobs forever and selfish kids and then prostate cancer a year before retirement. Two years of chemo and getting his balls cut off and then screaming at the hallucinations from his bed because no one would prescribe him enough drugs to keep the pain away. All for what? She looked over her shoulder. Beau and Luis were motioning for her to go. So I can save them? Screw that. I’m going to do it so I can get out of here alive. I’m doing this for myself. Right? I’m going to do this.
When she opened her eyes again, she wrapped her hand in the dishrag and slowly pushed against the glass lying on top of the carpet. The big shards moved aside, but several smaller pieces caught and stuck in the fibers. It occurred to her that she didn’t have to go on hands and knees yet. She crouched up, knees together––her skirt too tight to allow her to really duck-walk––and inched forward on the balls of her feet. Lyn felt exposed enough without hiking the skirt up over her hips so she could have a full range of movement. Glass crunched as she went; she could feel it stabbing into the bottoms of her sneakers.
She was too tall to stay on her feet and not have her head poke up above the tops of the tables. She had to be on her hands and knees eventually. Lyn thought about her jeans sitting in the locker. She hated driving to work in her uniform. For a moment she contemplated heading back to get them. They probably won’t keep me from getting cut up, but they’d be a hell of a lot better protection than panty hose. She looked at the swinging doors. Although the plywood wall blocked the view straight through the doors, from where Lyn squatted they were in plain sight. How did Beau get out here without getting shot? If she wants to kill anyone, it has to be him. What’s she waiting for? What if she’s gone around back?
She pictured Joanie stalking them around the restaurant, either waiting for them to come out the rear or coming in to get them herself. The back door was only locked after hours––Beau didn’t trust anyone but himself and Leonard with keys. She could walk around behind the place, let herself in, and murder us all. Lyn sat and listened, wondering if she’d be able to hear Joanie creeping around the building through the gravel.
“What’s going on out there?” Beau called out.
“Shut up! I’m thinking.”
“Thinking about what? Get the god damned blinds down.”
Lyn looked at her first target. The ties for the windows over the first two sets of booths were only a few feet away in between stations two and three. But she had to crawl into a booth to untie them. Those were the easy ones. Twenty feet farther along, at the end of table five, hung the next set of blinds. And she’d have to crawl over a corpulent dead body to get to them. It looked impossible.
She glanced at the man and his son underneath the table. Although the space was small, and there was barely space for an adult and a spidery teenage boy who was all arms and legs, they were out of sight of the windows and had plenty of solid wall between them and Joanie’s bullets. The father stared at Lyn shaking his head.
If Joanie’s in the front, this is the only choice we have. If she’s in back, this is worthless, but what else can we do? Abandoning her dream of getting her jeans, she returned to brushing away as much glass as she could before crawling out, careful to keep her head below the booth tables. Although she was clearing the large pieces of glass, the embedded smaller shards were biting and slicing her knees and shins. Lyn’s palms burned with pain from where the glass slivers dug into them. She stopped to look at one of her hands. The blood wiped away by her movement across the carpet came pilling up in dozens of tiny little dots of crimson, staining her whole palm red. She wanted to stop and suck on her aching hand, but knew that she’d get glass in her mouth if she did. She moved forward another two feet before having to stop again because of the pain.
“You have to know this is a bad idea,” the man beneath the table called out. “I know what you’re trying to do and you should go back.”
“I have to get the blinds down.”
“He’s going to kill you before you can untie them.”
“No she won’t. It’s a she.”
“Okay. She. Just stop right there. Please! Before you hurt yourself any worse.”
“I have to do this,” she said, tears blurring her vision. She didn’t know how much more pain she could handle. “She’s not going to shoot me.” Lyn didn’t believe the words as she spoke them. She didn’t know why she ever had believed in Joanie’s mercy. Joanie hadn’t killed her yet, but that didn’t prove a thing.
“Shut the fuck up, man!” Luis called over the counter. “Let her pull down the shades!”
“I have an idea,” the man said.
“No, dad! Don’t go out there.” The boy held on to his father. The man gently pried his son’s fingers away from his arm. The kid couldn’t have been more than thirteen or fourteen, but he looked wiry and strong. Lyn figured if he wanted to hold his father back, the older man would have a tough time getting away.
“It’s okay, Hunter,” he said. “She needs the help and I have an idea.” He looked at Lyn. “Do you want to stand there untwisting the lines, or would you rather cut them?”
She didn’t want to do either. She wanted to be home in bed listening to Russian Circles or Mono on her headphones and working in her sketchbook. It’s going to be a while before you draw again, she thought, looking at her hands. She carefully pulled a sliver of glass out of the heel of her palm and tossed it away. The dull pain was becoming a hot ache that was creeping into her wrists.
“Cut them?” she asked. “With what?” The man pulled a Swiss Army knife out of his back pocket and opened up blade. Lyn knew a lot of guys who carried those; they were almost never sharp. I might as well gnaw through the strings.
“Good. I have your attention. Now what makes you so sure she won’t shoot at you?”
“I don’t know.” Standing there in front of the windows unwinding the shade pulls like it’s a regular old sunny morning. Of course she’s going to shoot me.
“What made you say ‘yes’ in the first place?”
“She used to like me. I’m nice to her.”
Beau called out, “This is why I told you not to serve her! She’s a nutcase!”
Lyn shot an angry look at the counter, which Beau couldn’t see from his safe spot. The man underneath the booth tried to refocus her attention. “Hey. Hey! Ignore him. You don’t think she likes you anymore?”
“I don’t know.” She thought about Joanie’s face earlier that morning. Was there anything in how she looked or what she did that said she was going to go on a killing rampage? Lyn couldn’t think of a single sign that Joanie had given, and that scared her more than she had been since the shooting started. If Joanie had been planning on killing her when she walked into the restaurant, she certainly didn’t show it. “I’m here, right?” she finally said.
“Do you think she’ll at least hesitate if you’re the one in her sights?”
“M-maybe. She already didn’t shoot me once when she had the chance.”
“Okay. That’s good. Do you think maybe she’ll wait long enough for you to run behind the wall over there?”
“Dad, what are you doing?” the b
oy asked.
“Shh.” The man put his free hand on his son’s knee. His son grabbed it and held on. “Well? You up for a sprint?”
“I don’t understand. You can’t get all of the blinds,” Lyn said.
“Neither can you with your plan. But I’m assuming that since she hasn’t come in here to get us, she’s found a roost somewhere out there to wait for us to poke our heads up, right?”
“It’s her house across the street.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I wish,” she said. The man’s face went slack for a second before he composed himself again. Whoever he was, to Lyn he seemed cool under pressure. Talking to him was making her feel a tiny bit better. Still, she wanted to crawl under the table with him and his son and wait the day out instead of doing what she had in front of her.
“Okay. So she’s got a secure vantage point from which to see everything and she knows the layout of the place because she’s the neighbor. I was trying to think how to get to our car without being seen, but I can’t come up with a way to do it without getting blown away I guess.” He slumped beneath the booth and pulled his son close. “I’m officially out of ideas.”
“There’s still the blinds,” Lyn said. “If we both jump up to cut them at the same time then she can’t see anywhere inside and the whole place is ours. We can lock up and try to figure something else out.”
“She might not shoot you, but I’m still presumably a target. We need a distraction.”
“We’ve got my manager, Beau.”
“The hell you do!” Beau answered.
“Listen. She could have killed you too when you came out that door, but she didn’t,” Lyn said. “If you stand up, she’ll wait a second because she’s, like, saving you for last or something. You stand for one second and then drop down and we’ll cut the cords.”
“Forget it.”
Mountain Home Page 5