Very little cash in the trays.
"Where's all the cash?"
She held up her hands. "Most people pay by credit card these days."
"Fuck!" His fingers scrabbled out what little cash there was. Shoved the bills in his front pockets. Looked around for anything of value nearby to steal, to pawn. Displays of buttons, zippers, rolls of thread.
Fuck!
Backed out from behind the counter. Walked rapidly, head down, to the front glass doors. Used his elbow to open them.
Pulled into the parking lot of a fast food restaurant about twenty blocks away. Bills in his lap, counted his take. One hundred and thirty-seven dollars. Fuck.
He went to a different fabric store, in a safe area, bought some green ribbons for Crystal's hair. Gave them to her that night. She teared up. On the local news, they had a story about the robbery of the first fabric store. Showed a police sketch of the robber. He looked old, ugly, dumb. He felt insulted.
He could try robbing a bank, but that's a major operation, and the FBI gets involved. There's a reason people rob liquor stores. A lot of customers pay with cash. Dangerous, though.
He applied for a job as a bouncer at a nightclub. The young kid making the decision looked him over. "I don't think you have finesse."
"What?"
The kid smirked from behind his desk. "There you go."
He found a neighborhood liquor store over on the west side. Trager's. Kind of small, but they did a good volume. Noticed they got quiet around four.
Sitting in his car across the street, he counted customers going in, customers coming out. At a quarter after four, according to his count, the store was empty of customers. A successful robbery is all about planning things out carefully in advance, and keeping a cool head.
He trotted across the street wearing sunglasses, hat pulled low on his head, heart beating fast.
Used his elbow to push open the door.
A kid behind the counter saw him, reached under the counter.
Pablo lifted his gun. "Fucking freeze!"
The kid raised one hand. The other was still under the counter.
Pablo ran to the counter, pointing the gun at the kid's face. "Raise your other hand!"
The kid froze.
Pablo squeezed the trigger.
Bottles behind the kid burst up into the air.
"Raise your other hand you fucking idiot!"
A display of mini-bottles next to Pablo jumped up into the air, spilling liquor on his arm.
Where?
Coming out of the back of the store. Some middle-aged black-haired guy at the end of the wine aisle, aiming more carefully this time.
Pablo shot him.
The kid's other hand came up from behind the counter, holding a revolver.
Pablo shot him.
He jumped up sideways on top of the glass counter, to swing over to the other side of the counter, to gain access to the cash register.
As his body landed sideways on top of the counter, the glass broke under Pablo's weight, causing him to fall clumsily down the back of the counter, his gun going off.
Shattered glass from the bottles along the back wall fell on top of his chest, face.
He staggered to his feet behind the counter, glass tinkling, blood on his back, his legs, from where he had been cut by all the broken glass.
A cop had his black automatic aimed squarely at Pablo's face. "Police! Put down the gun!"
Pablo put down the gun.
Fuck.
It turns out he didn't hit the middle-aged man at the back of the store. The man had fainted when he heard Pablo's gun, aimed at him, go off. Criminals actually usually have very little practice shooting guns, instead of just carrying them around, so that wasn't too much of a surprise. His court-appointed lawyer: "You got lucky on that one."
But he did hit the kid behind the counter. Close-range, so not so unexpected.
His bullet went into the kid's stomach. He didn't remember aiming at the stomach, but it had all happened so fast, he could see how that could be. Maybe, in that split second, he had decided to aim low so as not to kill the kid, just put him in shock. The police who showed up in a blue-uniformed swarm with their walkie-talkies got the kid into an ambulance in record time, and the EMTs in the ambulance had managed to stop the bleeding even before the ambulance wailed to a stop at the ER entrance. The hospital they took the kid to had a first-rate trauma unit, but it was a gut shot, and that little bullet had ripped through a lot of the digestive organs inside his abdomen, spewing bile into the bloodstream. Despite being surrounded by some of the best medical professionals in the city, the kid died twelve hours after admittance.
Crystal showed up two days after his arrest, sitting on the other side of the glass panel separating them so she couldn't pass anything to him. (But what would she pass? A birthday cake?) They had to talk to each through old-fashioned black telephone receivers held up to their ears. She was crying and confused. The police were questioning her, hard. Thought maybe she knew about the attempted robbery. She never attended his trial, and in fact he never saw her again. Joyce? Never showed up.
He got twelve years. Eight with good behavior. Could be worse. His lawyer tried to make a case that his shooting the kid was accidental, just like his third shot was clearly accidental, but a surveillance tape inside the liquor store, played during the trail, showed him aiming deliberately at the kid. It just takes one little mistake to fuck you up.
They put chains around his hands, chains around his ankles, and made him shuffle-walk to the bus taking him and other criminals to the state prison two hours away.
His lawyer told him she'd be filing an appeal based on the idea that his shooting of the kid was self-defense. He didn't think that would work, but you never know.
The prison he was transported to, to serve his sentence, he had been incarcerated in for the eighteen-month stretch he served previously. So he recognized a lot of the guards, although many of the prisoners were new to him. Not good. That first night locked up in a cell, there was that typical sizing-up of the new guy. He had eight men in the cell with him. After lights out, during a scuffle, him being tested, he broke a cell-mate's nose on the edge of the lidless toilet. But they still made him sleep on the floor.
His first full day in prison, at the cafeteria, he spotted Angelo, who he had been friends with during his previous stay. He carried his tray over to where Angelo was sitting, asked if he could join him. Angelo, seated, looked up from his tray. "Sure thing, little one."
Angelo asked him for the salt. After he used it, he handed the shaker back to Pablo. Pablo put it down on the long table.
"Not there. Put it over to the left."
Pablo moved the shaker.
"Little more to the left."
Pablo did what Angelo told him to do. "Is that okay, Angelo?"
"I suppose."
"You want me to move it a little more to the left?"
"I want you to move it a little more to the left, I tell you to. Right?"
Pablo looked down. "Anything you want, Angelo."
"That's my little one."
Pablo picked up his white plastic spoon, the only utensil they were allowed to use, to eat his breakfast. Getting back into the rhythm. You know, it really wasn't that bad. Less stress. Fewer decisions you have to make. "What's new?"
Angelo shrugged. "They changed the recipe for the macaroni and cheese."
"Yeah?"
Angelo dug into his powdered eggs. "It's not as good."
SHE HAS MAIDS
"Are you okay?"
"Um, sure." Emily glanced around at the trees and sloped lawns of the park. The purple azaleas down by the river. Dark green holly hedges at a curve in the path, branches filled with birdsong. Red, white and blue bunting blowing like entrails, the lengthening shadows, the distant people and cars barely visible in the far-off streets. Smell of gunpowder in the air from early celebrants. "Should we get back to the main part of town? Since it's getting dark
? Not that I'm 'afraid of the dark' or anything, but…"
Ben grinned. "This isn't Dallas. Out here, you can walk in the park in the middle of the night, or anywhere in town, even over on Jefferson Avenue, and nobody'll bother you."
She wanted to believe. Her big blue eyes swinging up at him. His bent nose, shoulder-length hair parted down the middle, so he kept having to use his hands to pull it away. "Really?"
"Yeah." He touched her shoulder. "That's what living in a big city does to a person. You get scared of your own shadow."
She tilted her body sideways on the green park bench. Leaning against him. "I'm not so much scared of my own shadow, I've seen it enough, as I am of other shadows." Eyes blinking. "I wish I grew up somewhere like this." Smart and beautiful, but there it was again. That wistfulness. That feeling her life wasn't going the way she thought it would, as a little girl. When she was a teen, she thought she was going to be famous. Instead, she was stuck in a low-paying job, living in a one-room apartment. Didn't even have a car anymore, because she couldn't afford to fix it last time it broke down. Had to take DART everywhere. When you're sitting in a commuter train with a bunch of strangers, a bag between your high heels with a pound of ground beef in it, hoping you get home before it starts to spoil, that's when you know your life has gone to shit.
"It's the perfect place to raise children. I guess that's one of my most important goals, to have children. I was the last born in my family. I always missed not having a younger brother. Or sister. We'd be in a supermarket, mom and my older siblings. I'd see a baby sitting in a shopping cart. Yank on my mom's dress, pointing at the baby, asking her if she could have one. But she never did. I guess she had had enough."
She swatted her arm. Small hand lifting away, blood streak on her skin. "Got him."
"I'm going too fast." He reached out, hesitated. Stroked her long red hair. As it shifted in the breeze.
Emily sat up on the bench. Resting her elbow on the bench's back, looking directly at him. His long hair, earnest eyes. Which somehow seemed to contradict each other. Would he make a good father? Maybe? Possibly? Self-deprecating smirk. "I don't usually get called for a second date, so this is all new for me, a guy asking me to have his babies." She made an effort to compose her face, hide her embarrassment at being put on the spot.
"Well, eventually."
"I want to stay on the pill for now."
"Absolutely. We're just starting out."
Swinging her head left, right, trying to hide the big breath she took. "I guess it's my goal too. Eventually. To find the right man." Secret glance at his profile. "Get married, have a home. Raise our kids." Nodded to herself. He watched, saying nothing, giving her conversational space. Those red eyebrows going up. "I think it's a fairly modest goal, but here I am in my mid-twenties, and so far I've been striking out." She smiled. Shooting him a quizzical look. Lips twisted sideways.
"Yoo-hoo!"
A middle-aged woman with long hair dyed blonde veered off a nearby paved path. Waving her hand in the air. She headed towards their bench. Horse face already grinning. A shorter, stocky man following in her wake.
Ben stood. Checked that the buttons on his shirt were straight. Voice louder, since they were no longer having a two-way conversation. "Emily, this is my sponsor, Vickie."
"Oh!" She stood herself, a bit shy. Thrust out her hand.
Vickie ignored it. "I'm a hugger." She wrapped her arms around Emily's smaller height. Pulled her towards her breast implants.
Smell of sun tan oil, perfume, sweat.
Vickie, grinning, swung her head from Ben to Emily to Ben. "So is this serious?"
"Yeah, I'd–"
Vickie reached out, grabbing Emily's shoulder. "Are you guys having sex?"
Emily scrunched up her red eyebrows.
Vickie stuck her face in Emily's. "Because then, it's serious!" Her big teeth laughed at her own joke. "Are you ready for your big race? You look ready." She swung her head around, even though there wasn't much to see.
"Vickie's real estate company sponsors my car."
"Oh! When you said 'sponsor', I wasn't sure–"
Vickie grabbed Ben's forearm. "Guess what I decided?" Licked her tongue over her top front teeth. "Russell's body shop is going to service your race car from now on! It's decided."
Russell, close-cropped hair, probably to hide his bald spot. Weight-lifting build. Looked Emily up and down from behind Vickie's back. "Didn't know it was you, Ben. With that long hair of yours, I thought it was two girls sitting on the bench, talking about daisies. I'm gonna put my top man on your car. That's me." Grinned like a baboon. Looked at Emily. "I'll get that pretty young thing of yours to purr like a pussy."
Vickie swung her head around at Russell, narrowing her eyes.
Russell shut up.
Vickie seemed suddenly off her game. Made a face. Glared at Ben. "You're coming to my picnic tomorrow, right?" Angry shrug of her shoulders. "Emily, you don't have to come. If you have other plans. Or if you'd feel uncomfortable."
Ben put his arm around Emily's shoulder. "She's going to come. I want her to see where I live."
"Whatever!" Vickie swung her head around again, checking Russell. He had his face turned to one side. Lips clamped.
She wagged a finger at Emily's face. "Don't ever cross me! I am the one person you don't ever want to cross."
Emily stood back. "I'm not sure what–"
"Want to see a trick?"
Emily pulled in her face. "What?"
"A card trick! Russell, give me a deck of cards."
He retrieved a pack from his front pocket.
Vickie fanned out the cards. Face down. "Pick a card. Any card you want. Don't show it to me, or anyone else."
Ben squeezed Emily's shoulder. "This is an amazing trick."
Emily, wanting to be liked by Ben's sponsor. Not certain about Vickie's sudden change in attitude towards her, but having a guess. Reached her hand forward. Pulled out a card from the left side of the fanned-down deck. Because of course they always want you to select a card from the center.
"Now memorize it. Should be easy."
"Okay."
"You've memorized it?"
"Yeah."
"Now write your name across the front of the card. Like an autograph."
Ben handed Emily the pen he had clipped to his shirt pocket. Avoided her eyes.
She signed the card. Handed back the pen.
"Now. You take the rest of the deck, here it is, and put the card anywhere at all you want in the deck. See, this way I have no control over it whatsoever. You're holding the deck. Not me."
Emily inserted the card around the bottom of the deck.
"Now shuffle."
She shuffled the deck.
"Shuffle it some more."
"Okay."
Vickie stood right in front of Emily. "Now go through the deck, and find your card."
She looked towards Ben for reassurance. "What kind of trick is this? I find my own card?"
Vickie raised her voice. "Find your card! Come on!"
Took in a breath through her nostrils. Thumbed through the cards. Reached the bottom. Her card wasn't there. "It's not there."
"Are you sure? Look again."
Her card was not there. She looked up at Vickie. Uncertain where this was going.
"Is that your purse on the bench behind you?"
"Yes."
"Will you go get it please?"
Getting tired of this game, though wanting to see it through, hoping it would be over soon, Emily retrieved her purse. "Now what?"
Vickie, standing beyond arm's length from Emily and her purse. To establish there wasn't any sleight of hand involved. Asked Emily if she had a driver's license in her purse.
"Of course I do."
"Is it in a plastic slip?"
Emily nodded.
The park was even darker.
"I want you to reach inside your wallet, and feel in the plastic slip to see if there's anything beh
ind your driver's license."
Behind her driver's license, a folded-over playing card.
"Pull it out. Let's go."
Setting her purse down on the grass, she unfolded the card. Her card, with her autograph across the Queen of Hearts. She felt a chill. "How did you do that?"
"Never mind how I did it. The message is, Don't ever mess with me!"
The house was on a tract of land at the northern end of town.
Vickie's Fourth of July lawn party. To which it seemed almost half the town had been invited. Staged at the bottom of the large back yard, by an artificial lake. Later in the day, when it got dark, Vickie had arranged to have fireworks shoot up over the waters.
It was a beautiful afternoon. Blue sky, no clouds. A plane, but passing overhead very quietly. People sitting on the grass, under trees, paper plates on their laps. Kids with painted faces chasing each other around and around. A platter of grilled steaks piled on top of each other. Pool of red steak juice at the bottom obscuring the blue lines of a Currier and Ives skating scene, small circles of fat floating. Over the conversation and laughter, the sound of teeth pulling meat away from bones. You could hear, in the breeze, in the sunshine, the drums and trombones and whistles of the local school band as it marched down Main Street. Towards Vickie's party.
Emily, drink in hand. "The food smells incredible." She glanced back at the mansion. "So who lives in the house with Vickie?"
Ben waved at some fellow party-goers headed towards the lake. "Just her. She's divorced."
"Must be kind of lonely, isn't it, living in that big house all by herself? Seven bathrooms she has to keep cleaning, but only one she actually uses?"
"She has maids. She told me once she has to live in a big house, for appearances. To show how successful she is as a real estate agent."
"Ben! Ben!"
Vickie came charging over. In her wake, Russell. And a woman in a floppy hat. Who had to hold the brim to keep it from blowing away.
Vickie stood in front of Ben, eyes angry, arms by her sides. "Why
aren't you guys eating? You don't like my food?"
"We're just going to finish our drinks first, then get in line."
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