CHAPTER EIGHT
Jon straightened. “GOT HIM, HECK! OVER HERE!”
Gina was looking dazed. I grabbed her hand. “It’s me they’re after. You can make it out. Go, before Heck gets here.” I pointed to the wide playhouse window behind her.
Her wide dark eyes were fixed on me in bewilderment. I knew she was still weighing what I’d said about Jon, wondering if I could be right.
I had to get her out of here. Maybe I could annoy her into action by making a joke. I shoved the axe into her hands. “Remember, when chopping, think: door, yes. Skulls, no.”
It worked. Gina’s eyes narrowed to disbelief. She seemed about to retort.
“HERE, IN THE BABY SECTION,” Jon shouted.
He bent down again. “Don’t worry, Gina. I’m just cooperating with Heck so nobody else will get hurt. It’s the only way.”
He snickered at me. “Caught you just where you belong, wallet thief. With the kiddie stuff. Well, bad news. You’re playing with the big boys now.”
I smiled. “Okay, let’s play,” I said.
I leaped out from under the red roof and tackled Jon, knocking him to the floor.
In falling, he crashed an elbow into the plastic musical chimes. With a frantic tinkling, they dislodged from the shelf edge they’d been hooked on. As Jon fell backwards to the floor, the chimes landed noisily on his face.
I glanced around. Gina was gone.
I wasn’t interested in beating the daylights out of Jon, satisfying as that would be. Not with Heck approaching. I just needed to put Jon out of play long enough to make a break for it.
Foot planted on Jon’s neck, I glanced around for something to make life difficult for him over the next few minutes.
The chimes would do. I twisted the string of a smiling plastic whale round and round in the carefully gelled lock of dark hair on Jon’s forehead. I shoved a smiling plastic octopus in his mouth. That oughtta keep him occupied.
As Jon spluttered and tried to untangle the chimes, I took off. I cut through the electronics section, into outdoor living, and veered to the front. I might just have the chance to follow Gina out of here – and take Mr. Rafferty with me.
Back in babyware, oath-laced yells erupted. I gathered Heck was mildly ticked at Jon for letting me get away.
I ran to the cash register counter where the storeowner was slumped, his hands bound with a skipping rope. I helped him off.
“C’mon, Mr. Rafferty,” I urged, untying the rope. “You can walk. I’ll help you to the side exit. We can do it. We can get away.”
Police were pressed against the doors, trying to make out what was going on. I considered signalling to them to break through the glass and come in. But that might put Gina at risk. Heck would hightail it to the side exit, where Gina might be right now.
Mr. Rafferty’s jowly face was pooled with sweat, but his eyes were cold, dead. I’d been right. He knew about Jon.
“I can’t leave my son,” the storeowner said dully. “I won’t desert him, no matter what.”
Great. What was I going to do? I couldn’t drag him out.
I looked at the police again. They’d raised their guns and were aiming them straight at me.
They thought I was in this with Heck. Why else would I be wandering around free?
All at once, from the side of the store –
A blood-curdling scream.
It was Gina. “OH MY GOD, NO! – PLEASE DON’T KILL ME – ”
There was a gunshot.
Then, silence.
He’s killed her, I thought. Heck’s killed her.
Horror spread through my limbs like fast-acting poison. I couldn’t move.
More screams, this time from the centre of the store. These screams were from Jon, along with the tinkling of musical chimes.
Jon bounded out to the front. The plastic whale was still twisted up in his front lock of hair. The other chimes dangled off him like some weird ceremonial headdress.
He raced left, to the camera department. “YOU IDIOT! YOU WEREN’T SUPPOSED TO SHOOT GINA.”
Dimly, through the horror, his accusation echoed in my brain. Heck wasn’t supposed to shoot Gina.
Mr. Rafferty swung his gaze to me. Panic flickered into his eyes, mirroring the thought I was having:
Who was Heck supposed to shoot?
I whipped round to stare at the police. They still had their guns raised, but they weren’t pushing through the doors. They hadn’t heard the gunshot.
Then – the lights went out.
After shooting Gina, Heck had switched the power off. That, I didn’t get. No power, no security cameras to track me down with.
There was a chance Gina was still alive. If so, I had to get her out of the store. And, I had to take Mr. Rafferty with us.
“One or both of us is next in Heck’s crosshairs,” I hissed at the storeowner.
He shook his head.
From the camera section, Jon called, “Gina! Gina!” His tone was as much annoyed now as concerned. By getting shot, Gina had inconvenienced him.
She must’ve almost made it to the control room. Almost.
Face crumpling, Mr. Rafferty nodded. Gina’s shooting was too much for him. He was going to come with me.
Holding the storeowner by the elbow, I began steering him into the middle of the store. I figured we’d sneak up close to the camera department. When Jon left the control room, we’d make a dash for it. If Gina was alive, we’d carry her out the side exit.
Like I say, I began steering Mr. Rafferty.
The next moment, Heck leaped out from an aisle near the right of the store. Under the nylon, his manic grin was wider than ever.
I pushed Mr. Rafferty back down beside the nearest cash register counter.
Heck cocked his rifle with a crack that echoed through the silent store. “WHERE ARE YA, JELLY? YOU’RE MESSIN’ WITH ME, AINTCHA? THE HECKSTER DON’T LIKE TO BE MESSED WITH.”
Heck glided along the cash register counters, staring down each one with that same fixed grin.
And humming. The off-key tune was now even more irritating because I almost recognized it.
Mr. Rafferty let out a whimper and tried to get up. He wanted to cooperate with Heck.
I gripped his shoulders and forced him back down. I didn’t see the point of cooperating with Heck. He’d killed one person, maybe two. I was tired of letting this gunman run the show, tired of having to come up with ways to react to him and Jon. I wanted to act, not react.
I needed to come up with an idea.
I could almost hear Mr. Bunbury telling me that, just the way he did in drama class. But what idea? If I threw something, like I’d done before, Heck would see where it came from. I couldn’t fool him with that one again.
Heck was three cash registers away.
Improvise, Mr. Bunbury would say.
Yeah, right. When the time left to me was falling away like the seconds on a stopwatch.
A stopwatch … The drama teacher held up a stopwatch when he was giving us just so many seconds to improvise. To act out a part on the spot, with no prep. That’s when the mental bank of voices and expressions we’d built up came in so handy. We’d draw on them and –
That was it.
I wanted to act, not react.
To act.
“Hey, Heck,” I blurted.
But not in my own voice.
In Jon Rafferty’s.
Mr. Rafferty jumped. He stared hard at me, as if double-checking that it was me, not his son, beside him.
Beyond this cash register stretched the electronics section. If I could just fool Heck into thinking that’s where I – make that, Jon – was shouting from.
I put all Jon’s whiny smugness into my next utterance.<
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“Over here by the cell phones, Heck. Jelly was trying to call for help. But I got my foot nicely planted on his windpipe.” I managed one of Jon’s sneering chuckles. “Guess he won’t be chatting anyone up soon.”
Heck snorted.
Ice clenched my spine. I hadn’t fooled him at all.
Then Heck shouted, “About time you caught him, Jonny.”
Cautiously I looked around the magazines. Heck was running toward the electronics section. As Heck ran, he laughed. “Jelly won’t be chatting anyone up ever again, huh, Jonny?”
Mr. Rafferty bleated into my ear, “Wh-what does he mean?”
“He means that he and your son want to add me to the body count,” I whispered back shortly. I was getting more glimmers of Heck’s plan. It was still vague around the edges, but I thought I understood it now. It was ugly, twisted – and brilliant.
I hoisted Mr. Rafferty up, hurrying him behind the cash registers to the side exit. I kept low, holding the storeowner’s head down as well. I’d sidelined Heck for the moment, but I still had to worry about Jon. I was pretty sure he was in the control room. How would we get past him?
CHAPTER NINE
In the camera department, Mr. Rafferty and I crept up to the control room door.
The earlier time I’d been in this part of the store flashed through my brain in vivid, unpleasant replay. The lights, air conditioning, and You Are My Sunshine all switching off at once.
I saw that the control-room doorknob had been chopped away, leaving a jagged hole. Gina had got through. Was she in the control room now? Was she still alive?
Through the jagged hole I heard clicks – and curses. Jon was flipping switches and pressing buttons in a vain attempt to switch the power back on.
So why had Heck switched it off again?
I had no time to speculate. The storeowner chose that moment to yelp, “JON!”
“Yo, Dad, take it easy,” Jon shouted back. “It’ll all be over soon and everything will be fine. If I could just get the power back on … I need those security cameras … ”
I clamped a hand over Mr. Rafferty’s mouth. “Do you want to see me murdered?” I hissed.
The storeowner stared at me. He was breathing heavily; the breath whistled up and down his nose. Slowly he shook his head. I took my hand away. Heck would’ve gagged the guy, I guess, but I couldn’t do that. I didn’t have the heart, not even if Rafferty yelled blue murder.
He didn’t. He kept quiet.
“Okay,” I whispered, “we have to get Jon out of the control room, into the store. Then we make a run for it. If Gina isn’t –”
I choked. I couldn’t bring myself to say, If Gina isn’t dead, so I changed it to, “If Gina’s there, we’ll take her outside.”
Mr. Rafferty nodded again.
I drew him away from the door, behind a display of single-lens-reflex cameras – The latest! The greatest!
From deep in the electronics department, Heck bellowed, “JON? WHERE ARE YOU?”
Jon answered by cursing. If the kid had a nickel for every swear word he used, he wouldn’t have needed to rob his dad.
I had to get Jon out of the control room before Heck figured out he’d been tricked. To do that, I had to stay calm. Not easy when I pictured Gina in the control room. Jon was a low-life, tinkering with switches while his girlfriend lay nearby, injured or even dead. No, lower than a low-life. A no-life.
Get a grip, Sam.
I heaved a deep breath. In a voice that sounded like it was full of pebbles, I called, “GIT OVER TO THE CELL PHONE DEPARTMENT, JONNY. IT’S LIFE AND DEATH.”
Well, that was true enough. It was life and death – for me.
Jon sprinted out of the control room. The plastic whale flapped over his worried frown. He raced off to the electronics department.
I pulled Mr. Rafferty toward the control room. He started to resist, so I grabbed him by the collar and dragged. Stumbling, he came with me.
Past a big panel of switches and knobs, there it was. The side door, painted with the red neon letters EMERGENCY EXIT. Boy, was it ever.
But no Gina. Maybe she wasn’t injured that bad, I thought with sudden hope. Maybe she had crawled off to hide.
I had to get the police in here ASAP.
I let go of Mr. Rafferty and pushed the emergency-exit door open a crack. A bar of bright hot sun slid into the room. Freedom.
Except that the storeowner was hanging back, cringing.
“Come on,” I said impatiently. I could feel the sun burning into my arm as I held the door open. It was a great sensation. Bring on the prairie heat. When I got outside I’d fall down and kiss the hot sidewalk.
Mr. Rafferty shook his head unhappily. He retreated out of the control room. “I can’t leave my son. I can’t … ”
I was pretty sure what was in the plan Heck and Jon had hatched. I didn’t think killing Mr. Rafferty was part of it.
I should go. Now.
Yet to leave him with a gunman who’d already killed once, possibly twice …
I don’t know if it was my better instincts or just my moronic ones. I stayed with him. I let the door shut. That blazing bar of sunlight vanished. I started over to Mr. Rafferty, to grab and drag him outside.
Someone else grabbed him first.
Heck, bringing one arm up tight around Mr. Rafferty’s throat. With his free hand, he pointed his rifle up under the storeowner’s plump chin.
Heck whistled that off-key tune of his through his teeth. Over his manic grin, his black eyes blazed, but not with any warmth.
“This shoulda been finished an hour ago, Jelly. A nice, simple heist after the power went off.” He dug the rifle point deeper into Mr. Rafferty’s chin.
An acidy smell stank up the air. The storeowner had wet himself.
Heck laughed.
I pretended not to notice. I didn’t want to humiliate Mr. Rafferty any more than he had been.
“Things went wrong for you,” I told Heck. “Gina phoning the cops – you didn’t count on that.”
Lightning-fast, Heck lifted the rifle so that I was staring into its barrel. “Who’re you, a schoolmarm? Tellin’ me what and what not to do? Chill, Jelly. In fact, maybe you need a few holes in you to cool you off.”
His manic grin returned. Nothing like your own wit to cheer you up.
I tried not to think too much about that rifle barrel watching me up close with its cold, dark eye. I concentrated on a plan. Not a good plan; I was pretty much out of good ones by now.
If I could keep Heck gabbing, I’d duck and throw myself at the door. I wasn’t under any illusion that I’d make it out bullet-free, but I might – just – make it out.
“The custodian was going to be your patsy,” I said. “That’s why you shot Rick, after Jon pretended to attack him. The two of you would blame Rick for the robbery. Rick knew how the control-room switches worked. It’d look like he doused the power and demanded the money from the safe.
“You guys would become heroes for overpowering him. You’d claim Rick was killed when the gun went off in the struggle.”
Looking at Mr. Rafferty now, I said, “To protect Jon, you’d go along with it. Lying about the robbery of your store and the murder of your employee: is that your idea of father-son love?”
“Don’t listen to him, Dad.”
Jon slid into place beside Heck with the glee of a hitter reaching home. “Nice work, Jelly,” he smirked. “Voice impersonations: not a bad trick. You should be in Vegas, maybe.”
He laughed. “Or maybe, not ever. Kill him, Heck.”
“Please, son, no,” blurted Mr. Rafferty. “One killing was enough. I can believe – I can make myself believe – that you didn’t mean to shoot Rick. But this boy is – ”
I held up my hand to
interrupt him. At least, that’s what I wanted it to look like. I was going to smash the rifle to one side and dive for the door. “I’m the bonus to their plan,” I explained to Mr. Rafferty. “Jon had the bright idea of pinning a wallet theft on me. I wondered why he was so determined to nail me for a crime I didn’t commit. And why he wanted to lock me in a pressure-cooker office.
“Jon was going to make me patsy number two,” I said. “He decided to have Heck kill me. Then he and Heck would claim there’d been two robbers, Rick and me. They’d say Rick and I got into a fight, struggled for the gun, and both got shot. That’d be a cleaner story for them. That way, they wouldn’t be tied even to any accidental killings.”
I shook my head. “There I was, broiling in that locked office, getting cooked for my own death like a lobster.”
I swung my gaze back to Heck. “Let me get a doctor in here. If Gina’s still alive, you have a chance to keep the death rate down. Where is she?”
“Yeah, where is Gina?” Jon asked Heck. Jon did sound somewhat worried – as if he’d misplaced a favourite sweater.
In reply to both of us, Heck snarled, “Dunno what you’re talking about.”
But he had to know, I thought.
Then I heard a faint rustling noise. I thought it was from above, but I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure I’d even heard it.
Eyes trained on Heck. I yelled, “YOU’RE A KILLER. ADMIT IT.”
Mr. Rafferty erupted in a sob and moved away. Instinctively, just for a second, Heck turned to watch him.
I clamped the rifle barrel and swung it wide. Then I jumped for the door.
Jon leaped for me, bringing me down before I could push the door open.
“GET AWAY FROM HIM, YOU IDIOT,” Heck shouted at Jon.
He was aiming at me, waiting for a clear shot. I dug my fingers into Jon’s chin, not to shove him off me, but to keep him there, in the way of a bullet.
And then, suddenly, I didn’t have to.
My stepdad Alvin plunged from the ceiling. The rustling I’d heard was Alvin, shifting a ceiling tile away. That’s why I’d yelled – on the off-chance the rustling meant someone was up there, coming to help.
Alvin helped, all right. He flattened Heck, knocking the rifle out of his hand.
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