Shoot the Woman First

by Wallace Stroby

  “Have a seat,” she told him. “This could take a while.” Glass had a small calculator out, was punching in numbers.

  Her back ached. She wanted to sit down but was afraid she wouldn’t be able to get up again. She rubbed the small of her back, resettled the Glock. When they were done with the split, ready to leave, she’d put it in the bag with the other guns.

  “Three twenty-five,” Glass said. “Even.”

  “My count, too,” Larry said.

  To Glass, she said, “Five thousand off the top to you, like we agreed. Then that’s ninety thousand to each of us.”

  “You were always quick that way,” he said. “Cordell and I are going to hang here a bit, let you two get clear. Leave your shares in the duffel, it’ll be easier to carry. Just get rid of the bag when you can, to be safe.”

  “Right,” Larry said, and began loading money back into the bag.

  Glass looked at her. “Nice work.”

  “It was,” she said, and then the ceiling above them creaked.

  They all looked up. She reached back, touched the Glock, turned and saw Cordell. He met her eyes, and in that instant she knew. Then his hand was coming out from behind his back, from under the Bob Marley T-shirt, and there was a gun in it.

  She dove to her left, hit the table, then the floor, packs of money flying around her. She got the Glock free, was bringing it around, but Cordell was already firing, the gun jumping in his hands. Glass spun, as if turning away from the shots.

  She kicked at the table to get clear of it. Glass fell across her, and she saw the red and black hole under his right cheekbone. She pushed him away, saw Larry dive for the bag with the guns, Cordell still firing. Then there were footsteps on the stairs, and someone else there in the shadows, firing down over the railing at them.

  She snapped a shot at the stairs, then kicked the lantern closest to her. It hit the wall and went dark, and she fired in Cordell’s direction, kept rolling, knocking over the chairs, the room full of gunfire.

  She came up in a crouch below the bay window, her back to the wall, fired at Cordell again—too low—saw the bullet strike the vest on the back of the couch. She fired higher, but he was already dropping down. The bullet broke glass somewhere beyond him.

  She saw the second lantern beside the couch, fired at it. Metal spanged, and it flew to the side. The room dropped into darkness.

  More muzzle flashes came from the stairs, rounds striking the wall behind her. She fired at the flashes, raised up for a better shot, and then Larry was coming toward her out of the dark, moving fast. He slammed into her, an arm around her waist, and they went backward through the window, glass and wood giving way around them.

  They crashed into skeletal shrubs, then hard onto solid ground, the breath going out of her, the Glock flying from her hand. Larry was already scrambling to his feet, reaching for her, but she pulled away from him, lunged for the gun in the dirt, got it just as a silhouette appeared at the window. She fired at it, and then it was gone again.

  “Come on,” Larry said, and she turned to see he had the duffel slung over his left shoulder. He’d had it with him when they’d gone through the window. Their money.

  She fired again into the dark window, then rolled to her feet on the wet ground, started across the driveway at a run, Larry beside her. Cover ahead, dead hedges bordering the next yard.

  As they reached them, there were popping sounds behind, more shots from the house. Larry fell to his knees. She stood above him, twisted, the Glock in a two-handed grip, and began to fire at the window. Three shots and the slide locked back, the magazine empty.

  He was struggling to his feet, out of breath. She dropped the gun, grabbed his arm, and then they were pushing through the hedges together. One of the duffel’s straps snagged on a branch, and he pulled to try to free it, the bushes shaking.

  “Leave it,” she said.

  “No way.” The strap came loose all at once, and he started to fall again. She caught his windbreaker, pushed and pulled him through the rest of the hedge and into the next yard.

  The house here was almost identical to the one they’d left, dark, the windows and front door boarded over. No place to hide. Behind them, two more pops, wild shots. Still gripping his jacket, she pulled him along as they ran. On the other side of the yard was a blacktop driveway, then a low stone wall, trees beyond.

  She slipped on the wet ground, landed hard, and then he was pulling her up. They crossed the yard together. She reached the wall first, rolled over the top, thumped into the dirt below. He came over behind her, landed on her with a grunt, drove the breath from her again. They rolled clear of each other, and she came up onto her knees, keeping her head below the level of the wall.

  Another shot sounded behind them, but muffled, fired inside the house this time, not through the window. Then two more. Then silence.

  Larry was breathing hard, his face pale.

  “That little prick,” he said. “I should have known.”

  “We need to keep moving.”

  “You hit anybody back there?”

  “I don’t know. But we’re not going to wait around to find out.”

  He rolled onto his knees and winced with pain. It was then she saw the smear of blood on the back of his jacket.

  “You’re hit,” she said.

  “Caught one back there. Maybe two. I don’t know.”

  They were on a corner lot, no house here, just unbroken trees, open street on two sides. To their left was a chain-link fence, beyond it a long low garage, some sort of municipal facility. Against the side wall of the garage were a half-dozen black plastic fifty-five-gallon drums. Gang tags on the walls, broken windows. The building empty and dark.

  She peered over the top of the wall, back at the house. No movement. No noise. But Cordell and his partner would come looking for them soon.

  She nodded at the chain-link fence. “Can you climb that?”

  “Maybe. I doubt it.”

  “We have to,” she said. “We can’t be out in the open like this. They’ll find us.”

  “I can try.”

  She helped him to his feet, and they moved in a crouch toward the fence. He dragged the duffel behind him. The back of his jacket was dark with blood now. She could see the hole in the material, just above his right hip, where the bullet had gone in.

  He saw her looking, said, “I’m okay. It doesn’t hurt. Not yet. I didn’t see what happened to Charlie. Did you?”

  “Yes,” she said, and left it at that.

  The fence was about eight feet high, with two strands of barbed wire across the top. No razor wire, at least. The front gate of the fenced lot was chained and padlocked. Once inside, they might be safe.

  “What do you think?” she said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “We have to try.”

  “Leave me. Take the money.”

  “No.”

  Faint noises from back at the house. Car doors shutting, an engine starting.

  “We don’t have much time,” she said. “We can make it if we do it together. It’s not that high.”

  “Looks pretty fucking high to me.”

  “We have to move.”

  She took off the windbreaker, tied the sleeves around her waist. She backed up a few feet, got a running start, leaped, and caught the fence about halfway up, the chain-link rattling and swaying under her. She locked gloved fingers through metal diamonds, got the toe of her boot into another, pulled herself up, and began to climb. The pain in her back was gone now, along with the numbness in her leg. There was nothing but the fence, the yard beyond.

  Near the top, she clung with one hand, untied the sleeves of the jacket with the other. Just the two strands of rusty barbed wire, no Y-bar to keep someone from climbing over. But the wire could catch her just as easily, hang her up there, draw blood.

  She swung the windbreaker over her head. It took two tries to get it draped across the wire, lining side up.

  She looked down
at Larry, reached. “Come on, I’ll help you.”

  “I don’t think I can do it.”

  Headlights coming down the street now, slow.

  “Climb,” she said.

  He bent to pick up the duffel, fell to one knee.

  “Forget the money,” she said. “Come on.”

  He shook his head, stood, hoisted the bag with both hands, unsteady, pushed it up toward her.

  There was no time to argue. When the bag was high enough, she hooked fingers in the strap, got the duffel up and onto the barbed wire, then tipped it over. It landed in weeds on the other side.

  She looked back down, and he was already climbing, the fence moving under him. He lost his grip on the wet chain-link, slid down, then started up again. She reached for him, caught his jacket, pulled up. He was gasping for air, moving slow, the adrenaline wearing off, the pain and fatigue setting in. She looked back toward the street. If the car came around the corner now, they’d both be outlined against the fence, easy targets.

  Halfway up, he stopped, hung there with both hands. She hooked a hand into his armpit, then got her forearm under him to take some of his weight.

  “Almost there,” she said.

  He grimaced with pain, kept climbing. She had his belt now, could hold him steady as he climbed past her. He reached the top, got his right leg across the jacket, teetered there for a moment and almost fell. Then he righted himself, swung his left leg over and began to climb down the other side. Three feet from the ground, he lost his grip, fell, grunted when he hit the dirt.

  Headlights shining through the trees. She went over the top fast, started down, pulling the jacket after her. It snagged on a barb, then tore free. She let it go, dropped the last few feet, landed hard on her side in weeds. He started to get up, and she grabbed his jacket, hissed, “Stay down.” He flattened himself beside her. Thunder echoed in the distance.

  The car had stopped around the corner and parked at an angle, headlight beams cutting through the trees. They’d have the windows down, watching and listening. The high beams switched on, threw shadows against the side of the garage. She laid her cheek on wet ground.

  Would they get out, search the corner lot on foot? Thunder rumbled again, and the rain came harder, slanting down out of the gray sky. The car backed away, straightened, drove on.

  A window of time now, maybe a minute before the car rounded the corner, came down past the front gate. She looked at the garage, the bay doors, most of the glass panels missing. The right-hand door wasn’t closed completely. There was a foot-high gap between the bottom of the door and the bay floor.

  She pointed at it, and he nodded. She grabbed her jacket, moved in a crouch toward the door, dragging the duffel behind her. She bent beside the door, pushed the duffel and jacket through the gap, then waved for him to follow her. Headlights out front now. She wedged a shoulder under the door, forced it up another few inches, the mechanism rusty.

  He sprinted toward the garage, slipped and fell, then got up again. At the bay door, he dropped to his stomach and crawled through. She pulled him in the rest of the way, then rolled clear of the door.

  They lay on concrete, panting in the darkness. Water dripped from the ceiling. In the shadows around her, she could see discarded tires, empty oil cans.

  “Stay down,” she said. “I’m going to take a look.”

  “Careful.” He dragged himself along the floor, got his back against a wall. He sat up, pulled the duffel into his lap, breathing heavy. “Christ, it’s cold.”

  She rose slowly, her knees aching, stood in profile, and looked through one of the broken panes. The car had pulled up to the gate, headlights lighting up the front of the garage, wipers swishing. It was the Lexus.

  “That them?” Larry said.

  “Yeah.”

  “They see us?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  The driver’s door opened, and Cordell got out. He had a gun in one hand, a flashlight in the other. She pulled back from the glass but kept him in sight. Larry’s breathing seemed to fill the room.

  Cordell played the flashlight along the gate, then tucked the light under one arm, rattled the chain that held the gate shut.

  “This lock’s old,” he said. “Ain’t nobody in here.”

  The passenger door opened. A black man about Cordell’s age got out. He wore a dark hoodie, had one hand pressed against the left side of his stomach. The other hand held a gun down by his side. He leaned on the hood of the car for support. At least one of her rounds had found its mark, but hadn’t done enough damage to stop him.

  She looked around, hoping for a tire iron, a chain, a length of pipe, anything she could use if they came inside. She’d go straight at them, do what damage she could, try to get one of their weapons, hurt them as much as possible before they put her down.

  Cordell turned to the other one. “What you think?”

  “Fuck it, man, let’s go. I’m hurting. They still around here somewhere. We’ll find them.”

  Cordell shone his flashlight at the bay door. She pulled back, saw the beam illuminate broken shards of glass in the panes, then pass along the gap at the bottom of the door. He rattled the chain again.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Fuck it.”

  The light went out. Then the sound of doors closing, the car backing up. The headlights passed over the front of the garage a final time as they drove away, the engine noise growing fainter. She watched through the window, saw their taillights moving down the street.

  She let out her breath, looked down at Larry. He had his arms around the duffel.

  “They’re gone,” she said. “But they’ll be back before long. When they can’t find us on the street, they’ll come back this way.”

  When he didn’t respond, she said, “Are you all right?” Realized then she couldn’t hear his breathing anymore.

  “Larry?”

  She knelt beside him. His eyes were open, glassy. She pulled off a glove, touched the left side of his throat, knew already what she’d find. The skin still warm there, but no pulse, no movement.

  Wind and rain rattled the bay doors. She sank down beside him, her back to the wall, closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they were stinging.

  Thunder again, but farther away. She shivered, felt the cold in her bones.

  She couldn’t risk being out on the street, didn’t know when they’d circle back. There was nothing to do but wait until night. She pulled her glove back on, blinked away the wetness in her eyes.

  She found her jacket there in the darkness, torn but whole. She put it on, zipped it high. Then she wrapped her arms around her knees, pulled in tight for warmth.

  She closed her eyes, sat beside Larry’s body, and listened to the wind.

  SEVEN

  Fifteen minutes later, the Lexus came back from the opposite direction, cruised slow up the street, threw headlights on the front of the garage again. They were backtracking, trying to find where she and Larry had gone to ground.

  She stood, legs cramping, leaned against the wall. Through the broken glass, she could see the Lexus out there, both of them sitting inside, thinking it over.

  Almost night now, and no lights on the outside of the building. She was safe in here, out of sight, as long as they didn’t come in.

  She watched, waiting, while they made up their minds. Then the Lexus backed out again, went to the corner and made a right at the wooded lot, headed back toward the house.

  She gave it another ten minutes, in case it was a trap, the two of them parked around the corner, headlights off, waiting for her to show herself. Or coming back this way again, with bolt cutters for the gate chain.

  She’d laid Larry out as gently as she could on the floor. Looking down at him, she had a sudden memory of the day they’d first met. He and Wayne playing cards at the house in Delaware, laughing and drinking, when she came in. He was an old friend, Wayne had told her, from back in the day. She’d guessed what that meant, and she hadn’t been wrong.
A week later, they were prepping the Houston job. And then everything had gone to hell.

  She took off her glove again, to close his eyes. No light there now. Just a husk, she told herself. The man inside is gone.

  She pushed the duffel under the bay door, crawled out after it. The rain had stopped, and she could see the glow of the moon through the clouds.

  Two of the drums on the side of the building were lidless, filled with trash, oil cans, and plastic bottles. She tipped one over, water and garbage spilling out. With the barrel half empty, she righted it again, wedged the duffel down into it, covered it with trash. She kicked away the garbage left on the ground.

  It hurt to go back over the fence. Her joints were stiff, and her feet slipped from the wet links. There was no strength in her legs. She’d considered looking for a tool to break the lock on the front gate, go out that way. But she didn’t want to leave a sign someone had been there.

  On the other side, she limped into the cover of the trees, knelt at the stone wall, and looked back toward the house. As she watched, the Lexus came fast down the driveway, hit the street, fishtailed, sped away in the opposite direction.

  The smell of smoke. Flickering light in the bay window, then a gout of flame bloomed through it, began to crawl up the outer wall. Gasoline, she thought, and another of Glass’s road flares.

  There was light in other windows now, too, the house full of flames, dark smoke pouring out. They would have left Charlie’s body there, maybe doused it with gas first. The fire would cover their tracks, destroy any evidence they’d left behind.

  Flames rose in the backyard. They’d torched the cars as well. She heard the flat crump of a gas tank going up, then another. There would be sirens soon, police, firefighters. She couldn’t stay here.

  A loud crack sounded from the house, and part of the roof gave, sparks rising up into the column of smoke. Flames began to lick out into the open air.

  She sat back against the wall, trying to gather her strength. She was soaked to the bone, stiff and sore. Slowly, she got to her feet, one hand on the wall for support. Pain was deep in her hips and knees.

  To the west, she could see the glow of the city reflected in the overcast. There’d be no cabs around here, no cars on the street to hotwire.