by Greg Walker
"No. We won't see him tonight. It's happening tomorrow. This is just preparation."
He had caught a glimpse of Will by the brief flash of the interior light, and by that quick revelation had noticed changes. Will had never carried extra pounds, but seemed to have lost weight. No that didn't accurately describe what Jon perceived. And then a strange thought came to him, but the right one.
He looks like he's been sharpened. Like a knife.
More angular somehow, and full of barely suppressed energy. Maybe fear, but certainly anticipation. The perception troubled him, and only bolstered his resolve to put a permanent distance between them after they went their separate ways.
"Right here."
Will jumped out and forced the doors open, and Jon drove in carefully. He couldn't see anything at all, a description that aptly described this entire mess. But the lights would come on soon, he knew. Already he could picture Brody's face looming out of the darkness, as clear as if he had stood there in a spotlight in front of the car.
Jon tossed and turned in the motel room bed. It was comfortable enough, as far as that went on a mattress that didn't know him personally, but he couldn't sleep. They had left the warehouse together on foot, his car stashed inside, and gotten into Will’s car parked down the road. Will claimed he didn't know what Brody planned to use Jon’s vehicle for, even as he produced a license plate and swapped it for Jon's; Will turned the screws while he held the flashlight and tried to ignore the squeaks and scurrying feet of what sounded like a thousand rats holding a carnival.
Will had driven Jon to the motel, instructed him to be ready at five in the morning, and then left. Jon felt it increasingly odd that Will knew so much about this- all it seemed except the big picture- but thought he understood after more time in his presence. Will wanted to do this. And Brody surely knew that as well, and so chose to use the path of least resistance to ensure all of the groundwork had been laid down properly.
For this reason, Jon felt good about his nerves and upset stomach and the headache he couldn't shake. It meant he still possessed a moral compass that worked. While they had both changed through their experiences, Will had gone in the opposite direction. He wondered if he should try to talk some sense into him, felt a stab of pity but also revulsion, wanted to try and salvage the friend he had once known and leave him to his fate all at the same time. Even laying aside the moral and ethical issues of willingly participating in criminal activity, Jon knew that Will would never be Brody Stape. Most criminals were dumb. The newspaper articles and internet lists that chronicled the stupidity of their acts were legion: they guy that robs a 7-11 on the pretense of applying for a job and fills out the application with his real contact information, the neighbor that suggests setting up a video camera to catch a recurring burglar and is then filmed crawling through the doggie door, the other neighbor that leaves footprints in the snow leading from his front door to the window forced open to steal the stereo. Stupid. Jon didn't believe that Will belonged in this category, necessarily, but neither was he born to that sort of life and could never survive long. He would eventually get caught and only then realize his error. Brody, by contrast, had already counted the cost and came up ready and willing to pay.
He awoke at four-thirty in the morning and took a quick shower, got dressed, and then sat on the bed in the dark waiting for the knock on the door. Headlights shone through the closed curtains and Jon stood up. His headache had gone away, but he felt on edge with a full coffee pot's worth of the jitters.
Will knocked softly on the door and Jon opened it.
“Good morning. Let’s go.” Will turned away and got back into the car.
“Are we meeting Brody now?” Jon asked, as they drove away.
“No. Not until later. I’m taking you back to the warehouse. You’re going to have to stay there all day, until late tonight. That’s when it’s going to happen. I’ll stop at a drive through so you can get some breakfast, and I have a couple bags of chips and some other snacks in the bag back there, and some water. You won’t be able to leave once you’re there, so it will have to do.”
Jon felt his anger rise. He had tired of the waiting, and yet at each stage that’s all Brody required of him. He also experienced an odd sense of…jealousy? As absurd as he knew it to be, he resented Will's promotion to almost a full partner while Jon remained a lowly minion.
“What are you going to be doing?” he asked, almost sullenly.
“Don’t worry about that. I’m doing my part, and you just worry about yours.”
“Fine. I guess I can sit in the dark all day. Maybe I can teach the rats some tricks.”
Will grunted in response, and Jon stopped trying to make conversation.
He hadn’t felt like eating, but forced down the hash browns and muffin sandwich anyway, to keep up his strength. And his stomach had settled down some. A calm had spread through his body and mind and Jon allowed it to be. No sense worrying. No sense getting worked up and making wild guesses and imagining terrible scenarios and outcomes. But without any other kind of stimulation, he had grown bored. He wished he would have been notified about all of the waiting required, could have brought a book to read or his MP3 player. He did listen to the radio for a while, but concern about drawing down the battery forced him to shut it off. If he hadn’t shot Brody by the time the car was needed, he didn’t want to face him if it refused to start. He reached back and felt the shape of the gun beneath the coat again, its presence both troubling and comforting.
He turned on the key enough to read the clock. Only 4:30, not quite a half hour since the last time he had checked. At least in the daylight, the warehouse gloomy but not completely dark, the rats kept to the corners. Before full dark fell, he would be sure to empty his bladder to avoid stepping out of the car and into their kingdom.
Jon read his car manual, learned more than he ever wanted to know about the buttons and dials and the size of his engine, and tried to stop looking at the time that moved so very slowly but rushed like a swollen current approaching a waterfall. He thought about Erin, prayed that he would see her again, and not from the other side of bullet proof glass at the county prison. He pushed his seat back and tried to relax.
Jon jerked awake. He stared disoriented at the darkness that engulfed him, like waking up in the womb or in hell and then he remembered. He turned the key and the time lit up. 12:10. He had slept but didn’t remember falling asleep. His body had stiffened from maintaining the same position for so long, and his belly growled, but otherwise he felt somewhat refreshed, had slept better in his car than in the motel room.
He put the seat back in its upright position and sat still, trying not to think of rats, bats, ghosts, or Brody Stape.
He felt the rumble first, and cracked his window to listen. A short blast of a horn outside startled him, and his heart beat accelerated. He got the flashlight from the passenger seat and opened the door, flicking it on, pinpricks of light reflecting back at him from all directions, then winking out two by two to observe him beyond its reach.
He walked to the large doors. They shook, and small particles of rust tumbled down and filled the air with an orange haze that swam in the cone of light. Jon had been instructed to open them when he heard the horn. He wrestled them back on their tracks, and then was nearly run over as the armored truck entered the warehouse and stopped next to his car. He wished he had brought the shotgun with him, saw now he might have surprised Stape as he climbed out of the truck. But the magnitude of this crime washed over him and he forgot all about murder. How much money would they take? And what ends would someone go to recover it? Jon’s knees felt weak and he only just stopped himself from fleeing out into the night. Because what ends would Brody Stape go to find him? And he eminently more findable than he guessed this money would be afterwards. He turned back around to watch.
The passenger door opened and a man fell out onto the ground, and another tumbled down after him and Jon heard a sharp cry of pain. His flashlight
beam played over them, caught an arm holding a pistol high in the air to drop hard onto the first man's skull. He assumed that Brody had struck Will, feared that something had gone wrong already, and it took his mind a few seconds to adjust to the reality of what he saw. Neither of the men were Brody. The one on the ground wore a uniform that Jon thought could belong to a cop and his stomach lurched. The man’s bald head reflected the flashlight beam, with a darker spot near its center that grew and glistened darkly. The man groaned, stunned but not unconscious, and Jon continued to watch as the second man, Will, reached inside the truck and slid out a bag, withdrawing from it a pair of handcuffs. He wore a similar uniform. Had he impersonated a police officer? But where was Brody? He shone the light into the window of the truck, against his better judgment, but no one stared back at him. In the back. He must be in the back. But why would he leave Will here to deal with this guy alone? He had him subdued, but still, why leave that to chance?
"Let's go, Jon. We need to transfer these bags into your car, as many as we can. Hurry up. Probably only a minute or two before they send someone after us, and we have to be gone from here."
"Where's Brody, Will?"
"He's going to meet up with us later. Come on."
Will snapped on his own flashlight and hurried around the back of the truck. Jon heard the jingling of keys, then a curse from Will, and finally the door opening up.
Jon walked towards him, holding his flashlight beam on the bleeding man as he passed. He sat on the floor, his face slack, his eyes staring out into the darkness, his hands cuffed behind his back. Jon read a patch on his uniform that said "Allied Armored Services". A driver. Then Will had...what? Held a job as a driver? Had known all about this? A sick feeling came over him. The light trembled in his hand as he continued towards Will.
"Jon, open your trunk."
"Where's Brody, Will?"
"Open the damn trunk, Jon. They're going to be here any time now. We can talk about this later."
"Where's Brody?”
"We don't have time for..."
Jon rushed at him, using his free hand to grab a handful of his uniform and shoved the light in Will's face.
He nearly screamed, "Where is Brody?"
Will pushed him, hard. Jon took a step backwards and fell on the floor but jumped back up and closed the distance again.
"Where's Br..."
"He's dead, Jon. Now start putting these bags in your car or I swear I'll..."
"You'll what? Shoot me? Is that what you did to Brody? Is he in there somewhere?"
Jon shined his flashlight on the bags bearing the Allied logo, and up and over them, looking for a hand or a face rigid in death.
"He died in a car accident not long after we came back from camping. I'm not going to shoot you, but we need to go, Jon. Please."
Will had bottled up the fury of his outburst and now spoke in a calm, almost pleading tone. Jon attempted to process this information, put together all the pieces so they would fit together and create a picture of this situation that made sense. But it couldn’t make sense. It would have to mean…
“You? You did…this?” It almost came out as a whisper.
“Where are you keys, Jon?”
“In the ignition,” he said automatically, too shocked to consider lying. But the rage was there. The residue from Will drawing Brody to them in the first place, the reality of this revelation heaped on top. Just a spark. The smallest spark and it would go. He thought he smelled sulfur as the match ignited.
Will had gotten his keys and popped the trunk. Jon launched himself at him, needing to feel the impact. He didn’t care about pain, getting hurt. But he needed to hurt Will. Needed to see blood as payment for this deception. Then the rage would explain further what it wanted but he had to obey to hear more instruction.
Will didn’t move, and then he did, deftly sidestepping Jon and clubbing him on the back of his head with his flashlight as he flew past. The blow failed as a knockout punch due to his forward momentum, but stars sparked in his eyes and he landed hard against a pile of palettes. A splinter pierced his hand and the pain only fed his anger and urgent need to harness and focus it on Will.
Will had taken a large bag from the truck and dropped it in the trunk, turned to get another. Jon didn’t go at him this time but to the car, to the shotgun. He opened the door as the vehicle rocked from the weight of another bag settling in, pulled the gun from the backseat, stood, and racked a shell into the chamber. He left the car door open so that the interior light would give him added illumination, held his flashlight in the hand that steadied the barrel.
Will paused, holding a third bag, and then continued on and put it in the trunk, turned to get more.
“Stop, Will. This is over. Stop it now.”
“Can’t, Jon. There’s only one way this can end if I stop. I’m not going to jail.”
Jon advanced, stood in front of the trunk to block him, pointed the gun at his head as he came forward. Sweat beaded on Will’s forehead and dark, black patches bloomed out from the underarms of his navy blue uniform, but otherwise he remained calm. Jon backed up to match Will’s advance, keeping the muzzle only inches from his head, the finger on the trigger twitching as if under power of its own mind, but a mind yet undecided. Will didn’t stop, slow down or even look at him.
“Stop!” Jon screamed.
“I guess that’s all I can take. It’s not enough, but they’ll be here soon. Get in the car, Jon. I’m going to drive.”
“You’re not going anywhere. It’s done, it’s over. You lied to me. You’re sick, Will. How could you do this? HOW COULD YOU DO THIS!” He pushed the gun into the side of Will’s head and closed his eyes, didn’t want to see what happened when it exploded, glad for the dark that would conceal it. He waited for the boom, had already killed him in his mind, but couldn’t apply the slight pressure to fire the weapon, cross the paper thin line that would turn him into a murderer.
He let the barrel fall, his eyes still closed, and jumped as the trunk slammed shut, felt the draft as Will passed by.
“Goodbye, Jon.”
Will got into the car and started the engine. Jon couldn’t shoot him, but he could shoot the tires of his car, make it impossible for Will to escape. He heard a tinny, detached voice, realized it had been going on for some time, coming from a radio in the truck. The voice was calm but only with effort, panic swirling behind the measured tone.
The car moved forward and Jon raised the gun, pointed it at the left wheel and then he was falling. He dropped the light and as it spun, it caught the face of Will's partner wearing a hideous mask of blood that still flowed from his split scalp. Then the blackness engulfed Jon, leaving him with that nightmare vision. He saw the taillights of the car disappear, Will turning to go back to the main gate and to freedom. He tried to push himself up and felt a boot on his back and then an irresistible force that pushed him back to the floor that smelled like oil and wood and rat shit.
He tried once more to get up and the pressure left him but then something collided with his side and he felt a rib crack and gasped at the pain and collapsed to the floor.
And then he heard the sirens.
Chapter 23
Will drove on route five, headed west. He had heard the sirens as he pulled away, forced himself to drive the speed limit until he had gotten several miles from the warehouse, and then pushed his foot down. He headed towards the little rural motel he had checked into this morning before work. In the room, he had hair coloring and a pair of glasses, a fresh change of clothes, and his own car parked outside. Out of all the phases of his planning, the getaway had always bothered him the most. The crime itself had taken no time at all, really. But getting away would require luck and careful movements. And they wouldn’t stop looking for him. Ever.
There was a dirt road next to the motel that wound through the woods and accessed a parking lot for state game lands, and another track from the lot that provided further access for hunters. After unloading
the bags of money, he planned to abandon Jon’s car there and then walk back to the motel, change his clothes and appearance, and head to Canada. He had a false passport and driver’s license he had gotten over the internet, a surprisingly easy but expensive thing to do.
Will laughed out loud. The thrill he had experienced in the first two robberies was nothing compared to this, felt buoyant enough to walk across Lake Erie and right into his new homeland.
But the money. Not enough to set him up for life. In the four bags, he estimated just shy of a millions dollars, give or take. Not enough to justify the risks, uprooting himself and spending the rest of his life on the run. Thanks to Jon. Will knew he shouldn’t have told him Brody was dead. Not until after they had escaped. He then could have dealt with him without the urgent need to transfer the money. But his pride at this accomplishment and Jon’s whining insistence had gotten the better of him.