Shoedog

by George Pelecanos

  Ten seconds passed. Randolph took his hands off the wheel, wiped sweat onto his jacket. He put his hands back on the wheel, gripped it.

  Randolph heard a woman scream.

  POLK drew the .45, walked to the elderly woman in the red sweater, came behind her, put his arm over her shoulder and across her chest, pulled her against him, put the .45 to her head.

  The woman screamed.

  Jackson pointed the Walther at the two men behind the counter, his arm straight out. He walked toward them, moving the gun between their open-mouthed faces. The youngest of the men shook his head, did not speak.

  “Don’t nobody fuckin’ move, man!” Jackson shouted. “Arms up, and nobody moves!” He moved the gun quickly to the store’s only customer, a man in a Harris tweed, standing by a barrel filled with red wines. “You too, motherfucker”—the man’s arms were already raised—“get on the motherfuckin’ ground! Kiss it, motherfucker!”

  The man dropped to his knees, went flat on his chest.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” Polk said quietly in the woman’s ear. The wrinkles of her neck folded onto his forearm. He felt her tears, hot on his hand.

  “Please,” she said.

  “Be quiet,” Polk said.

  “Back the fuck on up!” Jackson screamed, waving the gun at the two older men. They did it, until they touched the wall of seasonal decanters. “All right, Junior”—he put the Walther in young Rosenfeld’s face—“the money, motherfucker, not the bullshit in the register, the money beneath the counter, all of it, motherfucker, now!”

  “I’ll do it,” Rosenfeld said quietly, his hands still up, the Rolex sliding down his wrist. “Take it easy.”

  “The money, man, the money, the got-damn money!”

  Jackson touched the barrel of the automatic to Rosenfeld’s forehead. Rosenfeld closed his eyes.

  “Please,” said old man Rosenfeld, a catch in his voice.

  Jackson looked quickly toward the darkness of the stockroom, then back to the young man. Jackson made his gun hand shake, shifted his feet, cocked the hammer back on the Walther.

  Young Rosenfeld lowered one shaking hand, found a large cloth deposit bag beneath the counter. Jackson could see the rectangular stacks pushing out on the cloth.

  “There’s more,” Jackson said. “Two other spots.” He raised his voice again. “The money, motherfucker!”

  “Give it to him, Robert,” the second old man said.

  Polk saw the customer begin to raise his head. “Keep it down,” Polk said, out the side of his mouth, and the man complied. Polk blinked sweat from his eyes, loosened his grip around the woman’s neck.

  “That’s right, my man, right here,” Jackson said evenly, as young Rosenfeld handed Jackson two more bags.

  “Let’s go!” Polk yelled, releasing the elderly woman. She fell sobbing to the floor.

  “You keep those hands up!” Jackson shouted. He backed up a step, regripped the three bags in his left hand, kept the gun in his right trained on young Rosenfeld. Jackson laughed shortly. “All o’ y’all, have a nice day, hear?”

  Jackson saw movement in his side vision, turned his head toward the stockroom. Beneath the stocking mask, Jackson smiled.

  In the driver’s seat of the Fury, Randolph heard two gunshots from inside the store.

  ISAAC had checked his watch in the stockroom, just as they came in. Eleven-fifteen, on the money, like the hustler had said.

  Isaac heard Mrs. Bradley scream, heard the voice of the hustler yelling at the Rosenfelds. So the white man was holding the old lady, up by the front register, and the hustler was up at the counter, getting the money.

  Isaac leaned against the cases of cabernet he had stacked that morning by the entrance. He put one hand against the cardboard for support. His other hand held his army .45.

  Funny, how it was. When the hustler stopped screaming, there wasn’t much sound. He could hear Mrs. Bradley crying softly, but mostly that was it. Funny, how quiet it was.

  He heard the hustler cock his piece.

  Isaac laid the barrel of the .45 against his own temple. He felt the throb of his pulse, beating from his temple through to the barrel of the gun. He felt a cool line of sweat travel from his brow, down his cheek and over his lip. He tasted the salt of the sweat.

  He heard Mrs. Bradley fall to the ground.

  “Let’s go,” he heard the white man say.

  “You keep those hands up!” from the hustler, then laughter. And then, “All o’ y’all, have a nice day, hear?”

  Isaac spun around the corner, out of the darkness of the stockroom into the fluorescence of the store. His eyes passed the hustler—god-damn if the motherfucker wasn’t smiling—as he turned toward the register, fixed his gun on the little white man in the stocking mask and the blue windbreaker. Beneath the mask, the white man blinked.

  Isaac shot him twice, high in the chest.

  Isaac dove beneath the counter. Two rounds blew over the counter, above his head. Plaster and glass fell around him. He heard young Rosenfeld fall back against the wall of liqueurs, heard Rosenfeld’s father grunt.

  Isaac stood up. The hustler with the muttonchop sideburns downstepped toward the front door, the money bags in his hand.

  Isaac aimed carefully, and shot the hustler three times in the back.

  Mrs. Bradley was crying loud now, talking to Jesus. Old man Rosenfeld was shouting something out, and youngblood was shouting something too.

  Isaac ignored them, kept the gun trained on the hustler, now crawling on his belly toward the door. The hustler was leaving a blood trail on the linoleum behind him, in a wide stroke, like a brush had put it there. The hustler was gurgling, fighting for air. He managed to get up, grabbed a barrel to do it, looked behind him once at Isaac, gave Isaac a strange look, his face twisted tight, like all’s he wanted was to ask Isaac that one-word question: why?

  The hustler made an effort to push through the door.

  Isaac shot him twice more, in the back. The shots pushed the hustler out the door.

  As Isaac made his way across the store, he passed the little white man lying on the floor. Dead. The heart shot, most likely. Isaac kicked the gun out of the little man’s hand. He noticed a funny old shoe, a shoe with newspaper stuffed inside, lying nearby.

  He heard the Rosenfelds yelling frantically, almost happily, yelling behind him, urging him on. He pushed on the door, stepped out onto the sidewalk. A woman halfway up the block was screaming, and somewhere off—far off, it seemed—he heard a siren.

  The hustler was hanging on the door of the Plymouth—looked to Isaac to be an old Fury—and he was dropping the bag of money into the window. Blood was streaked all over the sidewalk, and blood had splashed up on the Plymouth’s door. The hustler tried to breathe one more time, let his grip off the door, fell back onto his side, kicked some, stopped moving.

  Isaac stood back on the sidewalk, raised the gun. He pointed the .45 into the car. He pointed the gun at the driver of the car.

  He looked at the face of the man in the driver’s seat. He looked at the face, and he knew.

  The driver hesitated. He stared into Isaac’s eyes. He put his hand into his maroon sport jacket, took the empty hand out, put the hand on the Fury’s shifter.

  The Fury caught rubber, smoke pouring from under its wheels. Isaac watched it scream away from the curb, watched it turn sharply, crazily right, at the next intersection. Isaac lowered his gun.

  He felt the Rosenfelds surround him, heard their thanks, felt their hands on his shoulders. Isaac smiled dreamily, thought of the man in the car.

  A year ago Easter, he had saved up, taken Nettie downtown to get some shoes—good God, the woman loved shoes. The man driving the Fury, he had waited on them that day, and what the man had done for Nettie, he had made her feel like she was the only woman in that shop.

  Afterward, Isaac had taken the salesman aside, said, “Thank you, my man,” and the man had shrugged and said, “Ain’t no thing,” and Isaac knew
the man meant it. But it was something, what he did that day for Isaac’s woman.

  Isaac had shot the white man because that was what he had been paid to do. And the hustler, who knew what he would have done with that gun, right up in the face of the Rosenfelds. The hustler had called him “brother,” but he was nothing of the kind. Now, the shoe salesman, the one driving the car? He was something else again. He was one down brother.

  Chapter

  21

  GORMAN ripped open the box of shells, pointed the Mossberg barrel up, thumbed shells into the breech.

  Constantine looked in the rearview. “Keep that shotgun down,” he said.

  “Concentrate on your driving, driver.” Gorman stuffed a fistful of shells in the side pocket of his jacket. He dropped the rest of the box to the floor.

  “Keep it down, Gorman,” Valdez said from the front seat.

  Gorman giggled, laid the Mossberg across his lap.

  They drove down R, passed the liquor store, saw dim lights, bars on the windows, little else. Constantine turned right on 14th, passed the children’s charity outfit, passed the projects, hooked a right on S. The wind from the open window blew back his long black hair.

  Gorman reached into his shirt pocket, withdrew the snowseal. He carefully unwrapped it, bent his head down, put his nose very close to the mound of crystal meth. He inhaled sharply through one nostril, then the other.

  Constantine looked at Valdez. “What is this?” he said.

  “This is it, driver,” Gorman said. “That’s what the fuck this is.” There was white powder specked with blue on the tip of Gorman’s nose.

  “Take it easy, Gorman,” Valdez said quietly.

  Constantine turned right on 13th, went south one block, turned right again on R.

  “Pull over right here,” Valdez said. “Don’t cut it.”

  Constantine took the Road Runner to the curb. Down the block, past row houses, the liquor store looked small standing alone amongst the rubble of demolition. On the other side of R stood the Central Union Mission. A group of people—a dozen, maybe—stood on the sidewalk, outside the doors of the mission.

  “All right, Gorman,” Valdez said. “Three Irishmen, a sawed-off under the left register. They’ll be wearin’ vests.”

  “Head shots,” Gorman said.

  “If we have to,” said Valdez.

  Gorman took the snowseal, rubbed it on his gums, licked it, tossed it out the window. He put the stocking on his head. His eyes met Constantine’s in the rearview. There was chemical color now in the gray man’s face, confidence in his smile.

  “Constantine,” Valdez said, fitting the stocking tightly on his head, then pointing a thick finger down the block. “You curb it right past the liquor store, there. Got it?”

  “I got it,” Constantine said.

  Valdez looked at his watch. “Let’s go.”

  Constantine drove down the street as Valdez rubbed his palms dry on his jacket. Gorman pumped the shotgun.

  “No matter what happens,” Valdez said evenly, staring ahead, “you don’t leave us. You leave us, I’ll kill you. You understand that, Constantine? I promise you.”

  Constantine pulled the Road Runner to the curb where Valdez had pointed. Valdez and Gorman yanked down on their masks.

  Just as he stopped, Valdez and Gorman got out of the car, closed the car doors, ran across the sidewalk, Valdez with both guns drawn, Gorman with the shotgun at his side, and pushed on the door of EZ Time Liquors. Then they were both inside.

  Constantine sat alone in the Plymouth, listened to the heavy idle of the 440.

  Across the street, on the sidewalk of the mission, a woman with large hoop earrings leaned against a garbage can, talking loudly to another woman who stood nearby. “That motherfucker dogged you, girlfriend,” she said.

  Both women laughed.

  A shotgun blast boomed like a bomb from inside the liquor store. The sound of exploding glass came from the store, and then a second explosion from the shotgun, and then more glass.

  Some people from outside the mission stopped looking at their shoes and turned their attention across the street. The two women by the garbage can glanced toward the liquor store, and then the one with the hoop earrings pushed playfully on her friend’s shoulder.

  “He dogged you,” she repeated.

  Someone ran inside the mission. A few people walked slowly across the street, still looking at the liquor store but not nearing it. One of them, a man wearing a Blazers cap, noticed Constantine sitting in the driver’s side of the idling black car. The man studied Constantine, turned his head, turned toward 14th, and walked away.

  Constantine heard muffled shouts from behind the black bars and glass. He felt a sudden weakness in his knees. Constantine pushed in the lighter, waited for it to pop. He drummed his fingers on the dash.

  The lighter popped out Constantine used it to fire a smoke. He dragged deeply, exhaled through his nose.

  The shotgun fired once more in the store, then several gunshots, then two different shotgun sounds, close together. After that, more gunshots.

  The people on the sidewalk stepped back. Constantine heard a siren from far away. Steadily, the siren grew louder. Another siren sounded, from a different direction.

  The cigarette dangled from Constantine’s lips. He kept his left hand on the wheel. His right hand worked the Hurst through the gears. He let up on the clutch, pushed the gas, felt the friction point, felt the Plymouth begin to jump.

  The sirens grew louder.

  No.

  He depressed the clutch, pushed the shifter into neutral. He felt a warm calm, and a sudden wash of power. He had the vague sensation of his hardening sex. The Beat pounded hot, in his chest and his head.

  “Come on,” he whispered.

  He looked into the store. He saw gunsmoke hovering in the dim light. By the door he saw the raised barrel of Gorman’s shotgun.

  Then, in the rearview, Constantine saw the first cop car, a blue-and-white, coming up behind him on R. He pitched his cigarette out the window.

  “Come on,” said Constantine. “Come on.”

  THE first thing Gorman did, as he pushed through the front door of EZ Time Liquors, was shove aside two customers standing near the beer cooler that ran along the rightmost wall. Then Gorman stepped back, squeezed the trigger on the shotgun, and blew the fuck out of the cooler’s glass doors.

  He pumped the Mossberg, turned, and fired into the vodka bottles shelved on the left wall. He felt a shower of glass and booze. He pumped the shotgun once more, pointed it at the Irishmen behind the counter.

  Valdez had made it to the counter, one .45 in the old Irishman’s face, the other at his side. Weiner had said there would be three of them, but today there were only two, a father and son, big, square-headed guys, big guts and big hands. Their hands were up, their faces empty of fear.

  “You know what this is,” Valdez said loudly. “Let’s have it!”

  The two customers—old juicers wearing blue maintenance uniforms—hit the floor behind Gorman. One of them talked to himself, the other made a steady moaning sound.

  Gorman giggled, swung the shotgun around, pointed it at the juicers, heard the talker talk faster, swung the shotgun back at the young Irishman. The crank was fucking good—Gorman wanted to hear the shotgun again, feel the fire surge through his hands.

  “Easy,” Valdez said, looking at the father, talking to Gorman. “Now the money. The Brinks money, Pops. Come on!”

  The old Irishman narrowed his eyes. “There is no fucking money, you—”

  “The money!” Gorman screamed, sliding a few feet forward.

  Valdez touched the barrel of his .45 to the old man’s head.

  “Take it easy, friend,” said the young Irishman.

  “We ain’t your fuckin’ friends,” Gorman said. He snorted the runoff back up into his nose.

  “The money,” Valdez said, sweat dripping beneath the nylon of his mask. “Now!”

  “Okay,” t
he young Irishman said. “Just take it easy.”

  He kept his eyes on Gorman as he bent down slowly, lowered one arm. He came up with a large cloth bag. He tossed the bag, and it landed at Gorman’s feet.

  “That’s right,” Gorman said, nodding his head.

  “There’s more,” Valdez said.

  The young Irishman moved a couple of feet to his right, bent down again, came up with a smaller bag. He dropped that over the counter, near the large cloth bag. He stood straight, his arms raised. Above him, on a shelf holding combs, rubbers, and lottery dream books, a rap song played at a low volume from an old clock radio.

  “That better be it,” Valdez said. The old man took a slow step back, away from the touch of the gun.

  “I’ll make this motherfucker explode,” Gorman said, opening his hand and then wrapping it tight around the barrel of the shotgun.

  The young Irishman nodded. “One more,” he said. “Just take it easy.”

  “Come on!” Gorman said.

  The young Irishman bent down.

  One of the men on the floor behind Gorman had shit his pants, the stench of it cutting the cordite smell that was heavy now in the store. The talking man spoke louder, said, “Please,” and then “Lord, no Lord.”

  Gorman swiveled his hips, pointed the shotgun at the juicers, told them to keep their mouths shut, turned the shotgun back on the young Irishman.

  Gorman heard Valdez yell his name, saw the sawed-off swinging up in the young Irishman’s hand.

  Gorman fired the Mossberg, dove right behind the scotch rack, heard the young Irishman hit the wall behind the counter, heard him grunt, knew he had not killed him, knew he had hit him in the vest. Gorman pumped the shotgun.

  The father reached frantically, clumsily beneath the counter.

  Valdez had time to take a step back, stiffen his gun arm. Valdez shot the old man three times—gut, neck, face. The face shot took off the jaw on one side. Valdez saw white bone exposed, and a quarter-sized hole spitting blood from the neck as the old man went down.