Black Robe arrived at the parking lot in time to see me leap onto the bus. His banana gun fired, the side of the bus near the front dented in, and half the windows burst. The driver stared, first at the windows, and then at me.
"Mugger!" I shouted. "Drive!"
The bus lurched forward, dumping me on the floor. I looked up into the face of a thirty-something businessman sitting behind the driver, and fear looked back. His bloodless face matched the white dress shirt under his business suit. He clutched a fat blue gym bag to his stomach and glanced over his shoulder where wind whistled in the broken windows.
Someone huddled on the floor between the seats about halfway down, and a striking blonde woman hunkered in a seat near the back. She wore a waitress uniform, and despite the glass speckling her clothes and hair, peered down the aisle at me with such confidence and intensity that it scared me. Lunatic, I thought. Thrill seeker. She probably gawked at road wrecks.
"Stay down!" I yelled, scrambling to my feet to look out the back. Black Robe pounded past the kiosk without glancing at it. I squatted beside the driver, thrilled with my brilliant planning. Crazy didn't mean stupid.
The engine roared for a block, and then the driver backed off as he approached a red light.
"Keep going!" I shouted. "Go, go!"
Another boom took out the back window and the bus driver's head. Gore splattered the windshield. The driver's headless body slumped onto the steering wheel. The bus wobbled along the street. I swore. What a fool I'd been to gloat over my cleverness.
I hauled the dead driver's torso back with one hand and spun the steering wheel with the other, my knuckles white on the wheel. I kicked his foot from the accelerator and pressed down with my own. We flew around a corner too fast, clipped a parked car with a screech of metal, and zig-zagged on down the street. As we crossed our second intersection, a car t-boned us. The bus spun like a ballerina on the icy street until it crashed into the front window of a carpet shop.
My shoulder smashed against the windshield. I looked around, trying to get my bearings. The businessman had thumped his forehead against the driver's seat and appeared dazed. He'd dropped the gym bag beside his shiny dress shoes. A gym bag meant workout clothes, and no one wore dress shoes in a gym, did they? We'd only gained a block or two on Black Robe. If I was going to lead him away from the cop lady, I needed shoes. My feet ached from the cold.
I slammed the door control open and snatched the gym bag. The damn thing was heavier than I expected. I didn't have time to worry about it. Sirens wailed in the distance, and running down the center of the street barely a block and a half behind came Black Robe. No time to dig out shoes.
I vaulted from the bus and sprinted along the sidewalk, trying to keep parked cars between Black Robe and me until I could get around a corner. Black Robe's gun thundered once, rocking me with a near miss and setting off a cacophony of car alarms. I hurtled south at the next cross street, my shoulder blades crawling in expectation of another shot.
I headed though a business district toward a seedy residential neighborhood where I could give my pursuer the slip once I'd led him far, far from the police woman. She'd be safe. I'd be a hero. I smiled, regaining my confidence. Then I remembered the dead bus driver. My fault. My hands clenched on the handle of my stolen bag, and I ran faster.
Turning another corner, I pulled up under a street lamp and peeked back. Black Robe labored on at a dog trot, tiring badly. My feet were killing me. I needed shoes, and now I had time to put them on. I dropped the gym bag on the sidewalk and unzipped it.
No shoes.
Just stacks and stacks of money.
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
Calculated Risk
Copyright © 2012 by K S Ferguson
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Contact the publisher: http://www.ksferguson.net
ISBN: 1938179072
ISBN-13: 978-1-938179-07-5
Calculated Risk Page 29