Lockdown

by Nick Kolakowski

  Pablo knows he has to put everything he can into the swing. Steve has to hit the cold water completely knocked out or he’ll scream. Pablo pulls the buoy hook back and swings with all his strength. The thick metal pole hits Steve’s head with a loud thunk that shoots pain down to Pablo’s elbows and makes his shoulders feel like they’re about to pop out.

  Steve’s head snaps to the side and his left arm flies up. He stays there for an endless second before exhaling a strange moan and going overboard, his legs stiff.

  Pablo leans over starboard and peers into the water. Steve is facedown, bobbing in the dark water and already drifting away from the boat. His clothes will soon pull him under. Pablo will head inside and use the bathroom. He’ll sit down and take a shit. Let a few minutes go by. He’ll read about the lockdown while he’s in there. He’ll send Joanna a text saying he loves her. Then he’ll come back out and scream for Big Joe. Steve is just another idiot who made a mistake. He slipped and slammed his head. He wasn’t wearing his life vest. Happens all the time. Fucking greenhorns. That’s why there are ads for commercial fishing accident attorneys all over Galveston. This is a dangerous job and many fishermen lose their life every year. The floor is slippery with water and blood. Lack of sleep makes them sloppy, careless. A tired greenhorn drowning is no biggie. The story is not new or weird or unique. Steve slipped and cracked his head before going overboard. Everyone has heard of stuff like that happening before. It happened while Pablo was inside taking a dump. He had to. It’s nature. No one will blame him for taking a few minutes to hit the can.

  Pablo replaces the buoy hook on the wall and looks to starboard again. He keeps expecting to hear a scream or to see Steve’s hand grabbing the boat. Neither happens. He walks into the cabin and heads to the small bathroom. He remembers the fat Mexican on the bicycle. Maybe he was just going somewhere early. Maybe he was going back home after having sex with some chola a few blocks down. Maybe he lived nearby and was out for a ride because being locked inside drives people crazy. Everyone has a fucking story. Pablo just wants this one to be over. He wants to hold Joanna and tell her they’re going to be okay. He has the money to take her to a hospital now. Yeah, everything is going to be okay.

  By Rob Hart

  Five minutes ago

  Something wakes Roger up.

  He’s not sure what it is. He just knows it was something that pulled him from dreamland and left him staring at the white expanse of his bedroom ceiling. Mouth sticky, bladder full, head pounding a slow and steady beat thanks to the three glasses of Lagavulin he had after dinner.

  He glances at Karen. Her back is to him, her body slowly rising and falling. Just them in the house. Just them in the house for a month now, and given the state of the world, it’s not like sleep has been easy—hence the Scotch—so he shrugs his awakening off to a general sense of discomfort. Like a fly buzzing around his head that he can’t quite swat, so he may as well get used to it.

  Try to get some rest.

  But then he hears it, or maybe hears it again?

  A groan from somewhere in the house.

  Again, he thinks he’s being jumpy. Houses make noise. Especially big, old houses with dips in the floor from where the wood has warped.

  Except, usually the reason the wood groans is because someone stepped on it. This one sounded suspiciously like that spot in the kitchen, just inside the sliding glass door. That particular creak etched in his mind. He hears it a few times a day now, when his office feels too claustrophobic and he needs to take his laptop onto the back deck for some air.

  Roger sits, swinging his feet onto the plush carpet. Looks at the bedside table. Considers the contents of the drawer: a black case with a fingerprint scanner on the outside. On the inside is a Rohrbaugh R9 Stealth Elite, a lovely little gun built from aircraft aluminum that weighs less than a pound when unloaded. He could have gone for something bigger, something with more stopping power, but he also never thought he’d actually have to fire a gun in his own home. If anything, it would be a visual deterrent.

  Karen liked having it there. Sometimes she would bite his ear and whisper: “Take it out. Make me yours.”

  He pretended she wasn’t talking about the gun.

  Roger sighs. Listens. No more sounds from within the house. But what’s the point of having it then? He opens the drawer softly, so Karen doesn’t wake, takes the box out and presses his thumb to the pad. The latch clicks and he opens it. He takes out the gun and a clip, then puts the box on the floor and slides it under the bed with his heel. He steps into the bathroom to load the gun and chamber a bullet, so the harsh metal clack doesn’t wake Karen, either.

  He feels silly holding it. And anyway, who would be breaking into houses right now? The thought had crossed his mind the other day, even struck him as funny, as he considered all the industries that were going to suffer from this. Surely the field of home invasion would hit hard times, what with everyone suddenly home.

  It made him think about the trip he took into his office yesterday. For years now, there’s been this guy at the corner of William Street and Exchange Place, between the Thai restaurant and the vape shop. Every day, sitting with his coffee cup and his sign about… something. Roger had never bothered to read it. Another sad story in a city full of them. Every day he saw the man—bald head, heavy beard, thick military jacket even in the summer—sitting on a pile of blankets, empty coffee cup perched next to the sign.

  Every day the man just sat there.

  Until yesterday, when Roger needed to go into the office for files he didn’t have access to electronically. Karen asked him not to go, to have someone who actually lived near the office go over and scan them, but there was a reason those files weren’t on a computer. And he was curious to see the emptied-out city. As he stepped off the 2 train, coming up into the chilly, overcast day, he found the street to be completely deserted.

  Except for the beggar.

  It was easy enough to ignore him when the streets were filled with people. But Roger found himself almost immediately locked into prolonged, awkward eye contact. The man started to speak, and Roger turned, intent on taking the long way around to his office building, so he wouldn’t actually have to pass him. But the man got up and followed. Calling after him: “C’mon man. Just help me out. I know you saw me.”

  The man relied on foot traffic. The shelters were currently giant petri dishes. Things must be getting tight. Which was making the man aggressive. Desperate. Roger turned the corner and ran the rest of the way to his office. When he left, he lingered in the lobby to make sure the coast was clear, before walking up to Fulton Street to get back on the 2 train.

  And as he steps out of the bedroom he thinks: maybe that’s this. Desperation. As the matrix of the thought knits together, he realizes his hand is shaking. He looks down at the gun, puts his finger on the outside of the trigger guard. He steps onto the runner in the hallway to muffle his steps and makes his way through the darkened house.

  Telling himself, with every step, that this was the house settling, or any number of rational explanations. But still, comforted by the fact that his hand isn’t empty.

  That, and by the state-of-the-art security system.

  It dawns on him then: if someone broke in, the alarm would have gone off.

  By the time he reaches the bottom of the stairs, the tension has disappeared from his shoulders, and he feels foolish, walking around an empty house with a gun. Still, no way is he getting to sleep now. Surely another glass of Scotch will help.

  Ten minutes ago

  “Explain to me again how this is supposed to work,” Keith says, making sure to keep his body concealed by the shadows cast by the tall hedges.

  It’s not that Keith doesn’t believe Mauricio. He just wants to hear it one more time. Because this isn’t their usual gig.

  He isn’t getting cold feet. Never did, never will.

  He just wants to hear it again.

  “This is the deal,” Mauricio says, looking up an
d down the empty sidewalk, making sure they’re alone. “I pulled the FCC filings on the security system, which is wireless, right? And the filings include the frequency range that the sensors use to communicate with the base station. And it’s a common frequency, same one used by stuff like garage door openers and baby monitors, right? So this.” He holds up a black plastic brick with a stubby antenna. “Handheld radio. Broadcast it over the same range, right? Except, this is five watts, whereas the sensors only have, like, a couple of milliwatts? This’ll be screaming while they’re trying to whisper to each other.”

  “Drown out the signal,” Keith says, glad for an analogy he can grasp, because a lot of the time when Mauricio talks, he just hears a dull thrum. “You sure this’ll work? You got the right security system? Do they all use the same range?”

  “They don’t, except…” Mauricio nods his head toward the house. “Guy has that little placard on his lawn, saying which brand he uses. It was on Google Street View. And I have to tell you man, I just, I wonder when these guys are going to smarten up, right? Like, stop making our job so easy?”

  Our job.

  He says it like this is a typical gig.

  Except, again, it is not.

  Their typical gig didn’t involve a home in Westchester, surrounded on all sides by a mile of suburban streets, so that there were no crowds or train stations to disappear into. Worse, everyone being home means way more opportunities for nervous neighbors to clock them. Keith and Mauricio did not exactly give off “Westchester vibes.”

  Bradford, the guy who hired them, looked like he was born in a country club. So even sitting in a dark SUV at 3 in the morning, he’d be fine. He dropped them off a few blocks away, promising to wait at the corner of Oakwood and March.

  Normally, Keith would not throw in with a trust-fund looking kid with glasses more expensive than most of Keith’s wardrobe. But he handed him and Mauricio five cool—each—with a promise of another ten after the job was done.

  Fifteen, each.

  On top of the payday, Keith and Mauricio were welcome to take anything they came across in the house. Anything they could take that wasn’t tied down. But the goal—the thing Bradford wanted more than a kid wants cake—was a file folder.

  Again, not the typical target. Usually Keith went after things he could sell, drugs he could flip. How was he supposed to tell the difference with paperwork? But Bradford said the guy had only picked it up yesterday, and chances are it’d be sitting on the desk.

  “This thing is so valuable you’re hiring us to get it,” Keith said, as Bradford drove up the Saw Mill River Parkway. “He won’t have it locked up? In a filing cabinet or something?”

  Bradford shrugged. “He’s home all the time. Gets his groceries delivered. Just him and his wife there. What’s the use of putting it away?”

  It stood to reason. Still, Keith was good at finding things. Especially in the dark. A childhood of hiding at night gives you a good sense of space, an eye for details. What’s important, what’s not.

  What’s safe, what’s not.

  So he was optimistic. More than that, he was a little fired up. They didn’t often take clients. But Bradford had tracked Keith down, to the stoop of the Bushwick brownstone where he rented a damp basement apartment that reeked of mold. And after the initial pitch, Keith laughed and told Bradford to fuck off. Sure, the money was good, but the risk didn’t level things out.

  “Things are different now,” Bradford said.

  “How so?” Keith asked.

  “Because, look, this guy works for a bank, right? And what’s that bank doing right now? Is it helping people with easy access to loans? Is it reaching out to businesses? Is it pitching in to help? Or are they looking out for themselves and their investors? They’re like Smaug.”

  “Smaug? ”Bradford furrowed his brow. “The dragon from The Hobbit? Hoarding gold.”

  “Okay.”

  Nerd.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Bradford said. “It’s time for the banks to pay their fair share. Me and some people, we’re working together on this. You’re going to help us take them down a peg. Redistribute things a bit.”

  Keith looked down the block, at the endless stretch of aluminum gates. The other way, and the line outside the bodega on the corner. Thought about his neighbors trading dried beans for toilet paper, waiting for salvation that a bunch of people in Washington were currently arguing over whether they deserved.

  “Think about it,” Bradford said. “He rides this out in the lap of luxury. Why? Because he’s good at manipulating pretend numbers? Help us.”

  Keith was surprised to find himself nodding along. Yeah. This bank guy, in his big house, more food than he needs, more money than five families need to survive, is just there. Like he didn’t have to climb a whole lot of shoulders to get there, leaving those people he climbed over scrambling for his crumbs.

  Yeah, things were different now.

  Mauricio clears his throat. Keith checks his watch. Just past three in the morning. The burgling hour. Too late for the insomniacs, too early for the up-and-at-‘ems.

  “You ready to do this?” Mauricio asks, holding up the radio.

  “Yeah man,” Keith tells him. “Let’s go slay us a dragon.”

  Mauricio doesn’t understand, but he doesn’t care to ask.

  They move quietly through the grass, sticking to the shadows, mindful of sensor lights that would force them to scurry for cover. They get to the rear of the house, next to the sliding glass door, the view from the neighbors blocked by high fences and more shadows from the back deck.

  Mauricio holds up the radio, his hand tenses, and he nods.

  Then Keith climbs the stairs of the deck and goes to the sliding glass door. Grabs the handle and pulls, ready to create a tiny opening so he can slide the tip of his knife in and pull up the latch—sliding glass doors always had the shittiest latches. And he nearly tumbles when the door just yanks open.

  The sound of it grinding in the track makes him hold his breath. He ducks down, listening for dogs, even though the Facebook and Instagram accounts of the people who lived here didn’t indicate they had any. Dog people always let you know they’re dog people.

  Silence. Stillness.

  He laughs under his breath. “Dumbasses,” he says.

  Keith steps inside, feels the floor give a little and groan under his foot, but it’s not so bad. He moves slower, allowing the house to meet him, and makes his way slowly toward the staircase and what looks like the office beyond.

  Now

  “Where the file?” Keith asks, a small, smooth gun now in his hand. And a fresh, sizzling gouge in the flesh of his left arm. The pain hasn’t set in yet. The adrenaline roaring through his blood is holding it back.

  Roger crab-walks away, ears ringing from the shot he managed to squeeze off before he lost the gun in the struggle. He alternates hands over his face, like that might somehow protect him from a bullet. He wonders about Karen. If she heard the shot. She must have. Even through the gauze of vodka and Ambien, she had to have heard. The neighbors must have heard. Someone.

  Keith grips the gun tighter, aims it with purpose. “The file.”

  “What file?” Roger asks, glancing at his darkened office.

  Keith rushes past him, into a room with so much mahogany it smells like a forest. Desk and cabinets and bookshelves, all of it gleaming in the dim light coming through the windows. Where the fuck is Mauricio?

  Roger looks between the office and the kitchen. He could get up. Run to the knife block. But he would still be in the man’s line of sight. The hallway was long. No way Roger would make it before the man managed to put a bullet in his back.

  Keith goes to the desk, which is clean and neat. There’s a small stack of folders next to a closed laptop and an empty rocks glass. He grabs them and goes back to the man. “This it?”

  “Is what them?” Roger asks.

  “The file.”

  “What file?”

  Keith
lifts the bundle of paper. Grimaces. The pain is arriving to the party, along with rationality. Is the wife calling the cops? Are they on their way? Cops around here don’t have much to do but hassle kids and answer home invasion calls.

  Roger doesn’t understand how this guy can know about the file. How could anyone have known he picked it up? He was alone. The bum saw him, but that was just a bum. Was someone watching? His stomach flips. The whole reason the file wasn’t on a computer was because of how sensitive it was. Offshore accounts. Names and dates. Good for fifteen to twenty in a federal penitentiary, for Roger and a dozen other people.

  Keith’s rationality starts losing out to the pain. He goes to the man and kicks him hard. The man falls onto his side and groans. “Is this the file you picked up from the office yesterday? Is this it?”

  Roger nods. No sense in lying. Is it worth his life? “Yes. Yes, it is.”

  Keith trains the gun on him. “Swear to me.”

  “I swear.” Keith looks around the house. It makes him think of a museum. Sparse and clean and white. Everything expensive. Like you’d be afraid of even sitting on the couch because they’d make you pay for it. Anger surged through him. Why this man? What did he do? How did he earn this? What did he contribute to the world? The anger burning in his chest is enough to slay a dragon.

  Roger sees something move in the shadows behind the man. It’s Karen, hoisting a crystal vase. She brings it down hard and it shatters on the man’s head. He jerks and fires the gun and Roger feels like he’s been punched in the chest.