Flashback (Out of the Box Book 23)

by Robert J. Crane

  “What are we talking about here?” I asked, trying to figure out a large, extralegal organization that would have lots of money on hand that we could sweep up in a robbery.

  “There's a mob casino here in town,” my mother said. “It's night right now. They're open. Lots of cash hanging around. We go in fast, knock 'em down, and grab every dollar we can.” She looked over the seat at me. “A little more dangerous than a traditional bank, but you get that warm feeling of not stealing from the savings of decent people, and the mob won't be prepared for metahumans.”

  “Neither would an empty bank,” I said, “but you've got a good point. A mob casino isn't going to be as physically hardened a target.”

  “And they won't call the cops,” Lethe said. “They'll try and track us down themselves to break our legs – and worse.”

  “I am the one who breaks legs,” I said, catching a blank look from my mother and grandmother. I sighed. “Urgh. I forgot Breaking Bad doesn't exist yet. No one understands me here. What a primitive age you live in.”

  “Do we all – including the surly, time-traveling teenager – agree this is a better option than robbing a traditional bank?” my mother asked. “Easier entry, we don't have to bust through a wall or a roof or figure out a way into a vault, less entanglement with law enforcement-”

  “Plus I don't have to feel guilty if I bust up a mobster,” I said. “Fighting cops does not make me happy.”

  “Exactly,” my mother said.

  “Seems reasonable to me,” my grandmother said.

  “All right,” I said, shifting the little head against my arm so that I could regain blood flow to my hand, “let's do it.” I paused, thinking hard about what I was saying. Well, it was certainly...different. “Let's go rip off the mob.”

  27.

  What does it take to rob a mob casino?

  At minimum, I'd suggest guns, planning and masks. Guns, because thugs of all kinds respect them as a symbol of instant death. Planning, because it's helpful to know your entry and exit points, where probable troubles will arise, where the money is, and masks because...

  Well, who wants the mob on your ass after you steal their cheddar?

  We had no guns, no masks, and no time to plan.

  “I could put a sock over the bottom of my mouth,” I said, pondering whether that was an idea worth even trying. “On the other hand, I've been wearing these socks for a while, and I don't think my meta sense of smell is going to respond well to them.” I almost retched at the mere thought.

  My mother and grandmother each gave me a pitying look.

  “Yeah, I guess we're going maskless,” I said. We were sitting in the parking lot outside the casino, which was really just an old building not far outside downtown, on one of the original two-lane highways out of Des Moines that had become a commercially built-out strip as the city expanded. The building we were looking at was blocky and square, and once upon a time it could have been just about anything – a diner, a small warehouse, a municipal water pumping station for all I knew. It was utterly nondescript and was lit with an orange neon sign that proclaimed it “Speakeasy.”

  “Does anyone else think it's a touch ironic that it's named 'Speakeasy'?” Lethe asked, staring up at the sign. “I mean, once upon a time Speakeasies were the illicit places where society practiced the frowned-upon and illegal underground activity of the day, drinking. Now, gambling.”

  “I'm not in the mood for irony,” my mother said, staring over the steering wheel at the sign. It didn't dominate the front of the building, but it was the only feature of interest other than the lummox that stood in front of the door. They probably should have put him inside, but my gut told me he was the lookout, there to duck in and shout a warning should any cop cars or suspicious characters come pulling into the parking lot. “What's our plan?”

  “You wait here, grandma and I go sully our hands with the dirty work,” I said.

  Lethe looked over her seat at me. “You want to take a third of our strength out of equation here?”

  “No,” I said, “but I don't want to leave mini-me alone in the car.” I shifted little Sienna, gently, to lay her down across the back seat. She didn't even stir at the movement, just smacked her lips and kept sleeping. “Plus, if this goes as well as my usual plans, we'll probably need a wheelman – err, woman – for a quick getaway.”

  “So that's why you had me switch seats with mom when we stopped off at that convenience store.” My mother's arms were draped over the steering wheel, but she looked back at me with jaded irritation.

  “That, and concerns that a woman grandma's age shouldn't be driving.” I caught an ireful look from Lethe. “What? I'm concerned you're still operating from horse-and-cart instincts, that's all. I mean, come on, you've been alive for several millennia, but cars have been around for all of a twentieth of that.”

  “I'd wager I've driven more in my life than the two of you combined have in yours,” Lethe said. “I owned a Ford Model T, okay? I was an early adopter.” She bristled in the passenger seat. “I'm...hip.”

  “Fine. I'll wait in the car,” my mother said, looking sidelong at Lethe, who was still seething. “I didn't want to participate in your stupid casino robbery anyway. No point in getting my face on the mob's most wanted list.”

  “That's the spirit,” I said. Lethe frowned at me. “What?” I asked. “What do you have to fear from the mob?”

  “The busting of my kneecaps, like anyone else, I assume.”

  “Your kneecaps will be fine,” I said, throwing open the door as a wash of humid night air came in. “Those of the enforcers they send after you will probably be forfeit, though, if I had to guess.” I stood, stretching, and looked down at my sleeve. It hung, just above the elbow, partially shredded and crusted with dried blood. Wolfe had torn it somehow in our clash. Or I'd gotten it stuck on a nail at some point. Who knew, honestly, with me? I ripped it free and tossed it to Lethe as she got out of the car. “If it bothers you that much, wear this as a mask.”

  She caught it deftly, then tied it around her face. “Fine.”

  “Fine,” I parroted, smirking as I turned to head for the door. “I'll take out the watchman, you follow behind in the shadows but don't show yourself until he's down. We don't want to warn them about what's coming.”

  She nodded and disappeared as she sunk down behind the car and started creeping her way through the lot, not making a sound.

  I, on the other hand, tried to make a lot of noise. I whistled as I walked, trying to be a little off-key as I worked through the theme to Back to the Future. I tried to put a little wobble in my walk, pretending to be drunk, figuring the guard would be more than happy to admit a young, drunk woman who had money. He couldn't see that my outfit was torn all to pieces in the shadowy parking lot, after all, and maybe ripped clothing was in style in 1999.

  The guard fixed his attention on me as I came staggering into the light hanging just above the door. It extended in a halo over the dirt parking lot for about twenty feet off the front step, and I zigzagged my path just slightly, enough to make him unclench as he mentally sorted me into the “not a threat” column.

  “Hiii,” I drawled and took a stumbling step.

  “Hey,” he said, and reached out to catch me as I recovered, heading for the lone step-up into the place. “Rough night?” He was taking in the tattered appearance of my clothing, but the alarm bells weren't ringing for him yet.

  “Yes,” I said, full of feeling. “You would not believe the night I am having. First there was a bachelorette party – not mine,” I shook my head loosely, still feigning drunk and throwing out an un-Sienna-like girlish giggle, “and there were shots – so – soooo many shots. Then I played a round of night golf. You ever play night golf? I think I broke somebody's window. Probably shouldn't have kept going when I chipped into that guy's yard. Not gonna get that ball back. Should have used the three wood, I think-”

  “What are you doing here?” the guy asked, politely, but def
initely trying to cut short my ramble.

  “Right now?” I asked, focusing on his eyes. He was a big dude, probably six-five, three hundred pounds. “I'm hanging on your arm, duuuh.” I lifted my hand, because his was on mine. “What are you doing here?”

  “I'm-”

  I twisted his hand into wrist-lock and before he could let out a cry, lifted my elbow into his jaw. The crack was familiar – I'd broken a lot of jaws in my time – and his eyes fluttered only once before he dropped insensate into the dirt parking lot.

  “Get him out of the light,” Lethe said, appearing at the edge of the illuminated halo effect. “Put him in the bushes over there.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said, dragging him by the neck, using the opportunity to continue my skin-to-skin contact with him in an effort to learn the security and layout of the place. I managed to pull what I needed quickly and left him behind a shrub that didn't adequately cover him.

  “Well?” Lethe asked as I emerged.

  “Security cams,” I said, ripping off my other sleeve. No point in leaving video evidence of me robbing a casino in 1999 to come washing up on some news program twenty years hence. It wasn't the sort of thing one could easily explain away, after all. “Guards are packing.” I blinked. “Which reminds me.” I hotfooted it back to the shrubs and pulled the guy's pistol, an old but serviceable snub-nosed revolver of the .38 Special variety. “You want this?”

  Lethe waved me off. “I'm not a hard-nosed PI from the thirties.”

  “Come on, darlin',” I said, putting on the appropriate accent for that era, “we're about to hit a speakeasy, see. Gotta be prepared for the era, see.”

  “No one spoke like that in that era,” she said, shaking her head at me. “Let's get this over with.” She opened the door and held it for me.

  “Oh, I see how it is,” I said, taking the cue and entering with my gun held up. “So much for 'age before beauty'.”

  “You lead because you have the gun,” she said, rolling her eyes.

  “Suuuuuuuuuure.”

  I plunged into the building, finding myself in a fairly ordinary-looking bar. Using the memories carefully extracted from Mister Goombah out in the parking lot (I seriously hadn't even bothered stealing his name, I was so blasé about rifling through his brain), I charged the bar and leapt over, catching the bartender with a kick to the chest that sent him shattering into the mirror behind him and a dozen bottles rattling down in a shower of booze and glass.

  Whipping the .38 around to the patrons, I said, “Everybody be cool. This is a robbery.”

  There were only three people at the bar, hell, in the entire upstairs, but the parking lot had been packed. One couple who looked pale and shocked, and another guy who was really, really deep in his cups. He, of course, was the one who spoke: “The guy in Pulp Fiction said it better.” And he slurped his drink noisily.

  “Shut up, or I'll bend you over this bar and pretend you're Honey Bunny,” I said, and yanked his tie, smacking his face into the wood surface. He pitched back, legs flying up into the air as he keeled over. I pointed the .38 at the couple. “You two sit right there. Listen and you'll live through this just fine. Get brave or decide to do something stupid, your life expectancy is going to take a dramatic dive, understand?”

  Nods signaled they got me. I motioned for the corner, where the fake door led to the casino. Lethe was already on her way, as though she had picked it out from the paneling.

  “Oh, and if you try and go out that door or attempt to call the cops or the mob – well, let's just say it's going to get ugly for you,” I said, leaping the bar to join Lethe. “You're on your honor, kids. Help yourself to anything behind the bar, but if you walk out that door, our guard outside is going to plug you full of lead.” I mimed a gun firing with my free hand, and I could tell by the looks on their faces that they believed me.

  “Nice,” Lethe said as she reached the section of wall that opened into the casino. “What's your plan here?”

  “There's a guy behind the wall,” I said. “You can knock twice and he'll slide open the-”

  Lethe kicked down the wall and it shattered open on a central hinge like she'd bulldozed it. I heard a scream from behind it as the guy on watch duty got crunched underneath it, and his cries of pain suggested it was not his most fun evening ever.

  My grandmother walked over it as daintily as if she were climbing a small hill, evincing no reaction to the mobster screaming underfoot. A concrete staircase twisted down into the basement – and presumably casino – below. Once we were over the knocked-down section of wall, Lethe squatted and lifted the wall with one hand to reveal the mobster beneath. She cracked him across the jaw then felt his jacket until she came out with a Beretta 92.

  I looked at the Beretta in her hand, then the .38 snub nose in mine. “No fair. Yours is way better.”

  “Yes,” she said, and she was off, down the stairs.

  “So much for wanting better for your progeny than you yourself have,” I said, trailing after her and picking up the pace to keep up. She was hauling ass now, probably because we were in the midst of losing the element of surprise.

  “I've worked hard for what I've got,” she said, not even cracking a smile, though I could hear the thin traces of amusement in her tone. “That's the problem with you kids nowadays. You think you can just have it all when you start out, skipping over the lifetime of hard work that gets you to the heights of success.” There was a glimmer of amusement in her eye as she snaked around the stairs and we reached another door, this one made out of metal and armored. She took up position on one side of it as I stacked up on the other.

  “You look like you've done this a time or two,” I said. She was holding the Beretta like a pro, at low rest, ready to come around the door frame.

  “I had a brief career in the eighties as a cop,” she said. “In this no-name backwater where shit was always going wrong, and they never had enough manpower, so I was always getting to help kick in doors and whatnot. Ready?”

  I drew a long breath. “Yep. You want me to do the honors this time?”

  She smiled, and it was slow and amused. “No.” She came off the wall and kicked in the steel door, the metal buckling and bowing and crashing to the ground in front of us-

  And the next thing that greeted us was a hail of gunfire.

  28.

  Little pieces of concrete and spackle showered me as bullets impacted all around the door frame where I was huddling. I hit my knees as the gunfire started, then went prone, figuring it'd be easier to duck under the shots than to try and catch one in my teeth.

  Okay, it was more like I was following normal, sane operating procedures in the event of gunfire, but still...catching a bullet with your teeth? Probably not easy, unless you’re Penn and Teller. And the last thing I needed was to get my damned brains blown out in 1999 in Des Moines, Iowa. Talk about a hell of a way to die.

  “I think our plan just dissolved into chaos,” my grandmother said under the endless volley of shots.

  “Yeah,” I said, “I don't know how you did things in your day, but this is pretty much standard operating procedure for me. Come up with a workable idea, watch it go to shit, innovate and destroy your foes. Rinse, repeat.”

  She nodded slowly, her hair turned white from the concrete dust flying all around. “That's pretty much how it worked in my day. Maybe with a little more yodeling, battle cries, that sort of thing.”

  “Battle cries?” I asked.

  “Yeah, you know,” she said. “To throw the enemy off balance.”

  “Got it,” I said. “Should we do one now? A battle cry/yodel?”

  “Yodel was probably the wrong word,” she said, “but you can feel free. Not sure it's an advisable strategy now that enemies can deliver pinpoint fire to your position if they hear you.”

  “Pffffft,” I said, nodding my head toward the open door. Bullets were still singing their way through at a pretty decent volume. “There's no way in hell the guys barraging us fro
m in there are hearing shit at this point. They've fired a hundred rounds, easily. They're deaf as a modern music producer at this point.”

  She blinked. “Wait. Important question – does music continue to suck in the future?”

  I felt the pinch of my expression. “If anything, it gets worse.”

  Lethe made a face. “Not sure I want to survive this, now.”

  “That's a reasonable reaction to homogenized, mass-produced tunes,” I said. “But there are some glimmers of hope out there. Indies and whatnot. Anyway...” I paused listening. The volume of fire had slackened. “At some point, we're going to have to make it through this door.”

  “Wait a sec,” she said, rising back to her knees, tight against the wall. She seemed to slide like a snake, coiling around certain prominent holes in the wall, so whoever was inside couldn't see her shadow. She grabbed a chunk of concrete the size of a finger and tossed it at the single lightbulb hanging above us. The bulb shattered, casting us in darkness.

  I didn't say anything. I knew what she was doing.

  “Stop shooting!” someone shouted from inside. “Knock it off, Phil! You, Larry – go check it out. Make sure they're dead.”

  “Huh?”

  “Make sure they're dead!” came the answer, twice as loud, presumably to overcome Larry's newfound deafness.

  Lethe's eyes gleamed in the dark. She indicated the door. Whoever had the clearest shot at Larry was to take it, and then...

  Well, then we'd be going to work.

  I waited in the dark, trying to listen over the ringing in my ears. This hadn't been a great day for my hearing, but hey, what day was? Certainly not yesterday, when I'd shot a grenade launcher until there was blood running down my cheeks or been in the center of an AC-130 bombardment and had myself nearly shredded by shrapnel and explosions.

  “'The only easy day was yesterday' really should be my motto,” I muttered under my breath as a shadow fell in the doorway. Larry was getting close. He seemed to be approaching from my side, which meant Lethe was going to get the clear shot at him. “I feel like the Navy SEALS should be willing to share, given all I've been through.”