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Bag

Borut Slokan


The woman in front of him was carrying a long-handled handbag, echoing the sunlight. A guy ran up to her from behind, snatching the bag. Then, with the loot in his hand, he charged forward.
    The victim glanced around helplessly. Then, as in his competition days, he crouched down and ran. Past the victim, to the bend, and later to left, where the thug rushed. He raced in a flow, slowly but steadily. Only novices hurrah at the start, and waste all the stamina to go on.
    The thief was less than fifty meters ahead. The robber was running like crazy, which meant he would soon be out of breath. He was inhaling as they had trained him to do and was approaching the thief step by step. The thief turned into a courtyard with dilapidated cars. The man, out of breath, collapsed and jumped on him.
    The runner snatched the bag and turned around. And he saw five figures emerging from the rows of rusting cars. He already knew this music—so he grabbed the thief by the hair, put the first piece of sheet metal he could find under his neck, and dragged him towards the exit. His message was clear: leave me alone or say goodbye to your colleague or whatever he is.
    “Always have the initiative, always. Get up if everyone is standing. Speak if they are silent. If they are speaking, be silent. Always let them know that the price of attacking you will be too high. If in doubt, strike; that person would strike you first. Don’t let them think. Your enemies have to guess what you are going to do, not the other way around”; his instructor’s words echoed in his head.
    Only one stranger, they were all emigrants in appearance, stopped him. He punched him in the throat, where Adam’s apple was, and the opponent collapsed on the ground, grunting. The other emigrants came closer, but not too close.

    He dragged the thief to the entrance, where he dropped him and turned into the street. He looked around, and there were only two more men behind him.
    “Let’s see how good you are at the middle track,” he whispered to himself and started running along the pavement of the longest street in the city.
    The soles of his feet echoed in a familiar rhythm, and after a couple of hundred meters, there was no one behind him. He had a simple plan of the entire city in his head; he turned to the right place without any problem and came to where the victim was.
    She, a plump, muscular brunette, stayed there, which was not surprising, as not much time had passed. She was alone. Looking around, lost, and when she saw him, with her bag in his hand, she started waving wildly at him. He picked up his pace and soon came up to her. He handed her the bag. Heavy, and all the weight was in the compact second half of the shining leather. “I don’t know how I’d manage without it!” exclaimed the brunette. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”
    She took a few steps forward to the second parked car in the row and knocked on the car door. It opened, and a beauty with hair in many colors, in a tight-fitting costume, stepped out.

    “You’re going to steal my husband, bitch, will you?!!” shouted the brunette wildly and swished her bag at the opponent. A sickening thump. The bag must have been full of lead or something similar, because the beauty at once fell to the ground with a groan. Another blow, and the pavement turned red. And another blow, and another. The moaning stopped. Sirens. Cars. Police. Ambulance.
    He stood all the time, paralysed by the scene. Even when he was arrested and handcuffed, he was still numb.
    “You are suspected of being an accessory to the murder, as you brought the murder weapon to the perpetrator,” the police officer explained, pushing him into the prisoner’s part of the car. He bowed his head.

    The bag on the pavement shone in the middle of a pool of blood.

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