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Down in the Dirt v061

Cake Burn

Micah Arroyo

    Clarence knew everything had gone to hell when the walked into the liquor store. The little bell clanged like a siren in his head. Troy looked at him, his eyes asking what they were going to do now. Clarence could see the white fog of the man’s rapid breathing through his gray ski mask, forming little clouds in the stuffy air.
    The Asian manager, a chubby squat faced man was still sweating torrents from the time Troy stuck the .44 Magnum at his head moments ago. Clarence could smell the sickening odor of the man’s piss that he was undoubtedly standing in, the cash register out, wads of crumpled bills lying on the scratchy counter. Snapshots of a pair of smiling Asian boys holding a fish, looking proud, taped to the wall next to a phone, its cord ripped out. A static ridden talk show song droned out of a battered radio. Flies buzzed around their heads, bounced off the drawn shades over the plate glass windows. The woman glanced at a wine rack, oblivious.
    This was supposed to have been simple. Walk in, grab the cash and go. But nothing ever worked out that way, Clarence thought.
    The woman turned to him, wine bottle in her hands.
    How long had they planned this? Clarence thought, waiting for the terror to bloom in the woman’s face. Weeks, maybe a month. Going over it at Troy’s place, a little, ramshackle house downtown, his wife hiding in the kitchen or the bedroom whenever Clarence came over. Casing the little mart, watching the flow of traffic, taking not of the manager’s hours, the old guy that came to mop the place. “It’ll be easy,” Troy had said, “Piece of cake.”
    The woman looked at him, eyes blank.
    He had developed a theory he carried since when he was a kid growing up in San Diego: Everything will screw up when you don’t want it to at least once. He knew. He had tested it.
    In high school when he hot-wired Mr. Gozole’s Honda for the fifth time, someone saw him. When he cut the purse straps of the this woman in a Cosco parking lot after he had done it a hundred times, he got blindsided by baton happy security guard. After moving on up from joyrides and purse snatching to burglaries, Clarence had nearly got his head blown off as he was slipping on a backpack full of jewelry and computer equipment. Now it was the hold ups. After four of these, Clarence was getting pretty damn good.
    The woman’s mouth opened slowly, eyes widening, Troy with the gun in the manger’s face and Clarence calmly observing her holding the throw down gun at his side. The bottle fell from her open hand, cracked on the floor at her feet, the white wine dribbling out. She was a petite woman, her ash brown hair done up with worthless barrettes. A black T shirt and bleached out jeans over a well built body, little gold earrings in her ears and a thin gold chain around her smooth neck. She was carrying a purse.
    Her head shook slightly as she backed slowly toward the greasy door, blue eyes flicking to the both of them. Clarence noted that Troy had forgotten to lock the door, the cheap plastic sign was flipped to CLOSED but the door wasn’t locked. Shit, Troy. Clarence wanted to punch him, but he raised the gun at the woman instead. He’d deal with Troy later, wasn’t the first time he screwed up either.
    She squeaked, scrambled backward, the little bell rattling.
    “Get away from the door,” Clarence said, his voice muffled. Strange, how he wasn’t panicking. Maybe it’s just the shock. Or maybe because he knew it would happen. Troy studied the woman, looked at Clarence, dark eyes alive, glinting in the fizzing lights on the low ceiling. Clarence shook his head: No.
    Troy’s eyes turned to blades, cutting out pieces of Clarence’s face.
    Clarence had this rule to go along with the theory: never hurt anyone, just get the goods and go. He didn’t consider himself
a bad man. A criminal yes, there was no denying that, but a bad criminal, no. In all of his robberies he had committed or participated in, he had never once hurt anyone. At least not too bad. That gave him some level of comfort in his choice of making a living.
    And Troy... Jesus, Troy loved to hurt people. It was like a game to him. Deciding where to hit and when, what to break and how, how long to beat on someone and when to stop which usually was when the poor bastard was maimed or it was difficult to recognize him. Clarence could imagine the guy rolling a pair of dice on the grimy floor of liquor store. Troy hadn’t been his partner of choice, but the other guys were moving on to car jackings or armed house burglaries, Clarence didn’t want to get into that mess. The time was so much more longer. None of the others wanted to go along as a backup man, except sociopath Troy who said he had a wife and a kid to feed. Clarence thought that was unlikely, given the way Troy was quick with his fist, imagined the purplish bruises on his wife. Probably booze money or for crack.
    Troy was a handful and Clarence got the urge for the second time that night to put a bullet in the man’s head.
    The manager was crying as he stared at the barrel, “Don’t shoot. Please, no shoot.”
    “Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” Troy growled.
    Clarence’s mind spun. First the manager, now the girl. God, what’s next?
    “Get out here,” Clarence said.
    The man looked at him. Clarence waved the gun around the desk, “Come on, come on. Out.”
    The man shuffled out, head down, eyes squeezed tight every now and then, expecting the worst. He cowered in front of them, face tear stained. Clarence saw the flash of the wedding band around the manager’s chunky finger. Clarence glanced at the photo of the two boys, looked away. Laughing, Troy slapped the man across the head with the pistol. The manager gave a little yip and held his head with a hand, the other in front of his face.
    “Please,” he said.
    “Please what?” Troy shot back, slapped him again, hard, leaving a red welt on the side of his face. Troy swung the gun back again, the man’s face had turned white, his pants wet.
    “Enough,” Clarence said, grabbing Troy’s wrist.
    His partner shook him off, Clarence stared him in the eyes. Shaking his head, Troy stalked behind the desk, pulling out all the other bills along with the hundreds.
    Clarence motioned with the gun at the man, “You. Over there with the woman, now.”
    The manager obeyed and the two of them crouched beside a winery display like being closer to the ground would keep them safe from harm. Clarence’s eyes roved over the woman, still clutching her purse to herself. She’s a looker all right, he thought. But he’d wager she didn’t think she was. She didn’t have that confidence, the kind you can taste, smell it when lights dim. Like Jen.
    Not wanting to think about how long it had been since he had been with a woman, with Jen, Clarence focused his thoughts on the purse. Not much, but hell. He’d leave her credit cards, licensee and the like. He strode across the white linoleum, the woman staring at him, fear melting into despair. Her arms fell beside her, like she was already dead.
    “Shit!” Troy exclaimed suddenly.
    Clarence turned. Troy already had his gun on the manager.
    “Little pissant! Think I’m stupid! Think I’ve got a brain for shit huh?”
    Clarence tried to stop him, “Calm down! Let’s go. We’re done.”
    “Yeah, we’re fucking done. The maggot!” Troy raged, the gun trembling.
    The room seemed to grind against the walls and ceiling, to bend at wrong angles. The pieces of his thoughts, getting jammed, lost. Something was wrong. Clarence could feel it kicking in his chest.
    “What? The hell you talking about?”

    He stepped halfway into Troy. The man shoved him aside, jamming the barrel into the manager’s forehead.
    “Think you’re smart! Think you could get away!”
    “What?” Clarence yelled, “What the hell is going-”
    “He had a silent alarm!” Troy retorted.
    Ice water ran through Clarence’s veins. Alarm? There’s no way. We didn’t give him enough time. It couldn’t be.
    Troy slashed the pistol across the man’s head, shouting incoherently. The manager’s eyes rolled. Clarence didn’t stop him this time, his eyes moved up to the ceiling, then almost as if he sensed it, they moved to the air vent above the drinks. The camera stared down at him, it’s little red eye glaring at him. That hadn’t been there the last time they had looked the place over.

_____


    Sergeant Dunning picked the crust out of the corners of his eyes as he keyed the mike, kept the other hand on the wheel of his cruiser. Dirt and sand pinged off the hood and windshield angrily, the cruiser bouncing every time it hit a pit in the rough dirt road. Lenny turned up that goddamn okie music of his. It was bad enough Dunning felt like a hick cop with a hick deputy in a hick department in a hick town, but Lenny had to stick the thorn in his ear with his hick country music.
    “Say again,” Dunning said, glared at the deputy.
    Lenny turned the dial back down, resumed his watch out the window into the cold, dark Nevada air. Pinpoints of light sparsely thrown in the blackness overhead.
    The sergeant knew his frustration was uncalled for. Even if Rigdment could have passed for Mayberry, it was still overkill. No, he was angry because of Beth’s test results. They didn’t come back positive, but the hospital had ordered more. Even after the initial blood tests. That was always a bad sign. And then she told him. Goddamn. The sheriff swallowed the rising lump back down. He could have killed for a cigarette.
    “Wan just buzzed us,” Carol said, “You know the liquor store by the-”
    “I know what liquor store Carol. And I know Wan,” Dunning sighed.
    She couldn’t even use dispatch codes over the radio, give the place a real police feel.
    “Just thought you should know,” she said.
    “I already know,” Dunning said, “Now, is that all you have for me?”
    She huffed, “Jed called up a minute or two ago. Said he heard a lot of yelling and shouting from inside.”
    Jed was a retarded kid who lived with his aunt in a trailer out by the gas station and Wan’s. At eighteen years old Jed was a nine year old boy in his mind. Much of the time it was Wan who reported to Jed for little odds and ends. If there was one thing Wan couldn’t stand it was Jed. So Dunning would get called in. Half the time it was something stupid, Jed didn’t want to use the restroom at the liquor store because it was too dirty or too smelly. Or Wan got in a rack full of swimsuit magazines and Jed wouldn’t go home. He’d stay all day in Wan’s staring at the airbrushed women. But there was one thing Jed always did. He always told the truth. Dunning could have sworn if Jed had to lie to save his life the kid wouldn’t.
    Dunning cursed silently. Wan was a quiet man, kept to himself and mistrusted any form of law enforcement, for him to send in a silent alarm... For Jed to call in...
    Lenny was looking at him, grim faced, his blue eyes set in a mask of stone.
    “And?” Dunning asked.
    “That’s it,” Carol said.
    Dunning let the switch go and reset the mike on the dash.
    “Well?” Lenny asked.
    The white beams of the cruiser cut through the enveloping darkness over the road. To Dunning they reminded him of knives. The knives that would go through his wife’s body to get to the tumors. The ones that were slowly killing her every day. And Dunning had to watch.
    “Looks like it’s going to be a long night, Len,” Dunning said.
_____


    It was too dark, Jed thought, shutting the trailer door behind him, quietly so Auntey would hear. He shook his head, no. So Auntee won’t hear. The dark was cold too. Cold like ice. Sticky too. Cold and sticky. Sticky like leeches. Leeches that suck your blood out. Jed knew all about leeches. He knew because he read them in a book, a book about leaches. Auntey had given it to him one day after breakfast with yucky beans and yummy muffins. Aunteny said beans were good for him. Jed didn’t believe her. Muffins are good, Jed thought, pulling his fluffy blue jacket around him, Not bad like leeches. Like dark.
    Jed could see Wan’s shop ahead, the shades were down so it made the windows glow like big eyes in the cold, sticky dark.
    Shivering, Jed shuffled across the big lot, around thorny weeds that looked like balls. Balls that rolled around, poked you with their thorns, hurt you. Jed didn’t read about the weeds. Or the thorns. He got poked. That’s how he knew. He knew he knew things not like those mean kids in town. Those one that called him names. Said bad words to him. Jed was smart. He read. And he knew he was smart. He shoved his cold hands into his warm pockets, trotted toward the big eyes that had gotten big. Jed told himself that they were not eyes. Eyes were things in people, in animals, in monsters. A shop could not have eyes. But Jed looked at the glowing windows, the windows he had heard yelling out of. They look like eyes. But Jed couldn’t think of that. He couldn’t be afraid. He had to help Mr. Wan. Help him from whoever was yelling in his shop. Yelling was bad. Yelling meant you get hurt. Like the mean boy who yelled at him a long time ago, hit him in the head with the brick. Hit him hard that boy did. Jed didn’t want Mr. Wan to get hurt. That’s why he was going to help him. Help him in case the police were too late.
    Mr. Wan is a nice man, Jed thought running toward the eyes, running through the sticky dark that wanted to suck his blood. The yelling had started again.
    They are not eyes, he reminded him self.
    But they look like it.
_____


    “Stop it dammit!” Clarence shouted, pulling Troy away from the bloodied manager.
    The little man’s face looked like it had been ripped off and glued backed on, the nose and mouth set wrong. His white shirt drenched red, a low keening sound came from his mouth like a broken radio.
    Troy swung furiously, but Clarence wrestled him to the grimy floor.
    “Stop it! You’re killing him!”
    His partner’s ski mask was damp with sweat and spit. Hatred spilled from his eyes, burning Clarence.
    “I don’t fucking care!,” Troy raged, “The fucking gook!”
    Shaking him, Clarence slapped him across the face.
    Troy bucked furiously, “You-”
    Clarence slapped him again, wanting to drive his head into the tile.
    “Shutup! Shutup! Listen to me!”
    Waiting until Troy stopped thrashing around, Clarence lowered his voice, “You kill him and that’s it. For the both of us. Lets get the money and get out.”
    “That fucking-”
    “I don’t care,” Clarence hissed, “You already fucked up.”
    For an instant, Troy’s eyes went wide than shrank to slits, “Me? I fucked up Clarence? What about you? What about the camera? What about silent alarm huh?”
    Clarence was silent. He could have sworn I didn’t give him enough time.
    “Go in, get the money, yeah sure,” Troy mocked underneath him, “We do it my way, go in, beat the shit out of him. Or better yet, shoot him! Then we get the money!”
    Disgusted, Clarence got to his feet, scooped the cash off the counter and out of the cashier tray that Troy had popped. It felt wrinkled and dry like his uncle Mark’s skin, after that thing with Mr. Gozole’s Honda. To straighten you out, Mom had told him after speaking with the officers that had picked him up after he ran the red light with Gonzole’s car.
    He had begged, he had pleaded. Sixteen year old Clarence even resorted to, “Dad would have never done that.” She just stared at him, arms crossed. San Diego was his city: Beaches, girls, cars, money, freedom. Upstate?, he had thought, Farmer Mark? Fuck.
    At first, Clarence hated Mark and his crappy farm, hated the way he read his Bible every night, hated how he dragged Clarence to church every Sunday. He hated the smell of pigs and the moan of cows. Pig shit, cow shit. But after awhile he got used to it.
    The woman hunkered behind the shelves of food, twisted the straps of her purse. The manager made little animal noises and bled. The blurry talk show host still droned. A fly bounced off his mask. It was not unlike the flies down at Mark’s. Big, black, loud creatures that looked like mini bumble bees to Clarence. There had a bunch of them when Uncle Mark brought out the cake after the basket of fried chicken.
    Clarence, beginning to warm up to his relative, was relieved the quiet man didn’t order him back to work. Clarence was worn out from pitching hay, stacking feed for chicken, and chasing them around when they had been spooked by a weasel. Secretly, he imagined that he had eaten some of the little bastards in the basket. But he didn’t ask. He didn’t want to be disappointed.
    To make the day worse, his uncle’s cantankerous tractor decide to break it’s radiator as well. So there he was when that cake was set in front of him, arms like water, hands blistered, and oil stained, his neck and back sunburned from trying to fix the damn tractor.
    A sweating glass of water followed the cake along with a paper plate and a fork. The cake was white, pink and red frosting. It was a girly cake, like the ones made up for Valentines day. Clarence assumed it had something do with Mark’s wife, the pictures of the delicate woman on the fireplace mantle. The one’s that never gathered dust. But he didn’t ask.
    His uncle motioned at the cake, “Dig in.”
    He cut himself a fairly large slice, took a bite, swallowed. His face absolutely still. Ever watchful, Clarence took a bigger piece and a bigger bite. Then a second later, he wished he hadn’t.
    “Shit,” he gasped, clamoring for the glass of water, gulping it down to cool the inferno in his mouth.
    Swallowing the water, caused him to swallow the mouthful of cake, burning down his throat like acid. The thing was worse than a dozen jalopenos. He drained the glass, looking around for more. His uncle hadn’t said anything, the man watched him with a calm distance as if Clarence’s situation was a movie on a screen. Clarence reached for Mark’s full glass, but his uncle pulled it out of his reach. And in that moment, burnt, tired, weak, angry, Clarence hated him. Mark had done this on purpose. Made him work his ass off all day long, only to trick him into burning his mouth on a fucking cake. Clarence was going to strip the man’s house down to nothing, take every piece of shit out, trash what he couldn’t carry. He was going to tear up those pictures on the mantle too.
    His uncle watched him for another moment.
    “Hurt’s don’t it?” he said.
    Fuck you. The opening of his throat stung whenever he tried to breathe.
    Mark took a sip of water, kept the glass outside of his nephews reach.
    “Hurts almost as much as people do after they’ve been robbed. House in shambles,” he watched a bumble bee land on the table, “Lying in the street, social gone, credit cards, life insurance. They were going to send their children to college, take a cruise with their family maybe. Buy a new car.”
    His uncle looked at him.
    “But it doesn’t hurt as bad as what’s pounding around inside you.”
    Clarence would have laughed, if he could have. That’s what this was about. He should have guessed.
    “Never mugged anyone,” Clarence said, hoarsely.
    Mark raised an eyebrow, “No?”
    Silence. The bumble bee crawled across the table.
    “You thought about working me over when you took a bite of that cake,” he said, “Still thinking.”
    Clarence didn’t say anything.
    His uncle leaned back in chair, took another sip of water, his eyes never leaving Clarence’s.
    “Cake burn, my daddy used to call it. Did the same thing that I did to you, a week after I stole some kid’s lunch money. Said that some things look good- money, relationships, stuff on shelves, whatever someone else has- but bite into them Mark and they’re going to burn you. Not only you, but other people.”
    Clarence smirked. He wasn’t going to let this old timer fuck with him.
    No way.
    “But I didn’t listen,” his uncle said, watched the bumble bee, sadness settling into his eyes.
    Clarence pretended he wasn’t listening, curious about what happened to this wholesome farmer.
    “Did some time in the juvenile center. For breaking into the cash box of my high school. Fund-raiser effort.”
    “When I was released, I paid back everything I took. To the last penny. Found out later that fund-raiser was for a pair of orphans. Brother and sister. Mother had AIDs. Father’s out of the picture. I didn’t know. Didn’t know who I was taking from. Know why?”
    Clarence looked at him.
    “Because I was so full of myself. Me, me, me.”
    Mark got up, stretched, passed the glass to Clarence.
    “Got pretty mad for just a cake burn. Sure you’re not a mugger?”
    He walked away. Clarence waited until he was out of sight before gulping the water down. The heat ebbed away, Clarence wiped his mouth with his shirt, watched the crawling bumblebee, thought about what a rotten trick the man had played one him. Clarence wanted to smash that damn bee. He could feel its thin armor crushing under the power of his fist. He watched it crawl past him oblivious, content. With an angry sigh, he got up, let it go. He let it live.
    Clarence looked at the terrified woman. She probably thought he was going to rape her. It took him awhile after that summer to realize what an asshole he had been that summer. He thought he understood it now, what Uncle Mark had been trying to say. But Clarence was good at what he did. He couldn’t give that up. He changed his tactics through the years, developed a code, his own set of ethics. Mark was a good guy, and what he had said had made a difference. Not right away. But it did. Clarence never took from places of charity, never took from churches, never hurt anyone. The world wouldn’t give, so he took a little. Nothing wrong with that.
    Nobody was going to die.
    The sudden clanging of the front door startled him out of the memories. He pivoted toward the door to see angry, crying young man barreling toward him.
    “You hurt mister Wan! You hurt mister Wan!” the kid cried.
_____


    Dunning skidded to a stop as Jed ran out of their headlights and into the squat liquor store. The two masked men turning. Dammit.
    “Jed!” Dunning shouted, jumping out of the cruiser, knees cracking.
    Lenny grabbed the shotgun, crouched behind the open passenger door.
    The sheriff thumbed the snap off his holster, pulled his service pistol free. If he shot through the window the flying glasses would injure the kid.
    If he didn’t...
    Dunning raised his gun.
    The kid tackled one of the men, the two crashing to the floor out of sight, beer ads in the way. The glare of Dunning’s head lights on the windows disoriented him. Shouting. Jed was crying and yelling.
    The other man, much bigger, started forward.
    The sheriff felt his stomach twist, he knew that kind of walk.
    “Back door,” Dunning said to his deputy, “Now.”
    Lenny hunkered down and sprinted behind the building, into the darkness of the night. Dunning found the mega phone on the back seat.
    Hickish.
    He turned it on, fought the flare of embarrassment.
    “This is the police,” he shouted into the megaphone, “Come out with your hands behind your head.”
    The bigger man turned.
    Jed and the other robber were no were to be seen. Neither was Wan.
    From behind the door of the squad car, he lined up his pistol’s sights on the man’s chest. “The second you see that piece,” his training officer had drawled, spit a wad of “tobaccee” on the dirt, “You give that bastard some lead.”
    The cold wind numbed Dunning’s perspiring face. Raised the hackles on his neck.
    The masked man raised his arm.
    The second you see...
    Is he? Is he going to? Is he? Is he?
    Dunning’s eyes ached, straining. The sights blurring. Slowly, he tightened his finger around the trigger. All he could think of was those knives cutting into his Beth
    She had such soft skin.
_____


    Clarence shoved the crying man off him, the headlights of the cop car muted against the black glass, the lights of the store. Troy raising his gun.
    The manager groaning. The woman curling into a ball on the floor.
    The kid whined, “You hurt-”
    “Down, dammit! Get down!” Clarence shouted.
    His head was buzzing, ears pounding so fucking loud.
    “You hurt mister-”
    Clarence hit the kid. He could have swore he’d heard a crunch.
    “Shutup! Shutup!” he shouted, blood squirting from the kid’s nose.
    The woman shrieked.
    Fear clawed up his throat, talons tickling his lungs, “Troy! Troy don’t!”
    Troy ignored him, blood lust steaming off him, choking the air.
    Fuck it. Clarence aimed his gun at the back of Troy’s head.
    The woman’s screams died, her eyes wide.
    The kid rose to his feet.
    Something banged behind Clarence.
    Troy spun, a light in his eyes. The gunshot deafening in the little store. It tore through the stuffy air, the air spiked Clarence’s ears. Everything thing was soundless and ringing. All but the pounding in his head.
_____


    Jed wondered who had hit him. Who had hit him after the skinny bad man did. The floor reached up and hit him again. That wasn’t fair. He got hit too much. Must be that mean kid. The one with the brick, he thought, when he hit him on the head a long time ago. And it was hard to...
    To think. Yes. That was hard.
    Jed felt funny, not funny like before. Before there were leeches. Before there was monster’s eyes and cold, sticky dark. He couldn’t feel something. Something that he was supposed to feel. What?
    He was on the floor. The floor was cold and sticky like dark. He didn’t like the floor. He wished it was warm like Auntiny’s muffins. Muffins are good, he thought.
    One of the bad men was saying something. The skinny one. That’s not right. You’re supposed to hear people when they talk. You’re supposed to.
    Somebody was turning the lights off. He wished they wouldn’t do that. He didn’t like it when the lights were off. Didn’t like the dark.
    Cold. He felt cold. And itchy. His neck was itchy. Itchy and cold. He thought that that was worse than sticky and cold. He hoped Mr. Wan didn’t feel itchy and cold. He liked Mr. Wan. Mr. Wan had pretty magazines with nice ladies on them. Jed wanted to make sure Mr. Wan was okay. He’d kiss Mr. Wan. Kiss his head. Aunteny used to kiss his head when he got hurt. It didn’t stop the hurt. But it made it better. Some else use to do that. Someone good. Someone Jed was supposed to remember. But he couldn’t. Maybe if the bad men turned on the light, then I could remember. His neck itched, it was wet. Wet, itchy. Itchy and....
_____


    “Fuck!” Troy shouted, crouching fast.
    The kid was gone. His neck torn open from Troy’s bullet, his eyes glazed, blood pooling underneath him. Clarence felt sick. Goddamn you Troy!
His partner turned, “Fucking kid-” saw Clarence, his gun aimed at him.
    “Don’t!” Troy yelled, trained his gun on Clarence, still on the floor.
    The kid’s blood flowed toward him, silent and gentle, like the tide.
    “I knew it! I fucking knew it,” Troy raged, “Gonna shoot me in the back!”
    Clarence stared into his partner’s gray, shaking eyes, saw whatever existed in them jump out, beat him, choke him, snap his elbows, and kick his teeth out. Clarence knew he had to end this. Had to do it now before Troy did anything else.
    “Put the gun down,” Clarence said, trying to keep calm.
    Wait... Wait until he lowers it.
    Clarence could imagine Troy grinding his teeth away through the mask.
    You’re on the camera anyway. Probally get life anyway.
    “Think I’m stupid,” Troy laughed, hard and raw, “You think I’m that dumb?”
    “Put it down,” Clarence repeated.
    Another bang came from behind them.
    “This is the police,” another voice yelled, “There’s no way out!”
    Troy’s eyes flicked to the back door, then back to Clarence, straight, locked, and defiant. Clarence couldn’t have stopped it if he wanted to.
    With speed he hadn’t known Troy to have, the man grabbed the woman’s hair, yanked her up. He shoved the muzzle into her jaw. Clarence didn’t have to see his face to know that Troy was smiling at him. The eyes said everything.
    Clarence lowered his gun.
_____


    Dunning couldn’t see a damn thing. The glare and the ads blocking his view.
    If he stepped out from behind the door...
    The sheriff had heard Lenny yelling. Why he hadn’t told Dunning he had a shot was unbelievable. Dammit Lenny!
    Silence came from the store, quiet, still silence. And Dunning, in all his twenty years as a cop, was never more afraid then when he listened to the silence. He hadn’t been that afraid when Carlos, high on speed, rushed at him inside his trailer, bread knife held high. He hadn’t been that afraid when his squad car rolled, after trying to avoid a coyote. Hadn’t been that afraid as a rookie, making his first DUI stop. A fat Otis character, hands off the wheel, drunk as hell, started to throw a fit.
    He was afraid because of Beth. That’s what it was. Beth and those tumors. Beth and the look in her eyes, when everything he loved fell out of them at the doctor’s words.
    “I’m sorry Mrs. Dunning,” the doctor had sighed, clipboard in hand.
    Dunning took a deep breath, something fluttered against his ribs. And stepped out from behind the door.
_____


    Troy started to laugh. He cursed in Clarence’s face, shoved the woman away from him and just laughed, slapping his knees.
    Clarence’s blood froze, numbed his head. Jesus.
    Even the manager was quiet, staring at the big man. The kid continued to bleed out before them. And Troy laughed, everything funny as hell.
    “You’re so fucking stupid!” the man chortled.
    Clarence glanced at his gun on the floor. Troy had made him toss it. But he could still get it. Troy would shoot him, but in the rush, Clarence was sure he’d miss. Then Clarence would light him up, take that crazy bastard out before he killed anyone else.
    Troy walked over to him, giddy.
    Clarence closed his eyes, saw Jen, her hair shaking about her shoulders. He was Uncle Mark watching him, calm, quiet.
    If Clarence got out alive, he would stop. He would stop everything. Stop robbing, stop thieving. He would make a clean sweep of his life. He’d even take his Uncle up on going to church. Maybe going back to the farm. If the man was still around. Clarence was pretty sure he was. Mark had always came off as a survivor. Clarence would be too. He had too be.
    Troy pressed the gun into his head, mashed his face into the tile. He clucked his tongue, “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
    He laughed and tapped Clarence with the barrel. Then stood up and walked over to the woman.
    Get it now dammit! Run! Shoot him!
    But Clarence saw the woman look at Troy and knew something was wrong. Knew something was very wrong. He saw her stand, straighten, brush her the hair out of her face.
    Troy handed her the gun and Clarence felt sick.
    “Take care of him baby,” Troy said to her.
    He looked back at Clarence, “This one’s so goddamn dumb I don’t have the heart to do it.”
    The woman walked over Clarence, her foot falls so loud in his ears, the gun held awkwardly in her two small hands. Clarence searched for her eyes, tried to find something, anything in them.
    Please...
    Please, don’t. Please, oh, please.
    The woman raised the gun at him.
    Troy leaned against the manager’s counter, sighed contentedly.
    And she turned and shot Troy in the chest. Clarence watched him stumble sideways, eyes wide. She shot him again and then again. The big man, lurched forward toward her, “You, you...”
    Her hands shook as she shot him again, one last time as he keeled over. The thump of his body on the floor sent a flood of relief through Clarence’s.
    He got to his feet. The cops were running to the front door, shouting.
    He was alive! Alive, God! Clarence was so happy he just breathed. Breathed in the air, felt it expanded his lungs. He was-
    Clarence turned, saw the woman, the gun pointed at him.
    “I’m sorry,” she said and she shot him.
_____


    Dunning led the crying woman out of the liquor store. Lenny called an ambulance for Wan, stayed with the manager, binding the man’s head with his own shirt. The poor guy kept moaning, something about Chan, fish or something, Dunning didn’t understand.
    “It’s gonna be okay, honey,” Dunning said, squeezed her trembling shoulder, “It’s gonna be okay. Ambulance will be here soon. Look you over.”
    She looked at him and the sheriff saw the wet shine in her eyes. He smiled and dug his handkerchief out of his breast pocket, handed it to her.
    “Never use it,” he resurred her.
    She gave him a weak smile and wiped her eyes.
    Dunning led her to the squad car, radioed in to Carol, doubled checked on that ambulance. She curled up on the driver’s side, held her knees, rocked.
    Dunning crouched, his knees cracking.
    “Now,” he said softly, “Could you tell me again what happened?”
    She nodded, wiped her eyes again, and said in a shaky, beaten voice, “They started to argue. After the kid, the one in the jacket was shot. The two men. They pointed those guns at each other,” she squeezed her eyes shut, her mouth twisting, “It was so awful...”
_____


    They were taking her away, the paramedics. She smiled to herself, wiped the tears from her face, those tears of joy. She had ran out, into the dark where the police officers couldn’t see her and stuffed as many bills as she could into gopher holes. Maybe they were snake holes, she didn’t know. She didn’t really care. She’d be back later.
    The paramedic woman asked her if she wanted her to call anyone, let them know. Nikki Deverport shook her head. Wait, make that Nikki Marel. Troy was dead.
    Nikki recalled the way her husband had looked when she shot him. Shot that cruel bastard. Shot him dead. The look in his eyes was worth the years of abuse she put up with, worth all the slaps, the shoving around, the cruel, cruel things he said and did to her for ten miserable years.
    He must have been so shocked. Thought she hadn’t heard a thing, from the kitchen, from her room listening to him and Clarence plot how to rob the liquor store. Troy didn’t know that the vents carried his voice to her ears.
    Nikki lay still and felt the bumps and jolts in the road, taking her to freedom. She’d talk to the doctor, get a clean bill of health, and be on her way. She had never felt so free, so light. It was as if the stars, flashing by the ambulance’s windows, winked at her, congratulated her.
    She felt a twinge of remorse. She didn’t want to have to shoot Clarence. He didn’t strike her as a very bad man. Not at all like Troy had been. She had wished Troy had done it. She wished he had gotten away. That was Jeff’s original idea when he coached her on how to play the victim when he and Clarence held up the store. It came easy, she had lived as one. Troy had told her that, they’d split the money, go to Canada, Mexico, someplace where Clarence couldn’t follow and neither could the law. “Besides, Troy had told her, Clarence wouldn’t follow them. He didn’t like to hurt people.”
    But then Troy had gotten angry and when he got angry somebody always had to pay.
    The paramedic woman was saying something to the other medic, a short, stocky man. They laughed and smiled.
    Nikki hadn’t been worried about the camera. It was a fake anyway. The manager had told her one time she came. She had asked about it.
    She was upset that the man had to get hurt. The kid dead too, that was bad. But Nikki knew that sometimes life wasn’t fair.
    Sometimes you just got burned.



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