Aftershock & Others (43 page)

In January David Morrell and I were instructors at the Borderlands Bootcamp for Writers. David had helped start the International Thriller Writers organization and induced me to join. Then ITW induced me to donate a Repairman Jack story to their anthology (
Thriller
) to raise funds for the organization.

Thus was “Interlude at Duane’s” born. All contributors were limited to a 5,000 word count. I could have used more. Toward the end I was on fire, burning up the keyboard. I wish I could write with that speed and intensity all the time.

As you will see, this one was
fun
.

“Lemme tell you, Jack,”
Loretta said, blotting perspiration from her Fudgsicle-colored skin, “these changes gots me in a baaaad mood.”

They’d just finished playing some real-life
Frogger
jaywalking 57th and were now chugging west.

“Real bad. My feets killin me too. Nobody better hassle me afore I’m home and on the outside of a big ol glass of Jimmy.”

Jack nodded, paying just enough attention to be polite. He was more interested in the passersby and was thinking how a day without your carry was like a day without clothes.

He felt naked. Had to leave his trusty Glock and backup home today because of his annual trip to the Empire State Building. He’d designated April 19th King Kong Day. Every year he made a pilgrimage to the observation deck to leave a little wreath in memory of the Big Guy. The major drawback to the outing was the metal detector everyone had to pass through before heading upstairs. That meant no heat.

He didn’t think he was being paranoid. Okay, maybe a little, but he’d pissed off his share of people in this city and didn’t care to run into them naked.

After the wreath-laying ceremony, he ran into Loretta and walked her back toward Hell’s Kitchen. Oh, wait. It was Clinton now.

They went back a dozen or so years to when both waited tables at a now-extinct trattoria on West Fourth. She’d been fresh up from Mississippi then, and he only a few years out of Jersey. Agewise, Loretta had a good decade on Jack, maybe more—might even be knocking on the door to fifty. Had a good hundred pounds on him too. Her Rubenesque days were just a fond, slim memory, but she was solid—no jiggle. She’d dyed her Chia-Pet hair orange and sheathed herself in some shapeless, green-and-yellow thing that made her look like a brown manatee in a muumuu.

She stopped and stared at a black cocktail dress in a boutique window.

“Ain’t that pretty. Course I’ll have to wait till I’m cremated afore I fits into it.”

They continued to Seventh Avenue. As they stopped on the corner and waited for the walking green, two Asian women came up to her.

The taller one said, “You know where Saks Fifth Avenue?”

Loretta scowled. “On Fifth Avenue, fool.” Then she took a breath and jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “That way.”

Jack looked at her. “You weren’t kidding about the bad mood.”

“You ever know me to kid, Jack?” She glanced around. “Sweet Jesus, I need me some comfort food. Like some chocolate-peanut-butter-swirl ice cream.” She pointed to the Duane Reade on the opposite corner. “There.”

“That’s a drugstore.”

“Honey, you know better’n that. Duane’s got everything. Shoot, if mine had a butcher section I wouldn’t have to shop nowheres else. Come on.”

Before he could opt out, she grabbed his arm and started hauling him across the street.

“I specially like their makeup. Some places just carry Cover Girl, y’know, which is fine if you a Wonder Bread blonde. Don’t know if you noticed, but white ain’t zackly a big color in these parts. Everybody darker. Cept you, a course. I know you don’t like attention, Jack, but if you had a smidge of coffee in your cream you’d be
really
invisible.”

Jack expended a lot of effort on being invisible. He’d inherited a good start with his average height, average build, average brown hair, and nondescript face. Today he’d accessorized with a Mets cap, flannel shirt, worn Levi’s, and battered work boots. Just another guy, maybe a construction worker, ambling along the streets of Zoo York.

Jack slowed as they approached the door.

“Think I’ll take a raincheck, Lo.”

She tightened her grip on his arm. “Hell you will. I need some company. I’ll even buy you a Dew. Caffeine still your drug of choice?”

“Guess…till it’s time for a beer.” He eased his arm free. “Okay, I’ll spring for five minutes, but after that, I’m gone. Things to do.”

“Five minutes ain’t nuthin, but okay.”

“You go ahead. I’ll be right with you.”

He slowed in her wake so he could check out the entrance. He spotted a camera just inside the door, trained on the comers and goers.

He tugged down the visor of his cap and lowered his head. He was catching up to Loretta when he heard a loud, heavily accented voice.

“
Mira! Mira! Mira!
Look at the fine ass on you!”

Jack hoped that wasn’t meant for him. He raised his head far enough to see a grinning, mustachioed Latino leaning against the wall next to the doorway. A maroon gym bag sat at his feet. He had glossy, slicked-back hair and prison tats on the backs of his hands.

Loretta stopped and stared at him. “You better not be talkin a me!”

His grin widened. “But señorita, in my country it is a privilege for a woman to be praised by someone like me.”

“And just where is this country of yours?”

“Ecuador.”

“Well, you in New York now, honey, and I’m a bitch from the Bronx. Talk to me like that again and I’m gonna Bruce Lee yo ass.”

“But I know you would like to sit on my face.”

“Why? Yo nose bigger’n yo dick?”

This cracked up a couple of teenage girls leaving the store. Mr. Ecuador’s face darkened. He didn’t seem to appreciate the joke.

Head down, Jack crowded close behind Loretta as she entered the store.

She said, “Told you I was in a bad mood.”

“That you did, that you did. Five minutes, Loretta, okay?”

“I hear you.”

He glanced over his shoulder and saw Mr. Ecuador pick up his gym bag and follow them inside.

Jack paused as Loretta veered off toward one of the cosmetic aisles. He watched to see if Ecuador was going to hassle her, but he kept on going, heading toward the rear.

Duane Reade drugstores are a staple of New York life. The city has hundreds of them. Only the hoity-toitiest Upper East Siders hadn’t visited one. Their most consistent feature was their lack of consistency. No two were the same size or laid out alike. Okay, they all kept the cosmetics near the front, but after that it became anyone’s guess where something might be hiding. Jack could see the method to that madness: The more time people had to spend looking for what they had come for, the greater their chances of picking up things they hadn’t.

This one seemed fairly empty and Jack assigned himself the task of finding the ice cream to speed their departure. He set off through the aisles and quickly became disoriented. The overall space was L-shaped, but instead of running in parallel paths to the rear, the aisles zigged and zagged. Whoever laid out this place was either a devotee of chaos theory or a crop circle designer.

He was wandering among the six-foot-high shelves and passing the hemorrhoid treatments when he heard a harsh voice behind him.

“Keep movin, yo. Alla way to the back.”

Jack looked and saw a big, steroidal black guy in a red tank top. The overhead fluorescents gleamed off his shaven scalp. He had a fat scar running through his left eyebrow, glassy eyes, and held a snub-nose .38 caliber revolver—the classic Saturday night special.

Jack kept his cool and held his ground. “What’s up?”

The guy raised the gun, holding it sideways like in movies, the way no one who knew squat about pistols would be caught dead holding one.

“Ay yo, get yo ass in gear fore I bust one in yo face.”

Jack waited a couple more seconds to see if the guy would move closer and put the pistol within reach. But he didn’t.

Not good. On the way to the rear, the big question was whether this was personal or not. When he saw the gaggle of frightened-looking people—the white-coated ones obviously pharmacists—kneeling before the rear counter with their hands behind their necks, he figured it wasn’t.

A relief…sort of.

He spotted Mr. Ecuador standing over them with a gleaming nickel-plated .357 revolver.

Robbery.

The black guy pushed him from behind.

“Assume the position, asshole.”

Jack spotted two cameras trained on the pharmacy area. He knelt at the end of the line, intertwined his fingers behind his neck, and kept his eyes on the floor.

Okay, just keep your head down to stay off the cameras and off these bozos’ radar, and you’ll walk away with the rest of them.

He glanced up when he heard a commotion to his left. A scrawny little Sammy Davis–size Rasta man with his hair packed into a red, yellow, and green striped knit cap appeared. He was packing a sawed-off pump-action twelve and driving another half dozen people before him. A frightened-looking Loretta was among them.

And then a fourth—Christ, how many were there? This one was white and had dirty, sloppy, light-brown dreads, piercings up the wazoo, and was humping the whole hip-hop catalog: peak-askew trucker cap, wide, baggy, ass-crack-riding jeans, huge New York Giants jersey.

He pointed another special as he propelled a dark-skinned, middle-aged Indian or Pakistani by the neck.

Both the Rasta and the new guy had glazed eyes. Stoned. Maybe it would make them mellow.

What a crew. Probably met in Rikers. Or maybe the Tombs.

“Got Mister Maaaanagerrrr,” the white guy singsonged.

Ecuador looked at him. “You lock the front door?”

Whitey jangled a crowded key chain and tossed it on the counter.

“Yep. All locked in safe and sound.”

“
Bueno
. Get back up there and watch in case we miss somebody. Don’t wan nobody gettin out.”

“Yeah, in a minute. Somethin I gotta do first.”

He shoved the manager forward, then slipped behind the counter and disappeared into the pharmacy area.

“Wilkins! I tol you get up front!”

Wilkins reappeared carrying three large plastic stock bottles. He plopped them down on the counter. Jack spotted
PERCOCET
and
OXYCONTIN
on the labels.

“These babies are mine. Don’t nobody touch em.”

Ecuador spoke through his teeth. “
Up front
!”

“Dude, I’m gone,” Wilkins said and headed away.

Scarbrow grabbed the manager by the jacket and shook him.

“The combination, mofo—give it up.”

Jack noticed the guy’s name tag:
J. PATEL
. His dark skin went a couple of shades lighter. The poor guy looked ready to faint.

“I do not know it!”

Rasta man raised his shotgun and pressed the muzzle against Patel’s quaking throat.

“You tell de mon what he want to know. You tell him
now
!”

Jack saw a wet stain spreading from Patel’s crotch.

“The manager’s ou-out. I d-don’t know the combination.”

Ecuador stepped forward. “Then you not much use to us, eh?”

Patel sagged to his knees and held up his hands. “Please! I have a wife, children!”

“You wan see them again, you tell me. I know you got armored car pickup every Tuesday. I been watchin. Today is Tuesday, so give.”

“But I do not—!”

Ecuador slammed his pistol barrel against the side of Patel’s head, knocking him down.

“You wan die to save you boss’s money? You wan see what happen when you get shot inna head? Here. I show you.” He turned and looked at his prisoners. “Where that big bitch with the big mouth?” He smiled as he spotted Loretta. “There you are.”

Shit.

Ecuador grabbed her by the front of her dress and pulled, making her knee-walk out from the rest. When she’d moved a half dozen feet he released her.

“Turn roun, bitch.”

Without getting off her knees, she swiveled to face her fellow captives. Her lower lip quivered with terror. She made eye contact with Jack, silently pleading for him to do something, anything,
please
!

Couldn’t let this happen.

His mind raced through scenarios, moves he might make to save her, but none of them worked.

As Ecuador raised the .357 and pointed it at the back of Loretta’s head, Jack remembered the security cameras.

He raised his voice. “You really want to do that on TV?”

Ecuador swung the pistol toward Jack.

“What the fuck?”

Without looking around, Jack pointed toward the pharmacy security cameras.

“You’re on
Candid Camera
.”

“The fuck you care?”

Jack put on a sheepish grin. “Nothing. Just thought I’d share. Done some boosting in my day and caught a jolt in Riker’s for not noticing one of them things. Now I notice—believe me, I
notice
.”

Ecuador looked up at the cameras and said, “Fuck.”

He turned to Rasta man and pointed. Rasta smiled, revealing a row of gold-framed teeth, and raised his shotgun.

Jack started moving with the first booming report, when all eyes were on the exploding camera. With the second boom he reached cover and streaked down an aisle.

Behind him he heard Ecuador shout, “Ay! The fuck he go? Wilkins! Somebody comin you way!”

The white guy’s voice called back, “I’m ready, dog!”

Jack had hoped to surprise Wilkins and grab his pistol, but that wasn’t going to happen now. Christ! On any other day he’d have a couple dozen 9mm hollowpoints loaded and ready.

He’d have to improvise.

As he zigged and zagged along the aisles, he sent out a silent thank-you to the maniac who’d laid out these shelves. If they’d run straight, front to back, he wouldn’t last a minute. He felt like a mouse hunting for cheese, but this weird, mazelike configuration gave him a chance.

He hurried along, looking for something, anything to use against them. Didn’t even have his knife, damn it.

Batteries…notebooks…markers…pens…gum…greeting cards…

No help.

He saw a comb with a pointed handle and grabbed it. Without stopping, he ripped it from its package and stuck it in his back pocket.

He heard Ecuador yelling about how he was going this way and Jamal should go that way, and Demont should stay with the people.

Band-Aids…ice cream…curling iron—could he use that? Nah.

Hair color…humidifiers…Cheetos…beef jerky—

Come
on
!

He turned a corner and came to a summer cookout section. Chairs—no help. Umbrella—no help. Heavy-duty spatula—grabbed it and hefted it. Nice weight, stainless steel blade, serrated on one edge. Might be able to do a little damage with this. Spotted a grouping of butane matches. Grabbed one. Never hurt to have fire.