American Outlaw - Jesse James [5]
“How’d you get it?”
“You don’t need to know. All I’m saying is . . . well, I think you see what I’m getting at.” He smirked. “That money could be ours.”
We waited a few days, and then, one night, after making sure his brother’s girlfriend wasn’t working, we pulled up behind the store in a boosted Ford Pinto. Not the best choice, but it was all we had been able to swipe at the last minute. It was just before closing time. Bobby killed the engine.
“Look, Bobby,” I said. “I don’t know about this.”
Bobby looked at me calmly. “You got that little gun with you, right?”
“Yeah, sure, I have the gun, of course,” I said, “but, Christ, I mean . . .”
“Fuck. You.” Bobby smiled. “Let me see it.”
I showed him the gun. It was a Ruger .357, a Security Six. The gun was my dad’s—I had lifted it out of his drawer that afternoon.
“Let me hold it.”
“I’m taking it in. It’s my gun.”
“Well, all right,” Bobby said, looking pleased. “Finally. You grew some balls, James. Tiny hairless ones, no doubt, but I’m proud of you just the same.” He took his backpack from beneath the front seat. “Got a little present for you.”
Bobby reached into the flimsy nylon sack, retrieving two worn blue ski masks. He handed one to me. “Put it on.”
Bobby and I both pulled on the masks. We checked ourselves out in the rearview for a second, impressed by what we saw. Over the course of just a few moments, we’d transformed from punk kids into badass monsters capable of fucking shit up on a major level. We huddled close together, a pair of teenaged shitheads wearing scratchy blue masks, breathing hard in Riverside, California, in a busted Pinto. The gun felt sweaty in my palm.
“Let’s go get some fucking money,” I whispered.
We strutted into the store, knocking over dishes and a trash can.
“Nobody fucking do anything!” Bobby yelled. “The first person who moves a single inch, my friend is gonna blow a hole in him!”
Only two customers were in the store: an old man reading a crumpled paper and a middle-aged guy with a lonely-looking burger in front of him. Both of them looked up, mild alarm registering.
Bobby walked up to the guy working the counter. “Don’t do anything stupid.” He motioned toward me and my gun. I nodded, not really sure what to do.
“Nobody fucking . . . move,” I ventured, lamely. I waved the gun.
Bobby laughed at me. “Now, I’m gonna go back and clean out the safe,” he explained to the clerk. “And if you so much as look at me, I’m gonna make sure you die tonight, understood?” He glanced toward me for emphasis.
Bobby slipped to the back and worked on the safe. “Fuck, I thought I knew this,” he muttered.
“You don’t remember the combination?” I hissed. I kept the gun trained on the customers and the clerk. They didn’t look very inclined to make sudden movements, but still. “You don’t remember it?”
“He doesn’t remember the combination,” the old man repeated.
“Shut up,” I snapped. “I heard him, okay?”
“I swear, man, I knew it yesterday,” said Bobby. He stood up and thought hard. “I probably should have written it down.”
“Let’s just go, man!”
“No way.” He looked at the clerk. “Hey, fuckhead, give me a hint. Is the first number twenty-one? Just tell me that.”
The clerk remained motionless for a second. I shook the gun in his face. “Tell him, asshole!”
He nodded nervously.
“It’s twenty-one!” I shouted.
“I knew it!”
“Let’s go,” I pleaded. “Goddammit!”
The safe clicked open. “There we go,” he crowed. He reached into the safe. His hands emerged holding an enormous stack of bills. Bobby turned toward me. “Do you understand why we didn’t bail out, buddy? God, there must be more than a thousand bucks here . . .”
“Can we fucking GO now?” I cried, the tension in my arms and neck unbearable. “Fucking please?”
“Of course, don’t have a nervous breakdown over it. We’re leaving right this very minute. You can put the piece away.” He motioned to my gun. I lowered it, trembling.
We stumbled out of the