Caught Stealing - Charlie Huston [50]
—Yeah, yeah.
The safe is a deep cylinder set in a concrete block. Edwin told me once that it took him a while to find one deep enough to fit the Remington 12-gauge, even with the sawed-off barrel and the pistol grip. He drops his left shoulder, rolling onto his back as his right hand arcs out of the safe with the shotgun. I jump as far to my left as I can and fall to the floor. Roman is trying to step back out of the room and stumbles against Bolo, who is trying to step forward for a clear shot. Edwin sprawls on his back with the stubby barrel of the .12 pointed up at them and pulls the trigger. It’s loaded with birdshot, but from a few feet away the load has little room to spread. Roman takes it in his upper chest and it shoves him back into Bolo and they both fall into the hall. From out in the bar I hear the sudden rattle of the Russians’ tiny guns. Bullets rake the office. Edwin twists on the floor, kicks the door shut and from his knees shoots the twin bolts, locking us in. The door is wrapped in steel, with a mail slot cut into it so you can make cash drops on late nights. Bullets ping against the door but don’t penetrate. Edwin stands up, crams the barrel of his gun through the mail slot and unloads several rounds.
The office is clogged with smoke and tears flood down my cheeks. Edwin grabs a box of shells from the desk and reloads.
—Cocksuckers must die. All cocksuckers must die. Gonna kill all those cocksuckers.
The mail slot flips up and the barrel of one of the machine guns pops through. It waves around and makes a sound like a minibike and everything in the office explodes. We press against the door while wood splinters and shattered glass pepper us. A bullet ricochets and embeds itself in the wall next to Edwin’s head.
—Fuck! Cocksuckers die!
Edwin shoves the Remington through the slot and opens fire again. He empties the gun and starts once more to reload. We huddle against the door and wait, but the machine gun doesn’t come back.
—Fuck! OK, fuck! OK, we go. Fucking Butch and Sundance in Bolivia, OK, Hank? Let’s do it, let’s go.
He’s filling his pockets with extra shells.
—Edwin, man, the cops, wait for the fucking cops.
—Fuck that, man. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, that’s us, man, that’s us. We’re goin’. Go, let’s go!
There is no way I’m gonna go, no way I’m gonna run out there screaming to die. There is the rip of a machine gun again, but no bullets bang against the door. Instead we hear muffled screams from behind the bar.
—That’s our song, Hank. Open the door! Open the fucking door!
I do it.
I stand next to the door and we both scream at the top of our lungs as I pull the bolts and jerk the door open and Edwin’s body collapses in on itself as dozens of bullets seem to strike him at once.
I shove the door closed, shoot the bolts and huddle against it, trying not to sit in too much of Edwin’s blood. Outside the door, Roman starts talking.
—That didn’t go well at all, did it?
Not far away, there are sirens.
I wait as long as I can before I go out. The sirens are getting very close and I need to get out of here. Roman, Bolo and Whitey are gone. Blackie is just outside the door to the office, his head dangling from his torso, unprotected by the body armor I can now see beneath his shredded tracksuit. They must all be wearing it.
Everybody is behind the bar. All of them. In a big pile.
Amtrak John used to let me ride the train for free when I went upstate to see friends. Wayne helped to move that big table into Yvonne’s place, and Sunday would make me little herbal remedies whenever I was sick. Dan would bring his pirate cable box into the bar on big fight nights and we’d watch them for free, then spend the rest of the night watching porn.
Lisa.
Edwin.
The sirens are just up the street. I go out the back door and up one of the fire escapes. I cross over the rooftops to Avenue A, my street, just a block from the bar. I climb down and cross the street. Jason is up and digging through the pile of garbage on the sidewalk in front of my building. I walk past him