Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [35]
He cursed quietly. Mayor Bentley Allen. Los Angeles had itself another black mayor and this goddam Tom had cut off the pipeline. New people in city council. And that stupid son of a bitch of a black congressman who couldn't be satisfied with the take, no, that asshole had to put all his relatives on the community payroll and the fucking TV reporters found out. A black man in politics needed a snow-white rep these days …
Well, the game was over, and he'd started another. Eleven jobs, each one worked fine. They'd taken … what? A quarter of a million dollars in loot in four years? Less than a hundred thousand after the fences went through it. Twenty thousand each for four men in four years. That wasn't even wages! Easy to say, now, that some of it should have been stashed for lawyers' fees, but at five thousand a year?
This would be the thirteenth. It wouldn't be long now. The store did a lot of business. Alim waited, always aware of the time. Two customers left, and nobody was coming down the street.
He wasn't happy about this job. He didn't like ripping off blood. Honkies were fair game, but you ought to leave brothers alone. He'd hammered that into his followers' heads, and what were they thinking of him now? But he was boxed in, he had to act fast.
The place was ripe, and he'd been saving it for an emergency, and this was one shitpot motherfucker of an emergency. His honky lawyer would probably beat this for him, but lawyers and bondsmen wanted bread, and now. It was crazy, robbing a store to pay a lawyer to get him off for robbing a store, Someday things would be different. Alim Nassor would make them different.
Almost time. Two minutes ago one of his brothers had got himself stopped for a traffic violation fourteen blocks away and that took one pigmobile off patrol. Twenty minutes ago another brother had a "family argument" and the sister called the station house, and there went the other fuzzwagon. There'd be only the two. Black areas didn't get patrolled the way honky business districts did. Blacks didn't have big insurance policies, or know how to kiss ass down at City Hall.
Sometimes he used as many as four diversions, with traffic jams thrown in; they only took spreading some bread among the kids to get them playing in the streets. Alim Nassor was a natural leader. He hadn't been busted since juvenile days, except for that last one where an off-duty cop had come out of a laundromat. Who'd have thought that brother was a pig? He still wondered if he should have shot it out. Anyway, he hadn't. He'd run into an alley and ditched the gun and the mask and the bag. Lawyers could take care of those. The only other evidence was the honky storekeeper's identification, and there were ways to talk him out of testifying …
Time. Alim got out of the car. The mask looked like a face; from ten feet away you wouldn't know it was a mask at all. The gun was under his windbreaker. Windbreaker and mask would be gone five minutes after the job. Alim's mind closed down, shutting out past and future. He walked across at an intersection. No jaywalking, nothing to attract attention. The store was empty.
It went down nice. No problems. He had the money and was on the way out when the brother came in.
A man Alim had known for years. What was that bastard doing over in this part of town? Nobody from Boyle Heights ought to be here below Watts! Aw, shit. But that brother knew. Maybe from his walk, maybe anything, shit, he knew.
It took him a second to make up his mind. Then Alim turned, aimed and fired. A second shot to be certain. The man went down, and the old storekeeper's eyes were big with horror, and Alim fired three times more. One more robbery wouldn't have upset anyone, but the pigs worked hard on murder. Best leave no witnesses. Too bad, though.
He came out fast, and didn't go to the stolen car across the street. Instead he walked a fast half-block, went through