“Nice going, lover boy,” Tony said, the scorn hot enough to scorch a new hole in the ozone layer. “I’m out of smokes, shithead.”
“How’s that my fault?” Rudy asked. “I don’t smoke.”
Twenty silent minutes passed and they pulled up to a twenty-four hour convenience store.
As Tony stopped the engine, he said to Rudy, “You wait, I’ll rob.” He opened his door and continued, “Do you think you can do that right? If you screw this up, you both die along with that clerk in there.”
He stepped out, walked around the Stanza and opened the door next to Natalie. After he untied her, he grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. “You’re with me. I don’t trust you two together. If you want to see the light of day tomorrow, you better damn well be on your best behavior.”
Sonya knew her boyfriend would like the new tat she had inked to her hip today and could hardly wait until her shift ended at midnight to show him. The nineteen year old clerk sat on a stool behind the convenience store counter and to pass the time on a slow night, she watched an old vampire movie on a twelve inch black and white television. Except for a polite nod, when a couple came in, she ignored them and let them go about their business in the store.
“A couple cartons of smokes,” the man said when he had finished and dumped the last load on the counter top. “Bag it and hurry.”
Sonya tore her eyes away from the set and slipped off the stool. “What kind,” she asked and turned toward the cigarette rack behind the counter.
“How ‘bout those Marlborough and make it three cartons.”
She retrieved the boxes and then turned back to the counter. When they had entered a few minutes before, one glance at the disheveled girl was all it took to dismiss her. But now as she faced the bruised cheeks and the dark circles under her smoky eyes, she knew she needed help. Sonya looked from the teenager to the ponytailed man and then back at the girl who couldn’t have been much younger than her.
“Damn it, I said ‘bag it and hurry.’ What about that didn’t you understand.”
Sonya looked into the angry eyes of the man, shot him a disdainful scowl—he should keep his hands to himself—and then reached for the first item. She scanned the barcode, and slid a loaf of bread into the bag.
“No need to ring it up, bitch, and don’t forget the till.”
Sonya glanced up just in time to see the man pull a silver barreled pistol from his belt. He put his arm around the girl’s shoulders and drew her close to his chest. He pressed the gun to the teenager’s temple. “Bag it now or I blow her brains out right here, right now.”
Sonya’s jaw dropped as she looked between the gun and the girl. Paralyzed, she couldn’t act.
“Do it now,” the girl said in a calm voice. “He’s not kidding,”
Sonya tore her eyes away from the revolver and began to shove the items from the counter into plastic bags.
“The money,” the ponytailed man shouted and waved the gun toward the register. “Get the damn money.”
Sonya opened the drawer and pulled all the bills out.”
“There’s not much here,” Sonya said and feared that her inability to produce a wad of cash would be the last thing she did. “We don’t keep much in the register at night. Only fifty bucks or so.”
“That all?” the man shouted.
“There’s a safe in the back, but I don’t know the combo. Please, sir, just take it and go.”
“God damn it. Carry the shit to the car.”
With the battered girl’s help, Sonya grabbed the bags and the three headed for the sedan. He had released his grip in the girl but Sonya could see he was pushing her along with the muzzle of the pistol in her back.
“Back seat,” the man yelled as they approached the Stanza. “And no shit.”
After Sonya placed the sacks on the seat, she withdrew from the rear compartment, stood and faced the man. He held the gun on her now.
“Back to the store,” he said, and pressed the gun into the Sonya’s chest. He cinched his left hand around the other girl’s bicep and pulled her along as they walked to the store. Once inside, he forced Sonya into the back room.
“Don’t do it Tony,” the girl pleaded. “Don’t hurt her, please.”
“Shut your damn whining asshole, Whore. Why do you give a shit?”
“She’s just a kid like me Tony. Don’t please.”
Sonya looked at Tony and saw the stone features of his face. “Please don’t kill me, sir.”
“On your knees, bitch.”
Sonya dropped to her knees, compliant, but kept her face turned toward the man with the gun.
Tony pressed the Python between her eyes.
Angela Hawk had driven for the last hour and half on instinct. Her week hadn’t gone well. She had let a witness go missing on Wednesday. It had taken the local police to find her body three days later, and in all that time, she had found nothing to lead her to a suspect. She wasn’t sure her instinct even worked anymore. One thing she did know, she had lost the trail of the tan Stanza before she even had it. It had been several hours since the suspects had fled the scene in Oregon, and even though she had convinced herself they would have continued on north, she had nothing to support it but her gut. They could be anywhere which meant she was on a hopeless chase. So far there had been no sightings of the sedan from the APB she had put out. If they had crossed the state line and were in fact in Washington, there were just too many side roads they could have taken. She felt like she had been conscripted to chase a ghost and there was no telling what thin air it had vanished into.
She figured they would need to refuel eventually, but the suspects had reportedly stolen cash in Oregon, so to take the heat off they may pay cash. That left no way to pick up their trail.
Angela had just parked outside an all-night café to consume some caffeine to jolt her mind awake. As she wound her long black hair into a bun, her cellular phone rang. She reached for the phone and let her hair fall onto her shoulders.
“Agent Hawk,” she said, and then listened as the voice in her ear gave her a report about a hold up at a gas station. She couldn’t believe her luck or was it her instinct actually reigniting. She had just about given up hope, but the suspects drove a tan sedan and now they weren’t thirty minutes away. She gunned the engine of her black SUV, flipped her strobe lights on, and headed back onto the road.
_____
©
Jearl Rugh 2012
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Rights Reserved
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