George Pelecanos - Shoedog

Ten seconds passed. Randolph took his hands off the wheel, wiped sweat onto his jacket. He put his hands back on the wheel, gripped it.

Randolph heard a woman scream.

Polk drew the. 45, walked to the elderly woman in the red sweater, came behind her, put his arm over her shoulder and across her chest, pulled her against him, put the. 45 to her head.

The woman screamed.

Jackson pointed the Walther at the two men behind the counter, his arm straight out. He walked toward them, moving the gun between their open-mouthed faces. The youngest of the men shook his head, did not speak.

“Don’t nobody fuckin’ move, man!” Jackson shouted. “Arms up, and nobody moves!” He moved the gun quickly to the store’s only customer, a man in a Harris tweed, standing by a barrel filled with red wines. “You too, motherfucker”-the man’s arms were already raised-“get on the motherfuckin’ ground! Kiss it, motherfucker!”

The man dropped to his knees, went flat on his chest.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Polk said quietly in the woman’s ear. The wrinkles of her neck folded onto his forearm. He felt her tears, hot on his hand.

“Please,” she said.

“Be quiet,” Polk said.

“Back the fuck on up!” Jackson screamed, waving the gun at the two older men. They did it, until they touched the wall of seasonal decanters. “All right, Junior”-he put the Walther in young Rosenfeld’s face-“the money, motherfucker, not the bullshit in the register, the money beneath the counter, all of it, motherfucker, now!”

“I’ll do it,” Rosenfeld said quietly, his hands still up, the Rolex sliding down his wrist. “Take it easy.”

“The money, man, the money, the got-damn money!”

Jackson touched the barrel of the automatic to Rosenfeld’s forehead. Rosenfeld closed his eyes.

“Please,” said old man Rosenfeld, a catch in his voice.

Jackson looked quickly toward the darkness of the stockroom, then back to the young man. Jackson made his gun hand shake, shifted his feet, cocked the hammer back on the Walther.

Young Rosenfeld lowered one shaking hand, found a large cloth deposit bag beneath the counter. Jackson could see the rectangular stacks pushing out on the cloth.

“There’s more,” Jackson said. “Two other spots.” He raised his voice again. “The money, motherfucker!”

“Give it to him, Robert,” the second old man said.

Polk saw the customer begin to raise his head. “Keep it down,” Polk said, out the side of his mouth, and the man complied. Polk blinked sweat from his eyes, loosened his grip around the woman’s neck.

“That’s right, my man, right here,” Jackson said evenly, as young Rosenfeld handed Jackson two more bags.

“Let’s go!” Polk yelled, releasing the elderly woman. She fell sobbing to the floor.

“You keep those hands up!” Jackson shouted. He backed up a step, regripped the three bags in his left hand, kept the gun in his right trained on young Rosenfeld. Jackson laughed shortly. “All o’ y’all, have a nice day, hear?”

Jackson saw movement in his side vision, turned his head toward the stockroom. Beneath the stocking mask, Jackson smiled.

In the driver’s seat of the Fury, Randolph heard two gunshots from inside the store.

ISAAC had checked his watch in the stockroom, just as they came in. Eleven-fifteen, on the money, like the hustler had said.

Isaac heard Mrs. Bradley scream, heard the voice of the hustler yelling at the Rosenfelds. So the white man was holding the old lady, up by the front register, and the hustler was up at the counter, getting the money.

Isaac leaned against the cases of cabernet he had stacked that morning by the entrance. He put one hand against the cardboard for support. His other hand held his army. 45.

Funny, how it was. When the hustler stopped screaming, there wasn’t much sound. He could hear Mrs. Bradley crying softly, but mostly that was it. Funny, how quiet it was.

He heard the hustler cock his piece.

Isaac laid the barrel of the. 45 against his own temple. He felt the throb of his pulse, beating from his temple through to the barrel of the gun. He felt a cool line of sweat travel from his brow, down his cheek and over his lip. He tasted the salt of the sweat.

He heard Mrs. Bradley fall to the ground.

“Let’s go,” he heard the white man say.

“You keep those hands up!” from the hustler, then laughter. And then, “All o’ y’all, have a nice day, hear?”

Isaac spun around the corner, out of the darkness of the stockroom into the fluorescence of the store. His eyes passed the hustler- god-damn if the motherfucker wasn’t smiling-as he turned toward the register, fixed his gun on the little white man in the stocking mask and the blue windbreaker. Beneath the mask, the white man blinked.

Isaac shot him twice, high in the chest.

Isaac dove beneath the counter. Two rounds blew over the counter, above his head. Plaster and glass fell around him. He heard young Rosenfeld fall back against the wall of liqueurs, heard Rosenfeld’s father grunt.

Isaac stood up. The hustler with the muttonchop sideburns downstepped toward the front door, the money bags in his hand.

Isaac aimed carefully, and shot the hustler three times in the back.

Mrs. Bradley was crying loud now, talking to Jesus. Old man Rosenfeld was shouting something out, and youngblood was shouting something too.

Isaac ignored them, kept the gun trained on the hustler, now crawling on his belly toward the door. The hustler was leaving a blood trail on the linoleum behind him, in a wide stroke, like a brush had put it there. The hustler was gurgling, fighting for air. He managed to get up, grabbed a barrel to do it, looked behind him once at Isaac, gave Isaac a strange look, his face twisted tight, like all’s he wanted was to ask Isaac that one-word question: why?

The hustler made an effort to push through the door.

Isaac shot him twice more, in the back. The shots pushed the hustler out the door.

As Isaac made his way across the store, he passed the little white man lying on the floor. Dead. The heart shot, most likely. Isaac kicked the gun out of the little man’s hand. He noticed a funny old shoe, a shoe with newspaper stuffed inside, lying nearby.

He heard the Rosenfelds yelling frantically, almost happily, yelling behind him, urging him on. He pushed on the door, stepped out onto the sidewalk. A woman halfway up the block was screaming, and somewhere off-far off, it seemed-he heard a siren.

The hustler was hanging on the door of the Plymouth-looked to Isaac to be an old Fury-and he was dropping the bag of money into the window. Blood was streaked all over the sidewalk, and blood had splashed up on the Plymouth’s door. The hustler tried to breathe one more time, let his grip off the door, fell back onto his side, kicked some, stopped moving.

Isaac stood back on the sidewalk, raised the gun. He pointed the. 45 into the car. He pointed the gun at the driver of the car.

He looked at the face of the man in the driver’s seat. He looked at the face, and he knew.

The driver hesitated. He stared into Isaac’s eyes. He put his hand into his maroon sport jacket, took the empty hand out, put the hand on the Fury’s shifter.

The Fury caught rubber, smoke pouring from under its wheels. Isaac watched it scream away from the curb, watched it turn sharply, crazily right, at the next intersection. Isaac lowered his gun.

He felt the Rosenfelds surround him, heard their thanks, felt their hands on his shoulders. Isaac smiled dreamily, thought of the man in the car.

A year ago Easter, he had saved up, taken Nettie downtown to get some shoes-good God, the woman loved shoes. The man driving the Fury, he had waited on them that day, and what the man had done for Nettie, he had made her feel like she was the only woman in that shop.