Paul Cleave - Joe Victim

On Monday their progress will be made slower by the traffic and by the crowds of people.

They’re the decoy.

At the same time a van comes into view from the parallel street. It disappears from view as the courthouse blocks them, but then comes back into view as it comes around the back. It turns into the street between the office building and the back entrance. There’s a chain-link fence stretching the perimeter of the court’s parking lot. Somebody inside the compound pushes a button and part of the fence rolls open. The van drives in. The fence rolls closed.

The van parks up close to the door. The back of the van is facing the office window. Its doors swing open.

“I can see all of it,” Raphael says.

“Focus,” she says. “Don’t miss the shot.”

She can see it all too, but not in any great detail. Two men dressed in black step out of the back of the van. Then out shuffles a man in orange. She can’t see the chains, but can tell by the way he’s moving he must be wearing them around his ankles as well as his wrists. He steps down. People are pointing weapons at him. For two seconds nobody moves.

A lot can happen in two seconds.

The prisoner starts his thirty-foot walk.

“Do you have the shot?”

“I have it,” Raphael says.

“How clear is it?”

“Clear enough.”

The thirty feet get eaten up. The group stands around the back door.

“May I?” she asks, and she turns toward Raphael, but can’t see him. She puts out a hand and takes a step toward him. The only light in the office is what’s coming through the hole in the curtain. She feels nothing at first, then touches the side of the gun that’s being held toward her. She grabs it and moves back into position. She looks at the four cops and the man in orange. Almost like a painted target. The man in orange is a police officer. She’s seen him before. On TV or in real life she can’t remember, and it doesn’t rightly matter. Tonight he’s playing the part of Joe. This small field trip’s a rehearsal for Monday morning’s big event.

Also a rehearsal for Raphael and her too.

The cops are chatting with a security guard at the entrance. One of them throws back his head and laughs and the others are grinning at him.

“Can’t miss,” Raphael says.

“There are going to be a lot of people down there,” she says. “People will figure out the police may use the back entrance. The police may panic and have a couple of cars escort it. But no matter how many there are, there’s still only going to be one van. One Joe. And he’ll be covering the same ground his stand-in just covered.”

Raphael gets onto his feet. He picks up the gun case and sits it on the plank he was lying on a moment earlier. Melissa uses duct tape to put the hole she cut in the curtain back into place. Then she switches her cell-phone light back on. Raphael starts taking apart the gun and putting it away. The magazine is empty. There is a mostly empty packet of bullets in the gun case-it’s the last of their supply. There are only two bullets left inside it. Plus the bullet she had to order especially. That one she hands to Raphael.

“This one goes at the top of the magazine,” she says.

He hefts it in his hand, checking the weight, as if it would make a difference.

“This is the armor-piercing bullet?” he asks.

“Don’t miss with it. It’s our only one.”

“I won’t,” he says.

He puts the round into the case, jamming it downward into the foam to separate it from everything else.

“Try not to use the other two rounds,” she says. “The longer you stay up here, the higher chance of getting caught. We need this done in one round. More rounds also means more people being put at risk.”

“It’ll get done in one.”

Melissa climbs up onto the platform and gets to her feet.

“What are you doing?” Raphael asks.

She reaches up and pushes a ceiling panel aside.

“Safer for us if the gun stays here,” she says.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t think it’ll look good on Monday morning if you have to carry it in here. We hide it up here, you use it, then you put it back up there. The police are going to figure out where the shot came from, but there’s no reason for them to think the gun will still be here. And even if they do somehow get lucky, it’s going to be clean.”

“Makes sense,” he says. “Here, let me get it.”

They swap positions. He reaches up and puts the case into the ceiling. She hands him the bag with his police uniform in it. “We keep this here too,” she says.

He slides the panel back into place then climbs down.

“So you won’t be back here,” he says.

She shakes her head. “No reason to,” she says, because she’s going to be down among all the action, among the cops and the protesters, right in the middle of the tension and the chanting and the screamed insults. Raphael is the shooter. She is the collector. No reason to pretend any different.

“We’re not going to practice anymore?”

She shakes her head. She tucks aside the curtain and looks out the window at the van as it starts to pull away. The only difference in the layout between now and Monday is there will be an ambulance there too. There’ll be a few of them scattered around the streets near the courthouse.

There’ll need to be because the protesting is a powder keg ready to explode.

That’s why she got her hand on a paramedic’s uniform months ago. After all, she’s the one who’s playing the collector.

The prison comes up on the left. We turn off. Having the windows down in the van has helped, but only marginally. Being cold was a sacrifice everybody seemed prepared to make, only the damp air that flooded in seemed to soak up the smell and then cause it to stick to every surface like a thin film of condensation. We pass the barrier gates and go to the same entrance I was taken out of earlier. The warden is there to greet me. He looks at me with disgust. Everybody does. Just because I’m used to that look doesn’t mean I like it. In a fair and just world, I wouldn’t be in chains and these people would all be drawing short straws.

“Get him cleaned up,” the warden says to nobody in particular, and nobody in particular takes any notice because I end up standing there with people who don’t want to look at me. I’m standing on a slight angle because of my missing shoe. The warden seems the most annoyed out of everybody, and if he’d joined our trip and been part of the vote I’m sure I’d still be out there now, surrounded by spotlights and crime-scene tape. There is more paperwork. I stand there watching it get filled out and signed. Then the same four guards that escorted me out earlier escort me back in. They don’t look pleased with the job. They don’t want to touch me. I’m tossed the key for the cuffs and told to undo them myself then step away from the chain. I’m told to take my remaining shoe off first because it’s muddy, and the opposite sock too. The concrete floor is cold. The pressure in my stomach has built back up. I’m taken directly to the showers. I’m given sixty seconds to clean myself up. I make use of every one of them. I don’t think I’ve ever had a shower feel so good. When the water is shut off I’m thrown a towel and a fresh jumpsuit and socks and given another minute to get dressed. Then I’m taken back to my cellblock. There are others sitting around playing cards and watching TV and making idle chitchat, the kind of idle five-or-ten-or-twenty-year-passing chitchat that gets repetitive after day one. I don’t partake in it, instead I head into my cell and I climb onto the toilet and I spend ten minutes feeling about as sorry as a guy can for himself, the toilet no doubt feeling even sorrier.