Marcus Sakey - Good People

“Never mind what you thought, dipshit,” Jack said. “Open the bag.”

Tom Reed stood still.

“Tom,” Jack said, and unzipped his jumpsuit so that the holster was visible. “Open the bag.”

“You’re not going to use that. We’re in a public place.” The guy said it like it was a contract, like a kid on the playground whining about the rules.

Jack laughed. “Are you kidding?” He shook his head. “You’ve passed a dozen people in the last few minutes. Can you tell me what any of them looked like?” He cocked his head, smiled. “What makes you think any of them saw what I look like?”

TOM FELT LIKE his face had grown apart from him, like it was a separate entity. He could feel the blood banging in his forehead, could feel the heat in his cheeks. “We had a deal.”

Jack shrugged, the motion rippling the blue jumpsuit and revealing more of the big pistol. “We still do. It starts with you opening that bag and showing me what’s mine.”

“You just said you were going to kill us.” Trying to keep conversation going. Praying that Anna had been able to page Andre.

“Actually, Tom, I said that I could kill you.” Jack was smug, obviously enjoying himself. “If I do decide to kill you, I probably won’t tell you about it in advance. Now open the goddamn bag.”

“No,” Tom said, as steadily as he could. He had to hold out.

Another few seconds, a minute. His life, their lives, it came down to a minute. Sixty endless seconds. Where the hell was Andre? “Not until you tell me, straight up, that once you have this money you’ll leave us alone.”

Jack smiled. “My word.”

Something went cold inside Tom, and he realized that one way or another, today or tomorrow, Jack meant to kill them. Had simply decided that it would happen.

Then, over Jack’s shoulder, he saw someone coming up the escalator that bisected the mall. A bulky guy with a boxer’s moves. Wet lips and white teeth. Andre was walking, his jacket open. Anna had done it.

“All right.” Tom took a deep breath, trying to draw things out, feeling a rush of adrenaline and a surge of wild hope. He rolled his shoulder and then set the bag on the ground.

Behind Jack, two white guys came around the corner to fall into step with Andre, the three of them moving steady and easy. One wore a maroon tracksuit and a gold ID bracelet. The other had on a broad-cut suit. The one in the suit slid his hand into the pocket and pulled out something plastic. A blue spark arced along it. A stun gun.

Tom squatted beside the bag, put his hand on the zipper. Timing would be everything. He hesitated, said, “Remember, you promised.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed, and he said, “Quit stalling.”

No way around it. If he went any further, he risked Jack looking around, things going south. He had to pray that the money on top would fool Jack, or at least hold his attention long enough for Malachi’s people. Twenty feet now.

He drew the zipper down as slowly as he dared, then reached for the sides of the bag, planning to open it just enough to flash Jack. Ten feet.

The cop stepped from a store that sold games and toys, coming out behind Andre and his soldiers. His hand was at his belt, and he was moving fast. Did he know something? Had Halden somehow figured out where they were and called him? As Tom watched, kneeling beside the bag, the cop drew his gun. Jesus. He was going to stop it from happening.

Except the officer didn’t say, “Police, freeze!” He didn’t say, “Stop or I’ll shoot!”

What he said was “Jack, get down.”

And then fire blasted from his pistol, and the head of the man holding the stun gun exploded.

WHEN JACK HEARD Marshall’s voice telling him to get down, his first urge was to look back. But he’d long ago learned that in the moment, you trusted your partners or things went south, so instead he got the hell to one knee.

Even braced for it, the roar of the first shot hit like a thousand volts, kicking every cell into life, adrenaline pounding fast and hard. People didn’t realize how loud the things were, like God clapping his hands. There was a bare half heartbeat of silence, and then more explosions. Jack reached into the jumpsuit and jerked his pistol, thumbing the safety as he crab-spun, his other hand on the floor.

Marshall stood thirty feet back in his fake cop uniform. Between him and Jack, a shuffling horror staggered forward on momentumalone, his head a mass of gore. Beside him, a chubby guy in a tracksuit was fumbling to draw an enormous pistol. A third man, black and built, was charging Marshall, body low and arms pumping.

Jack didn’t take time to think. He just raised the Colt, centered it on the back of that hideous tracksuit, lined up the bars, and squeezed the trigger. The.45 kicked in his hand, and he took the time to aim again before firing a second time, the second bullet punching in right next to the first, ninety calibers’ worth of violence that blew the man’s chest out.

The screaming began. Jack tried to ignore it, to filter out the shrieks and the gunfire and the rain of sparkling glass from the front windows of a store. To find his calm in the center of the hurricane. Everything was messed up again, just like the night they’d taken the cash from the Star. It wasn’t the way he liked to work. But just like that night, he had to get control of the situation. The world belonged to people who bent it to their will.

He swept his arm sideways, trying to line up on the black guy. The angle was no good, Marshall just beyond him. Too risky. Marshall was a big boy. Focus on priorities. He turned back.

Tom Reed squatted like he’d been turned to stone. His mouth hung open and one hand was on the zipper of the duffel. The bag was partly open, and inside it, Jack could see faded green piled almost to the top. The money Bobby had died for.

OHJESUSOHJESUSOH JESUS.

Anna had two fingers to her mouth and the other hand at her forehead, where something wet had slapped her, wet and warm like spit, like someone had cleared their throat and hawked up something thick and nasty on her forehead, only it wasn’t spit, it was blood from the man the cop had just shot, Jesus, the one the cop had just shot, which meant that Jack owned cops, Jesus Christ , Jack owned cops , and now everything was unraveling, more gunshots, loud, so incredibly loud, her ears humming, and the warmth on her forehead was running into her eyebrows, a stranger’s blood was spattered on her forehead and running into her fucking eyebrows and this simply couldn’t be happening. They were good people, and good people won out, good people worried about bills and mortgage payments and having children and how hard it could be to love each other sometimes, but that was as far as their worries went, and yet here she was one step from losing it, she could feel something rising inside her, something dark and winged and frayed, and she wanted to open her mouth to let it out but didn’t, afraid that once she started she wouldn’t be able to stop, would just stand there and scream and scream and scream, and she had to be stronger than that, she was stronger than that, and then Jack stood up and started for Tom.

TOM WAS SURPRISED by how quiet his mind was. He could see everything. He admired the way Jack drew his pistol, the careful way he aimed and fired and then aimed and fired again. Methodical. The cop who had warned Jack was trying to bring his gun to bear as Andre charged him. Tom wondered if there were any other cops here, and whether they were with Jack too, and whether Andre had a contingency plan and more guys waiting, and whether-

Jack was staring at him, and at the money.

Tom could sense his own panic. It had a tug, like an undertow. Only he realized he didn’t have to give in to it. Maybe this was shock. Maybe this was what shock felt like. If so, he’d take it over panic any day.