Marcus Sakey - Good People

Jack started forward. He wore a blue jumpsuit unzipped to the waist. The gun was in his hand. Rising slow. Tom’s thoughts were still running apart from the world. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Anna frozen in place, her hands to her head, blood between her fingers.

Oh God.

It all snapped, everything coming back into focus like a record tracking to speed. Panic wasn’t a tug. It was a wave. It crashed into him fast and hard and nearly swept him off his feet. She was hurt and Jack was still coming, and somehow he had to get her out of here.

Jack raised the gun, finger moving inside the trigger guard. Tom grabbed the handles of the bag, stood fast, and hoisted it to rest on the railing, a little more than halfway off. Let it lean, holding it lightly, just two fingers.

Down below, people were scrambling in all directions, shoppers streaming for exits, screams and chaos. At the other end of the hallway, Andre had driven into the cop like a linebacker, bowled him right off his feet. Everyone was yelling, and behind all of it, that same insipid pop song was still playing, some spoiled brat saying bye-bye-bye to some teen queen, neither of them knowing the first goddamn thing about the first goddamn thing.

The bag wobbled on the railing, three stories above the sunken courtyard with the gourmet grocery. Jack looked at it. Then he turned his head and looked Tom in the eyes. Stared. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.” Jack slipped the gun back in the holster and held his hands out at chest height. “It’s not too late.”

Tom wanted to laugh. Instead, he let go of the straps.

Jack yelled, “No,” and lunged forward, his arms scrabbling, fingers stretching. Tom got a half-second flash of wide eyes, and then he was running past, not caring one way or the other if the bag went over.

Anna had taken a step forward, lowered her left arm, but her right was still covering her mouth. There was blood on her forehead, and spattered across the bridge of her nose. This couldn’t be, he couldn’t lose her, not now, not ever. “Anna, baby, no, no, are you hurt?” Thinking that if she was, then he was done too, he was just going to… just going to…

She stared at him with pupils like black holes. Her lips twitched. Then she said, “It’s blood. I mean, not my blood.”

“You’re okay?”

She nodded.

Thank God, thank God, thank you, if I didn’t believe in you before, I do now . He threw an arm around her shoulder and pulled her toward the stairwell.

AS JACK FLUNG HIMSELF FORWARD, he had the strangest moment, a weird flash of something like déjà vu. It was like he was living a memory: lunging for Bobby as he fell, his kid brother with arms up and reaching, Jack his only hope. Problem was, best Jack could remember, it hadn’t actually happened, that moment. When would it have?

Regardless, as his hands fumbled forward and he saw the bag start to go backward, as he felt the strain of muscles, the rush of air against his cheeks, as he begged his body to go faster, just a little faster, please, his limbs stretched to their max, as the duffel sagged and drooped and finally slipped, as his fingertips traced the texture of the fabric, scrabbling for anything, a handle, a zipper, a pocket, and especially as he realized he wasn’t going to get hold of it, that the thing was going to fall, through all of it some part of him was seeing Bobby. Bobby falling backward, Bobby lit in panic, Bobby scared, reaching out for his brother to save him.

Then gravity claimed it. Loose hundreds confettied out the open flap, and the whole thing turned a slow half spin before landing with a crash of glass and a splat in a tray of gourmet potato salad three stories below. He stared. Unbelievable. Four hundred grand soaking in mayonnaise. He tried to picture himself vaulting the railing and dropping the distance. Leaned over to check. Jackie Chan, maybe. A forty-three-year-old Polack, no.

Fine. The stairs. They’d scoped the whole place yesterday. The stairwell nearest him stopped at the ground floor, but the far one went all the way down. He started running, taking in the scene as he did. Marshall was flat on his ass, one hand behind, the other trying to bring the gun to bear. The black guy had bowled him over. Jack raised his Colt and fired as he ran, lousy snap shots that shattered glass windows and prompted another round of shrieks. The black guy looked at him, then at Marshall, then turned and ran. Jack reached his partner, ducked down to haul him upward.

Marshall tried to sight in on the guy who’d knocked him over, but Jack shoved him into motion, yelling, “Come on!” The money was the only priority.

The two of them hit the stairwell door, started thundering down. No telling exactly how long before the cops got here, but this was Lincoln Park, a nice, white doctor-and-lawyer neighborhood. It wouldn’t be long. He squeezed the grip of the pistol.

The stairs were clean and smelled of paint. Bare bulbs flooded each flight. He had a hand on the railing and was hauling himself around, more jumping than running. When he reached the bottom, he didn’t even slow, just spun, raised a foot, and kicked the emergency exit door. An alarm screeched as they burst into the grocery store. A Mexican in an apron huddled behind the sushi counter. Wine to the left, imported cheese to the right. Jack charged through, knocking over a display of salsa, jars spilling and smashing. A server stood in the center of a broad octagon of cases filled with precooked entrées and sides. The duffel bag had broken through the glass to spatter potatoes and couscous and sautéed broccolini in all directions. A dozen hundred-dollar bills had settled amid the food like garnish. The server was staring at the bag, one hand half out like he was trying to work up the courage to touch it. Jack pistol-whipped the base of his neck, then pushed past the falling body to claim what was his. “Let’s go.”

“Which way?”

“The back.”

Marshall spun. An employee’s-only tunnel led out to the rear of the mall, into a dingy concrete space littered with cigarette butts and broken glass, loud with the buzz of generators. They burst into the rain, hearing sirens now, close. Jack slung the bag over his shoulder, then hit a low wall moving, grabbing the top with his free hand and hoisting himself up. The move opened up the slash on his arm, but the pain felt far away.

There was a cop on the other side, hurrying down a short alley from a group of three-flat apartments. For a moment, they looked at each other. Then the cop reached for his gun and started yelling to freeze.

Jack had been in before, wasn’t going back. Without removing his left hand from the wall, he brought his right up.

The gun was quieter out in the open space. The cop staggered. His legs gave, and he fell to his knees in a puddle. Water splashed murky and silver.

“Jesus,” Marshall said from beside him. “Jack.”

The cop rocked back and forth. He looked at his hands, bloody and shaking. Jack raised his pistol again. Took time to aim.

EAST WAS AS GOOD AS WEST. It didn’t seem to much matter. Moving was the point, staying mobile. Driving minute after minute, mile after mile, with no goal but keeping away from everyone, from the whole world, while they figured out what to do. How to make this right.

The thought almost made Tom laugh. Make it right? What would that look like, Einstein ?

He shook his head, filled with a terror and loneliness he’d never known. The world he used to believe in had imploded, and the new one was a horror show inhabited by monsters. Everything he loved was at stake. And there was no one they could trust. They were all alone.

Anna shivered in the passenger seat, arms clutching her chest, and Tom leaned forward to turn up the heat. He punched back and forth between AM 720 and 780. A commercial for volunteer teachers, an overdubbed voice saying that positive role models could dramatically lower drug usage amid blah blah blah.