Nick Stephenson - Eight the Hard Way

Because he was right. I do appreciate justice. Even if it is imperfect.

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David VanDyke is a former US Army Airborne enlisted soldier and, later in life, a US Air Force officer. He served in and out of combat zones all over the world in the 1980s through the 2000s. He lives on the East Coast with his wife and three dogs.. Look for more Cal Corwin stories by David VanDyke at your favorite book vendor and find out more at http://www.davidvandykeauthor.com

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Mr. Mockingbird Drive

By Robert Swartwood

They wait until he finishes with his transaction before they make their move.

Taking his card back from the machine, putting it in his wallet along with the twenty-dollar bills, he turns around with his head down and starts to take a step forward and doesn’t even hear them when they walk right up to him, Tyshawn already with his gun out and pointed at the man’s head.

“Freeze, motherfucker.”

The man freezes. Doesn’t even look up at them, just keeps staring down at his wallet.

Julio glances around the bank parking lot, sees no trouble, knows they have to hurry anyway. “We goin for a ride, mi amigo .”

The man still hasn’t looked up. His black leather wallet shakes in his hands.

Tyshawn steps forward, presses the barrel of his gun against the man’s head. “Yo, he’s talkin to you.”

The man raises his head, but in a slow, cautious way, Julio happy to see the fear in the man’s eyes.

“Your keys,” Julio says, motioning to the man’s BMW behind them.

The man’s lips tremble. “My—my—my keys?”

“To your fuckin car, dickhead,” Tyshawn says, pressing the barrel against the man’s head once again.

The man’s hands are shaking so bad now that he drops the wallet. It hits the ground with a dry thud. The man looks down, looks back up, raises his hands slowly.

“I have to reach into my pocket,” he says.

Julio says, “Keys better be what comes out, or else my boy here will blow your face off.”

The man reaches into his pocket. He brings out a set of keys.

Tyshawn grabs them from the man’s hand, tosses them back to Julio. Julio catches them, smiles, says, “Now get in the car.”

“What? But I thought—I thought you just wanted my car!”

“No way, Mr. Mockingbird Drive. We want a whole lot fucking more.”

Tyshawn had come up with the name Mr. Mockingbird Drive. It wasn’t all that original. Mockingbird Drive was the street the man lived on. Tyshawn just added the Mr.

They’d been watching the man for a couple weeks, the man every other night always going to the ATM at the Hartford Street Bank, always withdrawing three hundred dollars.

Sticking him up for the cash was out of the question. They’d graduated from that shit years ago. Even jacking him for the car wasn’t their style, though true, the BMW was a sweet ride.

Nah, they wanted so much more.

Because a man that withdraws three hundred dollars every other day, a man that drives a BMW, he has to be sitting pretty.

So they followed him one day, out of the city and into the suburbs. The man lived in a white brick house on Mockingbird Drive.

They cased the house, saw the man appeared to live alone.

Always left home at the same time each morning, always arrived home at the same time each night.

Breaking and entering between then was out of the question.

The man would have a safe, a lockbox, someplace where he kept valuables.

What they needed were the location and the combination.

“So, Mr. Mockingbird Drive, you a faggot?”

The man’s real name is Matthew Horner. That’s what his ID says. Julio doesn’t care. He likes the nickname Tyshawn came up with better.

The man says, “Excuse me?”

“A faggot. You know, sucking cock, taking it up the ass. You into that?”

The man is hunched down in the shotgun seat, staring out his window. Julio drives the BMW carefully, not going too fast, not going too slow, taking them out of the city, Tyshawn in the backseat, bopping his head to some song he’s humming.

“I mean, we been watching you for two weeks now. You ain’t got no wife, no girlfriend. Thought maybe, you know, you had a boyfriend someplace.” Julio snaps his fingers. “Or wait—you into kiddie porn? That your thing?”

The man doesn’t answer, just keeps staring out his window.

Tyshawn puts a pause on the humming and whacks the man in the back of the head with his gun. “Yo, he asked you a question.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“I told you,” Julio says. “We’re takin you home.”

“Then what—are you going to kill me?”

“Not if you’re a good boy.”

“You can have everything I own. Just please”—the man now shaking his head, his voice quivering—”please don’t kill me.”

“I’ll think about it,” Julio says. Then asks, “So give, you like to spit or swallow?”

They’re not professionals by any means. But they manage to get by. Always being careful, always picking and choosing the right marks, they’ve never been caught.

The past three years they’ve done four home invasions. Walked away with a pretty good payday each time. Enough to keep them going for a while, enough cash to pay for their weed and beer and video games.

Tyshawn’s the one that does the killing. Julio doesn’t want any part in it. He’ll be an accessory, sure, but he don’t want to stand in front of God one day and say he ever pulled the trigger.

Four home invasions, six people dead.

And tonight, well, the count’s gonna go up in both categories.

Ten o’clock at night, Mockingbird Drive is dark and quiet. They pull into the driveway, Julio hits the button to raise the garage door, and they slip inside.

They stay in the car until the garage door has closed.

Julio says, “All right, Mr. Mockingbird Drive. Do like we say and not like we do. Got it?”

The man nods slowly, says he does.

“Good. Now we’re gonna go inside. We’re gonna go to your safe or lockbox. You do have a safe or lockbox, don’t you?”

The man looks at him, shakes his head.

Tyshawn whacks him again, shouts, “Lyin motherfucker!”

His eyes squeezed tight, his face red, the man says, “Okay, okay. Yes, I have a safe.”

“Good,” Julio says. “Now we’re gonna take what’s in that safe, take a shit load of other stuff, and then we’ll be on our way. Got it?”

The first thing Julio notices is just how clean and neat the house is. The kitchen, the living room, the dining room—it’s like some fucking model home, nothing out of place.

Julio asks the man, “Where’s the safe?”