The Blade Itself (2 page)

Evan nodded, moving over to test the drawer. ‘Locked.’

Danny smiled, pulled out the Crown Royal bag again.

‘I’m going to look around.’ Evan had the door half open already.

‘What?’

‘It’ll take you a minute, I’m going to check the front room. See if there’s anything in the register.’

‘The flashlight –’

‘Relax, Danny-boy. I’ll be right back.’ Not waiting for an answer, he slid into the pawnshop.

Shaking his head, Danny fumbled in the dark to find his own flashlight and set to work. He ran a pick down the inside of the lock, counting clicks. Four. Factory-issue. He eased in the tension wrench and started with the farthest pin.

Twenty seconds later, the lock twisted open. He pulled the top drawer, rifled around, his gloves inky in the flashlight’s warm glow. Papers, pushpins, day-job junk. The second was crammed with
Hustler
magazines from the seventies. In the third drawer lay a sleek black automatic pistol, big, with an extra-long clip jutting out the bottom. It looked like it could punch through an engine block, and something about its cold, machined intent sent shivers down the backs of his thighs. Next to the pistol sat a nylon bank bag with a brass lock. The bag was two, maybe three inches thick.

Jackpot. He stood up and slid through the door, his soft-soled gym shoes silent on the concrete. The pawnshop was a forest of dim shapes, electric guitars strung above what
looked like power tools, a couple of racks of looming TVs. Danny couldn’t see Evan, but a glow behind the counter marked his spot. The cabinet doors on one wall stood open, and there was a thumping sound.

‘Come on, man.’ Danny pitched it low but urgent. ‘I found the money.’

‘Give me a hand.’ Evan’s voice was muffled.

‘With what? Let’s go.’

‘I was thinking.’ Evan rose behind the counter, stretching, vertebrae popping as he flexed his broad shoulders. ‘Man sold weight, right? So there’s gotta be a pound of dope here, maybe two. That’s another couple grand easy.’

‘That wasn’t the plan.’

‘Ah, fuck the plan. It’ll take two minutes. Help me out, check those cabinets over there.’ Evan squatted, facing the counter, and started feeling around beneath. From his belt the gun handle gleamed like a lethal comma.

Danny felt a trickle of sweat run down his side, the drop cold against his muscles. Half the cons he knew – the smart ones, even – had landed inside because they got reckless, decided to push their luck. Anything could give you up. A stray flashlight beam. A pedestrian who heard voices. A beat cop on a random patrol.

Still, he knew Evan well enough to know he’d have to drag the guy out of here. It’d be faster to just try and find the dope. ‘All right, damn you. Two minutes.’ He moved to the far side of the pawnshop and opened the first cabinet, his flashlight playing across stacks of neatly bundled cables, a box of computer paper. He tapped the inside, wondering if he’d be able to hear a false bottom. Wondering how a false bottom sounded different from a regular one.

As Danny moved to the second cabinet, he heard Evan stand up. ‘Nothing here. I’ll check the office.’ Danny nodded, sorting through a selection of cheap porcelain
figurines. A crystal unicorn winked in the flashlight. His mind drifted as he worked, thinking of Karen’s apartment. Candles on the nightstand, traffic noises through the open window. Waiting in the sleigh bed for her to get home after her shift. Her soft smile to find him awake. He saw it all, and wondered why he was here instead of there.

And then he heard the sound.

A metal rattle, like –

‘Evan!’

– a security gate. The front door swung open, the night street glowing outside. A silhouette, big, stepped in, saying, ‘Come on, little darlin’, a couple puffs before we do it won’t make you lose control. I won’t do nothing you don’t want me to.’ The lights flickered on as Danny scrambled to his feet, recognizing the owner they’d watched earlier. A bearded guy in an orange hunting vest, leading a skinny chick with bad skin. Everything went slow motion as the guy spotted him, a hand already sliding inside his vest, a practiced move that produced a shiny automatic. The man racking the gun as he raised it, the snap echoing. Spreading his legs for better footing. Danny thinking this was it, the owner was going to shoot his ass. Mind telling body to leap aside, but his muscles not moving. The man with both eyes open and the gun in both hands, a target shooter’s stance that put the barrel square at Danny’s chest.

An explosion. Somehow the owner’s stomach bloomed red. He collapsed like he’d been dropped from a great height. His gun clattered on the floor beside him. In the doorway to the office, Evan stood with one arm extended, the pistol in his hand.

Everything stopped.

The hum of fluorescent lights and the wet sounds of breathing. Danny’s head throbbed, but in his chest, deep, he felt a cold sensation. Cold and deep and knotted. He knew
that no matter how hard he squinted, he wouldn’t be able to see Karen’s bedroom now.

Then adrenaline hit, and he lunged. The girl was frozen, eyes and mouth wide, and he shoved her aside to slam the door. He jumped back to avoid the slow spread of something red, Jesus, blood, a crimson pool of it, creeping from where the owner moved in a sort of crab-writhing, fingers clutched over his stomach.

‘No.’ The word slipped feathery soft from his mouth.

‘He alive?’ Evan asked, voice distant after the roar of the gun.

The man rocked back and forth. His hands were scarlet. A stain crept up his chest. There was a lot of blood. A kid from the South Side grew up knowing what blood looked like, broken noses and teeth knocked out, but to see it pouring from someone’s stomach …

‘Danny.’ Evan’s voice jerked his head up. ‘Is he alive?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Ask him where the weed is. You,’ gesturing with the pistol, ‘Little Darlin’. Over here.’ White-faced and shaking, the woman moved next to a shelf of beat-up VCRs.

Danny stared at Evan, the gun still in his hand, fingers loose on the grip. He couldn’t decipher the energy playing across his old friend’s face. Nerves? Excitement? He seemed calm. Potent. It was like pulling the trigger had freed something inside him. He almost swaggered as he walked over.

It scared hell out of Danny. ‘Let’s go.’

Evan kicked the owner’s gun across the floor, then stared down at his prone form. ‘Look at that shit.’ He popped his head to either side. ‘You ever see anything like that?’

‘We have to go.’

‘In a minute.’ Evan nudged the guy with his boot. ‘Where’s your stash, old man?’

The owner groaned, a strange, raspy sound. Danny’s heart roared so loud it seemed to muffle the world, and his gut turned in knots. They’d shot someone. Jesus. They’d shot someone, and they had to go.

‘Where is it?’ This time Evan kicked the owner, steel-toed boot driving into the man’s stomach near where his hands clenched the wound. The guy gasped for air, an agonized keening.

‘Evan!’

‘What?’ Evan spun, eyes narrowed and arm half raised. The air-conditioning chilled the place cold as January. For a long moment, they stared at each other, Danny wondering how he’d ended up here, calculating ways to get out. Then he saw motion, turned to look.

‘Fuck!’ Evan yelled after the girl as she sprinted to the back room. ‘Stop!’ For a moment she seemed to hesitate, then leapt a pile of junk from one of the cabinets and sailed into the dark office, slamming the heavy door behind her. Danny heard the click of a lock.

Evan roared with frustration, his face burning bright red, that angry color he got in a fight. Turning, he kicked the owner again, the guy trying to cover his head with one hand and his bleeding stomach with the other, a whimpering sound coming now, fast and hard, a sound Danny had never heard a human make and never wanted to again.

He stepped in front of Evan, hands to shoulders, and shoved him back. His partner stumbled, almost went down, came up mad. Eyes narrowed, he looked like he was about to bull rush Danny. The gun shook in his hand.

‘Stop.’ Danny kept his voice cool and his hands out, no threat. ‘Stay cool. Brothers.’

For a moment, he wasn’t sure it was going to work. But then Evan straightened, slowly. He exhaled loudly, then nodded. ‘All right, forget the weed. We’ve got the money.’

Danny’s guts tumbled to his knees. His mouth opened, but he didn’t know what to say.

Evan looked at him, then at the office door, closed and locked. ‘Where is it?’

Danny spoke softly. ‘It’s in the drawer.’

‘Jesus, Danny.’

‘Well, I wasn’t planning on shooting anybody. If we’d left earlier we’d be halfway home.’

‘Don’t start.’ Evan’s eyes blazed. ‘I don’t want to hear that shit.’

‘Fine.’ Danny kept his hands out. ‘But look, now there’s no choice. Let’s go.’

Evan stared at him, shook his head. ‘No.’

‘The cops will be here any second,’ Danny said.

‘I’m not leaving empty-handed.’ He started for the office door.

Danny knew this mood. It was Evan at his most volatile, ten drinks in and more than willing to go three rounds with God Almighty.

Standing outside the office, Evan spoke loud and precise. ‘Lady, open the door or I will break it fucking down.’ Silence. Maybe the woman had spotted the back exit, been smart enough to leave.

‘Have it your way.’ Evan lashed out with his boot. The door shivered in its frame, but held. As he stepped back to wind up again, a sharp roar tore a chunk of wood out of the door, spraying splinters in all directions. As the second bullet punched through, Danny remembered the gun in the open drawer.

For a hesitant second nothing happened.

Then Evan exploded. Whatever demons shooting the pawnshop owner had freed took control of him again. He raised his pistol and pulled the trigger, aiming in a triangle of quick blasts. Not pointing at the lock but trying to hit
her, trying to kill. At Danny’s feet, the man groaned. Evan frothed and raged, kicking the door again. The frame was cracking, and Danny thought he could hear a whimper behind it. Everything had gone crazy, he was standing beside a pool of blood, Evan making enough noise to pull people for blocks, the lights on, for Christ’s sake, the fucking
lights
on.

Danny had taken two falls, one county and one state, done the time like a man, but for this they’d get years.

No. No more.

He opened the front door and slipped out into the night. His body screamed to run, just go, but he made himself walk. Not draw attention. Just a guy headed for the El, nothing noteworthy about that.

When he was two blocks away, he heard the sirens.

It started different ways, but always ended the same.

This time he’d been in a church. It wasn’t the Nativity, but he’d known that he was in the old neighborhood. A deep voice intoned alien words. Stained glass spilled bloody light across polished pews. Karen held a hymnal, terror squirming in her eyes. He’d tried to read the book, knowing the key to her fear lay on the page, but the words twisted and blurred. Sliding metal rattled behind him. In the half awareness of an ending dream, he knew he wouldn’t make it, that he couldn’t impose sense onto this world in time. He looked up to find that Karen had turned into Evan, and that the hymnal had become a pistol aimed at Danny’s chest.

The furious orange of the soundless gun blast yanked him from sleep, as it always did.

Beside him, Karen murmured something soft and rolled away, pulling the blankets with her. The draft cooled his sweat-soaked body. Danny sighed and rubbed his eyes, glanced at the clock. Ten minutes. He should probably just get up. Instead he wormed closer to Karen, let her soft skin and brown-sugar smell fill him. Why did she always feel best when it was nearly time to leave her?

He let himself drift until the alarm rang. Karen fumbled for the snooze button; she’d hit it two, three times before getting up. He rolled out of bed, careful not to disturb her, popped his head to either side and stretched his arms. Thirty-two years old, and it was already harder to get out of bed than it used to be.

In the shower, the water diamond sharp against his back, he replayed the dream. Probably two months since the last one. For a while they’d been weekly. It had been a hairy time, seven years ago.

Waiting for the train had been maybe the toughest ten minutes of his life. He’d wanted to take a cab, even just to sprint, but he needed the anonymity of the El. Mouth dry, sirens in his ears, a quarter mile from the pawnshop, and he’d stood waiting for the train, certain every moment that this would be the one when they’d come for him.

But when the Brown Line had finally rattled in, the wind from it stale breath on his face, he’d boarded like any civilian. There’d been a kid with baggy pants hanging off his ass, and a fat woman with a Marshall Field’s bag, and he’d stepped on between them as though he had nothing to fear. The train ran north, into the land of yuppies and condos and coffeehouses, and he made a fresh compact with God at every stop. Each one a step farther from where he’d come. A preview of things ahead. A series of geographically minor hops that took him from his old world into what would become his new one.

And good goddamn riddance.

Karen opened the bathroom door, rubbing at her eyes. She sat on the toilet, yawned.

‘You have a nightmare, baby?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Bad?’

‘The same.’

She flushed, and he almost jumped out from under the shower before remembering that wasn’t a Lincoln Park problem. It was the little things that brought home the difference between his old world and new. Karen slid open the curtain and stepped into the shower, eyes half closed. He swapped places with her, watched her tip her head back,
the water sluicing over her body, flattening her dark hair to her shoulders.

On second thought, thirty-two didn’t look so bad. Not so bad at all.

‘Christ, I hate mornings.’ She fumbled for the shampoo. ‘Aren’t you late?’

‘It’s Wednesday.’ Most days he spent the bulk of his time on-site. Wednesdays he spent in the office, reviewing paperwork, filing permits, trying to juggle the budgets of half a dozen construction projects so that each, barely working out, could finance the next. When he’d reached management, it’d struck him as funny to realize that life as a contractor wasn’t much more stable than life as a thief.