Loose And Easy

Dream on, cholo.

Joh

As he passed the counter, he reached out and snagged a couple of candy bars and a lighter.

“You should leave, man,” he said, keeping his voice low. Combined with the hand sign, it was a clear threat, and if it got the clerk calling the cops, so much the better. Joh

It was a short-lived hope.

Behind him, he heard the main door open again.

Perfect.

He glanced back, and sure enough, the gray-haired guy had followed him in. This was starting to look like exactly what Joh

The clerk had disappeared.

Good. Considering how close Harold’s was to the interstate, the poor guy probably got robbed once a week. He wasn’t going to take a chance on three guys casing his store.

Down at the end of the aisle, into a hallway, Joh

And it pissed him off, royally.

That sonuvabitch-rattling the door of the women’s rest room, when there was a woman inside, Joh

“Eh! Cabrón!” he called out. “Back the fuck off that door.”

The guy looked up and flipped him off.

Joh

“Come on out of there,” the red-haired guy was saying, keeping his attention focused on Joh

Right. Like that was going to happen.

“I’ve got some news about your father, Esme,” the red-haired guy continued. “Come on.”

Esme? News about her father? Oh, man, that guy couldn’t have come up with anything worse to say if he’d had all year. Any doubt Joh

The sound of the lock being released from inside drew the guy’s gaze back to the door, and that was all she wrote. In that one moment of inattention, Joh

This asshole was even older than the redhead, and Joh

Hubris. That’s what hit him, and sent him rocking. The old guy had clocked him.

Geezus. Stars. Yeah, he was seeing them, but he was still scrambling, still moving, knowing he couldn’t afford to let the old gray-haired geezer lay another hand on him.

Geezus. He’d lost the 9mm on the floor somewhere.

Okay, that hadn’t been his smartest move tonight-but it was one move smarter than what happened next. The old guy did get ahold of him, moving like lightning. Joh

Geezus. What the fuck was this?

He reached back and grabbed a handful of whatever he could reach, pants, shirt, whatever, and jerked hard, dislodging the gray-haired guy enough for him to move and twist-and go totally ma

“Freeze, sucker.”

That’s what she said-Freeze, sucker, her voice glacial. And she was backing it up with the muzzle of her.45 pointed straight at the old guy. He couldn’t miss it. From this angle, with Joh

For an instant, the old guy looked like he might try something, another move.

“He’s got a gun inside his waistband, right side,” he said.

“Take it, Joh

It wasn’t the words, it was the tone of voice that sent the message. She was dead serious. Only a fool would mistake her, and the old guy proved not to be a fool.

Joh

As soon as the old guy was off him, Joh

He grabbed a cold drink as they passed the coolers, and left a ten on the counter.

Hell, he’d been saved by a girl.

“Thank you,” he said as they dropped into the seats in the Cyclone. It was the only appropriate thing to say.

He fired the car up and wheeled her in reverse, until they were heading back out onto the street.

“You’re welcome,” she said.

He cast her a quick glance. She was secretly gloating. He could tell. The Mona Lisa smile on her face was a dead giveaway.

“Burt?” Beth said, staring down at her husband. He was practically at her feet, having been dropped there by the Hulk, which is what she’d been calling the guy who’d kidnapped her. “Burt?”

If he was smart, and he could hear her, he’d be wise to answer. Her mouth hurt so badly from where the Hulk had ripped away the tape holding her gag in place, and yet she was so grateful to be able to talk, especially to the man on the floor.

“ Burton Aaron Alden?”

This was his fault. She knew it. This wasn’t a random act of violence. This was a not-so-random Burt-Alden-hadn’t-paid-his-bookie act of retribution. She’d seen it a hundred times in their marriage, just never so seriously, never so dangerously. The truth was so demoralizing, it made it hard to breathe.

“Are you okay?” she asked. He didn’t look okay.

“No,” he mumbled, the word barely a breath of sound.

“Is your arm broken?” It looked broken.

“Yes.”

“I’m leaving you for this, Burt,” she said. “I mean it this time. If we get out of this alive, I’m leaving you.”

“I’ll quit,” he said, still so quietly she could barely hear him. “I swear.”

She didn’t even bother to answer. She was leaving him, and this time she meant it.