I, Sniper

“Man,” said Rat, who’d peeked into the bag and liked what he’d seen, “I am up for anything with this cockroach killer.”

“Don’t force it. Be grown-up. You follow ’em from a long way off, you wait till they’re in traffic down here, ’cause the cop is a South Side precinct guy, and you set up next to them and you just go buzz with the buzz gun. Then you get out, you buzz each body. That gun shoots fast, watch that it don’t run out of ammo. It’s so quiet, it won’t scare the squares away. But it won’t draw cops to you either, that’s the point. You buzz each guy, put a few in the head to make sure. Then Tino uses all that magical driving power he is known for and makes you invisible in two seconds.”

“What’s paydown?”

“Oh, that’s the best part. You get ten long apiece.”

“Ten!”

Even on a cop, that was very nice.

“I told ’em, you were the best. These guys are hard but fair. You don’t need to know nothing now, and I ain’t giving you no advance because you’ll spend it on whores and Ripple, but you do this job clean and you will make many friends and set yourselves up nicely.”

“It sounds easy,” said Tino.

It was easy. They made the car in the lot and parked across Ma

When the vics emerged it was after dark, so Tino and Rat got no good look at either. They were just shapes, blurs, targets. It was better that way.

Tino watched as the Impala took Ma

He even, so helpfully, signaled about a mile in advance of the turnoff at Pulaski; he signaled again when he turned left off Pulaski and then still again in another mile when he turned right down Kedzie, ru

“When he passes the Stevenson,” Rat said, “another three blocks there’s that el station overhead, it’s always a choke point. He’ll stay in the right lane, we’ll breeze by and drive him into the el supports, and I’ll put the heat to ’em. Then you left and right, hit Granada, and it’s just a shot back to the Stevenson. We’ll be home before eleven.”

“It sounds good,” said Tino.

Rat slid over the seat into the rear, arranging himself against the door behind Tino. He wanted maneuvering room. “When I say, you punch down the window. Try it.”

Tino hit the button and the right back seat window hummed down, admitting a blast of fresh air. Then Tino raised it.

“Good,” said Rat.

He slipped the gun out of the grocery bag, beholding it for the first time. It looked like it felt, like some enterprise of plumbing, a joinery of pipes and tubes at right angles. It was, moreover, a kind of powdery green. A bolt riding a spring pronged from the righthand side of the main tube, just behind a cartridge ejection port; what made the thing look fu

The gun cradled in his arms, his right hand locked around the wooden panels of the pistol grip, his right thumb resting in the nexus between magazine housing and barrel, his trigger finger indexed along the receiver over the guard, Rat mentally rehearsed his moves. Tino pulls up by the still car in the right lane and cranks hard to the right, pi

His reverie was interrupted.

“Okay,” Tino said, his lips dry, his tongue dry, his breath dry and shallow, “just passed under the Stevenson. I see the el tracks ahead, I’m accelerating to catch up, they seem to be slowing down in the traffic, the light is changing.”

Expertly, he maneuvered the stolen vehicle through traffic, cutting a guy off, peeling through a gap, spurting into the oncoming lane, then back again, closing the distance on the unsuspecting Impala, which was itself slowing for the yellow-to-red light that impeded its progress.

“They’ve stopped, don’t have to hit them,” said Tino.

Rat held calm, felt good, had no trouble breathing, marveled at Tino’s grace behind the wheel, and the seconds rushed by. Suddenly they were even with the vehicle, then a little past it as Tino jammed to a halt just exactly where he should, and as Rat slithered forward on the seat, the window magically sank into the door, and he raised the gun to find a perfect angle on the driver and he thought, “Eat this, motherfuckers,” as he pulled the trigger.