Supernatural Noir

Yes, sirs. I calmly roll up my window and watch them in the rearview mirror, everything happening slow and fast at the same time. They’re circus clowns going backwards, getting into the car instead of jumping out. Mike sits his heavy ass in the seat behind me, shaking the car. Greg slides in on the other side and rips off his ski mask like it’s burning him, and he throws it on the car floor. He better remember to pick that up later and dump it. Greg isn’t exactly known for paying attention to the details, for paying attention to anything. He shouldn’t be on this job at all, never mind getting to go inside. Yeah, he grew up on the same street as us, but he’s loose with everything, you know? Christ, he was just fired from his bartending gig at Irish Times because he was caught skimming on back-to-back nights. Henry was nuts to use him, but you can’t tell Henry anything. It’s his show. And Henry, his ski mask is still pulled over his ham-sized face. He throws the duffle bag in the trunk, jumps in after it. I take my foot off the brake, start inching forward, still watching Henry, and he kind of flickers in the shadows. He pulls his little jerry-rigged rope and shuts the tailgate behind him.

I roll out of the pawnshop’s rear lot, and they’re all yelling at me. Mike actually says, “Step on it, Da

They’re trying to talk over each other in the back. My ear burns, and I’m looking all over Main Street for blue and white lights, trying to stay focused, and trying to think ahead. I yell over my shoulder, and have to yell it twice, “You assholes go

Mike says, “Everything was going fine, got the cage open no problem, and then the tough guy over here decides to chuck the old man over the counter.” Mike pauses, daring Greg to say something different. Greg is smart enough to keep quiet.

I can see it happening even if I wasn’t there: The three of them jumped the old man at the back door, right? Henry knew the old guy was going to be there. This was Henry’s gig. They’re always his gigs. So they jumped him and went inside, persuaded the old man to open the front counter’s cage. Henry talked to him slowly, calmly, hypnotizing the old man into believing everything would be okay. That’s what Henry is good at. When we were kids, he’d talk us into stealing cigarettes and porn mags. So Henry was telling the old man that all was well, no one would get hurt, that he was going to go behind the counter with him, go to the register and then to the jewelry and watches kept in the lockboxes. It was then that maybe the old guy said something and Greg didn’t like it, or the guy gave Greg an odd look because Greg was always getting odd looks, with his too-small-for-his-face eyes and a mouth like a cut, or maybe Greg got some wild itch he had to scratch, or he was trying to prove how tough and crazy he was to Henry, and I won’t say it to Mike right now, but it’s still Henry’s fault for taking Greg, for not pla

Mike says, “And when the old man got up, he was holding—”

Greg cuts Mike’s bedtime story short, and yells, “Hey! Hey!”

I’m looking through the small screen of the rearview mirror again and can’t see much, only Greg turned around, kneeling, hands on top of the back seats, and he’s looking into the trunk. He moves left, right, dancing around like a dog excited to go for a ride. Or maybe he just really has to go to the bathroom like I do.

Greg says, “Where the fuck is Henry?”

Great. The kid is bat-shit crazy. Why doesn’t Henry say something to him? Maybe Henry is waiting for Greg to stick his head over the seat so he can sucker-punch him, knock loose a few Chiclets.

Greg starts bitching at me about leaving Henry, about me fucking everything up, and he bounces off the car walls and seats like one of those superballs you can get for a quarter. Now I’m yelling too, saying, “What do you mean?” and telling him to shut up, telling Mike to shut him up. No one answers me. I wish they would. Mike turns around next, but he’s too big to turn completely around. Mostly he twists in his seat and cranes his melon-sized head toward the trunk.

Mike says, “He’s not in here.” He says it like it’s the last line in a movie.

More Greg: “You left him there? You fucking left without him?”

Mike repeats himself. “He’s not in here.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” I say bullshit to all that. “Henry? Henry, quit fucking around!” No answer. He’s still fucking around, right? Hiding in the trunk, the duffle bag on top of him. It’s something he’d do. He isn’t answering me, though.

“What did you do?”

I say, “I watched Henry throw the duffle bag in, and then he climbed into the trunk. I watched him. I swear to fucking God. He used the rope, pulled the tailgate shut behind him.”

Greg jams his head between the front seats and screams into my ear, the same one that got cuffed. The ear isn’t having a good time. “You didn’t see shit. He isn’t there.”

“Enough,” Mike says, and pulls Greg back and sticks him into his seat. “We need to think this through.”

Oh goody. I’d do anything for Mike, but he’s more of a brute-squad kind of guy, more of a cuff-you-in-the-ear kind of guy, not the thinker. Thinking just makes him more mad, more likely to start breaking shit.

“Turn around, Da

Everything I got inside me drops into my shoes. Goddamn

Henry. Him really not being in the car with us sinks in. Henry isn’t here and it’s my fault. But we can’t turn around. “Yeah, brilliant idea, right? We’ll just swing by, pick him up on the corner, no problem.” Then I say to Mike, “No going back, but I’m pulling over.”

“Why?”

“I want to see what’s in the trunk.”

Greg says, “We can’t leave Henry, man.”

Mike is looking at me. Or the me in the rearview mirror. Maybe that me is different somehow. Mike says, “We’re not turning around. You’re not pulling over. We can’t stop, not yet. Keep driving.”

I nod. Maybe I’m wrong and Mike always was our thinker, not Henry. Mike’s right. About everything. But if Mike told me to turn around, I would. He’s known Henry as long as I have, and we both owe him everything.

We pass hotels, the local arena, and UMass medical center. Highway ramps all around us. I should probably take one, head out of Wormtown. I put on the interior lights instead. “Is the duffle bag there?”

Greg roots around the trunk. “The shotgun and the duffle are here.” He lifts the bag up, and it sounds like a pocketful of change. “There’s a ton of blood. Oh man, what the fuck?”

“Did Henry get hit?” Never did hear the end of the pawnshop story, what happened after the old man went over the counter, and then the three gunshots.

Mike says, “The old man got off a shot, some semiautomatic piece of shit, but I didn’t think he hit Henry. I was right next to him and he didn’t say nothing about getting hit.”

I don’t ask about the other shots I heard. I see now what I didn’t see before. I say, “All right. How did the tailgate get shut, then?”

“Huh?” Mike has his ski mask off. He rubs his shaved, bald head and the thick stubble around his goatee. His eyes closed, arms folded across his chest. Greg sits back down, holding his hands out. Showing off the wet paint. It’s red.

I say, “The tailgate. How’d it shut? While I was waiting for you guys, it was open. Like it was supposed to be. So I’m thinking I didn’t see what I thought I saw, right? Henry was hit, got in the trunk, but because of the blood loss he wasn’t strong enough to pull the tailgate closed behind him, and maybe I started moving before it was totally shut and he fell out onto the parking lot. But that doesn’t seem right. How’d the tailgate get shut? I mean, what, did Henry get up after he fell out and shut it for us, tap the back twice and wish us bon voyage?”