Chapter 3

BACKSTORY, continued

He almost didn't let them make the calls.

But he was a sensitive man. A decent individual. He believed in honesty, and a certain amount of compassion. That's why he never let them believe, even for a moment, that there was a chance in hell of surviving this.

He also prided himself on being flexible. Thinking on his feet. Once the cops showed up and made preliminary contact, and he had laughed and hung up to show them who was in charge, it became obvious that they all had some time to kill. He began to think out loud. "Elvis. Go through the store and see what you can find for disguises."

"But they done already seen us, Sandy," Elvis protested. "You said we could kill 'em."

Luckily, Sandy was also a patient man, a characteristic that had served him well the entire time he had been Elvis' cellmate. "I know, El, but the cops don't know who we are. We're gonna use these people to get some more money, and transportation to Mexico. When we leave the store, we don't want the cops to make us."

Elvis might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but he knew when someone was being patronizing. He mumbled something unintelligible and began to back out of the walk-in cooler.

"Stay down and away from the windows," Sandy reminded him, and regarded the kneeling motley crew before him. "You know what I always think is so sad when I read about things like this in the newspapers?" He spoke to them conversationally. "The idea that folks never saw it coming, never got to say good-bye to anyone." He made a decision. "You got cell phones, you can each make one call. Hell, they even give you that much in jail. I'll give you each two minutes for a sayonara song."

Sandy was also an educated man. They should know that.

His instructions continued. "First, empty out all your cash. No use wasting it. Just make a pile in the middle, there."

Sandy watched the shaking hands bump as they followed his order, and he saw the young boy withdraw a crumpled dollar bill and two quarters from his jeans. He added it to the small pile without protest. The gesture touched Sandy. "Boy," he said gruffly. "You go on and take that back, for now. That's yours." The child looked briefly at his mother, who shrugged and nodded, then pocketed his money again, careful to take only the same dollar he had placed in the pile.

When they were done, Sandy let them call. "One at a time," he said, "Two minutes. You first, gramps."

The elderly man looked at the younger one kneeling beside him and spoke quietly. "I don't have a cell phone," he apologized, and his curly-haired neighbor quickly offered his. The old man stared at it. "I'm sorry," he apologized again, in a near-whisper. "I don't know how…"

"Do you know the number?" his neighbor asked gently. "I'll dial for you."

"It's long distance. My daughter lives in Washington."

Sandy was a compassionate man, a patient man, but he had his limits. "Skip gramps," he ordered. "You people think we've got all night?"

He was surprised when the younger man turned his dark head to look him square in the face. "Let him have his call," he said, in a voice that shook, but had a core of steel that set off Sandy's radar. "You promised." Not waiting for an answer, he turned back to the older man. "Long distance is okay. Tell me the number."

Sandy silently watched as the younger man dialed, pushed "send" and gave the phone to the old man. He kept watching the young one, even while the other one left a message on his daughter's answering machine. Sandy had a gnawing about this one. He'd have to keep a close eye on him.

Before the two minutes were up, the old man handed the phone back.

"Go on, hot shot. Your turn."

He almost knocked the guy into next week when he mentioned the robbery, but even as he took a step closer to do it, he figured out that it didn't matter. Cops were already there. This might even work in his favor. Tomorrow, when they wrote about it in the papers, they would write about his decency, and compassion.

Elvis came back then, arms full of stocking caps, sunglasses, and paper bags from behind the counter. "Hey, I got a great idea. When we leave we'll be in the middle, surrounded by these guys, and we'll wear the bags, all of us, so they won't know who anybody is… What the hell?" He dropped his armload of goods and descended on the gallon-of-milk dude, snatched away the cell phone and used it to backhand him across the face. The man cringed away from him and he drew back his hand to hit him again, but Sandy grabbed it.

"Leave him alone. I said they could do it."

Elvis stared at him incredulously. "You what? Have you lost your mind?"

"El, the cops are already here. We're killing these people before morning. We can give them this." Sandy saw that Elvis wasn't convinced. "Listen, that's a real smart idea about the bags. Why don't you go back out and find a good lookout. See if you can find the lights." He grinned at Elvis, trying to get him to relax a little. "Hell, we've got ammo, Why don't you shoot 'em out? That oughta be good for a little cop freak-out." Elvis stared at him and shook his head a little before he, too, broke into a smile, and went back into the store.

"Okay, kid. Go ahead." Sandy figured the sound of Elvis shooting out the flourescent lights in the main store, although muffled by the thick walls of the cooler, still made impressive sound effects during the teenagers' calls. The two kids surprised him a little. First the boy called his mother, started crying like a baby and basically couldn't say anything that made sense. Wasted his whole call. Then the girl called her pastor. Her pastor. Not her mom, or dad, or even grandma. That was pretty unexpected, and it made Sandy a little nervous. If he had believed in God, it would have bothered him a lot more, he figured. Finally, the mother and son shared their call, and he let them go about three minutes, while they each talked to Dad. He would have let them have the whole four, but they were starting to repeat things as it was, so he stepped up and took the phone after three.

He poked the teenage boy in the back with the cell phone. Kid must've thought it was the gun, because he lit off crying again. "Geez, get a grip, dude. Your girl is here. I just want your phones, now."

He put the three phones he had collected on a shelf full of lunch meat, remembered that Elvis had the other one. He looked at the man Elvis had hit. He was kneeling silently in his place, maybe listing a little into the old man. There was a cut on his cheek, in the center of a rapidly forming bruise, but it wasn't even bleeding that much. Guy should be glad El hadn't thought to use his gun.