Crime Box Guy - The Wheelman

WILL ISSENBERG WAS NEVER RENDERED COMPLETELY unconscious. Shock had put him into a slightly vegetative state. With the first blow to the head, everything took on a numb, dreamlike quality, which reminded him of the first time he smoked pot. His IQ instantly lowered at least twenty-five points. And then with the second blow, another twenty-five points.

But he never lost consciousness.

So he heard everything, felt everything, and tried to keep reminding himself: remember this stuff. This is going to be great for the crime box. Remember what was said, and how it was said. Who did what and when.

Who, what, when, where, why. The basics.

This was going to be great. Just stay awake, and keep recording.

The only problem was that, lying there on the carpet in the moments after the shooting, Will couldn’t remember one key detail:

Who fired first?

When the shooting started, Will’s eyes snapped open. Ostensibly, he saw the whole thing. But he couldn’t get the action straight in his head. In the moment, the sound of bullets and snicks and pops and shattering glass and nicks seemed to fill the lobby, immediately followed by screams and a lone, hollow moan. Who fired at whom? In what order? Who was struck first? When did the windows shatter?

Blasts.

Bullets.

Smoke.

Screams.

Guns.

You try to figure out what the hell happened.

The only solid facts Will could trust were the end results, which was all he ever had when compiling his crime boxes for the City Press. Fat lot of good it did being an on-the-scene reporter. Which is when Will decided that maybe he had been wrong all of these years. Maybe he didn’t love crime reporting so much. Maybe what he really liked were the end results, neatly compiled in the police logbooks, or in legal briefs. Those were solid, understandable, safe, distant. A writer could wrap his brain around things like that.

Live, on-the-scene reporting? That was bullshit. Schroedinger and his dead cat were right. You can’t observe something without changing it.

Or it changing you.

This is what Will Issenberg thought about as his lungs collapsed, and he started to lose consciousness for real.