SuperFucked - The Wheelman

I HAVE A BOMB IN A PACKAGE IN ONE OF THE AISLES. GIVE me all your money—no dye packs, no alarms—or people will die. No sense fucking around with it, Lennon thought. This wasn’t an essay for a cash prize; this was a bank robbery demand note. He’d never written one before, but he surmised the most successful were direct and to the point.

The girl across the counter looked down at the note. She was pretty, in a geeky kind of way. Her brown hair was cut unflatteringly and she wore chunky glasses that her Goth friends probably thought were cool. But Lennon liked her look. He didn’t like that he was going to cause her some major grief this morning. This is why he enjoyed getaway driving: no personal interaction, no countermeasures, none of this at all.

She looked up at him questioningly. Are you serious?

Lennon froze his face, deadpan. Yes, I’m fucking serious. He let her see the toy beeper in his hand.

The girl nodded, then started to busy herself under the counter.

Lennon waited.

“We’re supposed to put a security packet in here,” she said, quietly. “But I’m not going to do that. I want you to know that, okay?”

Lennon nodded.

“It’s not much, either. Just a little over a thousand. But I’m not holding back.”

Lennon blinked at her. Come on, love.

“Just don’t hurt anybody, okay?”

Enough was enough already. He raised the toy beeper.

The girl slid him the money, tucked in a white plastic bag. She hadn’t asked if he’d wanted paper.

Lennon took the bag and walked toward the exit. There was a little boy trying to rattle a prize out of a small red machine in the aisle and a young couple pushing a cart full of bagged groceries. He stepped around them and through the automatic doors, which whooshed open at his approach. Through the vestibule, to the other set of doors.

Which refused to open.

As did the ones behind him, when he backed up. The young couple looked at him through the glass. What did you do?

Oh, fuck me, he thought.

Trapped.

Like a gerbil in a Habitrail.

At that moment, for the first time all weekend, Lennon was glad Bling had been killed. He wasn’t sure how he would have explained this to him.

A short while later, after the police had arrived and Lennon was in cuffs and ready to be led to the nearest squad car, the girl from the grocery store approached him. She looked at him through those clunky glasses like a curious schoolgirl at a science exhibit.

“Next time,” she said, “pick a toy beeper that doesn’t say Fisher-Price on the side.”

She didn’t actually say that. Lennon imagined her saying that. Because that’s how this story was going to end, when it was written up for the newspapers in a couple of hours. The bomb angle, the toy. Guaranteed coverage. And the early editions would wrap up a little after midnight, and sooner or later, a copy would wind up in that Italian bastard’s hands, and Katie would be killed.