Drive

Chapter Twelve

Second and third runs with Irina’s husband went well. Driver’s gym bag on the closet floor under shoes and dirty clothes fattened.

Then the next run.

Everything started out fine. Ducks in a row, all on track, according to plan. Target was a low-end, homegrown shop offering check cashing and payroll advances. It hunkered down at one spare end of a Sixties strip mall, next to an abandoned theater with posters for dubbed science fiction movies and foreign-made crime thrillers featuring out-of-work American actors still under glass. To the other side sat a pawn shop so erratically open it didn’t even bother to post business hours. Its real business took place through the back door. Garlic, cumin, coriander and lemon from a falafel shop aromatized the region.

They’d gone in at nine, first opening. Metal shutters got pushed up then, doors unlocked. Only hired help about, workers getting minimum wage with no incentive to hold out or really give much of a shit, boss never around till ten or after. That time of day, even if there was an alarm, you could count on police being tapped out by rush-hour traffic.

Unfortunately, cops had the pawn shop staked out and one of them, terminally bored, happened to be looking at Check-R-Cash when Standard’s crew went in. He had a thing for the tall Latina who manned the front desk.

“Well, shit.”

“Wha’s wrong, she don’ love you no more?”

He told them. “So what do we do?” Not even close to what they’d been waiting for.

DeNoux being senior officer, it was his decision. He ran a hand through bristle-cut gray hair. “You guys as tired of this detail as I am?” he asked.

Tired of eating crap? Getting broiled all day in the van? Peeing in bottles? What’s to be tired of?

“I hear you. What the fuck. Let’s hit it.”

Driver watched as the commandos burst out the van’s back doors and charged Check-R-Cash. Knowing their attention was directed forward, he eased out from behind the Dumpster. Took him but moments out of the car, motor running, to slash the van’s tires. Then he pulled up at the front of the store. Gunfire inside. Three had gone in. Two emerged to slam into the back seat as he popped the clutch, floored it, and shot out across the parking lot. One of the two who’d come out was mortally wounded.

Neither of them was Standard.