The Blackbird

One

Grofield jumped out of the Ford with a gun in one hand and the empty satchel in the other. Parker was out and running too, and Laufman stayed hunched over the wheel, his foot tapping the accelerator.

The armored car lay on its side in a snowbank, its wheels turning like a dog chasing rabbits in its sleep. The mine had hit it just right, flipping it over without blowing it apart. There was a sharp metallic smell all around, and the echo of the explosion seemed to twang in the cold air, richocheting from the telephone wires up above. Cold winter afternoon sunlight made all the shadows sharp and black.

Grofield ran to the front of the armored car, running around the big old-fashioned grill, sideways now at chest level. Through the bulletproof windshield he could see the uniformed driver in there, turned every which way but conscious and moving around, getting a phone receiver out from under the dashboard.

The day was cold, but Grofield’s face was sleek with perspiration. He raised a hand to his mouth and was surprised when he touched cloth, forgetting for just a second the mask he was wearing. The hand he’d raised was the one with the gun in it, and that surprised him too. He felt disoriented, weightless, invisible, an actor who’s walked through a door onto the wrong set.

In a way that was true. He was an actor, a legitimate stage actor, at some times, but that was no way to earn a living. He earned it this way, with a gun in his hand and a mask on his face.

So it was time to get back into the right part. After the smallest of hesitations he moved forward again, heading for the driver’s compartment. Inside there, the driver was talking quickly into his phone, watching Grofield with nervous eyes.

Both doors were intact. The explosion should have sprung at least one of them, but it hadn’t. There was no way to get in at the driver.

Grofield heard the second explosion, short and flat and unimpressive, and the armored car jerked like a wounded horse. That would have been Parker, blowing the back door.

Grofield gave up on the driver and hurried to the rear of the armored car, where the door was now hanging open at a weird angle. There was nothing but blackness inside.

Grofield said, “He’s on his phone in there and I can’t get at him.”

Parker nodded. There were no sirens yet. They were in the middle of a large city, but it was the most isolated spot on this armored car’s route, a straight and little-traveled road across mostly undeveloped flats from one built-up section to another. At this point the road was flanked by high wooden fences set back on both sides, the gray fence on the left being around the ballpark and the green one on the right being around an amusement park. Both of them were closed at this time of year, and there were no private homes or open businesses within sight.

Parker rapped his gun against the metal of the armored car. “Come out easy,” he called. “We don’t want anybody dead, all we want is money.” When there was no response he called, “Make us do it the hard way, we’ll drop a grenade in there with you.”

A voice called from inside, “My partner’s unconscious.”

“Drag him out here.”

There was a shuffling sound from inside, as though they’d uncovered a mouse nest. Grofield waited awkwardly, his role calling for nothing from him right now. Movement he could handle, but waiting and wounded people were problems. They didn’t exist onstage.

The blue-coated guard backed out, finally, bent over, pulling his partner by the armpits. The partner had a bloody nose.

As soon as they were out, Grofield handed the empty satchel to Parker, who ducked and went inside. Grofield showed the gun in his hand to the conscious guard, who looked at it with sullenness and respect.

The other one was lying on his back in the snow, dark red blood trickling across his cheeks, and the conscious one stood over him with worried looks, not knowing what to do about him. Grofield said, “Put some snow on the back of his neck. You want to make sure he doesn’t strangle on his blood.”

The guard nodded. He went to his knees beside the unconscious man, rolled him onto his side, held a handful of snow to the back of his neck.

A siren, far away. Grofield and the guard both raised their heads, like deer scenting a hunter. Grofield glanced back at the Ford, and Laufman was staring this way, his face round and nervous. Exhaust was coming out of the Ford in white puffs like smoke signals, because Laufman’s foot was jittering on the accelerator.

Grofield looked back at the guard, who was still kneeling there pressing snow to the other man’s neck. Their eyes met, and then Parker came back out of the armored car, carrying the satchel, now obviously full. The siren was still far away, it didn’t seem to get any closer, but that didn’t mean anything.

Parker nodded to Grofield, and the two of them ran back to the Ford. They clambered in, Grofield in front next to Laufman, Parker in back with the satchel, and Laufman stood on the accelerator. Wheels spun on ice and the Ford slued its rear end leftward. Grofield braced his hands against the dashboard, grimacing with strain.

“Easy!” Parker shouted from the back seat. “Take it easy, Laufman!”

Laufman finally eased off on the accelerator enough so the wheels could grab, and then they started moving, the Ford lunging down the road. It was like hurrying down the middle of a snowy football field with a high gray fence on the left sideline and a high green fence on the right and the goalposts way the hell around the curve of the Earth somewhere.

Far away ahead of them they saw the dot of flashing red light. Laufman yelled, “I’ll have to take the other route!” Grofield, glancing over at him, saw Laufman’s face white and wide-eyed with panic. His fists seemed welded to the steering wheel.

“Do it, then!” Parker told him. “Don’t talk about it.”

They’d worked out three ways to leave here, depending on circumstances. The one behind them they’d ignored, the one ahead was no good any more. For the third one, they should take the right at the end of the green fence, go almost all the way around the amusement park and wind up in a neighborhood of tenements and vacant lots where they had three potential places laid out to ditch the Ford.

They had plenty of time. The end of the fence was just ahead, and the flashing red light was still a mile or more away. But Laufman was still standing on the accelerator. They had known Laufman was a second-rate driver, but he was the best they could find for this job and he did know the city. But he was coming too fast at the intersection, way too fast.

Grofield was still braced against the dashboard, panic flickering now in the back of his mind. “Laufman!” he shouted. “Slow down! You won’t make the turn!”

“I know how to drive!” Laufman screamed, and spun the wheel without any deceleration at all. The side road shot by on an angle, the car bucked, it dug its left shoulder into the pavement and started to roll.

Grofield’s hands could no longer push the dashboard away. The world outside the windshield was going topsy-turvy, flashes of white ground and white sky, a gray chain-link fence rushing closer, the windshield rushing closer, and Grofield opened his mouth to say no but all the white turned black before he had a chance to say it.