Unlucky 13

Chapter 19

Mackie Morales walked quickly along West Washington Street in the Loop, Chicago’s central business district. It was a Monday morning, and pathetic office workers were marching into ugly gray office buildings. Cars and taxis sped past like they were actually going somewhere. The streets were gray, the people were gray, and the very atmosphere was gray.

It was a day when coats and hoods were everywhere and, therefore, unremarkable.

Mackie had been born in a hospital only a short jog from here. She knew every street in this city—every alley and every building and where it fit into the cityscape. She didn’t even have to look up as she crossed LaSalle and continued on toward the bank in the middle of the next block.

Randy began speaking to her from inside her head, where he was forever safe. He was saying she should put up her hood to foil the security cameras and to slow her pace.

Hug the shadows, sweetheart. Be a shadow. You know?

“Gotcha, lover.”

Sometimes she could see his face. That was the best, but even when she couldn’t see him, he was with her. Talking to her. Keeping her company. Watching her back.

Bury yourself in pedestrians.

“I wasn’t born yesterday, baby.”

He laughed and she smiled, pulled up her hood, and jammed her hands deep in the pockets of her gray three-quarter-length waterproof coat. Her right hand fitted the grip of her Ruger quite naturally.

Mackie saw her reflection in the windows of the shops she passed: the boutique with silly girly clothes on display, and the AT&T store, murky inside with a crowd of customers; then the dark glass of the bus shelter, where four people clustered together, staring out at the street.

Now she was at the entrance to the Citibank branch, her destination. She walked through the open doors as two women were coming out, passing between her and the armed security guard. The guard was in his twenties, out of shape, and carrying a lot of excess gear in the heavy leather belt around his waist.

He didn’t seem to notice her.

Still moving forward, Mackie passed the ATMs on her left and, keeping her head down, entered the main part of the bank. It was warm inside and lit with bluish light from the overhead fixtures, making the space evenly bright. No shadows here at all.

Randy was humming a lilting, wordless tune in her mind. He did that sometimes, and she found the melody sweet and comforting.

She looked around the bank, assessing the customers and the bank employees, sweeping her gaze across the circular customer-service station to her right, where a large customer rep with purple bangs and her middle-aged paunchy colleague attempted to calm an irate man with a big battered briefcase.

Directly ahead, to the back of the bank, were the teller windows. A line of three customers waited to conduct their transactions, and Mackie joined the queue.

The woman in front of her was maybe twenty-five, wearing a full-length yellow raincoat. She had a heavy handbag over her shoulder and black rubber boots. She was reading something on her tablet and seemed lost in it.

Mackie figured it would take about four minutes to get to one of the three tellers, and Randy agreed, suggesting that Mackie use the time to read their body language.

Mackie observed the nearest teller, a gray-haired white woman in a blue silk blouse, speaking in brief rehearsed sentences to her customer. Next to her, a white male teller was counting out money, paying close attention to the count, then counting again.

The teller to his right was a black woman, pretty, wearing a tight floral-print blouse and a gold chain around her neck. She was laughing at something the customer had said.

Mackie thought the old woman would probably take directions best.

The line advanced and then the black teller flipped on the light at her station to show that her window was open. She looked at the woman in the yellow slicker standing in front of Mackie and said, “Miss? You’re next.”

Mackie walked right up to the woman in yellow, close enough to see the chipped red polish on her fingernails. Mackie said, “Gee, I think you dropped this.”

The woman turned her head and looked at Mackie, who had taken her Ruger out of her pocket and now pressed it hard into the woman’s side.

She didn’t need Randy to feed her her lines.

“This is a gun,” Mackie said quietly. “You want to live? Do exactly as I say.”