The Killing Game. J. Kerley A.

      “You got ten seconds to get out the door,” I told the old man. “But all the hot dogs you can grab in that time are free.”

      The guy gave me two beats of are-you-for-real? then started jamming hot dogs in his pockets.

      “Hey,” the hooker whined. “How ’bout me?”

      “We’re having a special on malt liquor, ma’am. Two for the price of none.” I nodded toward the old guy. “But you gotta beat him out the door or the deal’s off.”

      She grabbed the forties and booked, the old guy in her wake, two hot dogs in his mouth like pink cigars, four in each hand, a box of buns beneath his arm. Before the door closed it was caught in the hand of a petite brunette in her thirties: brown cargo pants, pink blouse, white running shoes. She saw me watching, waved and smiled and headed toward the snack aisle. She’d exited the gray van but my glance hadn’t picked up any threat. There were a lot of gray vans on the road.

      “Check the customers,” the voice whispered. I did a head count. Exactly two people inside, me and the woman. The lot was empty. The woman came to the register with a bag of chips in one hand, flipping open a cheap cell with the other.

      “Be a buck-eighty-seven,” I said.

      She pressed a button on her phone and opened a brown leather purse. Though the woman had looked fine from afar, up close I saw hair days from a washing. Half-moons of grit under chewed fingernails. Pupils so dilated I couldn’t discern an eye color. I was moving my hand toward the weapon in the small of my back, beneath my uniform jacket, when I heard a shotgun rack behind me.

      “Move and you’re dead,” a male voice said.

      I froze as the woman across the counter pulled a black automatic from her purse. I knew the model: cheap Eastern-European manufacture with a trigger-pull so congenitally light it might fire if a mouse sneezed in the parking lot.

      “Open the register,” she said, pointing the weapon at my throat. “Now.”

      I nodded acquiescence and started tapping keys on the machine.

      “Hold on,” the voice behind me whispered. “Some asshole comin’ in the door.”

      I looked up and saw Ham Neck returning, straight-arming the door open. “You gave me the wrong goddamn cigarettes,” he snarled, waving the pack. “I told you menthol.”

      The woman slid her purse up to cover the pistol and stepped to the side. The guy at my back whispered, “Get the fucker gone or you’re dead.” The gunman slipped to the end of the counter and I grimaced. It was the guy in the dirty denim jacket I’d noticed not five minutes ago. He must have waited in the restroom until the woman’s cell-phone signal told him the store was empty of customers.

      My first job was getting the big buffoon out the door. I grabbed as many packs of smokes as I could hold, threw them Ham Neck’s way, one bouncing off his chin.

      “They’re free,” I said. “Compensation for my mistake. Sorry. Goodbye.”

      “You trying to be a wise-ass?”

      “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “My mistake. Please, take your smokes and go.”

      But Ham Neck was one of those guys who look for slights. He strode toward me, one hand in a fist, the other thrust out and showing me the finger.

      “Throw stuff at me? I oughta kick your goddamn—”

      The man at the end of the counter whipped up a sawed-off twelve-gauge and fired. It sounded like a cannon. Ham Neck’s finger and hand disappeared in a red mist. He fell to the floor screaming, arterial blood spurting from his stump. The woman pulled the Czech weapon for the kill-shot. I stepped between them.

      “I can open the safe,” I said, hands in the air. “There’s maybe three hundred bucks in the register. There’s at least six grand in the safe.”

      She looked to Shotgun Man and he must have assented. Her eyes were unhinged, one fixed on me, the other on some hellish inner vision.

      “Do it,” she said.

      I nodded down at the moaning Ham Neck. “I gotta fix his arm.”

      “I’ll kill you.”

      “It’ll cost you over six thousand dollars.”

      Her knuckles whitened on the gun, the chemicals in her head about to reach full boil.

      “I can cut the lights and close down,” I reasoned. “We’ll be alone.”

      Her eyes flicked to Shotgun Man. He thought about how many drugs six grand would buy and followed me to a panel behind the counter. I turned off every light outside and inside, leaving the glow from the coolers. Ham Neck was rolled in a ball and grunting as his stump painted the floor red. I could feel my gun against my back, but had two weapons trained on my head. No way to pull my piece.

      I yanked a bungee cord from a display and snapped a tourniquet around Ham Neck’s forearm. He was slipping into shock. Move them to the front, the voice in my head said. I spun and walked to the front door.

      “Stop right there.” The woman pointed the pistol at my forehead. It was shaking in her hand like a trapped bird.

      “I have to lock the door,” I said, pulling my car keys. “The safe won’t open unless the front door is locked. You ever hear of an entry-securified safe before?”

      The invention worked and she gestured me forward with the twitching muzzle of the nine.

      “Wait,” Shotgun Man said. “Someone’s outside.”

      A big square black guy in a Hawaiian shirt had parked beside the air pump and was kneeling by the front tire of a dark sedan. He looked unsteady and kept dropping the air hose.

      “Just some drunk putting air in his tires,” I said, slipping my truck key into the lock and jiggling. I moved my hand back like I’d locked the door. Then pulled it open. “It’s bent,” I said, making a big deal of wiggling the door. “Some old lady banged her car into the door last week.” I did the key-jiggle again. Opened the door.

      “GET IT DONE!” the woman screamed.

      I turned to Shotgun Man. “If we both pull from the inside I can slide the bolt.”

      He set the sawn-off on the counter and came to stand beside me. He smelled like an outhouse.

      Shotgun Man looked to the woman. “He makes one wrong move, blow out his brains.”

      “On the count of three,” I said. “Pull hard and I’ll set the lock.”

      Shotgun Man gripped the door handle. I slid my key into the lock and shot a glance at the drunk at the pump. He was leaning against his vehicle and scratching his belly, apparently exhausted by his labors.

      “One!” I said, loudly, taking a deep breath.

      “Two!”

      On three, I dove to the floor as glass exploded everywhere. Shotgun Man seemed to pirouette in slow motion, then hit the ground beside me. A half-beat later the woman’s body slammed the floor as well, half her skull gone. There was nothing to be done for either of them, but if there had been, I probably wouldn’t have done it.

      Two cop cruisers skidded into the lot. The black guy was standing beside the car with a gun in his hand, smoke drifting from the muzzle. He spoke into a small transceiver in his palm. “Looks like your clerking career is over, Carson,” the voice in my head said. “You OK?”

      I waved, pulled the tiny WiFi speaker from my ear, and ran to check on Ham Neck.

       Chapter 3

      The waitress brought Ema her breakfast