False Memory

“I pulled it out of your buddy’s ass. Now shut up?’

Going out of the driver’s side, she’d have to turn her back on one of them, at some point. No good.

So then ease backward out of the passenger’s side. Make Zachary slide across the seat with her, keeping the gun in his belly, looking past him to Kevin in the front.

With the windshield wipers off, the snow began to spread a thin coverlet on the glass. The motion of the descending flakes made her dizzy.

Don’t look outside.

Shemet Zachary’s eyes.

He recognized her irresolution.

She almost looked away, realized that would be dangerous, and jammed the muzzle of the Colt even deeper into his gut, until he broke eye contact.

“Maybe it’s not a real gun,” Kevin said. “Maybe it’s plastic.”

“It’s real,” Zachary was quick to inform him.

Feeling her way backward, out of the car, would be tricky. Could hook her foot on the door sill or hook up on the door itself. Could fall.

“You’re just damn housepainters,” Kevin said.

“I’m a video-game designer.”

“What?”

“My husband’s the housepainter.”

And after she was out, when Zachary followed her, he would for a moment fill the open door, her gun in his belly, and Kevin would be blocked from her sight.

The only smart thing to do was shoot them while she had a clear advantage. Smilin’ Bob hadn’t told her what to do when intelligence and morality collided head-on.

“I don’t think the lady knows what’s next,” Zachary told his partner.

“Maybe we got a stalemate here,” Kevin said.

Action. If they thought she was incapable of ruthless action, then they would act.

Think. Think.

68

A winter scene frozen in a liquid-filled glass globe: the soft and rounded lines of ancient Indian ruins, silvered sage, a midnight-blue BMW, two men and one woman therein, another man unseen in the trunk — two dumpers and two dumpees — and nothing moving, everyone and everything as still as the empty universe before the Big Bang, except for the snow, a windless blizzard, which falls and falls as though a giant’s hand just shook the globe, an arctic winter’s worth of fine white snow.

“Zachary,” Martie finally said, “without turning away from me, using your left hand, open your door. Kevin, you keep your hands on the headrest.”

Zachary tried the door. “Locked.”

“Unlock it,” she said.

“Can’t. It’s the childproof master lock. He has to do it up front.”

“Where’s the lock release, Kevin?” Martie asked.

“On the console.”

If she allowed him to operate the lock release, his hand would be within inches of the machine pistol that was no doubt lying on the passenger's seat.

“Keep your hands on the headrest, Kevin.”

“What kind of video games you design?” Kevin asked, trying to distract her.

Ignoring him, Martie said, “You have a pocket knife, Zachary?”

“Pocket knife? No.”

“Too bad. If you so much as twitch, you’ll need a knife to dig two hollow points out of your intestines, because you’ll never live long enough to get to a hospital where a real doctor could do it”

As she slid backward across the seat, to a point at which she would be midway between the front headrests, Martie kept the pistol trained on the redhead, although the weapon would have been more intimidating if she could have continued to press the muzzle hard into his abdomen.

“In case you’re wondering,” she said, “this piece isn’t double-action. Single-action. No ten-pound pull. Four and half pounds, crisp and easy, so the barrel won’t wobble. Shots aren’t going to go wide or wild.”

She couldn’t see well enough into the front while sitting in the back, so she eased forward, rising off the seat, legs bent in a half squat, feet splayed and braced, twisted toward Zachary but her right shoulder against the back of the front seat, with a cross-body grip on the pistol. Awkward. Stupidly, dangerously awkward, but she couldn’t figure any other way to keep the weapon trained on Zachary and be able to watch Kevin's hand as he lowered it to the console.

She didn’t dare reach into the front seat herself. She would be unbalanced, completely distracted from Zachary.

Two angry Orcs and one Hobbit locked in a car. What are the chances that all three get out alive? Poor.

Either the Hobbit wins and moves on to the next level of play, or the game ends.

To peer into the front seat, she’d have to turn her head away from Zachary, leaving him visible only in her peripheral vision. “One sound of movement, one glimpse out of the corner of my eye, and you’re dead.”

“If you were me, I’d already be dead,” Zachary noted.

“Yeah, well, I’m not you, shithead. If you’re smart, you’ll sit tight and thank God you have a chance of coming out alive.”

Heart beating so hard it felt like it was tearing loose. That was okay. More blood to the brain. Clearer thinking.

She turned her head and leaned to look into the front seat.

As she expected, Kevin’s machine pistol was on the passenger’s seat, within his easy reach. Big magazine. Thirty rounds.