a slow walk, but in reality he was moving more quickly with each step, leaving the woman to hurry behind him. He paused at the door of the store. They would enter together. They needed to appear to be just a shopping couple to those in the store. He opened the glass door and was greeted by a burst of cool air crashing against the outside heat, the bright fluorescent light glowing white on the rows of shelves.
Joe Rios was working his way down the aisles, moving the big dust mop from side to side to pick up the detritus of the day’s business. Ray Schletewitz, the owner, and his wife, Fran, had gone home earlier. Doug White, an eighteen-year old junior college student, was working in the back and “Phina,” Josephine Rocha, a senior in high school, was working near the front counter. Joe wanted to get home, but he had to clean up and then help Bryon, the owner’s son, lock up. When the man and woman walked in, Joe looked up. They were both wearing windbreakers and bandannas, but that fact wasn’t what caught his attention. He had seen them the night before. He hadn’t forgotten the man’s face; it still gave him shivers, but he shrugged it off. When Joe first saw him he noticed the man’s arms, first with envy, and then with a sharp coldness in his stomach which he couldn’t understand. The corded veins and the narrow waist were those of a man who had spent a lot of time pumping iron, a man who held his body like sculptured intimidation. On this night, Joe realized something else—he was thinking that the man looked like he had been in prison or, at least, what Joe thought somebody would look like if he had been in prison, although maybe his reaction was a result of the rough tattoos he had spotted on the man the previous night. The woman was shorter than the man, dark-haired, with an almost pretty face, but one that was hard-edged, like she had seen the underside of life. Her windbreaker hid the slightly full-figure that he remembered from the previous evening. He had felt relief when the couple left the night before and the store had been locked up, but now they were back. Joe looked over his shoulder toward Bryon, who was distracted, performing his closing chores.
The woman looked at Joe. “You got chuck steak? You know, for shish-ka-bob? We want a roast so we can make that.” Rios looked at her blankly. He was no expert, but shish-ka-bob was usually made with lamb. Maybe they just wanted to make some kind of skewered beef, he thought. He called to the back of the store where Bryon was standing behind the meat counter, talking to the only other customer. “Hey, these people want a chuck roast to make shish-ka-bob.”
Twenty-seven-year-old Bryon Schletewitz, used to customers who had to make the most of their money, looked at the couple, just as the other customer left the store. “That’s a tough piece of meat. You’re going to have to marinate it to make it work.” Bryon flipped on the meat counter lights so the people could see the meat.
The woman hesitated. “That’s okay. It’s for this Sunday, for a birthday party.” She looked over at the man next to her, who merely nodded.
Rios shook his head. “Take the top sirloin. It’s $3.98 a pound. It’ll work better.”
The man stared at Joe for a moment, his eyes hard and flat. Then he looked back at the woman. “I don’t know, babe. Maybe we should get the better meat?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to pay that much. Give me the chuck roast.”
Rios shrugged, moved behind the counter, and began cutting up the thick roast. Bryon looked on as Joe cut the meat. He directed his comments to the couple. “You marinate it and it will probably be okay, probably come out tender.”
The woman looked at Bryon and then back at Joe. “Oh, yeah, and I want a chicken.” Rios nodded as he wrapped the meat. He heard the couple talking about other things they wanted to get. It seemed to be idle conversation. As soon as they were done, he could lock up and go home. He wrapped the whole chicken and set both packages on the top of the counter. “Here you are.”
She turned around and looked at Joe. “Oh, I wanted a chicken too.”
Joe put his hand on the wrapped chicken. “It’s here.” The woman looked distracted, a little confused. Joe tilted his head to one side and stared at her, wondering if she was loaded on drugs.
The woman shook her head as if she wasn’t sure what she had been thinking. She stared at Joe for a moment. “Oh, yeah. I wanted some paper towels, too.”
Joe pointed toward the paper products. He watched the two of them walk down the aisle, but he could see that the woman’s purse seemed empty. He looked around for Bryon and Doug, thinking maybe they’re trying to steal stuff. He could hear her saying the same thing over and over about the party. She’s on something. The man kept pointing at different things, saying, “Let’s get this, babe.” Joe could hear the strange inflection to the man’s voice, different than he had heard before, like a white man with a Mexican accent. It didn’t fit, and it had a harsh edge to it, like someone who was used to talking to rough people.
The man said to the woman, “Let’s get this. Just hurry up, grab some things. These people, they want to go already and it’s a quarter after eight.” He looked over his shoulder toward Joe. “I thought you closed at nine.”
Joe shook his head. “No, eight. But we’ll wait.” The man nodded. Joe walked back to the dust mop and started pushing the dirt toward the back of the store where the stockroom door led to the side parking lot and the garbage bins. Doug, the tall, husky young man he worked with, was in the back stocking shelves near the walk-in cooler. Joe signaled to Doug to catch his attention. “That guy out front? Maybe I’m crazy, but he looks like he just came out of prison.”
Doug nodded, keeping his voice low. “Yeah, and that girl? She must be on drugs or something. I saw her grab for something, and she looked like she was freaking out.”
Joe pushed the dirt over toward the side door. “I know. I’m telling you, Doug, that guy just looks like he’s done time.” He walked over to the dustpan and reached down to fetch it.
“ALL RIGHT MOTHERFUCKERS, DOWN ON THE FLOOR.”
Joe stopped abruptly as his eyes caught the expression on Doug’s face. The man’s voice grated against the shelves and walls of the small stock area. The harsh, clipped sound carried the snapping menace of a whip. Doug froze, staring at the open door from the stockroom into the store. Joe turned his head. The man in the bandanna and windbreaker was holding a short-barreled shotgun and standing behind Bryon and Josephine as he herded them into the stockroom. The woman was to his right, holding a silver pistol. She was looking around, her arms moving back and forth. The man stared straight ahead. There was nothing in his eyes except blackness. Joe looked at the gaping hole in the end of the shotgun; the rough-sawn end of the barrel glinted as the man slowly swung it across the space of the store room.
The man waited while Joe, Josephine, Doug, and Bryon got down on their knees. He pointed the shotgun at Doug. “You, big guy, open the freezer. Open the fucking safe.”
Doug looked at the gun pointed at him. “What are you talking about?”
“OPEN THE FREEZER.”
Douglas White got up from his knees and walked over to the walk-in cooler. He turned toward the man, who gestured with the shotgun for Doug to go in. As Doug walked in, a look of confusion clouded his face. The man followed and looked over his shoulder. “Where’s the safe?”
Joe barely moved, his eyes focused on the black barrel pointed at Doug. The silver pistol in the hands of the woman glinted in his peripheral vision. There’s no safe in there. What’s he talking about? Joe could see Josephine next to him, her big blue-gray eyes glistening, but she was quiet. He wanted to tell her everything would be all right. Maybe if we just do what they say. Ray had always said nothing in the store
