Fifty Grand

“This is crazy. You don’t… Have you any idea what you’ve got yourself into? Do you know who you’re dealing with? Ok, I’m no goddamn Cruise but let me tell you something, I’ll be missed. They’ll come looking for me. Are you listening? Take that thing off your head. I don’t know what they told you. I don’t know what you think you’re doing but you’re making a big mistake, pal. Big mistake. Biggest mistake of your whole life. That’s it, isn’t it? You don’t know who I am, this is just a job to you, isn’t it? Isn’t it? Well, let me hit you with the truth, bud, you’re making a life-changing error.”

His confidence is starting to return. It didn’t take long. His default position is the black rider, the boss, the center of the Ptolemaic universe. I prefer that.

“This has gone on too far. Way too far for a practical joke. Right now you’re doing permanent damage to the soles of my feet. I’ll see you in court for this.”

He still doesn’t get it. He still doesn’t see why we’re here.

“Listen to me, pal, you have no idea what you’re mixed up in. You don’t. Name a sum of money. Go on, just name it. A hundred thousand dollars? Two hundred thousand dollars? How about a cool half mil? Half a mil. Easy money. Easy money. Come on, buddy. You and me. We’ll pull one over on ’em. We’ll show them. Come on, whaddya say? I’m a grifter, you’re a grifter. Come on, man, you can see the angles, we’ll play ’em together.”

Oh, companero, is everything about you fake? A performance? Where did you learn to talk like that? The movies? TV? Isn’t there anything real under that sheath of skin?

I slide the breech back on the M &P and it makes a satisfying clunk.

He continues shuffling, but only for a few paces.

“Come on, man,” he says, and turns, and he’s so fast I don’t even see the drop kick coming.

He jumps with both feet and crashes into my stomach.

The wind is knocked out of me and the gun goes flying. Both of us go down onto the ice with a crash. He falls on me, his thighs crunching against my ribs.

Water and a big fissure forming under my back.

He pivots on top of me, and although his hands are still cuffed he’s trying to bite my face.

His teeth snag on the ski mask at my chin, his breath reeking of booze and fear.

I make a fist and thump him so hard the first blow probably breaks his nose. The next gets him in his left eye, and the sideways kick to the crotch is the clincher. He doubles up in agony and I push the writhing mass of naked flesh away from me.

I get to my feet, retrieve the gun, suck O₂.

I look nervously at the crack under my feet. I stand there for a few beats but it doesn’t widen.

“Jesus,” he says.

Jesus is right. That was really something.

We both could easily have gone right through the surface. The hammer in my backpack would have taken me down to the lake bottom and if the shock hadn’t sent me into cardiac arrest, the current would probably have taken me away from the crack and up under unbroken ice. And if I hadn’t been able to break through I would have drowned. Shit, even if I’d gotten through somehow, I’d have been too exhausted to get out of the water. I’d have frozen to death in about half an hour. Mary, Mother of God, that would have been too perfect. It almost would have been worth it, just for that. What a wonderful, circular, karmic joke on me.

Yes.

I underestimated you, friend. And if I was a better person I’d let you go.

More deep breaths, hard, until I feel that I’m balanced again, poised between fight and flight.

Behind me the startled ravens stop squawking and resume their perches.

He is gasping for air, blood bubbling in his mouth.

After all the excitement we’ll both need another minute. He returns my gaze and, observing the gun, backs away crabwise, trying to make it to the shore. Painful to watch: hands resisting the desiccated ice, heels dragging.

Squeak, squeak, squeak. Clouds. Snowflakes. Squeak, squeak, squeak.

I walk to him.

“No,” he says.

His ass sticks to the ice. He rips it free and the crab walk recommences. It’s so pathetic I’m starting to feel bad. I point the gun at his stomach.

“No,” he repeats in a whisper.

Nooo. His breath a ghost that vanishes like all ghosts. Desperation in those red, coke crash eyes. I go behind him and lug him to his feet. Ice-burned skin. Human skin.

Sickening, but not much farther now.

“Listen to me, buddy, I can make you rich. I can get you money. A lot of money. Millions. Do you understand? Millions of dollars. Goddammit! Why don’t you understand, what’s the matter with you? Millions of dollars? Do you speak English? Do you understand the goddamn English language?”

I do. It was my major.

“I hope you understand me, because you’re making a mistake. A life-altering-I have men, they’ll find me, and when they do I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes.”

Better my shoes than no shoes.

“You just don’t know who you’re dealing with. You have no idea.”

What next? You’re connected? You’re high up in the mob? Your movements are tracked by drones piloted by the CIA?

Just a few more steps: one, two, three, four.

There, we’re about thirty meters out now, which is far enough.

I give him the universal “stop” sign and signal him to lie down.

He shakes his head. I place the barrel of the gun against his heart.

Still he doesn’t obey.

I walk behind him and kick him in the left calf. His knees buckle and I push his head down, shoving his face against the ice. His body goes limp. Bracing himself.

I put the 9mm in my pocket, remove the handcuff key, unlock one wrist, and quickly get out of his way. I grab the gun again and wait. For a moment he doesn’t believe that I’ve unlocked him, but then when he sees that he’s completely free he gets to his feet and begins rubbing the circulation back into his wrists.

Keeping the gun on him I place the backpack in front of me and unzip the central pocket. I take out the sledgehammer and slide it to him over the ice.

He looks with astonishment at the vicious maple-handled, steel-headed five-kilo sledgehammer.

“What’s this for?” he asks.

I point at the ice.

His face shows incomprehension, but then he gets it. “You want me to make a hole in the ice?”

I nod.

He picks up the hammer.

As I knew it would, my heart starts to race. This is by far the riskiest part of the whole plan. Now, if he tries his trick, I’m dead.

Maybe we’ll get that sweet karmic ending after all.

He’s got a fantastic weapon, he’s strong, he’s angry, he’s free.

He holds all the cards but one.

Information.

He doesn’t know that the gun is empty.

He stares at my masked face for a moment, smiles unnervingly, and tightens his grip on the maple.

He looks like Pitt at the party, like Thor at Ragnarok-the hammer, the ice, the bloody face, the blond locks.

I raise the Smith & Wesson and hold it in both hands. I sight him with the utterly useless gun.

“And what if I don’t?” he says.

I nod as if to say, Try it.

“This is totally insane,” he mutters. He shakes his head in disgust. “What kind of a man are you?”

No kind of a man.