Battleship

warned.

Hopper quickly headed out, his total focus on his quest burning away some of the haze that had settled in his brain. As he passed Stone he said hurriedly, by way of explanation, “Girl’s hungry.”

His brother moaned when he heard that, shaking his head. “It’s like a factory fire. You know you’re witnessing a disaster, but you can’t look away.”

Hopper wasn’t listening. Instead his mind was racing and his body was hurrying to catch up.

The fortunate thing was that Hopper knew the area very well. He’d hung out around there enough that at this point he could be leaning against a lamppost, going nowhere and doing nothing. If the cops should happen to cruise past—instead of rousting him and telling him to move along—they’d wave, greet him by name and keep going.

Best of all, he knew that there was a convenience store less than thirty seconds away. He would be able to beat the two-minute deadline with time to spare.

He sprinted out the back of the hotel, across the block, toward the convenience store. But as he approached, he was dismayed to see the proprietor, an Asian woman of indeterminate age—somewhere between forty and a hundred and forty, as near as he could tell—was pulling a rattling gate across the door. There was a heavy padlock on it. Before she could reach for it, he ran up to her. The world was spinning around him as he tried to shake away the buzzing in his head. “Excuse me, ma’am…”

“Closed,” she said brusquely. She reached for the padlock.

“No, wait!” He gestured toward the padlock desperately, trying his best to sound charming… or at least as charming as he could considering he was fighting to remain conscious. “Don’t lock it. You’re not closed until you lock it.”

This seemed to him to be irrefutable logic. Unfortunately she managed to refute it through the simple means of snapping the padlock shut. “Closed.”

“Yeah, yeah, but this is important. I need a chicken burrito.”

“No chicken burrito.” The woman couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, and yet she loomed like a colossus in the path of true happiness.

“Yes, chicken burrito. I see them right there.” He pointed toward the darkened window.

“Chicken burrito, 9 a.m.”

There seemed to be no arguing with her. Yet that didn’t deter him from doing so all the same. “That sign in there says chicken burrito, $2.99. I’ll give you…” He shoved his hands into his pockets and yanked out the first bill he found. It was a ten, all wadded up, and he smoothed it as best he could. “Ten dollars if you let me in.”

She maintained her indifferent attitude. “Closed. Go away.”

“Twenty.” He was pulling more money out of his pockets, trying to figure out how much he had on him. All the bills were crumpled. It was like carrying an assortment of spitballs in his pockets. He pulled them apart frantically.

The Asian woman started moving toward her car, an ancient Toyota with rust spots on the roof. Hopper paced her, counting the money he had on him, hoping that it would be enough.

“Fifty. Fifty dollars for a chicken burrito.” He waved the money in her face. “That’s my spending money for the month and I’m going to give it to you.” He tried desperately to drive home the importance of his offering, not even mentioning that—for crying out loud—it was nearly twenty times the cost of the damned burrito. She managed a store. Her whole thing was about making money. With this kind of offer in front of her, there was simply no way that she would walk away from it.

She walked away.

He ran around her, interposing himself between her and the car. This finally stopped her and she glared fiercely up at him.

“Ma’am. Ma’am, please.” He spoke rapidly, the subsequent words tumbling over each other, and he had to fight not to slur them. “If it was for me, I’d go away. But it’s not. There’s this girl over there,” and he pointed in the general direction of the hotel. “She’s incredible.” Establish human contact. The way that waiters do right before they bring the bill, in order to get a bigger tip. Touch her. But not in a threatening way; do it in a socially acceptable way. He put a hand on her arm. “You don’t understand. She’s my future. And she’s hungry.” His voice was throbbing with emotion. “My future depends on a chicken burrito.”

Apparently he would have made a lousy waiter, because the woman lifted the small can of Mace dangling from her key chain and assumed a vicious karate stance. “Your future’s gonna be pepper spray.”

Immediately he removed his hand from her arm. Brushing him aside, she climbed into her car. He made no move to stop her because he had finally admitted to himself that this wasn’t going to get him anywhere. It was time for Plan B, and the first part of Plan B was having this obstructionist store manager get out of here as quickly as possible. In this action, at least, she accommodated him, because apparently she couldn’t wait to get away from him. The Toyota peeled out with a screeching of tires.

Time was ticking down for Hopper. He’d already wasted a minute pleading with the useless store manager. In his mind’s eye, he could see Stone sitting at the table, sipping another whiskey or maybe a beer, with that knowing smirk he always had during times when Hopper was embarking on some disastrous course of action. And then there was the girl, sitting at the bar, waiting for her future husband to get the job done.

All this and more went through Hopper’s mind even as he clambered up the side of the building. It wasn’t all that difficult. The windows may have had bars over them, but the bars themselves provided toeholds, and his natural athleticism—not to mention single-minded drive—enabled him to reach the flat roof in no time. It was unconscionably thin. “How the hell does this thing even keep water out?” he said as he stomped on it. He looked around and, to his dismay, didn’t see any sort of roof access door. Hopper moaned softly. “Now what the hell am I —?”

The roof answered the question before he could finish articulating it, giving way beneath his feet. Hopper crashed through.

Fortunately enough, since he was still pretty drunk, he was also very loose-limbed and didn’t tense up. As a result, he didn’t hurt himself too much when he slammed to the floor. Mostly it just knocked the wind out of him. Pieces of acoustical tile and insulation fell all around him and he threw his arms over his head to shield himself from it. Once the rain of debris had stopped, Hopper staggered to his feet and moved toward the stack of chicken burritos sitting in a refrigerated compartment. They were individually wrapped in red and white paper. Hopper selected one at random, tossed it in the microwave, and pushed “Start.” As the burrito cooked, he moved over toward the register and dropped a few bucks next to it. He briefly considered leaving the fifty he’d originally offered but then decided against it. She’d passed on it. In fact, she’d threatened to pepper spray him. Fine. Be that way, lady. You get the money for the burrito. Let your insurance company deal with the crappy ceiling. In fact, the whole roof was so shoddily made, I probably did you a favor. Take the insurance money and get a decent roof.

The microwave dinged and he snatched the burrito out of it. He let out a yelp and tossed it from one hand to the other as he waited for it to become cool enough to handle. As he did so, he glanced around, looking for a means of exit. There was a stepladder propped against the far wall that she probably used for mundane things like changing lightbulbs. He set it under the hole in the roof and quickly clambered up and out. He felt heady with excitement and triumph. I’m gonna make it, he thought deliriously, right before another section of the roof gave way. Seconds later he was back inside the store, lying atop a rack of condiments that had exploded all over him from the impact.

As he lay there, trying to shake off the pain, he noticed a back door with a hand-scrawled sign that read “Emergency Exit” on it.

“Yeah… that would have been easier,” he said with a low moan.

He got slowly to his feet, looking in disgust at the condiments that were all over him, and that was when he heard the police sirens in the distance.

“Oh, that’s not good.”

He banged through the door and hoped he would be well clear of the convenience store before the cops were close enough to get a bead on him. This hope was quickly dashed when he saw two police cars pulling up, their lights flashing, illuminating the darkened street like a Christmas tree. There were two cops in one and a single cop in the other. The doors were flung open and they spilled out, shouting over one another such useless orders as “Stop!” “Halt!” “Don’t move!”

Hopper had never been much when it came to following orders.