“You and the wife? Sure, Frank.”
“Good.”
Frank left Danny Boy’s, trudged up 2 Street, no one else ahead of him on foot, the snow falling serenely in big flakes now, the high wind and blizzard conditions easing off. Last stop for the night was another taproom, two blocks up, one block over. A check of his watch; five minutes to two. He’d get there late, but a knock on the door would get him inside. Rowhome after rowhome, the houses were all narrow, all two stories, all with front stoops, the street a conga line of parked cars against the curbs, all quietly getting snowed in. Some TVs were on upstairs and down, but most people were tucked into their beds, their lights out, weathering the early December storm.
At the street corner, a black, boxy, armored truck.
A cash in transit vehicle, or CIT. The only truck on the residential street, and it was idling next to a snow-covered fire hydrant. Headlights and parking lights were off, the truck’s cab dark. Out of place at this hour, in the middle of the night, and so out of place as a big, boxy, solid commercial vehicle on so narrow a street as 2nd Street, for any time of day or night. Frank crossed to the other sidewalk before he got to the end of the block, to keep his distance from it. He reached the corner, made a left, stayed his course.
He heard the armored truck’s engine rev and the transmission shift. It pulled away from the curb, headlights still off, made the left turn, and dieseled up the street behind him.
It was officially, completely out of place now: the street was one way, and the truck was moving in the wrong direction.
Frank mumbled a what-the-fuck and glanced over his shoulder, kept walking, maintaining a separation.
No approaching traffic. The truck bucked once like the clutch had been popped, lurched forward and drove past him a few lengths, was now in second gear. The back doors suddenly swept open, banging against the exterior rear walls. Nothing visible inside, the interior unlit as it rumbled farther up the street. One second, two seconds, three seconds passed, then the truck stopped and the bodies slid out.
Two dead black men in uniform hit the white-covered blacktop, their uniforms black also, their heads leaking from massive wounds, shot at close range. Shotgun shells to the face. The snow under their heads turned red before Frank’s eyes, reminding him of cherry snow cones at the circus. Gloved hands reached from inside the truck for the door handles, pulled them shut, the doors not quite catching, the truck’s engine revving once, twice, and when the CIT lurched forward in first gear again, one of the doors flipped back open. A canvas satchel dropped out, yellow-white with brown handles, the size of a gym bag. Easy to miss in the snow, so much of it swirling in the air. The truck stopped short and held its position, the bag behind it, its brake lights piercing the dark.
The two bodies were supposed to be left there, but the canvas bag…
The armored truck lingered. The driver or someone else inside was making a decision.
Headlights approached from the opposite direction, a block, block and a half away, visibility sketchy. The idling truck held fast. Frank, on the sidewalk, was halfway between the bodies and the bag, the CIT a few lengths farther up the street.
Frank wasn’t armed, and he could barely feel his hands, or his face, or his feet, some because of the cold, some because of the tension.
The truck lurched forward, gunned its engine, its spinning tires dredging up a spray of snow like a dog burying its business in the backyard, further covering the bag. The truck was leaving.
Frank kicked at the drift between the parked cars and entered the street. He reached the middle, stood behind the bag, interested in it and the retreating truck both, not the bodies behind him. The CIT ground through its gears toward the corner, alighting snowflakes melting on the bag’s off-white, stenciled canvas that bore one word only, Dominion, in blocked, blue letters—the same stenciling as on the rear panel of the truck. The transmission reengaged, pushing the truck up the street until it reached the corner and stopped, its brake lights engaged. The rear doors opened again.
Another body fell out. This time it was joined by someone interested in its placement in the snow.
Frank shielded his eyes from darting snowflakes to see a guy in a camo jumpsuit, ski mask and gloves, watched him turn the body over, the victim’s shoes now toes up. The interested party reached back into the truck, swept his arm side to side along the floor until he found what he was after. A banjo.
Through squinty eyes Frank watched the man lay the banjo upside down on the victim and place the hands over the banjo neck. The camo guy admired his work then hopped back into the rear of the truck and pounded an inside wall. The armored truck went into drive, turned the next corner and was gone. Approaching car headlights crept forward, illuminating the snow-covered street, the parked cars, and the twinkling Christmas wreaths and lights on rowhome doors and wrapped around railings and light posts. A scene from a Hallmark card, the South Philadelphia Collection, all except for the bodies in the street. The car stopped, bathing the body with the banjo in its headlights.
“Christ,” Frank said, the nighttime scene ahead of him bright as a shopping mall parking lot. He suffixed taking the Lord’s name in vain with another what-the-fuck: the body was headless.
The car suddenly slammed into reverse and backed all the way up the street to the prior intersection, found first gear, and disappeared onto another
