Walker held up the Mac-10 and laughed in the clerk’s face as he pulled the trigger. Blood splattered the stacks of cigarettes.

“What did you do that for?”  Joey said. He was leaning over the dead clerk with his mask up. Blood was spotting the mask, blood and gore.

“Cause I felt like it,” Walker said.

There were sirens growing louder outside, and Walker hadn’t even opened the safe under the counter yet. The little woman on the floor behind him was crying.

“Shut the fuck up,” Walker said.

When he turned back to finger the safe, the kid with the woman, a little boy, took off running.

“The kid’s getting away,” Joey said.

“Well go after him!”

Joey chased the kid over four lanes of Friday night, Chicago traffic. When he turned back police were stopped at the grocery. Traffic was bunched ahead of him. Run or what the fuck? He shook his head. Turning back away from traffic he took off his mask and slipped his pistol away.

Back at the house Tish was smoking a joint in front of the tube. She was watching Sanford and Son. She was naked.  Pie eyed she looked up.

“Where’s Walker?’

“Rotting in a fucking cell I’d say.”

Joey sat beside Tish and turned the station. The news was coming on. The robbery was leading. The suspect was still inside the grocery. He was holding an elderly woman hostage.

“Get the fuck up,” Joey said.

“Why? What’s this about?”

“Walker’s still in there.”

“You left him? You bastard! That’s my brother. You left him?”

News flashed that the suspect had given himself up. The suspect was now in custody.

Joey looked to the phone. Tish looked to the phone.

“He wouldn’t,” Tish said.

The phone rang.