If you're on a good run, watch out.
The Gutter doesn't grant lucky streaks.
The Gutter doesn't grant lucky streaks.
Second Chances by Liam Sweeny
Gorman’s
crew didn’t rob gas joints. He sent Mark out here to prove a point.
The
wind threw snow at Mark like six-pointed ninja stars, stinging raw what little
skin poked through his wrapped form. He wanted seven layers up, five down, but
he’d have to run soon, maybe hide out for an hour or more. He had to be quick,
and sweat was his mortal enemy that night.
He had
fucked up bad and coughed out a laugh when he thought about why he was running
in Gorman’s crew.
#
He knew
the guy from the days back in high school when he bought dope from Gorman’s
house in the South Island. The house was a shabby shit show, but when you’re a
high school pothead, the House of Pot is a mansion if it was a shack. He barely
knew Gorman back then. He was a custee’. They didn’t run together.
But
they graduated. Gorman to a felony factory and Mark to a college experience
that ended with an arrest for a bag of weed and a bong on campus. The 0.1 GPA
had something to do with it too.
Mark
kept the connect for the dank shit, which Gorman still procured, and the
repetition of business pleasantries blossomed into a passive friendship.
Mark worked
at the MetalWorks factory. A betting slip left carelessly on the acid bath
table turned into a pink slip tucked forcefully in his next paycheck. No second
chances, the boss told him.
Gorman
turned out to be a second chance, and Mark began his job at the felony factory.
B-and-Es, fast scams, auto-theft, jacking freight trucks, and, of course,
drugs: weed, coke, meth, smack.
Gorman
called it The Wild West Drug Store.
No
bookmaking, though. “I’ll take a crack-head over a degenerate gambler any day,”
Gorman said. “You lose money from a crack-head, they jones. They need that
shit, and they’ll be coming to you with a twenty the next day. You might lose a
twenty on a front, but that’s your own damn fault.” Mark and Gorman shared a
Cuban cigar that day. “You lose thousands with gamblers in one shot, and sure,
the vigg is good, but when they can’t pay, you’re huntin’ the motherfuckers
down. Fuck that shit.”
Gorman
took Mark into his inner circle after a while.
Mark
wasn’t a charismatic man, or a genius, but he could do a job of questionable
moral flavor with dead taste buds. Short of killing a man, Mark would do
anything. Twenty years standing over an acid bath made Gorman’s jobs feel like
a smoke break.
But, he
fucked up. And, again, a betting slip was involved. Not one left on the scene,
but one left on his mind, a losing slip. He should’ve been paying more
attention to the numbers on the side of the eighteen-wheeler parked at the
truck stop.
Mark
thought he was dead when Gorman opened a trailer full of dish soap and not the
assorted electronics that, by that time, were on their way to every mall in the
tri-cities.
#
He
could see the red, white, and blue back-lit acrylic that formed the iconic
AmeriMart chain of convenience stores. The parking lot was empty, due in large
part to the late hour and the bitter cold.
He turned the corner. The neon beer
and cigarette signs came into view. He felt the pistol, cold and alien, tucked
into his layers. He wasn’t a gun guy, figuring the odds of things going tits up
were much higher if he was strapped.
Mark
trotted through the parking lot, past the pumps – careful not to run and
attract attention, but careful not to stroll on in and attract just as much
attention on such a bitter night. He looked inside and was met with a big
obstacle.
Apparently,
another man had not taken a car. A big man. A loud, gregarious man who seemed
to take it upon himself to keep the cashier company, despite her visible
disinterest.
Mark
had to walk around like he was looking for some overpriced groceries,
inspecting shit as he figured out a plausible reason, if asked.
The oaf
kept talking, something about his Great Dane.
Mark had
to do something to kill time. He glanced at the wall rack of scratchers bracing
the cigarette racks. Old habits die hard, but it was an idea.
“Can I
get ten of the Cash Mountains?” he asked the clerk.
Her
name tag read: Carrie. She pulled out a roll of ten.
Mark put
a crumpled twenty on the counter. He took the tickets with a murmur of thanks
and went over to one of the tables. He scratched them, trying to look
engrossed, but his eyes kept darting up to the big guy.
In a
brilliant instant of kismet, the big guy left just as Mark was scratching away
on the last ticket.
Mark
tucked the spent tickets in his pockets, and, gulping down the nervous energy,
he pulled out the gun, holding it level to his waist. “Everything in your
drawer, right now, and you don’t get hurt. It’s not worth your life.”
Carrie’s
eyes darted in every direction they physically could, but she was efficient.
She opened the door and pulled out the cash. “Do you want the change too?”
“Just
the bills,” Mark said.
“It’s
only four hundred, about,” she said.
“It’ll
do. Just give it to me.”
She
handed him the bills.
Mark
needed to make his getaway. It should have been the easy part, but as he turned
around, he heard the front door open.
The big
guy again.
Mark
forgot his gun was at his hip.
The big
guy reached around his back and ducked behind a metal rack of DVDs.
Mark
never realized how loud gunshots rang inside an enclosed space. He also never
realized the searing pain in his chest was a gunshot wound until he collapsed
on the tile floor.
#
Detective
LeClere held a roll of scratch-off tickets found on the perp. He walked over to
his partner, Detective Burris. The gurney was rolling the body out of AmeriMart
in a black bag.
“Get
this,” LeClere said. “Cashier says he robbed her for four hundred.” He handed
Burris the tickets. “This was on his person.”
Burris
glanced at it. “So?”
“Look
at it.”
Burris
scanned the roll of tickets. On the last one, his eyes widened. “Is this what I
think it is?”
“Twenty-five
thousand-dollar winner.” LeClere said. “Perp was so busy waiting for his move,
he didn’t even bother to check the tickets.”
Burris
let out a grunt. He handed the scratch-offs back to Detective LeClere.
“Should’ve stuck to gambling.”
