Chapter 28. “TAKE IT EASY, MR. WAKELY”

“TAKE IT EASY, MR. WAKELY”

The chorus singing “Silent Night” over the loudspeakers seemed to get louder.

Reva’s mouth dropped open as her eyes traveled from the pistol up to Mr. Wakely’s face, gray in the light from the monitor screens.

He took a step toward her. Then another.

His natural color returned. His eyes were red and glassy, Reva noticed. She could see red veins on the bridge of his bulbous nose.

“Maywood promised me there’d be no problem,” he said, his eyes floating from side to side in their sockets.

He’s drunk, Reva realized, returning her open-eyed stare to the pistol gripped tightly in his hand.

Drunk and dangerous.

“Maywood promised me,” he repeated. Maybe he wanted to explain his presence to Reva.

“Take it easy, Mr. Wakely,” she said, holding up her hands. “Just stay calm, okay. I’m sure everything will be all right.” Her heart was pounding so loudly, she could barely hear her own words.

“No.” He shook his head. “It didn’t go all right. We messed up. We completely messed up.” He was slurring his words so badly, Reva had trouble understanding him.

“What do you mean?” she asked, still gripped with fear.

“The robbery. Maywood. He was the one who planned it. He said there wouldn’t be any trouble.” He took a step back and put a hand out against the side of a monitor and leaned against it.

“You mean the robbery here in the store?” Reva asked.

He nodded, his bald head shining gray in the strange light. “Maywood said that three kids were planning to rob the store. He said the three kids would be a distraction. You know. Keep the other guard busy. Me and Maywood would empty the downstairs safe, see. And the three kids wouldn’t even know it.”

He paused as if trying to remember what happened next. Then he continued, training his red eyes on Reva. “We got the money okay. It was a good plan, see. It would’ve worked fine. Only I stepped out from the back office, and I saw that one of the kids was mine!”

He shook his head sadly. “It was Mickey. My own boy. I had no idea.” His eyes burned into hers, pleading, desperate. “Maywood never said that Mickey was one of them. I didn’t know that Mickey was there. He didn’t know that I was there. And then...”

He trailed off, rubbing his chin with his free hand.

“And then what?” Reva asked, checking for the safest escape route.

“Then... I saw the guard. Ed Javors. He picked up his gun. He was going to shoot Mickey. What could I do? I’m a father, right? I couldn’t stand there and let him shoot my son. My only son? So I—I just panicked. I shot Ed. I didn’t mean to kill him. But I couldn’t let him shoot Mickey.”

He stopped again, lost in thought, leaning hard against the monitor.

On the loudspeaker the chorus continued its soft, reverent version of “Silent Night.”

“Did you kill Mitch too?” Reva asked. The question just popped out of her.

Mr. Wakely nodded. “Had to,” he said, trying to focus his eyes. “I knew what he was doing. I overheard, see. He was blackmailing my kid. That kid Mitch was out back the night of the robbery. He’d gone back to the store for something he left there. He saw Mickey and the other two come running out. And so he started blackmailing my boy. Going to turn him in. I couldn’t allow it, could I? I couldn’t allow Mickey to get into trouble for something I did.”

“But why did you send Mitch’s body to me?” Reva asked, staring at the pistol, still down at his side.

“Huh?” He squinted at her, as if that would help him understand the question. “Send it to you? I didn’t. I found a big carton with a bow on it. First big carton I could find. So I put the body in it and left it behind a counter,” he told her.

The carton that had the mannequin in it, Reva realized. It still had her name on it, and it had gotten delivered to her all over again.

Mr. Wakely squinted at her. “And now here I am. I came back to finish my work here, see. I just want to get paid, see. From the safe in your daddy’s office.” He gestured toward the office with the pistol.

“Too bad,” he said, standing up straight. His eyes seemed to be focusing now, clear and cold. He raised the pistol. “You’ve given me no choice.”

“No!” Reva screamed and whirled around to run.

Her legs felt as if they weighed a thousand pounds. But she forced herself forward, bending low as she ran, her entire body tensed in anticipation of the gunshots.

He was coming after her, the pistol poised. She could hear his heavy breathing, hear the heavy pad of his shoes on the thick carpet.

What can I do? Where can I go? she wondered, the empty offices flying by in a blur.

If I could just get onto the elevator—

No. Too risky. Too slow.

Then where?

If she could double back to her father’s office, she could lock the door, lock herself in, call out for help.

Yes.

But how could she get past him to get back there?

No time to think about it. No time to make a plan. She just had to do it.

She reached the waiting room, circled the couch, took a deep breath, and ran right at him.

His mouth dropped open in surprise.

Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot.

She dodged past him, running hard, running at full speed.

It took her a while to realize that the object that rang past her ear was a bullet.

“Oh!” She uttered a terrified cry.

Another explosion behind her, this one louder, this one scarier since she knew what it was. Another bullet rang past, lodging in the wall ahead of her.

Reva froze.

Her father’s office was still halfway down the hall.

I can’t outrun a bullet, she thought.

And then her thoughts seemed to melt into bright colors, unconnected words, a loud, insistent ringing in her ears as her panic drove out everything else.

She backed up toward the low balcony overlooking the store.

Her back hit the railing. She didn’t really know where she was. She didn’t really know why she had stopped, why she was standing there, what she was doing.

A grim smile on his face, the smoking pistol held high, Wakely dived at her.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-20