The second man, on the other hand, looked at Court with rapidly blinking, searching eyes. He was Hispanic, his jaw was clenched tight, and he passed through without a word.
Something was wrong with this dude; Court saw it immediately.
Once the two newcomers were in the market, Court stood there an instant holding the door, then he stepped back into the store, walking a couple of steps to a magazine rack.
He picked up a copy of Car and Driver, but he didn’t really look at it. Instead he remained tuned in to his surroundings.
That last guy’s vibe was not good.
Not good at all.
Dammit, Court thought. I don’t need this shit.
Court knew how to identify pre-assault indicators, and he’d seen clear examples of this phenomenon on the last man through the door. And, although he’d detected nothing out of the ordinary in the behavior of the nervous guy’s partner, they were obviously together.
Now Court glanced up to the first young Hispanic to enter the market, wondering if he might also be with the other two, even though he had not arrived in the same car. The man in the gray hoodie was in the back corner, in the exact opposite end of the room as Court. But the man wasn’t shopping. Instead he stood there, facing the entire room, looking over the shelves, his head moving back and forth.
Scanning. Another pre-assault indicator. Court now knew all three of these assholes were a team, and he was pretty sure they were not here for him. No, they were about to rob the convenience store.
Although he had an accurate headcount of the bad guys inside the Easy Market, Court knew there easily could be a driver, or a spotter, or both, outside in the parking lot. He glanced out to the Monte Carlo but couldn’t see anyone else through the tinted back windows. Nor did he see any other movement in the rain-swept parking lot.
Court scanned again over the top of his magazine, up to the counter. The heavyset African American clerk was oblivious to everything happening around her. She had been chatting happily with the black couple, but they had moved away to choose some soft drinks from the cooler, not far from the gray-hooded man in the back corner. LaShondra had her good eye back on her little TV, and the two new men stood at her counter, pretending to look over some small shots of energy drinks on a rack. Casually LaShondra asked the men if it was still raining outside. She was just making conversation; she could see the rain through the glass if she just glanced back over her shoulder.
“Yeah,” the white guy muttered, the one whose jaw didn’t look like it was wired so shut he would need bolt cutters to speak. While Court focused on him this same man moved his right leg back behind him a little, and he turned his body at an angle to the cash register.
This was called blading, and Court knew it meant he probably had a gun on his hip and was about to go for it.
Fuck.
Court desperately tried to think of something he could do to ward off this impending event before it started. He tried to come up with a way to scare off the three robbers before they committed to their act, but he knew if he stepped any closer to the register he would show his face on the camera, and if he shouted out he would only draw attention to himself, ensuring all three guns would sweep in his direction first.
Short of drawing his own piece right now, Court didn’t see any options.
Other than one. He knew he could simply turn around and push through the glass door. He could be in his car before this robbery began.
It was his only safe play, the one sure way he could get through this unscathed.
But Court Gentry stood his ground.
He looked the men over quickly, trying to figure out who would be the quickest on the trigger.
Determine the will — determine the skill.
He knew if any of these three young men pulled a gun, then all three of them would die. He wouldn’t wait around to see if anyone wanted to drop his weapon and pray to Jesus for mercy.
Nope, if this went down, Court was determined to kill every threat in front of him.
Loud and messy.
He flitted his eyes up again to LaShondra, and he willed her to go ahead and pop open her register’s till and hand over all her money to the two men standing there—before things turned violent.
But she just watched her TV while they pretended to shop.
The African American couple standing at the cooler each had a six-pack of soda, and the man selected a bag of potato chips. They had just turned to head up the aisle to the counter when the man in the back corner behind them began moving quickly towards them. Court couldn’t see the man draw a weapon because of the shelves between his position and the back corner of the market, but the female’s shout of alarm made it clear something was terribly wrong.
Court heard yelling at the front counter, then a flurry of movement there. The two men at the register pulled their knit caps down, revealing them to be ski masks, and they each produced a chrome automatic pistol from their jackets. The weapons reached out across the counter, nearly into LaShondra’s stunned face. The third man racked a pistol grip shotgun he’d strapped to his shoulder under his black jacket and he held it high, then he shoved the couple away from the freezer and pushed them ahead of him to the front of the store. He forced them down onto the ground, and they huddled together with their hands on their heads at the opposite end of the front aisle from where Court stood.
Now gray hoodie pointed the twelve-gauge directly at Court, thirty feet away.
“On the floor!” he screamed, his Hispanic accent prevalent.
Court squared his body towards the man and he raised his hands. But he did not drop to the ground.
“Get on the floor!” the man shouted again.
The woman lying facedown on the linoleum just beyond the counter wailed in terror. Her boyfriend put his arm over her to both shield her and hold her there, lest the panic in her voice translate to the rest of her body and she try to run.
The two men at the counter kept their pistols on LaShondra. She stared back at them through her right eye, but she kept her hands down low, right in front of the cash drawer.
“Get down!” Gray hoodie shouted it again at Court, and as one, both men at the counter turned to look at the noncompliant man by the door.
The white gunman said, “Don’t be a hero, man! Get your ass down!”
Court did not reply. He just began very slowly lowering to the ground. He kept his hands at shoulder height as he knelt.
Gray hoodie with the shotgun relaxed noticeably when he saw the white man across the room begin to obey his instructions.
His confidence was misplaced, however. Gentry had never willingly turned his back on imminent danger in his life, and he wasn’t going to start by lying facedown and obedient on a dirty floor in a goddamned D.C. convenience store.
He’d go to his knees, but he’d keep his eyes on the three men. If it looked like they were going to murder him for refusing to lie flat, then Court would make a play for the Smith on his hip.
As Court made it down into a low squat his eyes flicked off the shotgun across the room, and onto movement ahead on his left. To his astonishment, LaShondra had taken advantage of all the attention elsewhere, and she had produced an aluminum baseball bat. It rose quickly above the counter.
Oh, hell no.
Court saw the bat before anyone else because all three armed men still had their eyes on him. But he knew in less than a second one of the three gunmen would notice the woman behind the counter, and then, even if she managed to crack one of these kids’ heads wide open, she’d still die for her bravery.