The pistol looked small to him, maybe a fake, but his knowledge of weapons was vague. He gave his wallet and then, with a sudden instinct to politeness, reached across the roof of the car and received from Janna her olive suede handbag — to pass it to the man. Janna’s crease was sharply incised, her green eyes tight and stony. No plea for heroics there. She looked dazed and indignant, he didn’t know at whom.
The man got into the car. Justin, as if waiting to be dismissed, stood by the door as it was pulled shut. Your door too, the man told Janna — the voice gone thinner, higher. She shoved it to, the door bouncing back open — the seatbelt buckle. Don’t slam it that way! he yelled, a man now sustaining an affront to his property. She got the door closed. Frozen, Justin and Janna meshed glances over the roof. The man was trying to start the car. Something wrong there. On stiff, stiltlike legs, Justin edged around the back of the car toward Janna — Janna retreating, as if from him, though more likely toward the door of her building.
The man swung open the car door and shouted, What kind of vehicle is this, man?
It’s a Volvo. Volvo 240.
I mean what’s its problem? The man sprang out of the car and stood teetering by the door, across from them now, eyeing them with ice-clear but unfocused eyes. Possibly drunk as well. He flapped the pistol in the air as he talked in his breathy, squashed tenor. Justin glanced around. The streets were empty.
I don’t know, Justin said. It’s a standard. You don’t drive standard?
His assumption that a townbilly would know how. Pickup trucks and so on. The man’s brow clenched, as if at some inward struggle. Drunk too, yes.
Why didn’t you tell me?
Well, Justin started. The word soaked up whatever breath he had.
I can’t drive fucking stick!
Oh, Justin said, eyes on the wagging pistol. I’m sorry.
I hardly ever drive, the man said, quieter.
It’s all right, Justin said.
Just leave the car, Janna said, monotone, a digital voice on a recording. You’ve got our stuff.
The man’s cell phone went off like a siren.
Stay there, both of yous.
The pistol aimed vaguely at the space between Justin and Janna. Justin wanted to bridge that space and at the same time move as little as possible. The man had the cell phone to his ear. Janna was rigid. She was a quick, fidgety type — frozen that way she was not herself, a wax replica.
Right, but I said I’d call back. How’s that? I don’t know why the fuck the thing hasn’t come, you call them back yourself! I know, I know, that’s why I said don’t use them anymore, didn’t I? Yeah. That’s right. And pineapple on just half this time, right? And don’t call back. I might be longer, there’s no car now. No, I don’t want to now. I’ll deal with it.
He jabbed the cell phone into his jacket. He looked to either side.
Into the trunk, both of yous.
What? Justin said.
The man flicked the key over the roof of the car. It slid off the near side and plinked down among the leaves and rotting oak mast along the curb.
Hurry up!
Just take our stuff, you don’t need to—
Panicking, the man trained the gun on them over the roof of the car, straight-armed, both hands on the grip, a cop at a police car barricade. They might be dead in a second and the afterimage Justin would take with him into oblivion would be from prime-time television.
Open the trunk!
Okay.
I’ve got to fucking walk now.
Still thinking and seeing with weird clarity, Justin bent down for the key, and as he stood up he studied the key chain in his hand. A tiny plastic bust of Elvis. A gift from her, last Valentine’s Day. He walked to the trunk and opened it. This was all right, though. There would be people passing, and the trunk was spacious, as trunks go. The guy wasn’t taking them into an alley and shooting them. And though Justin had forgotten his cell phone tonight, he knew that she had hers, she always did, and maybe it wasn’t in her handbag now, sometimes she kept it in her jacket.
I’m not getting in there, Janna said.
Get in, the man whispered.
No, I can’t, please.
Janna, please.
Stop! she hissed in a private way, straight at Justin, her eyes round with rage.
The man’s skinny arm pushed her toward the trunk and she gasped. Justin, flat-palmed, shoved at the caved chest under the denim jacket — did it without thinking. The man swung the gun and the butt cracked Justin in the side of the head. He saw a screen of blue light, heard a fizzing sound like static or a can of beer being opened, as he sat back into the trunk. A sick, cold feeling, nausea in the bones, plummeted down his spinal column to his toes. Beaten, he tucked up his dead legs and curled obediently into the trunk. She was making a faint blubbering sound as she climbed in after him. No, I won’t, she said as she climbed in. I can’t. Please.
Get in, Justin and the man said at the same time. Now just move your foot, the man told her, his voice still quiet but in a different way, maybe appeased, maybe appealing for a sort of understanding. The trunk was deep. It snapped closed, and after a second there was a sound of steps running off. The sound-space between the strides was long, and Justin had an image, projected on the sealed darkness around him, of the man loping away up Union, long arms dangling, almost simian, mouth slack and panting under the droopy mustache. In their politically civilized circle, people didn’t use words like trash or skag about the distressed elements — addicts, parolees, the generationally poor — who made the city’s north side seem more like a slum in Jackson, Mississippi, than part of the old limestone capital of Canada. But now in his anger the words occurred to him. And what he should have done. What he would be doing mentally for weeks to come, rewinding the scene, recutting it.
Fucking yokel. Cops will have him by tomorrow. Are you all right?
No. She expelled the word on a faint puff of breath. He was groping in the dark for her shoulder. He found her breast instead and she seemed to recoil, though there was no room for that. In the deeps of the trunk, furled on their sides in mirror image, they lay with knees pressed together, faces close. Her breaths, coming fast, were hot, coppery, sour.
Janna? He found her shoulder and she didn’t move.
She said, Could air be running out already? I feel like it is.
No, no way. And the car’s ten years old. We’ll get some air in here.
I don’t feel it.
Breathe slower, he said. Do you have your cell?
In my bag. It’s gone. I didn’t want to get in. Why did you just get in?
I didn’t. You saw, he smacked me. I was out for a second. He would have shot us. My head is—
I can’t be in here, Justin. I can’t! You knew that too. That I’m claustrophobic.
He’d never seen her this way. Even in private she was always capable, composed, professional, as though feeling herself under constant scrutiny by some ethical mentor. Too much so, he sometimes felt. How she would never miss a day’s workout in the spring and summer while training for her annual triathlon, whatever the weather or her, their, schedule. How she would talk of getting “more serious” about the sport next year, maybe doing more events. Even her recreation — nights out, parties, vacations — she undertook in this same carefully gauged manner, pacing herself. Only so much fun. Only this much frivolity and no more. As if she was afraid of some tipping point.