Chapter 12 #2
It was still fairly light out, and I happened to notice that the same flat black Plymouth Duster I’d seen a couple of weeks ago was parked in the space next to mine.
I knew Rodney wouldn’t be happy about non-customers parking in the back lot, but figured he could decide what to do about it in the morning.
I turned back toward the door of the pharmacy, which I’d propped open with a concrete block as usual, and had just walked back inside when a pair of hands grabbed me roughly by the arm, one covering my mouth.
“Don’t you make any fucking noise, you hear me?” an angry voice hissed in my ear. “You do exactly what we say, and shut the hell up, and everything’s gonna be just fine.”
The hand over my mouth smelled of stale cigarettes, and instantly, I realized that the men I’d seen by the Duster that day had come back to rob the pharmacy.
My mind raced: they’d probably been watching the place for weeks, trying to figure out the best way to do so.
I suppressed a shiver at the thought that they had been watching me all that time.
Waiting for me to be alone. Figuring I would be the easiest target.
A low sob started deep in my throat, but I tried to swallow it down.
Besides cigarettes, the man who had hold of me smelled of sweat, and dirt, and something else I couldn’t identify but that turned my stomach.
His breath was rank, almost like some of his teeth were rotting.
He tightened his grip on my arm and wrenched it back painfully.
I couldn’t suppress a cry of pain, which was muffled by the hand over my mouth.
“Shut up!” he hissed through gritted teeth. Pushing me forward into the pharmacy, he yanked up again on my arm so hard that I briefly wondered if I’d faint from the pain.
Footsteps followed close behind, and then another man brushed past us, his build slight and wiry.
“I’m gettin’ the cash, man,” he murmured.
He strode quickly to the front, in the direction of the register.
As he did, the one who had hold of me suddenly let go of my arm and pushed me forward, causing me to stumble.
I threw my arms out in front of me to catch my balance, my wrenched shoulder socket sending out a white-hot shard of pain.
I just managed not to fall to the floor.
When I turned back, the man had taken out a knife, and was pointing it at me menacingly.
His facial features were obscured by a leg of panty hose he’d pull over his head, but I still recognized from his hair and coloring that he was one of the men in the alley that day.
Crazily, I found myself having to stifle a burst of nearly hysterical laughter at the thought of him buying panty hose.
Don’t lose it, Roxy. You need to focus. Don’t freak out.
Near the front, the other man had wrenched open the cash register drawer. “There’s hardly anything in here!” he yelled toward the first one. “Goddamnit! Just fuckin’ pocket change!”
“Take it,” the one nearest to me barked. “Don’t worry about it. That’s not what we’re after!” He turned his attention to me again and snarled. “You know what we want.”
I didn’t; not really. But now, as he stared at me, eyes hard and a little crazy, I suddenly understood. The tense ranginess of his body. The slightly spastic, nervous air about him. Drugs. Of course he wanted drugs. To sell, probably. But also to take.
“What… what kinds?” I croaked, my mouth suddenly bone dry.
“Fuck, don’t give me that shit,” he spat. “Use your goddamn brain. Reds. Seconal. Ludes. Nembutal. Talwin. Anything that sells. And don’t try to fuck with me.”
I walked as calmly as I could to the shelves where the meds were stocked, my hands starting to tremble almost uncontrollably.
I had worked at Hunt’s long enough to know more or less where everything was, so I grabbed the handle of a plastic shopping basket and started filling it with Quaaludes, Tuinals, Nembutal, Demoral, Secobarbital, Talwin, and anything else that was a barbiturate or that I knew people abused and sold on the street.
The man waved the knife erratically as I worked, his face twisting into something like a grin underneath the sheer material. “Hurry up,” he hissed at me. “It’d be a shame to cut up your pretty face.”
My stomach clenched sickeningly as I realized this must be the very same man who had robbed the convenience store and disfigured Edna Boyle.
Almost instantly, the blood in my veins ran cold, my hands starting to shake as I fought to keep control of them.
It was only at that moment that I truly saw — really saw — how helpless I was.
I was trapped here, alone, with two men who were probably on drugs.
And I had been banking on the fact that if I just did what they said, everything would be fine.
But there was no real reason to believe that.
I saw that now. If one of them decided he wanted to cut me — or worse — there wouldn’t be anything I could do about it.