27. Deck
Chapter twenty-seven
Deck
A Mediterranean food truck was parked half a mile from the Center. Cori and I took advantage of the mild weather to walk there. Since it was midday on a Monday, we mostly had the sidewalk to ourselves. I’d prepared myself to say my piece, but she spoke first.
“Thanks for having lunch with me, Deck. I know we have some stuff to talk about, but to be honest, I just had a hell of a morning making some extremely obnoxious phone calls, and I need to get some food in me before we discuss anything heavy.”
I smiled. What were twenty more minutes after more than a decade? “Do you want to talk about the phone calls? Maybe it’ll help to vent a little?”
She hiked her purse up on her shoulder aggressively. “Just talking to some of our longer-term donors. Everyone wants answers I don’t have. I can’t guarantee success in the future if we don’t have the money pledged. So it’s kind of a chicken and egg thing, you know?”
“That sounds annoying. Sorry.”
“It’s okay. Part of the gig. I’m hoping all these folks will be at the gala.
Once they see the programs in action and are reminded of the mission, I’m betting they’ll be all in.
But our best hope for long-term sustainability lies in attracting new donors.
I have a number of contacts from JBC who will be attending the event.
I’m just not sure that’ll be enough.” She exhaled.
“I don’t know. This is exactly what I signed up for when I said I’d help Rosa.
I think I just forgot that some days feel this way, no matter the job. ”
“Your old job was like this?”
“In the sense that I often got so frustrated I wanted to throw things,” she said wryly.
I had trouble picturing Cori as anything other than cool and composed. “It sounds like you don’t miss it?”
Her pace slowed. “No. It was good for a while, and I learned a lot, so I don’t regret my time there, but I’m done with the corporate world. That’s one of the few things I’m sure of.”
A whisper of laughter escaped me.
“What?” she asked with a smile.
“This is going to sound nuts, but that’s kind of how I feel about prison.
Before I went in, I was really spiraling.
I mean, I almost killed someone with my bare hands.
Being inside grounded me. I got an education and found my place.
I regret a lot of the things that led to me being thrown in a cell, but the experience itself changed my life.
It would be a stretch to say it was good for me, but I came out better.
” I chuckled again. “Also, like you, I’m definitely done with it. No way am I going back.”
Cori’s brows drew together. “Of course not.”
I appreciated how confused she seemed by the mere suggestion.
We reached the truck and both of us ordered falafel sandwiches. They were messy to eat while walking, so we sacrificed more than a few bits of cucumber and dollops of tzatziki sauce to the pavement gods.
Three blocks from the Center, we came to the little corner market that had been part of the neighborhood for as long as I could remember.
“Can we stop at the store?” Cori asked. “That pita was great, but it’s not going to hold me until dinner. I want to grab a bag of pretzels. Then maybe we can have our talk?”
“Sure. Is it alright if I buy Reign a candy bar? They’re coming to help me this afternoon, and I know they like Twix. But I don’t want to get in trouble for showing favoritism or anything.”
“It’s okay, Deck. That’s nice. As long as you don’t give it to them in front of all the other kids, I think it’s fine.”
We walked through the glass door to the familiar ding announcing our entrance, and I upnodded Amos behind the counter.
Amos had been a few years ahead of me in school, and we were in prison together for a while when he served time for robbery.
When I first got out and lived with my parents, I’d run into him at the market, so I knew he’d been working here for a few years. His name tag said Assistant Manager.
The ancient building was long and narrow.
The market consisted of only two aisles with chest-high shelving in between.
Fountain soda machines, a slushy dispenser, two freezers full of ice cream novelties, and cold cases housing single-serve drinks lined one wall.
I recalled the way my friends and I used to give that slushy machine a workout.
I grabbed Gatorades for myself and Reign, along with the Twix.
Cori stood in front of the pretzels like she was studying the Mona Lisa .
“Why can’t I ever decide between the jalapeno and mustard flavors?” she whined.
“That means you need bo—”
“EVERYBODY DOWN ON YOUR FUCKING KNEES!”
With instincts honed since birth, I swung my arm around Cori and pulled us both to the sticky linoleum floor, covering her body with my own.
Turning her head to mine, I put my pointer finger over my lips in the universal be quiet gesture. She nodded.
“EMPTY THE FUCKING REGISTER! NOW! AND THE SAFE IN THE BACK!”
Cori and I were on the opposite side of the market from the front counter.
From our vantage point on the floor, I saw the back of a man dressed in black sweats, with a black beanie and neck gaiter covering his hair and the lower half of his face.
In his hand, he waved a coal-black pistol.
A nine-millimeter double stack Glock, if I wasn’t mistaken.
“HURRY, MOTHERFUCKER. HURRY!”
Amos didn’t appear to move any faster as he pressed buttons on the register, and the drawer snapped open. The old-fashioned radio he had next to the cigarette case droned with sports news.
Next to me, Cori raised her head. Her eyes went wide as plates. Too quietly for Amos and the gunman to hear, she whispered, “Deck, that’s Jayden.”
“What?”
“It’s Jayden. You know, the kid from the Center. The fight last week.”
It took me a beat, then I remembered. His eyes. “How do you know?”
“I recognize his backpack, plus I just know. It’s him.”
I hadn’t even noticed the backpack. I recalled everything Marisol told me about Jayden, about him being drawn to his brother’s old crew.
Stupid kid. He was no pro, and those guys weren’t doing him any favors with this job.
Sending him in with a recognizable backpack to rob a store in his own neighborhood in broad daylight in a market covered with cameras.
I shook my head. This was it for Jayden.
The choice that was going to change everything.
Cori shook my wrist.
“Deck, we need to do something.”
“Huh?”
She hitched her head toward the counter. “You know, stop him. He’s going to get picked up, and this will ruin the rest of his life. His poor mom will have two sons on the inside.”
I blanched. “What do you want me to do? That’s a serious piece he’s packing.”
Her eyes teared up.
The ding sounded again. Amos’s and Jayden’s faces whipped to the door. Jayden’s gun hand twitched, and he lifted his arm to aim at the person who’d come in at the exact wrong moment. The customer, a middle-aged businessman-type, froze.
His hands slowly rose. “Please,” he squeaked.
Jayden’s gaze narrowed sinisterly above the gaiter. His index finger brushed over the trigger. With a click, his thumb clamped down on the safety, disengaging it.
The customer squeezed his eyes shut.
Seconds ticked by, but Jayden didn’t pull the trigger. He merely stood there, aiming at the terrified man as his arm shook. Monotone voices continued blaring from the staticky radio.
The customer sensed Jayden’s hesitation and opened his eyes. In a flash, the man bolted out the door. He jumped into his car and drove off on screeching tires.
Seconds later, another car peeled out of the parking lot.
“ Hombre , I think your getaway driver just hung you out to dry,” Amos said to Jayden. “And that gringo you let escape is probably calling the cops right now.”
Jayden’s eyes went wild. He swung his gun arm, pointing it at Amos. I heard the harshness of his breathing through the thick fabric and could practically smell the sweat soaking his skin.
Amos held up his hands. “Whoa. You don’t wanna do that.”
“JUST EMPTY THE FUCKING REGISTER!”
The hollowness of Jayden’s voice got to me. Like I was watching myself thirteen years ago, doing jobs for Chi-chi because I didn’t know a way out of it.
I decided that Jayden’s not pulling the trigger was the actual choice that mattered on this day. His moment of conscience would be the thing that defined him, not his decision to rob a store.
Standing, I walked slowly toward him with my hands raised. “Hey, man.” I spoke deliberately.
Jayden snapped his head to me, gun arm outstretched. “Get the fuck down!”
I crouched but stayed on my feet. “I’m only trying to help you. It’s not too late to get out of this.”
“I am getting out of this. I’m taking the cash and leaving.” Jayden turned back to Amos, thrusting the backpack into his hands. “Put the money in that!”
Amos gave me a nod before shoving the bills from the register into the backpack.
“It doesn’t look like much cash,” I said casually, moving closer to the front. “Most people use cards these days.”
Amos finished loading up the backpack and slid it across the counter. Jayden picked it up, apparently no longer interested in the safe, and hunched it over his shoulder.
In the distance, police sirens blared.
“Give it back,” I said. “You’re never getting out of here with it. They’ll be looking for a young male dressed all in black. Armed robbery is years, Jayden. Years.”
He flinched. “You know me.”
Shit. I’d let the name slip. Well, no help for it.
“Jayden!” Cori stood and walked toward us. She held her arms up, but Jayden didn’t bother to raise the gun at her. Instead, he flicked his thumb to re-engage the safety. “You need to give the money back right now,” she implored him. “Let Deck help you.”
Cori looked at me beseechingly. Based on the sound of the sirens, cops would be here in less than a minute. As a single tear slipped from Jayden’s left eye, I sprang into action.