“Hands up!”
No shit? Some idiot was really trying to rob him? Jesse sighed and raised his hands, backing a step away from the rear door of the gym he’d just locked.
“Don’t move!”
The unmistakable feel of a gun barrel jabbed him in the back, ramping up his usual pain level to a white-hot jolt that arced down his right leg and damn near caused it to buckle under him. How lucky was it that his assailant knew where that jagged piece of shrapnel was embedded against his spine? Fate had been screwing with him for over a year and this was just her latest twist of the knife.
“Take out your wallet and drop it behind you. Do it slow and don’t try anything heroic.”
No problem there. His heroics ended when he left the SEALs eighteen months ago. He reached for the back pocket of his jeans and was rewarded with another poke in his hot spot. His molars ground together to hold back a grunt of pain. Now he was really pissed. “My wallet’s in my back pocket, but there’s only ten bucks in it. You picked the wrong mark this time, pal. And if you stick that toy in my back one more time, I’m gonna have to hurt you.”
A snort of laughter, but the pressure from the joker’s weapon eased slightly.
“Guess we’ll have to go inside, then, and see what’s in the cash register. Open the door.”
The voice behind him sounded young. And strained. From the position of the gun, Jesse guessed he couldn’t be more than five feet six. Probably a kid, then. A nervous kid. Damn it. If he got scared enough, he’d likely pull the trigger from tension alone. For a fleeting second, Jesse considered suicide by robber. Then he pulled the chain that held his keys from his pocket and unlocked the door.
“Inside. I haven’t got all night.”
“Yeah? You got a hot date?” Jesse stepped into the darkened office, pivoted on his left foot and grabbed the kid’s gun hand. One twist of the wrist and he had the weapon safely in his own hand, while he jerked his assailant’s arm behind his back until he yelped in pain. Jesse kicked the door shut, hit the lights, and slammed junior into the chair next to his desk.
He studied the boy while the expressions on the kid’s face went from panic to fear and, finally, bravado. He’d been right about the height, and if the kid weighed one-thirty, it was only because he was wearing worn-out combat boots. Dark brown hair that hadn’t seen a barber in months. Eyes the color of burnt coffee and skin more like cafe au lait.
He ejected the magazine, racked the slide and arched a brow at his prisoner. “I take it this is your first rodeo, Junior. Next time, you might want to have a round in the chamber.”
The kid’s eyes narrowed, and his upper lip curled. “Very funny, tough guy. Now what?”
“Now we’re going to have a little chat before I call the cops.” Jesse was glad to see his statement put the fear back in the Junior’s eyes and took most of the starch out of his shoulders. “What’s your name?”
The kid glanced around the room, obviously looking for an escape route.
“Don’t even think about it. I have you by six inches and fifty pounds. No way you’re leaving here unless I decide to let you go.” He gestured with his hand. “Wallet.”
With a sigh, the kid handed it over. Jesse almost felt sorry for him, but the throbbing pain down his right leg kept his sympathy at a minimum. No driver’s license. The ID card said his name was Marcus Peronne. It also said he was eighteen. He took it out, memorized the address – a less affluent neighborhood east of Lansdowne and closer to Philadelphia - and flipped it at the kid. “This is a fake, Marcus, if that’s even your real name. Quit the bullshit and show me the real one.”
“That’s the only one I got.”
“Yeah? What’s your birthday, Marcus?”
“September 11, 2004.” Marcus winced.
“According to that, your birthday is September 11, 1999. If you’re going to lie, you’ve got to be better with the basics, Marcus.” Jesse studied the kid, who was way too young to be robbing people at gunpoint. This was obviously his first attempt, and Jesse wanted to head him off before he took the fatal steps down the road into juvenile delinquency. “Memorable birthday. Where’d you get the gun?”
“My dad’s.”
“Where’s your dad? Does he know you have it?”
“He’s in jail. Doing four for vehicular homicide.”
That sucked. “And your mom?”
“She’s at work. She cleans offices downtown.”
Jesse nodded. “So you figured, Mom’s away, I’ll just borrow Dad’s gun and rob somebody?”
The narrowed eyes were back, along with the scorn. “Yeah. Something like that.”
“What do you need the money for?”
Marcus shifted in the chair. “Listen, man, I don’t owe you my life’s story. Call the cops or kick me the hell out. I got better things to do than sit here and chat with you.”
“Actually, Marcus, you don’t. You’ve got two choices. Answer my questions, or take a ride downtown with the police and get booked for attempted armed robbery.” Jesse hitched his good hip onto the corner of the desk and crossed his arms. “What’s it gonna be?”
“The cops won’t arrest me. You ain’t got no proof, and the gun’s empty.” Marcus slid back in his seat and crossed his arms, mimicking Jesse.
“You know, you’re living proof that most criminals are dumber than a box of rocks. I’ve got video footage from my security camera outside that caught your whole macho fiasco. And since my cousin Tom is a lieutenant at the local precinct, he’ll arrest you just because I ask him to.”
Okay, so that was two lies in a row. There was no security footage, and Tom would need more than just a request to haul this kid away. Jesse could bluff with the best of them, though, having had lots of practice in his own youth.
“So let’s go over all the idiot mistakes you’ve made so far this evening. One, you didn’t check for surveillance cameras. Two, you picked a place where most of the clientele pay by monthly subscription, so there is very little in the cash drawer. Three, you brought an unloaded weapon, which, by all rights, should have resulted in you getting shot, since, four, you picked a former Navy SEAL as your victim.”
Marcus looked down at the floor for a few seconds, then returned his now-widened eyes to Jesse’s face. “You’re a SEAL?” He gulped audibly, defeat written large across his face. “What else do you want to know?”
“What did you want the money for? Was this some gang initiation crap?”
The kid shook his head sharply. “No. No gangs. That would be even dumber than what I tried.” He blew out a breath that lifted the hair over his brow. “If my mom doesn’t pay our landlord the two months’ rent we owe by day after tomorrow, he’s going to evict us. My mom works two jobs, my sister is only five and I haven’t been able to get a job, mostly because everyone around here knows my dad’s in jail. It’s all ‘like father, like son’ bullshit. And,” he dropped his head and mumbled, “there’s not a lot of jobs around for fourteen-year-old kids that pay enough to help.”
“How much money are we talking, here?”
“Eight hundred dollars.”
“That’s a lot of money.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
Jesse pressed his lips together to keep back a smile at Marcus’s dejected response. “You go to St. Luke’s?”
Mark nodded. “Eighth grade next year. We’re out for summer now.”
“So you left your five-year-old sister alone while you trotted your ass down here to rob me? Nice choice, hotshot.”
“Mrs. Franco, the lady next door, watches her when I’m at school. I told her I had to get something at the store and would be back quick.” The boy’s dejection deepened as Jesse detailed the stupidity of his poorly thought-out plan. “You gonna call the cops?”
Jesse blew out his own sigh and studied the kid in silence for a minute. “Okay. Two new choices. Jail or working here.” He held up his hand to forestall Marcus’s immediate answer. “Working here means every day, eight to five, and every weekend. You do what I tell you, no questions asked, no grumbling. You’ll be paid minimum wage, which I will deduct from the $800 I’ll have to loan you. Once you’ve worked long enough to pay off your debt, you can keep on working or walk away. In the meantime, you miss work one day without a good excuse, and option number two kicks in. I mean it, Marcus. I won’t hesitate to throw your ass in jail if I think you’re bullshitting me. Am I clear?”
Mark nodded vigorously. “I’ll take door number one, boss.”
Jesse’s lips twitched again. “When will your mom be home?”
“Usually by eleven. Her day job starts at eight, then she comes home to feed us before she has to go to work again.”
Damn, the poor woman must be exhausted. “Okay, when she gets home tonight, you’re going to tell her all about your brilliant plan—”
“No, man. I can’t do that. She’ll freak.” Marcus shook his head and scrubbed the hair out of his eyes with both hands.
“Too bad. You should have thought of that before you jumped into this quicksand with both feet. You tell her I’ll be at your house at five thirty tomorrow with the money to pay the rent. That should keep her from tossing you out a window. Make sure you explain that you’ll be working here every day so she’ll have to get your next-door neighbor to watch your sister until you get home for dinner. Got it?”
Marcus rolled his eyes but nodded.
Jesse held up the gun. “I’ll keep this for now.”
Marcus opened his mouth to protest, then shut it at Jesse’s flinty stare. “Right.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow at five thirty, hotshot. Try to stay out of trouble until then.” He angled his head toward the door, and the kid wasted no time beating a hasty retreat.
What the fuck did I just get myself into? I’m a bigger fool than he is to take on a kid half a step away from becoming a felon. Not that I didn’t make my share of stupid moves at his age … Shit, I can still remember the expression on dad’s face the second time he had to come down to the police station and bail me out. He was pissed and sad at the same time. Made me feel worse than the cop who busted my ass did for jump-starting the mayor’s car to go joyriding. This kid doesn’t have a dad to look up to, and his mom’s so busy working to feed them all, she probably doesn’t have ten minutes to sit and have a talk with him.
He locked the gun in the small safe behind his desk and hit the lights for the second time that night. If the kid worked out for the next few weeks, he’d explain the arrangement to Mike when the family went to Florida for his brother Owen’s wedding.