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I stepped around the corner of that mangled truck, curious as to why he didn’t have to blow up its door. One glance proved his point. The impact had destroyed the double locks of that door. Its right panel was wide open, while its left was still latched in place.
But we didn’t have time to celebrate. Or to get in that truck and check out how much money was in it. The roar of a powerful engine reverberating through my skull, I whipped my head left. The black Escalade’s high beams forced me to thrust my arm up to shield my eyes as it headed straight for us. I sensed a serious amount of force on my wrist, yanking me down. My knees hitting the deck, I saw Leonardo on all fours, crawling into the truck. I followed him in, the crackle of bullets tearing into the stillness of the night.
Some light coming through the gap behind me, I turned around as Leonardo positioned himself behind the closed panel. I reached out, my fingers making contact with the metal edge of the open panel. Without wasting any time, I pulled it in my direction, leaving just a two-inch gap in the middle. The roar of that engine growing louder by the second, I craned my neck to look through the scope. Those sons of bitches were less than fifty yards out and closing the gap fast. I squeezed the trigger of my rifle, its muzzle flash shooting past the edge of that panel. Bullets thumping into its surface, my ears picked up another, rumbling sound, along with the noise of glass shattering. The Escalade slowing down, Leonardo shoved his gun through the gap and opened fire. My eyes narrowing to protect myself from those high beams, I kept aiming at the driver. The next bullet pierced the windscreen, just to the right.
No good.
I had missed—that monstrous SUV was still going.
A large figure stormed into my line of sight from the left. Matteo lunged through the passenger window, sending my heart into the embrace of tension and fear. For the second time that night, I was left to watch a vehicle swerve left and right. Only this time, it was too close for comfort. In an instant, the Escalade veered off to the left and out of the road. Its lights illuminating the towering trees, it disappeared between the trunks of two, elm trees.
“Fuck!” I cried out, lifting my rifle up as I crawled forward. I put my left arm forward and bent my right leg, my heart pounding so hard I could hear it. The echoes of the bullets still lingering in the air, a tremendous thud ripped through the wilderness. I hurtled off and away from the truck, Leonardo following right behind me.
“You stupid son of a bitch,” I said to myself, jumping past the edge of the road. The Escalade had slammed into a tree, its side to me. Its hood had bent and twisted, parts of its front bumper littering the dirt. I sidestepped one such piece, noises of struggle reaching my ears. Matteo’s loud, deep cry raised the fine hairs on the back of my neck, Leonardo passing me by. Being the first to reach that banged-up SUV, he yanked the passenger door open. Just as he did so, a stranger’s body fell out of the seat, his head stopping just an inch from the ground. Blood was dripping off the seam of his lips. A large cut by his right eye and a bruise right over it told us what had happened. Matteo had pounded the shit out of him. Two bullet holes on his chest. Our friend had kneeled on top of him, his head pressed to the headrest as he gasped for breath.
Speechless, Leonardo and I looked at each other, before he held out his arm. Taking Matteo’s hand in his grip, he eased him out of that Escalade, the enemy’s head bumping into the ground. I peeked in, only to find an open airbag and the driver lying back in his seat. Eyes shut, his mouth agape, a bullet had been lodged in the middle of his forehead. Blood dribbled out of the wound, and I turned in Matteo’s direction. He leaned his weight against me, his panting subsiding.
“You crazy bastard,” I told him, admiration dripping from my voice. “Were you trying to be a hero?”
“Ah, shut up, asshole,” he grunted, flashing me an angry, sideways glance. “If I hadn’t jumped in, those motherfuckers would have crashed into the truck. On purpose.”
“That sounds like something I would have done,” Leonardo said, my gaze on the wide-open panels of that armored truck.
“We did it, boys,” I stated, my heart plunging into a sea of joy. “Matteo, you should go in first. You earned it.”
“Right,” he muttered, lengthening his strides.
I halted just a few feet from the truck, my friend going down on his knees.
He had earned it?
No. That wasn’t entirely accurate.
Matteo had made this happen.
Without him, we’d have been crushed to death in that truck. Leonardo and I would have been squashed like bugs. There was no way we’d have survived that impact. That Escalade was enormous. It weighed more than two tons. Those panels wouldn’t have protected us.
“Catch!”
Matteo’s shout came right before the sound of a heavy object sliding filled my ears. Looking down, I saw a large, gray box, its top open. five wads of hundred-dollar bills were on top of five stacks. I swallowed a big gulp of my own saliva and picked one up in my hand. Leonardo doing the same, he had a broad grin on his face. Two, even bigger boxes sliding out, Matteo emerged from within the cab and leaned back on his palms.
“It’s official, bitches,” Leonardo said, his voice a little faster than usual. “We’re rich. We’refucking rich.”
I helped Matteo up, letting out a long laugh. Right there, standing between the wrecks of our enemies’ vehicles, we high-fived one another. At last, the spoils of an armored truck were ours. How much did it contain? Five million? Six? Eight? It didn’t really matter. All that did matter, was that it was ours now. We wouldn’t be broke anymore. We had what we needed to get into the world that had been eluding us for years and years. And, most of all, we were all in one piece. None of us had been badly hurt. Except for some bruises along Matteo’s arms, we were just fine. Happy and praising each other on a job well done.
16
PIPER
“Three dead inarmored truck heist outside Westchester, NY”
The headline of that story was enough to draw my gaze.
What a tragedy. Three men had to lose their lives, so that someone else would get rich.
I could understand theft. Sometimes, I could even justify it. People in need can do desperate things to survive. I just couldn’t understand or justify murder. To me, taking a life was a despicable crime. A crime that should be punished much more harshly than felonies like tax fraud or tax evasion. There was nothing final in those. Money was money—it could be replaced. A human being could just not be replaced...
Naturally, my mind went back to the trio that stormed into the hospital, not so long ago. Of all the people I knew, those guys were the most suitable to offer me a glimpse into the mindset of a criminal. Of course, I didn’t have any proof of them actually committing a crime, but they had said so themselves. At least, one of them had:
