Masked (4 page)

The guy in the mask doesn't move.

Take it, I said in my head. Take it and go. And please don't let Corey come down here. Don't let him startle the guy in the mask.

The guy in the mask nudges me forward.

“Pick it up,” he says in that weird, fake ultra-deep voice of his.

His grip tightens on me as I reach for the money. As soon as my hands close around it, he pulls me back.

“Hold it up,” he says.

I hold up the money, and he takes it from my hand.

“Good. That's good,” my father says, as if he's praising a child who has just finished brushing his teeth. “You can go now. We won't move. None of us will. I promise.”

But the guy in the mask says, “She's coming with me.”

Chapter Nine
Daniel

It's weird. I'm scared. I can tell because my shirt is wet under my arms and my mouth is dry. Also, I have this spaced-out feeling, as if what's happening is something I'm watching, not something I'm actually in the middle of. For the first little while, my eyes refuse to move from the gun. I've never seen a real one. For sure I've never seen one this close up, held by a jittery guy in a mask who means business. But that's only for a little while. Then that spaced-out feeling gets stronger. The stronger it gets, the less I look at the gun and the more I feel like I'm floating above the man in the mask, Rosie, her father, even myself, watching everything unfold. A crazy calm takes over. Yeah, it's weird.

I'm no expert. I've never been in a situation like this before. But if you ask me, the guy in the mask is an amateur. He seems to be letting Mr. Mirelli take the lead. Not that that doesn't mean we're all afraid. We are. I see Mr. Mirelli's hands shake when he takes the cash out of the drawer. Rosie's hands shake just like her old man's when she picks up the money like she's told and lets the guy in the mask snatch it from her.

More evidence that he's new at this: he didn't lock the door or put up the Closed sign. And now, instead of taking off with the money, he wants to take Rosie with him, which I'm sure the cops will see as kidnapping. A thousand bucks, and instead of being smart, he's making it even worse. If they catch him, he'll be locked up for a long time.

He says the girl is coming with him, and Mr. Mirelli and Rosie both say the same thing at the exact same time. They say, “No.”

Mr. Mirelli doesn't want the man to take his daughter. He's actually saying no to a man who has a gun pointed at him. Even more surprising, Rosie says no to a man who has a good grip on her and who, if you ask me, can do pretty much whatever he wants.

Does the guy in the mask get angry? Does he threaten Mr. Mirelli and Rosie? Does he remind them that, in case they didn't notice, he has a gun?

No. Instead, he looks surprised, even with that mask over his face. It's his eyes that give him away. They pop open like kernels of popcorn.

“She's coming with me,” he says again and stops abruptly because their response has surprised him so much that he's forgotten himself and has slipped into a normal voice. He sucks in a deep breath. He lowers his voice again to disguise it. “She's coming with me,” he says for the third time.

I don't even notice what Rosie does after that. I don't look at her father either. I'm staring at the guy in the mask. I'm thinking about those four words that he said in his normal voice. I look him over, taking in every detail.

He's tall—much taller than Rosie, but not quite as tall as me. There's not a lot of meat on him. I'm slim, but I'm all muscle. Maybe he's all muscle too, but I'm willing to bet he's mostly string bean. Besides the mask, which is really one of those hats you can wear when you're skiing on a cold day and can pull down over your face so that the only things that show are your eyes through two eyeholes and your mouth through a mouth hole—besides that, he's wearing gloves, a long black coat like the guy in
The Matrix
, black jeans and black boots. The boots have worn-down heels and a triangle-shaped nick on the right instep.

They make me think of my next-door neighbor. He saved up for months to buy a pair of boots just like those. The second day he had them, one of his brothers, the younger one who, it turns out, wears the same size boots, borrowed them without asking and got into a fight while he was wearing them. When he returned them, they had a triangle-shaped nick on the right instep. The whole neighborhood heard the two of them going at it, with their mother in the middle, first yelling at them to stop and then begging them.

I stare at those boots and I wonder, What are the chances?

But I open my mouth anyway. I say, “Hey.”

The guy in the mask turns toward me, which I guess is what Mr. Mirelli has been waiting for because the very second the guy turns his head, I see out of the corner of my eye Mr. Mirelli slipping his hand under the counter. I think he must have some kind of button down there that sets off an alarm. I figure he's pressing it. That's the only reason I say what I say next. I think that Mr. Mirelli has tripped the alarm and that the cops are getting the information that there's something going down in this store and any minute now they'll be on their way here. That's why I say what I say.

I say, “Leon?”

Chapter Ten
The Masked Man

I planned. I thought through all the angles. I knew down to the minute when I was going to walk through the door and exactly what I'd do once I was inside. When I found someone in there I hadn't counted on, I didn't let it throw me. I adapted. I kept going. After all, I walked in there as a man with a plan. I was going to see it through no matter what. It was going to be easy—at least, it was the way I mapped it out. I'd wait until the old man and the girl were alone in the store. I'd go in. I'd wave the gun. I'd grab the girl. I'd go. Done.

There's this thing I heard one guy say to another guy in a movie once:
If
it wasn't for bad luck, you'd have no
luck at all.
That's how I feel when I'm surprised by someone in the store that I hadn't expected. But I roll with the punches. I work around him. I refuse to let him stop me from doing what I came in to do.

But my plan starts to unravel.

First, I take my eyes off the old man for a split second when the guy I hadn't counted on says, “Hey.”

Then, by the time I turn back to the old man, I see him pulling his hand out from someplace under the counter.

At the exact moment I see what he's pulling out from under there— a gun—I hear the guy I hadn't counted on say, “Leon?”

I'm staring at that gun—that's something else I didn't plan for. I don't remember anyone saying anything about a gun. Then someone is saying my name—“Leon?”—as in, “Leon, is that you under that mask?” I feel Rosie's arm stiffen. I see her turn. I see that she's not scared anymore. I see that she's staring into my eyes. Then she's reaching out with one hand. She's reaching for the balaclava on my head, and I know she wants to grab it and yank it off.

So I pull back—fast.

I put on The Voice.

I say, “This isn't a game.”

And the old man says, “It sure as hell isn't.” Then he says, “Who the hell is Leon?”

I think, This is all wrong.

First of all, even though I'm still holding a gun, no one seems to be afraid of me anymore.

Second, the old man is also holding a gun. It's pointed right at my head, and I know he's not going to back down. It's what they call a Mexican standoff. It's down to either who will shoot first (
Nobody!
my brain screams. There isn't going to be any shooting!) or who will back down first. I'm tempted to cave. But after coming so far, I can't make myself be the guy who blinks first.

Third, the other guy is staring at me, and I know that he knows without a doubt that it's me under the balaclava. I don't know how he knows, but he knows. Which pretty much wrecks what's left of my plan.

Finally, the girl is frowning, like she hasn't figured out why I'm doing what I'm doing, like the only explanation she can come up with is that I've gone off the deep end. Why else would I be robbing her father's store? And what really throws me is she actually seems to care about it.

Then, just when I think things can't possibly get any worse, a bell sounds behind me. It takes a second before I realize what it means.

It means someone else has come into the store.

Chapter Eleven
Rosie

Daniel is staring at the guy in the mask behind me. He's staring like he thinks if he concentrates hard enough, he'll be able to see through the mask.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I catch movement, and I see that my dad doesn't have both hands up in the air anymore. Somehow he's managed to edge sideways just enough that he's standing right behind Daniel. He lowers one hand. He's looking at the guy in the mask as he bends ever so slightly to reach under the counter. What is he doing?

His hand re-emerges. It's wrapped around a gun.

A gun!

Where did it come from? I've never seen a gun in the store before. Is it new? There's been a rash of robberies lately. The cops say it's because of all the drugs in the neighborhood, which is a relatively new thing. My dad has been complaining about it, about all the stickups and how the only thing that ever happens is that insurance rates go up for the storeowners.

“They get robbed twice,” he says. “First by the punks and the junkies and then by the insurance companies. And you know what? Neither of those two parties understands the concept of an honest day's work.”

Or has the gun been there all along? Not that it matters. It's out now, and my father's hand is remarkably steady as he holds it so that it's aimed at the man in the mask behind me.

I know the masked man has seen the gun, because he flinches. His hand tightens on my arm. My heart slams to a stop. Someone is going to get hurt, and it could be me. I'm in the middle between two men who are pointing guns at each other.

Then Daniel says, “Leon?”

I can't help myself. I spin around, a bunch of different thoughts colliding in my head. Leon, telling me he wanted to come and see me tonight. Leon, frowning whenever I tell him I can't go out on account of my father and how strict he is, how mean he is, what a temper he has. Leon, feeling sorry for me and telling me he would do anything for me—anything. The rumors I've heard about Leon's family—especially about Leon's father, which is what gave me the idea in the first place. The surprise I felt when the man in the mask grabbed my arm—how loose his grip was, almost gentle. The masked man's funny voice, weird, unnaturally deep, like he's hiding something. I suddenly realize: like he's hiding his real voice.

I have to know.

I turn my back on the gun in my father's hand and face the gun the man in the mask is holding. But I don't look at it. Instead, I look at the eyes peeking out from the eyeholes. They're hazel, like Leon's eyes, with tiny flecks of green in them, also like Leon's eyes. Around them are stubby brown lashes, just like Leon's.

I look at the mouth that's visible in the mouth hole, but it's harder to notice anything special about it. Then I reach out my hand. I'm sure it's Leon— sure enough that I plan to pull off the mask and prove it to myself. He watches me. He sees my hand reach out. He jumps back far enough that I can't touch him.

That's when the bell above the door jangles.

That's when Corey walks in.

He doesn't notice anything strange at first because he isn't looking at my father or at the man in the mask. I don't think he even notices the mask. No, he's looking at me, and his face is flushed. I can tell that he's angry—when Corey is angry, he doesn't hide it.

“What's taking so long?” he demands. “I'm up there all by myself, waiting and waiting. You think I have nothing better to do? And why did you lock that door? I had to come around the long way. You think—?”

He stops. He frowns. He looks at my dad, who is scowling at him. He sees the gun in my dad's hand. He glances at me for a split second, like he's expecting me to explain. But I don't have to because his eyes have already moved past me to the man in the mask. The color drains from Corey's face. I guess he doesn't know what else to do because he puts his hands up in the air.

The man in the mask says, “What does he mean he was waiting for you?” This time he sounds exactly like Leon.

Chapter Twelve
Daniel

I can't believe it. The masked man is Leon. Leon Butler, my next-door neighbor, one year ahead of me in school.

The quiet one, his mother calls him.

Of her three sons, Leon is the calmest, the most thoughtful. He's the one who, when his mother broke her arm (or, rather, when Leon's father broke his mom's arm), went on the Internet and found a site that showed how to fold laundry properly to avoid wrinkles and then, for the next two months, folded stuff and put it away for his mother. The only one who cooked during those two months. The most the other two did was nuke what was already in the freezer or, failing that, bring home take-out food, always careful to eat when their father was not around. They were always happy to let Leon put the meal on the table and to have things thrown at him if his dad didn't happen to like it.

Leon vacuumed and wiped down the counters and put away the clean dishes from the dishwasher too, rushing home from school to do it and telling his dad that his mother had done it because if there was one thing his dad hated, it was a woman who sat around all day and didn't keep her house in order.

Leon was also the one who, when push finally came to shove, arranged for someone from a shelter to come when his father was at work and take him and his mother and his brothers away someplace where his dad wouldn't find them. His dad never did either. It helped that he was killed in a car crash a week after they left. His blood-alcohol level was through the roof.