He has wide eyes. He sees it as an opportunity; I see it as a stupid way to get killed.
Don't do it, I warn him with a look.
Charlie doesn't care. Right at that moment, a surge of adrenaline turns the anguish into a desire for revenge. He tries to catch her and...
"I said nobody move!" Rooster bursts out, positioning himself behind him. There is a click and Charlie looks over his shoulder. Gallo points the gun at my brother's back. DeSanctis, still blocking the door, points at me.
"Charlie, listen to him!" I beg with a hoarse voice.
"Finally, someone who has some sense," Gallo says, turning his gun on me. He reaches over and moves the barrel next to my cheek. I'll ask you again now, Oliver. You know what we're looking for. You just have to tell us where he is.
Unable to move a muscle, I look over Gallo's shoulder. Behind him, Charlie is still kneeling on the ground, ready to explode. He sweeps the place with his gaze, searching for another exit. But no matter where he looks, he's still seeing Shep. Me too, and that's why I won't let the same thing happen to us.
"Don't be stupid, Oliver," Gallo warns me. He accepts defeat and you can get out of here.
-Do not say anything! Charlie yells. If you tell him, he'll leave us lying here with Shep.
"He Shut the fuck up!" says Gallo, pointing at Charlie.
I am completely paralyzed by fear. Charlie wakes me up with a look. Don't tell him, he warns me. Don't give him anything. The problem is, no matter how good my poker face may be, Gallo already knows my weakness.
Grinning like a ferret and keeping his sights on Charlie, Gallo readies the gun and watches my reaction.
"How much is your brother worth to you, Oliver?"
-Please no...! I implore, making an effort to get the words out of my mouth.
Leaving nothing to chance, DeSanctis steps behind me and plunges the barrel of his gun into the back of my neck.
Rooster strokes the trigger behind Charlie. The gun is aimed at his head, but Gallo looks at me. Kneeling over Shep's lifeless body, Charlie turns his head and fights for my attention. My eyes glaze over and a hot spasm rises up my throat. We both know the end. No matter what we can give Gallo, he won't let us walk away. Not after everything we've seen. Still, Charlie searches my face, looking for something…anything…to get us out of here. But there is nothing.
Blinded to the last breath, Charlie turns and stares at Shep's lifeless body. But it's not until I notice Shep's blood seeping through the floorboards that I can really see it…our exit. Charlie has his back to me, but I catch a sudden dip in his shoulders. He has seen it too. Hunched over as if the pressure was too much, Charlie kneels close to Shep's body… running his fingers along the edges of the loose board on the floor.
"You know the way to save him," Gallo warns me, his gaze still fixed on me. Just tell us where the money is. "From Gallo's position behind Charlie, he can't see anything. Half a meter further, I see everything. I quickly position the body so that DeSanctis doesn't have a good field of vision either.
"Please don't hurt him," I implore. I'll give him all the information he needs, but he's in the bank, I don't have it with me.
It is all I can do. Keep buying time.
Charlie pretends to shield himself from the imminent shot, ducking even lower and grabbing the wooden plank. He moves slightly, but not enough. There is still a nail that prevents removal. He concentrates on the hairline cracks between the boards and wedges his fingers deep into them. If he continues, his knuckles will bleed. He does not care. He needs the crowbar. One final tug and his skin tears. His forearm tendons contract and I can tell his fingers wrap around the bottom edges of the board. You almost have it, go ahead little brother. He pulls up with all his might without arousing the suspicions of the two agents. The board loosens quickly.
"Oliver, you're too smart not to memorize the account number," Gallo warns as he points at Charlie's head. Could you do it better.
Behind Gallo, Charlie turns just enough to look at me. "Don't talk," his eyes tell me. The board is about to give way. "Three seconds," says Gallo. Then you will have to sweep your brother's brains out. One...
"I just need a second Ollie. It's all I need."
-Two...
"One more second..."
"Please don't do it!" If you want
know, it is an account in An...! "Ollie, move!" Charlie tells me with a look. The board comes off the floor with a loud crack.
Following the direction of the sound, Gallo moves away from me and turns his body towards my brother. He looks down at the floor but Charlie is already on his feet, swinging the wooden plank like it's a baseball bat. The flat side catches Gallo in the jaw, sending a stream of saliva flying across the room. The sound alone is worth it... a sickeningly sweet crack that sends him—and the gun—to the ground.
Before he can comprehend what's happening, I feel a sharp tug on the back of my shirt. DeSanctis pushes me back. He is trained to respond instantly. As I hit the ground, he turns to Charlie and aims his gun for the kill shot. Now my brother stands before the black hole of the canyon. He instinctively raises the wooden board as a protective shield. Realizing what is about to happen, I crawl across the floor and try to get up. But it's useless. Without hesitating for a second, De Sanctis pulls the trigger. The shot produces a deafening sound.
The wood shakes violently and something passes directly over Charlie's head. When he opens his eyes, the board is already flying from his hands, split in half by the shot. The board falls heavily to the ground and his hands feel the sting of dozens of splinters dislodged from the wood by the force of the impact. Charlie looks at De Sanctis, who is preparing to fire again.
-No! he yelled, launching me at DeSanctis from behind. The gun jerks and goes off; the bullet hits the wall to my right, sending a cloud of powdered concrete into a corner. The impact knocks DeSanctis off balance long enough for me to jump onto his back and put my arm around his neck. In a few seconds, however, the training overcomes the surprise. DeSanctis throws his head back and hits me hard on the nose. The pain is terrifying. But I don't give in.
"I'll kill you, bastard!" De Sanctis yells as I continue to cling to his neck. He steps back and tries to catch me with both arms above my shoulders. That leaves his chest bare. It's all the distraction Charlie needs. He grabs the broken board, runs forward... digs his feet into the ground and delivers the punch. As the board crashes into De Sanctis's stomach, he doubles over and I swear his feet lift off the ground. I fall to the ground but it's clear DeSanctis is getting the worst of it.
-You are well? Charlie asks, holding out his hand.
I nod several times, unable to catch my breath.
Behind Charlie there is a noise as if they were scratching the floor. Charlie turns and sees Gallo crawling towards his gun.
But Charlie is faster, he picks up the gun and puts it in the back of his pants.
"Charlie...!" he yelled.
"You are dead," Gallo whispers, bleeding from his mouth.
"Are you sure about that?" Charlie asks, waving his makeshift bat again. I have never seen him like this. He lifts the board over his head like a lumberjack and...
-Do not do it! He yelled, grabbing her shoulder. DeSanctis starts to get up. This is clearly not our game. Come on... let's get out of here!
Charlie drops the board and we shoot for the metal door in the corner. Once I hear his shoes clicking behind me, I don't look back. All I want is to get out of that place. With a quick movement I pass through the door and head down the passage. Charlie takes one last look at the abandoned station before following me. I can hear it from where I am. Rooster is up and coming after us, coughing uncontrollably. DeSanctis is not far behind.
"We have problems," Charlie yells.
Panicking, he passed the trailers of the construction guys and reached the upper level. We both heard the crash of the metal door slamming against the wall in the hallway below. They are faster than we thought.
"Check the trailers!" Rooster yells. That's what DeSanctis takes care of.
At that moment I turn left and quickly retrace the path we came from.
-Wrong direction! Charlie yells.
-These...?
"Trust me," he yells at me, lunging to the right.
I stop, but it's a simple choice. We both know where we spent Friday nights.
When he sees that I'm behind him, Charlie continues down the hall, the old instincts taking over again. At the far end of the hall he jumps onto the escalator and takes the steps two at a time. Behind him, my shoes click against the metal grooves.
"Are they still following us?" I ask without looking back.
When you reach the top of the escalator, which ends at a bunch of newspaper and magazine kiosks, the only clear path leads to the left, back to the main lobby. Charlie keeps running straight ahead, toward the brown service door in the corner.
"Looks like it's locked," I say.
"No," Charlie insists. Or, at least, it wasn't usually closed.
Praying things haven't changed, I watch as he throws himself against the door. It opens wide and leads us into an industrial brown hallway. Charlie picks up his pace. He has returned to familiar territory. And I feel more lost than ever. I don't want to be left behind; I clench my fists and teeth and increase the speed of my strides. I feel my nails dig into the palms of my hands.
-You are well? Charlie asks, feeling the vibrations of the moment.
"Yeah," I say, looking straight ahead.
Ahead of us are two automatic revolving doors. We step on the carpet with sensors and the doors open. I immediately smell gasoline fumes. Through the doors, the intensity of the lights dims and the cavern expands. Brick walls, no windows, an old wooden ticket booth with a time clock on the outside. Charlie looks around at the fifty or so cars parked bumper to bumper in the underground car park.
"Do you have a ticket?" a man yells from the ticket booth with a Puerto Rican accent.
"No thanks," Charlie says, catching her breath. He glances over his shoulder at the automatic doors for Gallo and DeSanctis. But the doors are closed mechanically. There is no one there. At least not yet. But before we can relax, my stomach lurches and I vomit uncontrollably. The liquid hits the floor violently as I vomit up the milky brown remains of my morning cereal. Just the smell makes me vomit again. I clamp my jaws shut to prevent it.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Charlie asks me again.
Bent forward, hands on knees, I spit out the last bits as a trickle of saliva dangles from my chin.
"Don't think I'll be the one to clean that up," the Puerto Rican guy warns us from the ticket booth.
But Charlie ignores his comment and puts a hand on my shoulder.
"He's gone," he says. We are safe.
Words are nice, but you're wrong.
-Than? Charlie asks, studying my green color. "What's wrong?" My stomach is empty and I am about to pass out. But it's not until I wipe the saliva from my lower lip with the back of my hand and make an effort to sit upright that my
brother looks me in the eye. They wander around the parking lot, eagerly dancing in all directions.
Charlie doesn't say anything but he knows why he didn't want to turn his head while we were running from that place. It's true, he was afraid, but not only of what he was after us. It was what we left behind. Shep. I look at the vomit at my feet. Forget fear, this is guilt.
"It's not your fault, Ollie. Even when you tried to give them the account number, Shep told you to keep your mouth shut.
—But if we hadn't been... —Damn it, how could I have been so clumsy? I'm smarter than that! —. If we hadn't been there... If I hadn't been so stupidly furious with Lapidus...
"Yes... yes... yes... Still don't get it?" -Question-. It doesn't matter what you were thinking, or why you convinced yourself that you should do it; Shep was planning to steal that money with or without us. Final point.
I raise my head.
-You think?
"Of course," he says with a typical Charlie instant confidence. But when the words leave his lips, his expression changes. Reality hits hard. And quickly. Now he is the one who suddenly turns green.
-Are you okay? -I ask.
He does not answer. Instead, he points up the steep ramp that leads up the snow-lined street.
-You are ready?
Before he can nod, Charlie runs toward her. Behind him I close my eyes again and see Shep's lifeless body, bent on the ground like a broken marionette. Unable to erase that image—or the thoughtless decision that got us there—I run after my brother to the end of the ramp. But unfortunately for us, there are things that cannot be left behind.
I'm still trailing Charlie as we come up the parking ramp onto 44th Street. We're quickly swallowed up by the crowd that's out to eat, but I can already hear sirens wailing in the distance.
I look at Charlie; he studies my expression. We are no longer just thieves. By the time Gallo and DeSanctis have finished us off, we'll be killers.
"Should we call mom...?"
"No way," I say, still with the taste of vomit on my lips. It will be the first place they will look for us.