The armed robber was sweating, too. “That’s bullshit. You’re just told to say that.” Suddenly, he swung his gun back toward the small group. “You move again,” he shouted at one of the mechanics, “and I’ll splash your brains all over this place!”
The customer behind Lime—an overweight man of about seventy—let out a faint, high whimper of fear.
“Now open the goddamned safe!” the gunman yelled at the clerk. “And the rest of you, take out your wallets and toss them over!”
Lime reached into a back pocket for his wallet, taking the opportunity to step forward as he did so. He was good at reading people. Although the man’s clothes were creased, they were clean. He was sweating, but that was from agitation; his pupils weren’t dilated, and Lime couldn’t make out any needle tracks. This wasn’t a career criminal or a junkie. The gun looked old, but it wasn’t a crappy Saturday Night Special.
“What do you need the money for?” Lime asked calmly.
The man was still menacing the clerk, and it took a moment for the question to sink in. “What?” he asked, eyes still on the clerk.
“I said, what do you need the money for?”
This time, the man turned his attention, and the barrel of his gun, to Lime. “Shut the fuck up.” He took a moment to glance over the others, eyes bright with hostility and suspicion. “I said, empty your wallets.”
As he spoke, Lime took another step—not toward the gunman, but flanking him, arms still raised. As he did so, the knot of hostages loosened slightly, instinctively edging away from each other.
“Don’t move!” the gunman said, the muzzle of the gun bobbing from person to person.
“What do you need the money for?” Lime asked a third time, making sure to get the man’s attention focused back on him. He held his wallet in one hand. “I mean, this is probably going to get that poor guy fired. And if I’m going to hand over all my money, I’d kind of like to know where it’s headed.” He paused. “Drugs, I suppose?”
The man looked at Lime as if he were an idiot. “Fuck you,” he said.
Lime shrugged, as if confirming his own suspicion.
“I look like an addict to you?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Well, I would know. The system’s fucked me up the ass. I been fired from three jobs. If I don’t pay my rent today, I get evicted.”
“Evicted,” Lime repeated, lowering his hands in order to open his wallet invitingly.
“That’s what I said. Evicted. The state gets custody of my kid. Not that it’s any of your fucking business!”
This last was said in a louder, more threatening tone, accompanied by a fresh aiming of the gun. The man was wavering a little now, unsure of himself, but Lime sensed this only made him more dangerous. The other hostages were forming a loose semicircle behind him.
“Stay the fuck back!” the man yelled, threatening them.
Silently, Lime nodded at them to obey.
“So now you’re desperate,” he told the man. “I get that. But think about what you’re doing. You’re no thief. Okay, so you lost three jobs. You feel the system has let you down. Maybe it has. But if you go to prison, you’ll become part of a different system. An ugly system. A brutal system that only leads in one direction.” He paused. “You haven’t stolen any money yet. You haven’t used that gun. It’s not too late.”
“Shut up!” the man said, enraged. “What do you know about anything? You got a wife? A kid? Huh?”
Lime nodded.
“And are they about to be kicked out, no roof over their head?”
“No.”
“See?” The man laughed in bitter triumph. “You don’t know shit about it—sucker.”
“My wife is dead,” Lime told him. “My baby died with her.”
The man’s laughter died, and Lime took the opportunity. “How much do you need?”
The gunman frowned, not comprehending.
“How much money do you need? To put that gun down, walk out of here, and go pay your rent?”
The man seemed taken aback by the question. This wasn’t going according to plan, and Lime stayed silent as the guy thought it through.
“Three hundred dollars,” he said after a silence.
Lime glanced out the window. They’d been lucky, in a perverse way—no other customers had shown up to complicate things. Now he opened his wallet wider.
“I’ve got about two hundred.” He turned to the group. “How about any of you? Can I get a little help here?”