As the Dodge Charger thundered to life, Ben turned to Key. "You're really letting Moose trot off like that?" he asked, a tremor rippling through his hands. "That's the last we'll ever see of him."
Ben took a step toward his house, but stopped abruptly when he felt the enforcer's hand on his shoulder. His body tensed. "This is it," he thought before Key spoke.
"Of course I'm not letting that poi-belly bastard skate," Key answered in a manner that proved he remained two steps ahead of Ben and everyone else. "He knows more than he's saying, so we're gonna follow his big ass to see where he goes."
"He's gonna run. Straight to the airport for the first flight to Pineapple Town."
"Maybe." Key dragged Ben toward the rental car.
Ben gassed it down the street and caught sight of the Charger. Moose appeared to be making a break for the canyon and freedom. Ben started to grumble when the Charger swerved into a 7-11 near the turnoff to the Canyons Resort.
"Slow up." Key raised an oak-like arm to accentuate the command. "Let's see what he's up to."
The Charger barreled past the pumps and parked by the front door of the convenience store. Moose blasted out, practically ripping the glass door off its hinges as he stormed into the store. The clerk backpedaled from the counter until he hit the shelves of cigarettes, a baseball bat in his hand, which he used to point wildly toward the road. Moose responded by angrily slamming his fist on the counter.
"What the hell's going on?" Ben asked.
"Just wait," Key ordered.
The clerk reached behind his back. "What's he doing?" Ben called out, certain he'd spot the glint of a gun. Instead, the old man produced a rumpled napkin, which he held toward Moose with a trembling hand.
"That's it," Key said, as though he had been expecting the clerk to pass a note to Moose.
"That's what?" Ben asked, mystified.
"Drive!"
The rental car skidded to a stop next to the Charger as Moose plucked the note from the clerk's hand. With gun drawn, Key bolted into the store, Ben trailing behind. The napkin fluttered to the ground and disappeared behind the counter.
"So what do we have here?" Key asked coldly, his pistol leveled at Moose's chest.
The baseball bat rattled to the floor. Key didn't even flinch at the noise, his attention on the big Hawaiian. Moose forced himself to smile, his survival instincts kicking in. "Brutha told me they was out of ham and cheese."
The clerk turned to the new arrivals and his face lit up. "That's him," he shouted, pointing at Ben. "That's the guy with the bag!"
Key glanced at Ben, but addressed Moose, "So what's going on here?"
The smile disappeared from Moose's face and he replied with a defiant sneer," I needed some chewing gum."
BANG! A bullet ripped through Moose's thigh, causing his knees to buckle, but the large man did not fall. The clerk gasped and made a break for the back door. "Stay put, old man!" Key barked without even looking at him. The clerk raised his arms in surrender.
Ben stared at Moose with a mixture of horror and respect, because despite having a gaping hole in his leg, he refused to go down.
"I'll ask you one more time," Key said calmly. "What the fuck you doing here?"
Ben wondered the same thing about himself. If he had any brains, he would have driven off when Key jumped out of the car.
Moose gave Key one last murderous stare, before throwing up one arm in surrender, the other arm clinging to the counter for balance. "Okay, brutha, okay. Calm down." His voice came out in spurts, the pain in his leg must be overwhelming. "Shit, man, you didn't have to shoot me. I'm here investigating a lead. And this guy here," he said, pointing to the clerk, "just saw the guy with the bag."
All heads turned to the clerk, who again pointed at Ben and said in a shaky voice, "It was this fella here. He's the one."
Key glared at Ben, trying to gauge culpability, but his gun remained pointed at Moose, whose legs were shaking from pain—he wouldn't be able to stand much longer.
"What's on the napkin?" Key asked, his patience wearing thin.
"Dunno. Brutha said I'd wanna see it."
Without turning from the wounded Hawaiian, Key called out to the clerk. "What's on the napkin, old man?"
"It's the..." The man started before his voice failed him.
"Speak up!"
The clerk gulped. "It's the license plate number of his car," the old man pointed again at Ben. "The car with the bag."
Tired of the accusation, particularly because Tam'ra's trained killer had no problems firing his gun at anyone suspected of stealing the money, Ben yelled back, "You need glasses, old man."
"What do you know about the bag?" Key asked the clerk, ignoring Ben completely.
"I don't know nothing," the man answered with a quaver. "Except that this guy," he pointed at Moose, "came in earlier asking 'bout a black leather bag."
"Pick up that napkin," Key ordered Ben.
As Ben strode around the counter to retrieve the napkin, the clerk suddenly became emboldened. "Take it and leave," he called out. Ben shot the man a warning look to keep his mouth shut, but the clerk didn't take the hint. "You hear me?" The man yelled toward Key. "You need to clear out."
Ben bent down and picked the napkin off the floor, studying the man's barely legible scrawl.
"You got it?" Key asked him, his focus still on Moose.
"Yup. It does appear to be a license plate number, but how do we..." His sentence was cut short by a sudden movement from Key, who spun and leveled his gun in his direction. The shot reverberated in his ears, but he felt no pain. He glanced down, expecting blood to be gushing from his heart. Instead, he heard the clerk crumple to the floor behind him. He turned to see the old man on the ground, legs splayed, one arm pinned awkwardly beneath him, a shocking amount of dark fluid spilling from a hole in his head.
The gunshot had frozen Ben into place, but for Moose, it had the opposite effect. He pushed away from the counter and rolled into a backward somersault, his hand swooping into his waistband to grab his Glock. By the time Key turned his pistol back toward Moose, the stunningly agile Hawaiian had already begun to fire indiscriminately in his direction. POP. POP. POP POP.
The new gunshots snapped Ben out of his daze and he dove to the floor next to the dead clerk. Key followed a split second later, leaping over the counter and landing on the pile of flesh and bones that three seconds earlier had been a living, breathing human being.
Shots peppered the cigarette display and boxes rained down. From his position flat against the ground, Ben watched Key calmly adjust to a sitting position, marveling at the killer's unruffled demeanor as he waited for a break in the shots.
When Moose stopped firing, Key poked his head above the counter and fired two shots that hit the broad target of Moose's back as he staggered toward the exit. The impact of the bullets caused him to stumble, but he used his momentum to crash out the doors. With blood now streaming from three gunshot wounds, Moose wildly fired off a few more rounds as he lurched down the sidewalk, giving him enough time to disappear into the blackness beyond the store parking lot—a trail of blood splatter marking his path.
When the shooting subsided, Ben rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. His heart throbbed in his bullet hole-free chest. "What the fuck?" He said to no one in particular.
"Your boy was trying to get over on us," Key stated calmly, as he cautiously looked out to the parking lot, like he expected to be greeted with another hail of bullets.
"Yeah, I get it," Ben replied caustically, still unsure whether Moose had betrayed him or not. It appeared as though he had come close to tracking down the money, exactly as he had been ordered. "But you didn't need to cap the old man." He couldn't bear to look at the dead man lying in a heap next to him.
"You don't think he would have been trouble for us down the road?" Key asked with the tone of an elementary school teacher instructing a slow kid on simple arithmetic.
"How the hell do I know?"
"Exactly." Key bent down and plucked the napkin out of his hands. Ben hadn't even realized it was still in his grasp.
Key read the information before marching toward the store's entrance. He brazenly threw open the doors and inspected Moose's blood trail. Bright red blood splashes covered the recently shoveled sidewalk, marking a clear trail to the parking lot and continuing off into the darkness beyond.
Wearily, Ben pushed himself to a standing position. I've got to get away from this psycho or I will not survive the night. He trudged outside and stood beside Key, gesturing toward the blood that would easily lead them to Moose, probably collapsed and dying in the brush a few feet beyond the parking lot. "You gonna track him down?" Ben asked, with a sliver of hope that he would be left alone for a few minutes—enough time to get the hell out of there.
"No," Key responded. "I hit the bastard two more times as he fled. He may not know it yet, but he's a dead man."
Ben felt a sliver of sadness. Moose had been a good employee, almost a friend. But the feeling quickly dissipated. If he was trying to screw me over, then he got what was coming to him. "So what now?" He asked, not wanting to hear the answer.
Key held up the napkin. "We find out who owns this car and go get the money."
"And how the hell do we do that?"
"I know a guy," Key replied cryptically.
"Who does what?" Ben asked, before jumping out of his shoes for the third time in five minutes, as Key fired a shot into the front tire of Moose's car. The tire flattened almost immediately, the air whooshing out with the sound of a dozen hissing snakes.
"Shit, man!" He exclaimed, throwing his arms up in aggravation. "You gotta warn me when you're gonna shoot that thing!"
"Just in case the big guy has little life in him, yet." Key replied with grudging admiration.
Ben stared at the blood on the sidewalk and then glanced up at a camera mounted above the doors. This cannot end well.