Joe Victim: A Thriller

“We hang it up,” she says, and reaches into her bag for some duct tape.

Raphael seems to figure it out and together they start stripping off lengths of tape and a few minutes later they have a curtain that shields them from the street. The room, dark to begin with, now becomes pitch-black, and she uses a flashlight function on her cell phone to shed some light. She takes a knife and cuts a square of drop cloth away from in front of one of the opening windows, leaving a hole not much bigger than her head.

“I shoot through this?” Raphael asks.

“And you’ll be lying down too,” she says. “From out on the street nobody is going to see a thing.”

“Lying down on what?” he asks, and she turns toward the sawhorses and the plank of wood and he doesn’t have to ask anything else.

They drag the makeshift platform into place. He lies down on it and shuffles himself into position so he can see out through the drop cloth.

“Try it out,” she says, and she attaches the scope to the gun and hands it over.

He shuffles himself a little further up the planks. He puts the scope against his eye. Tightens the gun into his shoulder.

“It’s good,” he says.

“So you’ll be able to pull off the shot?”

He smiles up at her. “With the window open, yeah.”

“Just don’t open it when you’re in the uniform,” she says. “You open it before that.”

“I know,” he says.

She looks at her watch. “It’s almost time,” she says.

Raphael stays in position. Melissa moves to the edge of their makeshift curtain and kills the light on her phone before pulling the curtain aside. Street lights, building lights, tungsten and neon burning from every direction in the city, more than enough to see clearly. They don’t make any further conversation. They just wait in silence. Somewhere in an adjoining office, or perhaps even the one below or above, an air-conditioning unit kicks into action, the low hum creating a background noise that makes the office complex feel less like a building in a ghost town. But not a lot less.

Right on time a series of headlights comes from the south. Three police cars leading a van, three police cars following it. They’re driving slowly. None of the lights are flashing. They disappear from view, as the angle of the courthouse gets in the way as the cars get close to it, but she knows they’re turning toward the front of the building.

On Monday their progress will be made slower by the traffic and by the crowds of people.

They’re the decoy.

At the same time a van comes into view from the parallel street. It disappears from view as the courthouse blocks them, but then comes back into view as it comes around the back. It turns into the street between the office building and the back entrance. There’s a chain-link fence stretching the perimeter of the court’s parking lot. Somebody inside the compound pushes a button and part of the fence rolls open. The van drives in. The fence rolls closed.

The van parks up close to the door. The back of the van is facing the office window. Its doors swing open.

“I can see all of it,” Raphael says.

“Focus,” she says. “Don’t miss the shot.”

She can see it all too, but not in any great detail. Two men dressed in black step out of the back of the van. Then out shuffles a man in orange. She can’t see the chains, but can tell by the way he’s moving he must be wearing them around his ankles as well as his wrists. He steps down. People are pointing weapons at him. For two seconds nobody moves.

A lot can happen in two seconds.

The prisoner starts his thirty-foot walk.

“Do you have the shot?”

“I have it,” Raphael says.

“How clear is it?”

“Clear enough.”

The thirty feet get eaten up. The group stands around the back door.

“May I?” she asks, and she turns toward Raphael, but can’t see him. She puts out a hand and takes a step toward him. The only light in the office is what’s coming through the hole in the curtain. She feels nothing at first, then touches the side of the gun that’s being held toward her. She grabs it and moves back into position. She looks at the four cops and the man in orange. Almost like a painted target. The man in orange is a police officer. She’s seen him before. On TV or in real life she can’t remember, and it doesn’t rightly matter. Tonight he’s playing the part of Joe. This small field trip’s a rehearsal for Monday morning’s big event.

Also a rehearsal for Raphael and her too.

The cops are chatting with a security guard at the entrance. One of them throws back his head and laughs and the others are grinning at him.

“Can’t miss,” Raphael says.