“Good,” Justin said, like Kirk was five. “You deserve a sticker.”
Kirk said, “And you figure we’re just going to give it to you.”
“Don’t you think it would be kind of dumb not to? I make an anonymous call to the cops and they’ll be over here. And if you’ve been helping her cover up what she did, that makes you an accomplice, so it’s as much in your interest to keep this all under wraps as it is hers.” He waited for some kind of response. “Hello?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m hearing you,” Kirk said, stepping further into the living room, crowding Justin and forcing him to take a couple of steps back. “Well, you’re kind of in luck, as it turns out, because I’ve got the money on me.”
Not exactly what Keisha was expecting. She looked at him, dumbfounded.
“No shit?” Justin said, like a junkie seconds away from a fix. “You’re kidding, right? No one carries that kind of money on them. I’d have given you a couple of days to get it together.”
“No, no, I got it,” Kirk said, and reached behind him for the wad of cash Gail had given Keisha.
“Fuck me,” Justin said, not believing it as Kirk fanned out the bills in his two hands.
“I’m gonna keep five hundred back, because there’s five grand here,” Kirk said.
“Shit, you rob a bank or something?” The kid couldn’t take his eyes off the money.
Kirk took the five hundred and shoved it into the front pocket of his jeans. He extended the rest of the money to Justin, and just as the young man was about to take it, Kirk let the money fall to the floor. It fluttered like giant confetti.
“Oh shit, sorry, thought you had it there,” Kirk said.
“Hey, no problem,” Justin said, and dropped to his knees to collect the scattered bills.
Kirk brought up his knee and caught Justin on the nose.
“Fuck!” he screamed, stumbling back, throwing both hands over his face, blood trickling out between his fingers. “What the hell?”
He turned his face away defensively and flailed blindly at Kirk with his bloodied hands like a bullied schoolboy. Kirk deflected Justin’s feeble blow with one sweep of his arm, then glanced down at the bloodstains that flecked his shirt. “Shit,” he said, and slammed Justin into the wall to the right of the shelves displaying his new wheels.
“You think you can come in here and pull this kind of shit?” Kirk said. “You think I’m just gonna hand you that money?”
“Don’t hurt me!” Justin screamed. “I think you broke my nose! Jesus!”
“I’m gonna break every bone in your body if you think you’re going to leave here with one fucking cent.”
“I’ll tell!” he shouted. “The cops’ll be all over her!”
Kirk closed the distance between them and put his hands around the young man’s neck, just the way he’d done with Keisha earlier in the day.
Justin coughed. “Can’t . . .”
It was Justin’s turn to use his knee. He brought it up fast and hard, catching Kirk in the testicles.
“Shit!”
Kirk let go of Justin’s neck and closed in on himself, hands over his crotch, the pain radiating through him. He stepped back and to the left.
Justin reached out with his right hand, slipped it between the wall and the shelf, and, putting everything he had into it, pushed forward. The shelf was not secured to the wall, and with two wheels on the top, two in the center, and none on the bottom, it was unsteady to begin with.
It teetered, in slow motion at first, then with a gathering momentum.
The two wheels on top pitched off first. One caught Kirk on the shoulder, knocking him to the floor. A fraction of a second later, the other wheel landed on his upper body and flipped over once, covering his face, the edge of the rim pressing against his neck.
As the unit continued its plunge, the two wheels on the middle shelf fell off. One landed on Kirk’s knee, while the other hit the carpet.
“Yeah!” Justin said. “Take that, asshole!”
He spun around, giddy, grinned at Keisha, just in time to see the beer bottle coming at his head.
As soon as she hit him, she dropped the bottle. She felt the pain of the impact—the bottle hit him solidly on the forehead—shoot right up her arm. The bottle didn’t break, not even when it hit the floor, but it did the trick. Justin staggered backwards and collapsed, hitting the wall next to where the shelf had been and sliding on his back to the floor.
Keisha stood there, her labored breathing the only sound in the room.
She surveyed the wreckage. The overturned shelf, the scattered wheels, Kirk trapped beneath the wreckage. Justin unconscious.
At least, she thought he was unconscious.
“Jesus,” she said.
She knelt down, put her hand on Justin’s chest. He was out cold, but alive. She could feel him breathing under her palm.
Kirk was alive, too. He made a weak coughing sound.