Supermarket - Bobby Hall Page 0,49

up and reaches into his pocket, pulling out a single cigarette and the silver Zippo he had stolen.

He lights the cigarette through the hole in his ski mask and strolls to the front of the store.

Now, originally I was going to write it that he erased the videotapes . . . but in that moment, sitting behind my typewriter, something overcame me.

I decided to end my novel another way.

As he steps in front of the shattered glass of the automatic doors at the entrance, he looks up into the camera and rips the ski mask from his face. Staring into the lens, he flips off Ted Daniels and everyone else who would be walking into the store the following day. Everyone who would review the tapes would see it was him. And he doesn’t care, because he will be long gone, already at the Canadian border with Rachel.

Frank looks over his shoulder to take one last look at the supermarket and the havoc he’s wreaked. He walks outside, opens the passenger door of a red Mazda RX-7, throws the bag inside, jumps in, kisses Rachel, and drives into the darkness . . . never to be seen again.

As though he had never been seen all along.

The End.

CHAPTER 11

THE END

I had ended my novel. In a moment of exasperation, my head collapsed onto my typewriter.

The next morning, I awoke, hungover, to the crackle of a needle spinning at the end of a record. I had fallen asleep at my desk. I lifted my head, revealing the letters RDFGTVCSEGHAZXQ and W on the side of my face.

I saw all the tools I’d used to accomplish what I had—ski mask, black jeans, T-shirt, and a bottle of Macallan. I had never written anything in such a manner before. Actually dressing up and truly writing from the perspective of my novel’s protagonist, it had felt so . . . right! Like hard-core literature! Like fieldwork for an author.

Wow, I thought. I . . . I’m an author! I am a real life author!

Then I looked at my watch and saw the time. “Oh shit!” I said aloud. I was late. That day I had the earliest shift and was supposed to be there by 8:45 for the doors, which opened at 9:00 a.m.

It was 8:50.

I hurriedly changed into a white undershirt but tripped over the duffel bag. Once on my feet, I changed and ran down the stairwell of my apartment building, heading toward Muldoon’s.

It was 9:01 when I arrived, so I entered through the side door of the break room—the one that was open during business hours. As soon as I walked in, I went to my locker to clock in and put on my brown button-down and black apron. When I opened it, I noticed a few things I hadn’t before, and my eyes grew wide in realization of what was in front of me.

It was Frank’s .357 Magnum, a pack of cigarettes, and Kurtis’s silver Zippo lighter.

At first, I was angry that Frank would put these items in my locker, but then I wondered, How the fuck had he gotten the code to my lock? I pushed down on the metal bottom inside the locker, and sure enough, Frank was right: there was a hidden cubby.

I put the items inside and quickly shut the locker.

“Flynn!”

I jumped at the sound of my own name.

When I turned, I saw Ted Daniels. And he wasn’t smiling.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Come with me,” he said.

He rushed me outside. We moved into a circle with Ronda, Kurtis, Mia, Becca, Rachel, a few other employees I didn’t really know, and . . . Frank.

“This is very, very unfortunate,” said Ted Daniels. “Someone robbed the store last night. The police are here now reviewing the tapes. Whoever the culprit might be, at least we’ll get a good glimpse of what happened.”

“I wonder who it was?” Frank said to me with a wink and smirk. The kind of smirk that said I did it.

“Oh my God, you guys, did someone get shot?” said Cara, who had just walked through the front door. “There’s like a million cop cars out front,” she added, stepping over the broken glass.

“Somebody robbed the store,” Frank replied. I was staring at him so hard that it seemed to make Rachel, who was next to him, uncomfortable.

“How could you do this, Frank?” I whispered to him.

“Because I wanted the money,” he whispered back.

“That’s not what I mean! How could you lie to Mia on the phone?