THE MUNCHIES
By
E. E. Williams
The man drove a cherry red
Corvette and that’s all Jimmy Dee needed to know.
“Gotta be worth fifty grand,”
said Chris Hale.
“Idiot,” Jimmy said. “That’s
a
Z06. Hundred-twenty K easy. Maybe more.”
“With that kinda money, what’s
he doing in a 7-Eleven?” asked Tim Freese, the third member of Jimmy three-man crew.
“Even rich assholes get hungry,”
Jimmy said. “It’s late. Whole Foods ain’t open. When a man’s gotta eat, he’s
gotta eat. He can’t, hungry turns to hangry.”
“I don’t know,” Freese said.
“It
don’t feel right.”
“Nothing feels right to you,” Jimmy
said with a scowl. “Remember that house down in Homestead? You kept saying
someone was home and we’d get caught.”
“Someone was home, and we
did get caught,” Tim said.
“Yeah, but we didn’t get caught,
caught. We got away. Whacked the woman a couple of times but we didn’t kill
her. Left with a couple thou in cash and some jewelry if I recall. So, stop
your bellyaching.”
Tim and Chris knew it was
pointless to argue. Once Jimmy made up his mind on a job—or anything for that
matter—he brooked no discussion. They’d both learned that the hard way.
Right this moment, Jimmy had
made up his mind to rob the guy driving the Vette.
For someone rich enough to drive
a car worth a quarter million dollars, the man was thoroughly unimposing. Thirty-something,
short, maybe five-seven or five-eight, slumped-shouldered, brown hair thinning
at the back, glasses. He was such a plain joe you couldn’t pick him out of a lineup
of plain joes.
He was dressed in ill-fitting
cargo shorts, a Cheeseburger in Paradise t-shirt and sneaks that had been around
the block more than a few times. They’d all seen him drive up to the 7-Eleven
in the Vette, so it was his car, even if he looked like he couldn’t afford the
insurance on it for even a day.
Once more Tim thought there was
a disconnect and opened his mouth to again voice his objection but caught the
warning look from Chris and let the words die at the back of his throat.
The man in the 7-Eleven strolled
out slurping something out of a plastic cup large enough to swim in and
munching a Big Bite hotdog. He placed the drink down on the parking lot asphalt
to free a hand so he could open the driver’s side door. Sliding inside, he put
the food on the seat beside him, the drink into a cup holder, and pulled the
door shut. It closed with a satisfying thunk.
The man glanced up, taking in
the blanket of stars in the midnight sky. A second later, the Vette roared to life,
then idled for a moment, a low thrum, like the purring of a big jungle cat. The
driver reversed and hooked a left onto Brickell Bay Drive. Jimmy, behind the
wheel of his ancient Honda Civic, allowed a car to pass between them before
pulling out of the lot and following.
The red Vette motored casually up
to Brickell Ave., made a lazy right, and crossed over the Brickell Key Bridge,
eventually darting into the underground garage of a twenty-three story condominium
complex on Claughton Island Drive. The driver parked, killed the engine and was
about to exit the Vette when the Civic roared up and skidded to a stop inches
from the Vette’s front grill.
Jimmy, Chris, and Tim piled out
and surrounded the Vette.
The man said, “Help you fellas?”
His voice was flat, his tone calm. Too calm, thought Tim. The crew had done
this a dozen times. Followed some rich asshole back to his home, robbed him,
took whatever they wanted from the house and promised to return if he or anyone
in the family went to cops. Each time the mark was left quaking with fear and
sprinting to the john before he soiled himself.
But not this guy. Curious. We’re
all bigger than him, noted Tim, especially Jimmy, who topped out at six-one and
hundred eighty-five pounds. The driver was lucky if he went a buck fifty. So
why wasn’t this guy pissing his pants right about now?
“Yes, you can,” Jimmy said, all
friendly like. “You could hand over your wallet for starters.”
“Wallet? I don’t have a wallet,”
the driver said.
“Just saw you buy a dog and a
Coke at the 7-Eleven,” Jimmy said with a smirk. “How’djapay? Your good looks?”
The man chuckled. “Had some
spare change in my pocket. Had the munchies.” He shrugged. “But if it’s money
you want, I could maybe scrounge up a few bucks if you care to come upstairs
with me.”
“A few bucks?” Jimmy said. “You
drive a car like this, you’ve got more than a few bucks layin’ around
somewhere. And we would love to come upstairs with you.”
An insistent voice in Tim’s head
said, Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it.
“Jimmy …” Tim started.
Wheeling on Tim, Jimmy said, “Shut
your freakin’ trap. You use my name in front of him? You know what that means …
Tim? Tim Freese.”
Tim realized his mistake and
closed his eyes. It was true, they hadn’t killed anyone yet. Hurt people, sure.
Hurt them bad in some cases. Like the old lady in Homestead. But nobody died.
The use of Jimmy’s name, and now his own, meant that was going to change.
“Come on up fellas,” the Vette
driver said, his mouth creased in small smile. If he understood what was going
to happen once they were upstairs, he didn’t let on.
The man exited the Vette and led
the way to an elevator. Jimmy and Chris followed. Tim hesitated, the voice in
his head churning from insistent to screaming.
But these were his friends,
Jimmy and Chris. They’d grown up together on the streets of Liberty City, where
you fought and clawed to survive, or you died. Nobody did it alone. You needed
allies, friends. Friends like Jimmy Dee and Chris Hale. They’d always had his
back. They trusted him to have theirs. He trudged after them.
They all crowded into the
elevator. Jimmy’s eyes were bright with anticipation. Of money, and merch, and
now, violence.
Tim glanced down. Noticed dark
brown spots on the driver’s white Nike Pegasus sneaks. Tim’s heart fluttered
like a hummingbird in his chest. Up, up, up rose the elevator. Up, up, up rose
Tim’s anxiety. Everyone was grinning but him. Even the driver. Why was he
grinning?
The elevator halted and the
doors swished open not to a hallway, but to the condo itself. Lights blinked on
automatically as they stepped into the cavernous space. Everything gleamed and
sparkled and glimmered. The tiled floors, the marbled kitchen, the posh dining
area, the sleek living room with its modern chrome accented furniture. Floor-to-ceiling
sliding doors opened to a spacious balcony overlooking Biscayne Bay and
downtown Miami, both of which shimmered under a full moon. It was breathtaking.
“Now this is what I’m talking
about,” Jimmy crowed. He swiveled his gaze to the driver and said, “The money.”
The man said, “Right,” and
gestured to a room down a short hallway. “Bedroom safe.”
He made to move in that
direction and Jimmy said, “Ah, ah, ah. Chris here will escort you.”
Chris, who hadn’t yet said a
word, snagged a Ruger .38 from the small of his back.
“Lead the way,” he said. He
pointed the gun’s barrel down the hallway, and the man complied.
Jimmy, meanwhile, wandered
through the living space, regarding the artwork on the walls.
“Who’s Jasper Johns?” he asked.
Tim shook his head and Jimmy
said, “You’d think a guy as rich as this dude is he’d buy some decent art.
Never heard of ol’ Jasper or this other one … Hockney? More like hackney. But
who knows, maybe they’re worth …”
Jimmy was cut short by a muffled
thump from the bedroom.
“Chris?” yelled Jimmy.
“Everything okay?”
No answer.
“Chris?”
No answer.
“Chris, what the hell is going
on?”
No answer.
Jimmy drew a Glock from his belt.
Tim followed suit, filling his right hand with a Springfield Hellcat.
Cautiously, they made their way back to the bedroom.
“Chris?” Jimmy called out again,
with the same result.
No answer.
Jimmy was first into the room,
and he gasped. Futilely, he reached for a breath, but found none available. Tim
squeezed past his shaking friend and confronted an unimaginable horror. On the
bed were four mutilated bodies, all oozing crimson from a multitude of stab
wounds onto a once white comforter. A man, a woman, two kids, maybe early
teens. Hideously, the man’s head was missing and as Tim glanced down, he found
it on the floor next to Chris, whose neck was spurting blood like a broken
water faucet.
The Vette driver was crouched over
Chris. He glanced up at Jimmy and Tim and said, “Oops.”
He moved with incredible
swiftness then. He slammed his right foot into Jimmy’s left knee, torquing it
backward and hyperextending it. There was a crunch and a pop, and a crack as
the ACL and PCL ligaments tore and the kneecap shattered. Jimmy went down in a
howl of pain, the Glock skittering from his hand as he hit the floor. The
driver did a forward roll and launched himself at Tim, who tried to level his Hellcat
at the man, but was too slow and he felt a hot prick of pain up under his ribcage.
He lowered his eyes and saw the hilt of a knife flush against his skin and knew
instantly some sort of knife was inside him. With a fft, fft, fft, the driver tattooed
the blade in and out and up Tim’s body, the final stab under his arm, severing the
axillary artery.
Tim gave the driver a quizzical
who-the-hell-are-you look before he crumpled to the ground, the voice in his
head now saying, I told you so, I told you so, I told you s…
The driver stood, sauntered over
to Jimmy as the gang leader clawed his way toward his gun.
“Ah, ah, ah,” the man said,
mimicking Jimmy’s earlier admonition.
He stomped on Jimmy’s right
ankle and there was another loud snap. Jimmy’s eyes filled with starbursts of agony.
Tears streaked his cheeks and snot wormed its way out from his nose.
“Please, please,” he croaked.
“Please.”
“Oh, now Jimmy. Isn’t this what
you were going to do to me? Tim there used your name and then to put him in his
place you used his. His full name. Freese, wasn’t it? You couldn’t let me live
after that, right?
“Anyway, you guys just picked
the wrong guy at the wrong time. See, this here is the Bonham family. That’s
Mr. Bonham’s Vette you saw me driving. Anyway, I saw them leaving a Heat game,
and knew I just had to have the wife. So pretty. So sexy. That happens to me a
lot. I see a woman and I just know she wants me even if she doesn’t know at the
time she wants me. Get what I mean?
“So, I follow them home and
eventually the women all admit that, yes, they want me. Unfortunately, someone
from the family occasionally gets in the way and …” He pointed to the bed. “…
and sometimes this happens.”
He gave Jimmy a knowing look.
“Ah hell, I know you don’t
believe that. I won’t lie. This always happens. Inevitably, the woman
starts crying and I know she regrets what we did, and it just sort of makes me
… angry. You know?”
The man stooped over Jimmy, the
bloody nine-inch stiletto blade—still dripping with Tim’s and Chris’s blood—hovering
just inches from Jimmy’s neck.
“I’m sorry about you guys, I
really am,” the man said as he slowly slid the knife tip, millimeter by
millimeter, into Jimmy’s carotid. Taking his time. Enjoying it. “We’re sort of
like brothers in arms.”
The man watched the light gradually
leak from Jimmy’s eyes and said, “You’d probably all be sitting on the back of
your Honda right now drinking beers if I just hadn’t, you know, gotten the
munchies.”
It was the last word Jimmy Dee
would ever hear.
