Death of an Escort (26 page)

I was in a small, independent grocery store
in some tiny town in Missouri. I was on my way to Tulsa, Oklahoma
to meet my wife. On a whim, I decided to stop here to get some
lunch. What luck.

A hoarse male voice yelled unintelligibly.
Another tenor voice yelled louder. More shots.

I hated this. Naked described how I felt. I
was defenseless. There was nothing I could do except lay there in
the canned goods aisle and hope the gunman didn’t come down the
aisle where the canned beans were.

Sure enough, the gunman came to my aisle.
Other than that he was a man, I couldn’t tell much else about him.
His clothes were black, and he wore mask making him
unidentifiable.

“Get up!” he yelled.

I got up and held my hands high.

“Walk towards me,” he commanded.

I did. As I got closer, I saw that his torso
was bulkier than it should have been. He was wearing armor
underneath. Perhaps he expected some of the store customers to be
armed?

He guided me to where the group of the other
shoppers had been rounded up.

Quickly, I noticed that I was the only guy.
Well, there were some male clerks, but I was the only guy
shopper.

Another similarly dressed gunman stepped
towards me. “Is he the last one?”

“Yep. Got them all here.”

“Keep your hands high,” the second gunman
said. I did as he had his gun trained at me. The original gunman
who’d found me plunged his hands into each of my pockets. Each
thing he removed, he examined and then dropped to the ground.
Everything that is, except my solid stainless-steel brass
knuckles.

“Hmm,” the guy checking my pockets said.
“Heavy. Probably made in Eastern Europe.”

“That’s right,” I said. “You know your
weapons.”

He didn’t answer, and he almost slipped them
into his pocket but dropped them on the ground instead like
everything else. It clanked heavily onto the tile floor. If he
hadn’t been wearing gloves, he’d have left excellent fingerprints
on the broad, flat metallic surface. Oh, well.

The guy frisking me backed away. I could
sense they were about to make their getaway.

Without warning, the guy who had been
covering us raised his gun and began shooting over our heads. I
instinctively crouched just like the others. Bits and pieces of
stuff from above us rained down as the bullets dislodged stuff from
the ceiling.

Everyone was screaming. Everyone except me. I
watched the gunmen back out while shooting over our heads. I had my
hands over my ears as I didn’t want these assholes to permanently
damage my hearing.

They exited through the glass sliding doors.
Then they shot out the big glass windows to the sides of the
doors.

The shooting stopped. Everyone remained
crouched or lying down, but I stood.

I saw them turn their backs and run into the
parking lot. In the lot, they ran up to a white car and got in.
They sped off. I tried to get the license plate number, but it was
too far away for me to see clearly.

I looked down at everyone. There were about
twelve or fifteen people. They all lay there like they didn’t
realize it was okay to look up now.

I waited for a moment. Still, no one
moved.

“They’re gone,” I said loudly and brushed
debris off my shoulders and the off the top of my head. What the
hell had just happened?

One of the store clerks looked up. An older
man in the group of shoppers struggled to stand; I hadn’t noticed
him before.

“Get up, boys,” the man said. “Josh, go get a
broom. Dave, call the sheriff.” He brushed himself off and stood.
His two clerks got up and moved off following his instructions.

The other shoppers were slow to start moving.
The older man stepped over people and made his way to me.

“I want to apologize,” he said.

I tilted my head to one side, not
understanding.

“I’m Shawn White,” he said and held out his
hand.

Now it started to make a little sense. I’d
seen the name of the grocery store on my way in. It was called
White’s Grocery and Liquor.

“You’re the owner?”

“I am.” He shook my hand. “I’m very sorry
about all of this.” He bent down and started picking up my wallet
and other odds and ends that had been pulled out of my pockets and
dropped.

My case of business cards had opened and
cards spilled out when it was dropped. He paused as he was
gathering them up.

Then he took one and read it carefully. He
looked up. “You’re from out of state.”

“Yes,” I said.

“And you’re a private investigator?”

“I am,” I said. Around us, the other shoppers
were getting up.

“Can I ask you to stay a moment? Will you
wait for me?”

I stepped to the side and waited. The store
clerks were back. One was pushing a broom. The stuff he was
sweeping made tinkling noises as he pushed it. Broken glass was
everywhere.

A sheriff’s deputy arrived. Everyone,
including me, had to give a statement. However, none of us were
able to give much of anything that could be useful in apprehending
the gunmen. As such, the deputy left not more than fifteen minutes
after arriving; there wasn’t anything else he could do at the
moment. The clerks and owner helped the customers out. Each was
given coupons and vouchers for future shopping visits. The owner
was very apologetic.

Finally, when it was just the two of us, he
turned back to me. The two clerks were tacking large sheets of
plastic up over the gaping holes where the windows had been to
either side of the doors.

“Would you come to my office?” he asked.

* * * * *

You can get a copy of City of Chaos where you
bought the book you are currently reading. Thank you!

* * * * *

Action and adventure are what you’d expect in
one of Nathan Pennington’s stories. A writer of both novels and
short stories, Nathan draws on a wide range of experiences to make
his stories realistic and exciting. If asked, his best source for
writing material comes from merely observing what is really
happening all around him on a daily basis.

Nathan currently lives with his wife and
daughter in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

If you liked this story, visit
http://www.NPennington.com
to see more written by Nathan Pennington.