The Fool's Run

store called One More Time. A guy in a sleeveless jeans jacket was sitting on a trash can outside the Laundromat, watching the fat white moths circle the parking lot lights.
    As we got out of the car and walked across the cracked pavement, the guy on the garbage can shifted his weight. For a moment, it looked like he might say something. He had shoulder-length black hair, chin whiskers, and a DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR tattoo on one skinny upper arm. When we went to the lockshop instead of the Laundromat, he settled back on the can and watched us. The front of the shop was dark, and the door was locked, but a light was shining in the back. LuEllen banged on the door until somebody yelled “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” A minute later the locksmith walked through the gloom to the door.
    “We’re the people who called for the keys,” LuEllen said through the glass.
    He nodded and unlocked the door, and locked it again behind us. We followed him toward the light at the back of the shop. He stepped around the counter, fished under it for a moment, and came up with three blank keys.
    “Elwin four-oh-twos,” he said. “That’ll be ten bucks. Each.”
    “Jesus Christ, what are you talking about? That’s forty-five cents apiece if . . .” LuEllen squealed. The locksmith cut her off.
    “Tell it to somebody else, lady. Somebody asks me for a bunch of key blanks for Elwin four-oh-twos, the kind of locks you find on rich guys’ apartments, and I sell the four-oh-twos, blank, no questions asked, for ten bucks. That’s the price.”
    LuEllen looked at him for a minute, then cracked a tiny, tight smile. “I’ll remember you,” she said. It was a promise of future business. She turned to me and said, “Pay him.”
    I gave him a twenty and a ten.
    “Thanks,” he said. “For another hundred I’ll cut them off impressions.”
    “No thanks,” LuEllen said. “We don’t consort with crooks.”
    The locksmith laughed, showing crooked, yellow teeth. “Come back anytime,” he said.
    Outside, the guy in the sleeveless jeans jacket was waiting. As we stepped outside the door, he came up close behind and said, “Give me your wallet.” He had one hand in his jacket pocket.
    LuEllen looked him over. “You gotta be kidding.”
    “Hey, lady . . .”
    “Hey yourself, asshole. If you had a gun in your hand it’d make a bigger lump. There’s nothing in there but your fist. Why don’t you take it home and fuck it?”
    The guy looked at her, mouth half open. Then he did something with his hand in his pocket. There was a pop, and LuEllen said, “Oh, shit, he shot me.”
    When the gun went pop, I kicked the guy on the inside ball of his knee. His leg went out from under him and he lurched forward, and I hit him with a right hand on the bridge of the nose. His nose crunched, and he went down like a sack of sand.
    LuEllen was looking at her arm. “Maybe I’m not shot. No, I think I am.”
    The guy was face down on the blacktop with both hands covering his face, trying to figure out what happened. Broken noses do that to you. For the first few minutes, it’s impossible to think about anything else.
    LuEllen pulled up the sleeve of her blouse. An inch above the elbow was a red streak where a small-caliber bullet had grazed her, pushing holes through the shirtsleeve both coming and going.
    “He could have hurt me,” LuEllen said.
    The locksmith had seen the commotion. He came out and looked at the guy lying on the blacktop.
    “Tried to rob you, huh?”
    “Yeah. Thanks for the warning.”
    The locksmith shrugged. “I ain’t the Sisters of Mercy.”
    “He shot me,” LuEllen said. The guy tried to get up on his knees, one hand still cradling his face. LuEllen moved behind him and kicked him in the crotch, a full-footed punt. The guy gurgled and knotted up, his hands in his crotch now. Blood streamed down his chin into his little black beard. LuEllen dipped into his jacket pocket and came up with a single-shot .22 built into a stainless steel Zippo cigarette lighter.
    The locksmith reached out for it. “A .22 short. Effective range, about the length of his dick. What a dipshit.”
    “Let’s go,” said LuEllen.
    “Ain’t you going to take his money?” asked the locksmith.
    “You can have it,” LuEllen said. As we drove away, the locksmith was going through the guy’s pockets.
    LuEllen didn’t say much for a while, just kept looking at her arm, and finally giggled. “Wish I had some coke.”
    “Probably good that you