A Tale of Crime with a Special Regard to Blue Shirts and Dodge Darts

Underwood’s greatest offense came when Spencer peeked through the hole in the wall and saw the blue shirt draped across his chair.

Smoke, deviating from the intended path out the window, bore back into the apartment. Spencer broke his gaze from the hole in the wall and followed the trail of smoke back down to his cigarette’s slow burn. Embers orange and red winked back at him, always threatening to turn into a blaze but not quite venturing there. The breeze was filling the ceiling with smoke now. Wasn’t worth it. He flicked the butt down into the parking lot.

Going back to bed, he decided to leave his interrogation of Underwood for tomorrow, as he had probably inflicted whatever damage that shirt indicated. As he started to lean back, a groan came from beside him and Dawn rolled her arms around him. He hadn’t gotten fully settled yet, but he couldn’t stand to move her now.

Much to Spencer’s relief, when the gunshot rang out she got out of bed on her own accord. Within seconds, Underwood was banging at the door, desperately wanting to be let in. Spencer glanced through the hole in the wall; there was no blue shirt. In its place was a large man, slumped over, red running down his forehead. Great, the neighbor’s killed a guy again.

“Dammit Spence, let me in! There are more of ’em coming you know that!”

And, as if on cue, heavy footsteps bellowed over from the stairwell. Before Spencer could get a word out to her, Dawn had already made it to the bedside table and thrown him one of the pistols, keeping the other for herself.

As he opened the door, Underwood darted past him and straight to the back door, not even so much as a thank you. He had been right about the size of the footsteps coming up the stairs. Three men, all significantly larger than the one dead next door and armed to the teeth, had locked eyes on their apartment door. Just as they pulled Spencer got one shot off, grazing the biggest one in front off the side of his leg, then he slammed the door behind him, pulled the chain, and he and Dawn made for the same way Underwood had gone, grabbing their shoes as they ran.

He hated guns. Their odor alone hung around unwelcome for hours if not days, and he could already smell it wafting in from Underwood’s apartment to theirs. That’s fine, he probably wouldn’t be home again for the next couple days anyway.

“Do you see where that pain ran off to?” Spencer asked as they ran to the back door.

“Over there!” Dawn yelled, briefly pausing at the edge of the railing overlooking the back lot.

She pointed surely enough to a man wearing nothing but a cyan blue shirt and unlaced black hightops hauling ass across the parking lot.

Just as they started heading down the stairs they heard the goons behind them break through the door, so they didn’t have much of a head start. But they only had to make it down two flights of stairs.

Gunfire rained down upon them, and it didn’t take long for a bullet to hit the railing and send splinters all through Spencer’s leg. One flight down, one flight to go.

Hobbling with the aid of his wife, he made it into the passenger seat of their 2003 Dodge Dart. They were going to have to ditch the thing, it was too damn yellow. He’d told Dawn they should get the black, but her tenacity extended even to the color of old cars. She put the pedal to the floor, the tires screeched and they were into the night.

It took only a few seconds for them to catch up with Underwood. He jumped in without the vehicle slowing down.

“You couldn’t have waited by the car?” Dawn asked.

“I didn’t know if you guys were gonna make it! I had to have a Plan B,” Underwood said as he buckled up.

“Well I’m glad you’re so grateful for us saving your life then.”

Silence. The quiet made Underwood uneasy.

“I figure we have about a 75 second head start,” he sputtered, twiddling his thumbs.

More silence.

“Wouldn’t you say Dawn?”

“75 sounds right to me,” as she didn’t turn around.

“90,” Underwood corrected.

“90?”

“I clipped the big one in the leg. That’ll slow them down a little.”

The 90 seconds seemed to have done the trick. They drove for half an hour without advent, by which time Underwood felt safe enough to have fallen asleep in the back seat, momentarily freeing him from the barrage of cursing and questions that Spencer would assault him with.

Spencer let his cigarette hang out the window of the car. While the end was burning, the smoke was almost impossible to see as it was whisked by the wind behind them, almost as if they were running from it. He turned to Dawn.

“I can take over driving if you want.”

Dawn kept her eyes on the road.

“No, I can keep going. How’s your leg?”

Underwood shifted in his seat, examining the river of red to his right.

“It’s not so bad now. I got blood all over the floor though,’ he said, trying to wipe the blood on his leg.

“We’ve got to ditch this car anyway,” she shrugged. “We’ll get a new one.”

Spencer made the mistake of letting a smirk dance across his lips.

“A yellow one,” Dawn added hastily.

Spencer’s apartment before he and Dawn got their own had not been much by their standards now, but it was both spacious and a steal for downtown Manhattan. The only reason he really kept it around was to run to if something like this came up. Lucky he did, too. 9

There was a kitchen immediately to the right, connecting to the living room that was also farther down the hall. Across from the living room was the bathroom, and just past those were two bedrooms, one on either side and identical.

No room was overly furnished, the biggest luxury being a radio in the living room. There had once been a TV in the room too, but that now resided in his and Dawn’s bedroom at home. If it was still their home.

When the three of them arrived, Spencer ran his fine across the table inside the door.

“That’s strange,” he said.

“What’s that?” asked his wife.

“There’s no dust.”

He ran his fingers through the curls atop his head.

“I guess I forgot to cancel the Wednesday cleaning crew,” he added.

Underwood found the couch without a word and immediately resumed his snoring with the same momentum it had had in the car. Dawn and Spencer, however, were just awake enough to stumble down to one of the rear bedrooms. When they climbed into bed Dawn laid her head down on her husband’s chest, and she could feel it vibrate as he talked.

“Underwood’s going to have to put on some real clothes tomorrow.”

“Can he wear some of yours?”

“We’re all going to have to; that’s all I have here.”

“I don’t know,” she giggled, squeezing him a little bit. “I’d kind of like to live in our pajamas for a while.”

He didn’t reply. Their stillness remained.

“Can they find us here?”

“Lease is under the old roommate’s name still, we can hide out here as long as we need to.”

“Worse places to be,” she sighed, nearly asleep.

“We should be completely fine,” he replied, “as long as we do something about that damn shirt.”