“God damn it,” she said. She let go of the guard and reached cautiously around the wall until her fingers found the light switch. She held her gun ready to shoot. “I told him not to…” The overhead light fluttered on. A headless torso lay in the middle of the room. There was blood in sprays across the stall, all the way to the ceiling. The mask, she saw now, was still attached to the head. The gun lay in the middle of the floor.

Andy started to babble. “That’s Markie, that’s-he’s dead, oh, Christ, what the hell, what the hell-”

She backed out into him, then grabbed onto him as much to hold herself up as to shut him up. “I don’t know what the hell. Who’d he take in here, who was the last to use the bathroom?”

They turned and looked at the crowd that was looking back at them. The horrified guard gaped, too. She turned and faced the manager’s cubicle.

The old gent, John, sat exactly as before. If anything he looked more rumpled, pale, and exhausted than half an hour ago. His head hung low, but he seemed to be watching from beneath his brows, as if too tired to face things head-on.

The phone beside him began to ring then, and she made herself walk calmly over to the cubicle to answer it. She stared down at him while she talked, until he finally glanced up. He wasn’t as old as all that, she decided, just thin and weather-beaten, like a cowboy, someone who lived hard. It was the white hair that made him seem older.

“Glad to hear it,” she told the cop on the phone. “Outside in ten minutes. We bring out the hostages with us, so no Annie Oakley shit. I’ll tell your driver where we’re going. You don’t need to know, and you don’t follow. Anybody follows and nobody gets off the bus, understand?” Oh, he understood, all right. She hung up.

Andy came over. She told him, “The bus is ready. Pick out your group and let’s get the hell out of here. Whatever happened in there, I don’t know, okay? I’m sorry. Your brother was a dickhead but whatever’s in there is staying the hell in there. We’re not going to go in after it. Nobody else gets to go to the bathroom, period.” Andy moved off shakily.

“What happened to your friend?” John asked her. He had an accent she couldn’t place.

She faced him, stared into nearly golden irises. Something in his gaze closed around her like a steel trap, pinning her. The moment passed, and she threw off a shiver, blinked, and took a step back. Instead of answering, she found herself telling him, “You’ll be joining us on the bus.”

“Yes,” he answered, “of course.”

The transfer of hostages went smoothly. Svekis could appreciate that they’d given this a lot of thought.

The robbers split the hostages into two groups. The only one left behind was the guard, trussed up in the vault. Everybody got a Halloween mask, and each group was bound by a clothesline rope looped around their wrists and held by the robber in the middle of the group. The groups shuffled out to the bus like two bent, ungainly centipedes. They clambered up the steps and past the driver-no doubt a cop-and through a privacy curtain into the back. Wonder Woman told the driver to turn off the interior lights. Then she assigned everybody their seats. She put Svekis at the back.

Hockey Mask, meanwhile, had pulled out a knife and was cutting the rope between the rows and using each length to tie the duos together. He pushed their masks up, too, to make it harder for them to see, but Svekis couldn’t tell if that actually had a purpose or if he just enjoyed it.

The woman returned to the front and sat down behind the driver and quietly gave him orders.

The bus lurched into gear.

She got up and walked up the aisle again. A speaker crackled to life. The woman counted off the rows as she passed them, touching the people in the aisle seats as she said their number. She came to Svekis as she said, “Eleven.” Then she passed him and said, “Twelve.” Turning back, she headed toward the front again, passing her partner as he finished tying up their hands. Her voice blared like that of a tour guide. “You all sit in your seats, and when you’re told to get off-when I call your number-you get up and get out. The bus will slow down enough for you to jump, but we’re not stopping. So try not to break something. What you do after you get out, I don’t care, but if you want to live, you’ll follow my orders. I told you your numbers. You don’t get up unless you’re called.”

The bus rolled along through the city. After ten minutes the speaker crackled again and she called out, “Three!” Two people scrambled up and ran clumsily, strung together, to the front of the bus. He heard her say to the driver, “Just slow enough that they can jump.” Svekis looked out the window. The area was deserted, full of warehouses. It would be a while before they found anyone to help them. Alternatively, they might be mugged. He sat back and waited his turn.

The bus rolled along out of the city proper and toward the western suburbs. They entered an area of tenement rowhouses, and two more were let go.

Hockey Mask had passed by him after tying his hands, and now Wonder Woman followed into the very back of the bus. He listened to the rustle of her clothes, to the sound of a zipper, to other noises. He had a good idea what they were up to.

The speaker crackled again, and the woman called out, “Twelve. Get up, get out. Now.”

Svekis watched a fashionable pair of slacks, a turquoise blouse, and dark hair pass him. The mask was different, too. She carried a small, full backpack over one shoulder. No doubt it was loaded with the contents of one satchel. She held her hands out in front of her, rope looped around her wrists and connected to the man behind her in the jeans, windbreaker, and another backpack. They walked down the aisle and through the curtain. The door hissed open and the bus slowed for a moment.

Then, over the speakers, she said, “Go on,” as if she were still inside the bus. Svekis smiled. It was a clever trick.

The bus picked up speed. He tore off his mask. He’d already made one hand transform so that he could slip it out of the ropes. Standing, he glanced to the rear where her and her partner’s clothes lay in heaps beside both discarded satchels. He knelt and rifled through both bags. He found his cell phone, but that was all.

He rose and walked down the aisle. Passengers lifted their heads at his passing, instinctively fearful. Most of them had left their masks askew. They kept their tied hands in their laps, too.

Even as he reached the curtain the woman’s voice blared over the intercom: “Take your next right and drive for two miles until you go under the interstate.”

Svekis stepped up beside the driver. “How is the door opened?” he asked. The driver glanced up in astonishment.

“But she said-”

“I must insist.” He placed his hand on the driver’s shoulder, and the driver pointed to the handle that operated the door. “Thank you. Now, please, don’t slow down any further. Do exactly as you were instructed.” The door opened with a hiss, and Svekis sprang into the night like a man jumping off a cliff.

They’d parked the Toyota on a tree-lined street a block from the nearest regional train stop. The plan had been for her and Andy to take the car and for Markie to jump on the next train back into the city. Nobody would expect that. She changed the plan now. She would take the train and he could drive off alone. That way they wouldn’t match anything anyone was looking for; but with Markie dead, they needed to get out of town soon.

They stood on the sidewalk beside the car. A man was walking his dog, a white terrier, in their direction. She stepped up to Andy and said loudly, “I’ll see you when you get back, sweetheart,” then gave him a big kiss. “Drive safely. Don’t speed.”

The dog-walker looked away, a shy smile on his face. Just what she’d hoped. They stood together, waiting while he rounded the corner and went on up the street. She pulled away. “I mean it about the speed,” she said.