THIRTY-ONE

"REHEEMA! RUN!" Vicki screamed. She dropped the camera, flung open the car door, and ran for Reheema.

Pop pop pop! Reheema took off as if from a starter pistol, sprinting in the heavy Timberlands, pounding toward the Sunbird. Mothers screamed in terror, scooping crying toddlers into their arms. A little boy turned toward the gunshots, covering his ears. Two little girls fled in panic, their ponytails flying.

Pop pop pop came more gunfire, like a war zone. Browning crumpled to his knees, his face hitting the asphalt. A little boy near him was shot, trying to run away. Browning's driver was cut down, dropping the Huggies. A toddler fell beside her mother, the child's pink snowsuit splashed hideously with red.

Pop pop pop! The salesclerk ran for his life but was cut down. A mother was strafed and tripped, dropping an infant. The white work van that had been idling near the store entrance flew out of the parking lot, its tires squealing. Vicki couldn't read its license plate on the run.

"REHEEMA!" she screamed.

"Back to the car!" Reheema grabbed Vicki by the arm and together they ran back to the Sunbird and jumped inside. Police sirens blared nearby. In this busy part of town, help was already on the way.

"You okay?" Almost breathless, Vicki slammed the car door closed, grabbed her cell phone, and dialed 911. Men and women ran from the store to the victims, and one salesclerk came running out, shouting into a cell phone.

"I'm alive!" Reheema floored the gas pedal.

And they were outta there.

The Sunbird came finally to a stop at the first Irish pub off the expressway. By that time, the two women were finally breathing normally, wet-eyed and shaken as they sat side by side at the far end of a crappy wooden bar. The shellac on its wooden surface peeled like clear nail polish, and its stacks of cocktail napkins smelled strangely of Lysol. The place was empty except for two drunk guys who sat near the bartender at the other end of the bar. The TV overhead was on mute, but Brit-ney Spears sang "Toxic" loud enough to make it almost a song.

Vicki stared stunned at the shot glass in front of her, which was full of amber fluid. "I never drink hard stuff."

Reheema sat slumped before her glass. "I don't drink."

"Then who ordered the shots?"

"You, or maybe me," Reheema answered, then picked up her glass. "Let's do it to it."

Vicki picked up her glass. "One, two, three." They downed their shots together, swallowed in unison, and set the shot glasses down at the exact same moment, with a restaurant-grade clunk. Vicki said, still stunned, "It didn't help, did it?"

"No. Nothing can." Reheema shook her head. "I have never seen anything like that in my life. And I've seen some terrible things."

Vicki nodded, her throat burning. "That was carnage. I mean, they shot everywhere. They didn't care who they hit.

Little kids. Babies." She tried not to cry. She was too stunned to cry. She wanted to understand. "But they got who they were after. Browning."

"Looks that way."

"We should have stayed to help."

"They had it under control. The cops were on the way."

"So tell me what happened."

"You saw what happened." Reheema wiped her eyes, but Vicki needed to know the details.

"Tell me what happened inside the store, and we'll see if we can piece this thing together. I'm two minutes from going to the cops."

"Another round!" Reheema called to the bartender, who arrived after a minute, poured them both a shot, and wisely withdrew. She sighed, shaking her head. "Oh man. This is bad, real bad."

"Try to focus and tell me."

"Well, I walked by Browning twice, in the store. I had my hat and sunglasses off and made sure he saw my face. He looked me over both times, like I was a stranger. I don't think he knew me."

"You're sure?"

Reheema downed her second shot. "Yeah. He was in the diaper aisle, and he and the driver were joking. It sounded like he forgot which diapers he was supposed to buy, and I walked down the aisle. I was pretending I was buying some baby oil, and he asked me what size diapers do six-month-olds get." Reheema started rolling her empty shot glass on its end. "I knew that was crap, because it says it on the package."

"I wonder what baby he's buying for? The kid we saw was about four." Vicki tried to reason, despite the gunshots reverberating in her ears. "If there was a baby in that house, his wife, or whatever, wouldn't have left it alone to go to yoga."

"The man is a playa, a gangsta." Reheema's tone was weary. "He got kids everywhere."

"Okay. Right."

"He asked me about my kids." Reheema kept playing with her glass. "I said I didn't have any, I wanted the baby oil for my skin."

"Good save."

"Then he asked me my name and I said Marcia, and I asked him his and he said Jamal, and he said did I live around here, and I said no, I was in from D.C. for the day, visitin' my sister."

"You're a better liar than I am."

"My mother's daughter."

Ouch. Vicki felt a twinge of sympathy, and regret. "Look, maybe we should wait a little to talk about this. We're both upset, and you almost got-"

"I'm fine."

"You could have been killed."

"I wasn't." Reheema stop playing with her glass. "So, anyway, he and I, we kep' talking and the driver got the diapers, then Jamal said could he walk me out and I started to get worried, and I said I was gonna take the bus, and when we got outside he asked me what was my number and I was about to give him a fake one when the shooting started."

"That's it?"

"That's all."

Vicki eyed her second shot, untouched. "So what have we learned? One, Browning doesn't know you. Two, somebody wanted Browning dead and he got his wish. And three, the new bad guy drives a white van."

"Wait, look." Reheema pointed above the bar at the TV, and on the screen was a blue BREAKING NEWS banner.

"Can you turn that up?" Vicki called to the bartender, who reached up and increased the volume loud enough to overcome Britney. The TV screen switched to a scene of the parking lot, above a red caption that read TOYS "R" US MASSACRE. A pretty reporter came on in a red suit and stiff haircut, saying into a bubble microphone:

"Seven people were shot and killed, and fifteen more wounded, five critically, in what appeared to be a drive-by shooting this afternoon at about twelve-thirty, in front of the Toys ‘R' Us store on Regon Avenue. The injured have been taken to area hospitals-"

Vicki could barely watch, sickened. Seven dead. Browning. His driver. The salesclerk. The mother. The baby, the toddler, other children, who else?

The reporter continued, "Police are on the lookout for a white Dodge van, 2003, which had a small American flag decal in the back left window, and was being driven without license plates. We realize there may be many such vans in the Delaware Valley area, but viewers who see a 2003 white Dodge van, with a flag in the rear window, are encouraged to call the police tip line or Action News at…"

Vicki's shoulders sagged. Morty. Jackson. The baby.

The TV screen switched to the next story, a warehouse fire, in the Northeast, and both women turned away. Reheema sighed. "So where were we?"

Vicki straightened up. "Now it's possible that Jay-Boy and Teeg, the kids who shot my partner and Jackson, don't work for Jamal Browning at all. I had thought they did and that the attack was against Shayla Jackson, because of you or your trial, and because Jackson and Browning were evidently breaking up." Vicki forced her brain to reason, despite the shock and the whisky. "But after this, and because Browning didn't know you, I think the real target was Browning, and he's being attacked by a rival gang."