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  'Bless you both', she beamed, reaching into her bag and removing her purse. 'Here, I feel as though I ought to give you...'

  Clara reached out and gently gripped the purse, still in the lady's hand, clasping it shut again.

  'Please', Clara pleaded. 'We couldn't possibly. Besides, you remind me so much of my Grandmother.' She stared into the old lady's eyes for a moment, pausing, thinking, before trying another approach. 'I'd be insulted if you offered me money.'

  'Oh', said the old lady in a defeated tone. She stared a moment longer into Clara's eyes, before looking back down at her purse, removing it from Clara's hand, and placing it gently back into her bag. 'Then at least take some of these', she said as she reached into one of the grocery bags and pulled out a box of Dunkin' Donuts, handing them to Clara. 'I don't know why I buy the damn things, I never eat them all.'

  Clara took the box as Mckenzie let out a quiet chuckle, Clara fully aware of the irony. Still, anything to keep the old woman out of her purse long enough for them to leave, something they needed to do quickly before she got much of a better look at them and realised they'd just robbed her.

  'Thank you', Clara responded. 'We'll let ourselves out.' And with that, the pair left, hearing the old lady close her apartment door behind them. They exited onto the street, and moved quickly in the direction they'd just arrived, back toward Neptune Avenue.

  The next few hours seemed to drag. Clara had long felt that her luck generally came in waves, rather than random pockets of good fortune here and there. If she had a decent score in the morning, that luck would usually carry her through to lunchtime and the afternoon, and on a good day it wasn't unheard of for her to pocket anything up to $1000. Then there were the days where, try as she might, nothing seemed to come together, and she would leave at the end of the day with the same amount that she started with; zero. Clara called it luck, but she suspected there may have been an element of confidence in there too. A decent pocket in the morning got the adrenaline going and made her more alert for the rest of the day. It had been the same ever since she was a kid, always with her parents wrapped around her finger, always better than her brother at the childish games they'd play.

  The rest of this particular day should therefore have been a breeze for her, but for whatever reason, nothing happened, and Clara and Mckenzie spent hours standing around, chatting what could only really be described as shit and keeping a close eye on everyone who walked past. It was vital that Clara pick out a target properly; neither of them were skilled in any form of combat, and they hated running. Besides, running was for bank robbers. They didn't consider themselves robbers, because robbers point guns in people's faces and demand their money. They were opportunists. In fact, Clara's insistence on picking targets who were in need of help meant that they would often lend a helping hand in the process. It was karma balancing out the universe as far as Clara was concerned.

  'You see anything?', quizzed Mckenzie.

  Clara paused, as if giving their next target a couple of extra seconds to present themselves, before sighing a defeated sigh.

  'No. I'm going home.'

  Clara pushed Mckenzie gently with a playful prod, knocking him slightly off his balance and grinning as she did it. Mckenzie tutted and sighed as he staggered over to one side, regaining his balance quickly but making the most of the opportunity to appear annoyed. He knew this was about as close to affection as he ever got with Clara, so he let her childish actions slide. He watched as Clara began walking up the street, and noticed her stop sharply, her eyes transfixed across the street.

  He followed her line of sight over to a pristine Range Rover Sport, a blindingly bright cherry red colour and kitted out with all of the additional luxuries that an elite few Range Rover owners could afford. The hood of the car was up, steam billowing from the front, while it's owner was leant up against the front wing, clearly distressed and flicking through her phone. She looked young; her designer jeans, top and boots giving the impression that she could have been a high-powered business woman in her early thirties, but with a face that clearly put her in the early-twenties, maybe even late-teens. She was a brunette with dark hair sitting just below her shoulder blades, a snow white pale complexion, and she wore a disappointingly large amount of makeup considering how naturally beautiful she was. Her eyes were puffy, as if she'd been crying, though her face wore the hallmark characteristics of anger rather than sadness.

  Mckenzie switched his attention back to Clara, who by this point hadn't even waited to get Mckenzie's seal of approval, and was carefully navigating the traffic, moving in the direction of the girl.

  'Car trouble huh?', Clara asked, even though she knew it was more of a statement than a question.

  'What?', asked the girl in a delicate, sheepish tone, taking her gaze away from her cellphone.

  'Your car', said Clara, pointing at the Range Rover. 'Looks like you're having a bit of trouble. My boyfriend's a mechanic, he could probably help you out.' Mckenzie arrived, almost right on cue.

  'Isn't that right baby?'. Clara stared at Mckenzie, holding his gaze. Although her abilities were limited to seeing what other people were thinking and not influencing their thoughts, she possessed that natural female ability to tell a thousand stories with just one facial look.

  'Uh, oh... Yeah, absolutely', said Mckenzie, so unconvincingly even he wasn't sure if he believed his own lie. He walked to the hood of the vehicle and tilted his head in for a closer look. 'This where you seem to be uh, having the problems?' he asked, pointing directly into the cloud of steam that was by now gushing from the enormous engine block.

  'Uh, yeah' replied the girl, doing her best to not sound sarcastic in her response. 'Look, I really appreciate you guys coming to help but I've just got off the phone with roadside recovery and they told me to...'

  Clara interrupted. 'How long did they say they would be?'

  'Erm, like an hour or something. She said they didn't have any trucks in the area. It's bullshit, I don't even care about the money, I just don't wanna be standing around outside all night.'

  'It's cool, Dan will help you, won't you Dan?!' Clara nodded in the direction of Mckenzie, who knew from previous experience that this was his cue to respond. Clara had learnt to use fake names at all times, and the more generic the better. Dan is good, so's Tom or Steve. Never over-complicate by moving away from the one syllable rule. People remember the weird names far better than the short and common ones. A 'Dan', especially one that's uttered quickly can very easily jumble itself up in a victim's head and become a 'Bob' or a 'Paul' by the time the cops arrive to take a statement.

  'Oh uh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah man, shit, these Range Rovers. Man, if I had a dollar for every Range Rover that came into the shop broken, ya know...'

  The two girls, grouped by the passenger side door, stared unimpressed at the rambling Mckenzie, who quickly took the hint and put his head back into the hood.

  'Hey uh, baby. Are you able to work out what's wrong with her car? You sure you don't need her to come to the front and have a look at anything with you?' quizzed Clara, trying her hardest not to flash Mckenzie the 'know what I mean?' look.

  'Oh yeah, no doubt. Yeah hey sweetheart, could you uh, come and help me? I need to move a couple bits and I don't want to touch anything on the car without you seeing what I'm doing.'

  'Really?', asked the girl, her face the epitome of unwilling. 'I don't want to get oil anywhere. This sweater cost 100 bucks.'

  'You won't, I promise, I just need you to see what I'm doing.'

  The girl turned and for a brief second, made eye contact with Clara. 'Shit, she doesn't know whether we're trustworthy or not' was the message Clara received loud and clear.

  'Look hun', Clara began. 'We're willing to help you, but you've got to cooperate. We're running late and really need to pick our twins up from the daycare centre. We were on our way over when we stopped to help you.' She waited for the girl to look back at her, pausing for that second of eye contact. When she
finally did, Clara got the confirmation she needed; the 'They must be trustworthy if they're parents' trick had worked a charm.

  The girl made her way to join Mckenzie at the front of the car, who proceeded to point and gesture at various sections of the enormous engine, moving his hand around whilst trying to make his actions appear as deliberate as possible. He'd occasionally tug on a cable or twist a screw cap, even burning himself on a particularly hot radiator valve. 'What I'm doing is checking for, uh, leaks', he assured the girl, who by this time was out of sight of Clara, and more interested in what she was reading on her cellphone than the 'leaks' Mckenzie had tried to convince her he needed to find. Clara, still stood by the passenger side door, got to work. She glanced into the car, spotting a designer handbag, it's contents half-spilled out onto the passenger seat, facing away from where Clara was stood. Clara glanced around over her shoulder, noticing that the road was quiet. She reached her hand in and pulled the top of the bag up so she could see some of the contents, making out what was clearly a purse. She crept her fingers along the top of the bag in a 'walking fingers' kind of motion, desperately trying to get enough purchase to reach for the purse without having to pull out the entire bag. She felt the soft leather of the purse, and squeezed her fingers together in a pinching movement. Nothing. She tried again but just couldn't seem to get a firm hold on her prize. She tried a third time, before giving up and changing her hand position, trying instead to find a zipper clasp she could pinch hold of. She knew that the quickest thing to do would be to get into the car, but that would make the car move and risked giving the game away. She tried one more time, before realising that this wasn't going to work. She made a mental note of the bag, taking a 'snapshot' in her head so she could put everything back exactly as it was, and grabbed the bottom of the bag, quietly sliding it over to the passenger seat. She glanced around her, sensing the coast was clear enough, and scooped the bag into her left arm, her right arm removing the purse and opening it as quickly as she could. Her eyes glossed over the stacks of notes inside, trying to count them as quickly as she could. She knew without having to try too hard that she'd already spotted at least 20 $50 bills. She'd hit the jackpot.

  'Can I help you?', a deep voice in a broad Russian accent quizzed from just over her right shoulder.

  'Daddy! I'm so glad you're here, these guys were just helping me...' The girl hopped excitedly around the side of the passenger door, confronted by the sight of her father, and the 'mother' she thought had come to her rescue, holding her purse in one hand, and $2,800 of her money in the other. 'What the fuck?! You're robbing me?!’

  Before Clara could even consider a response, the huge 'paw-like' hand of the Russian mobster had been clamped around Clara's throat, the force with which he threw her back toward the car making her head bounce off of the metal work like a tennis ball. The man wasn't that tall, maybe 6ft, but he was broad. His face was chiselled, clearly a man in his mid to late fifties, with the eyes of a soldier, someone who'd seen things the majority of us couldn't imagine in our worst nightmares. His hand, one of the only parts of his body that Clara could see at this point, was littered with tattoos; Russian writing and stars clearly his preferred subject matter. He was wearing about two day's worth of stubble, his nostrils flared in anger, his mouth sealed shut, his demeanour a quiet-calm that could erupt without a moment's notice. Whatever he had in store, it wasn't phasing him one bit. Clara could do nothing else but stare into his eyes, and what she saw wasn't good.

  Clara winced and let out a whimper, the only sound she could make with the diminishing oxygen in her lungs. She was beginning to panic, and the Russian's grip seemed if anything to be getting tighter. She used both hands to claw at his one hand, convinced that her feet had actually left the ground by a couple of inches. His daughter stood by his side, staring back at Clara.

  'She hates me, she wants her Dad to kill me, I'm in real trouble', Clara thought, not that she needed to read the girl's thoughts for confirmation on this occasion.

  'Why were you robbing my daughter?', asked the Russian, not releasing his grip even the tiniest amount, suggesting that he wasn't actually looking for an answer. 'You see her in trouble and you think you can make some fucking money from her? You Americans think we're the bad guys but you do this? To a girl who needs help? Have you any idea who I fucking am?' Again, no response required. Clara didn't know exactly who he was, but she knew who his collective was. The tattoos on his hand, the soulless stare in his eyes, the ridiculous wealth he's able to lavish on his daughter. Clara's clearest vision of the day was quickly looking like it might be her last conscious thought; she'd picked the wrong girl to scam.

  As Clara came to, she began to realise she was on the floor, her eyes opening slowly, making out the shape of the enormous tyre of a Range Rover Sport just an inch or so away from her face.

  'Clara come on, wake the fuck up. We need to leave!' It was Mckenzie's voice, which Clara figured was a positive thing. She turned and rolled over, her head pounding from the impact of thudding against the cold, hard concrete, her eyes doing their best to keep their state of single-vision. Mckenzie was hunched over her, his hand reaching down and grabbing her's, pulling her up to her feet with an almost aggressive amount of force, something she'd gladly have chastised him for in any other circumstance, but right now anything that was going to help get them out of this situation was alright with her. As she was lifted up, she tilted her head down to her left, spotting the large Russian man slumped on the floor, a metal pipe covered in equal amounts rust and blood laying near his head, his daughter a mix of uncontrollable panic and anger as she attempted to wake him up. Clara knew that Mckenzie may have made their situation a whole lot better, or a whole lot worse; it really all depended on how the next few minutes played out. Before she fully understood what was going on, Clara realised she was running, unaware of speed or direction, just following Mckenzie, hopefully to safety.

  Clara glanced ahead of her, trying to gain some idea of where they were heading, and spotted the bakery, the scene of their previous crime, only a few yards in front of them. She took some reassurance from this, it was nice to spot a familiar landmark when you're running for your life, but it also meant that, unsurprisingly, they hadn't travelled far in the last 15 seconds since she was lifted up to her feet. They needed to get more ground between them and the Range Rover, which by now either had a very angry, or a very dead Russian mobster next to it. Either way, they were entirely responsible. As she approached the doorway, Clara willed her body to turn right, bringing her parallel with the street so she could continue running, but her legs it would appear had other ideas, and she wobbled before slouching left, the glass window of the bakery the only thing stopping her from landing flat on her face. Then suddenly, a 'pop', before the huge glass window that was keeping her upright shattered, her body dropping into the empty space and snapping painfully against the window frame, before dispatching her, bloodied and bruised back out onto the sidewalk. Clara had spent so much of her life hanging out with the 'wrong crowd', living in the bad side of town, but despite this the sound of a gun firing was pretty alien to her, and her initial feeling of surprise at how different to the movies it sounds in real life was quickly replaced with the realisation that this guy meant business. She needed to move, and she needed to move now. Clara hoisted herself up to her feet, doing her level best to keep her head as low as possible, whilst doing everything she possibly could to convince her legs to start moving her forward. She glanced back at the car and could clearly see the Russian standing tall, not even attempting to mask the handgun that was pointed in her direction. Another 'pop', followed immediately by something sharp stabbing the left side of her face. Clara screeched and grabbed her left cheek, terrified at the damage a bullet to the face would have caused, pulling her hand away to reveal a small amount of blood, before noticing the bullet hole in the wall next to her, a moment of microscopic relief in amongst the chaos.

  Clara continued to run, aware that the Ru
ssian would continue to take potshots at her until she was out of his line of sight, but also aware that like so many criminals, he didn't really know how to use his weapon. She figured that if he only pulled off one more shot, her luck might continue, but the more shots he had, the better his aim was going to get, and the more likely he was to find his target. She was also aware that Mckenzie was nowhere to be seen, and despite the bleakness of the situation for both of them, she couldn't help but be a little upset at his preferred attitude of self-preservation. She glanced ahead of her, seeing that she was coming up to a crossroads, an ideal chance to bolt down a different street, maybe jump into a taxi or dive into someone's backyard. She was running faster than she'd run for a long time, her eyes scanning the horizon looking for a hiding place, something she could make use of. She looked in front of her, making brief eye contact with a man, somewhere in his mid to late twenties, his right hand held up in a 'stop' motion, his left hand reaching into his jacket for something. Clara read him; 'He's a cop', she thought. 'He wants to know why I'm running, he can't work out whether I'm the threat or not'.

  'There, he's got a gun!', Clara screamed, stopping only momentarily to point out the Russian. It took only a half second more for the off-duty cop to unholster his weapon and take aim.

  'NYPD, drop the weapon!', he screamed, his standard-issue pistol targeted squarely on the mobster, who clearly un-phased by the sight of another gun, fired back what was either a warning shot, or yet another badly placed round.