They walked side-by-side trying to look tough, trying to look discreet, trying to be indiscriminate to the discerning eye. They walked sharply, forcing casual, focused glances - evil-eyed stares - at that which they believed should have caught their attention. Alone, three car lengths ahead, he strutted with both hands clutching the hip bag with a strap around his shoulder.
I grab the bag, you man the hatchet.
Why do I need a hatchet at all? He doesn't look so big. Besides, why cut the strap; why not push him down and kick the shit out of him until he gives us what we want?
Because, dipshit - I already told you this!
You told me this last night when I was drunk and I thought you were kidding.
Does this look like I'm kidding?
They'd been tailing him for a week now; had his routine taken entirely for granted. Once he got home from work, he changed clothes - put down the tie and see-through socks, picked up the jeans with the giant patch in the crotch with the miscellaneous cartoon characters playing naked Scrabble - took his hip bag with the lap top in it, and headed on down to the nearest coffee shop with free Internet. Three blocks down - blocks that extended past two football fields apiece. The last of these three blocks - that which the three of them were currently on, distance between them slimming by the step - housed multiple abandoned warehouses; plenty of privacy for a hit and run.
You got it?
Yeah, I got it.
You sure? I don't want to have to explain my plan again.
I said I got it. God damn it! What's this guy got that's so important; he looks like a fuckin' loser.
That there be pirate treasure, mate. All of our financial woes: gone.
On that guy's laptop?
Put your game face on. Let's go do this.
The first one looked both ways like he was under center, surveying blitzing safeties on the corners of the line; then he tip-toed into a trot and broke the last fifty feet into a sprint. Before the guy could react, four hands were clutching at his bag. Overpowered, soon they were in a tug-o'-war match, arms extended. As the guy with the hatchet made his move, the strap to the bag snapped, revealing the inner casing surrounding the laptop and the handcuffs going from wrist to handle. Arms taut in the struggle, out of nowhere the hatchet came down. The arm with the handcuffs suffered the brunt; three-quarters of the way through bone. A murder-pitched scream, a guy seeing his opportunity to pull harder, a guy bringing the hatchet up for a second hack. One guy fainted; one guy fell to the ground with a laptop and half a forearm in his lap; one guy with too much adrenaline swung too hard and embedded the hatchet in his own thigh just above the knee. The thieves stumbled back the way they came. The guy didn't wake up until paramedics arrived.