Chris looked across at Gerry, who was sitting in the back seat with his shotgun across his knees. The flackering of the helicopter rotors was so loud that they didn’t even attempt to speak. They just looked at each other and the whole of their high school beginnings were in that look, the friendship that had lasted through business college, and military service, and settling down in Menomonee Falls – Chris at the University of Wisconsin, and Gerry at Michigan & Muskego Insurance. The friendship that had brought them here together tonight, in this reckless adventure that had been conceived out of fear, and bravado, and a suburban dread of going short. Some families may starve, friend, but not mine.

Chris looked at Gerry’s bloodstained shoulder. ‘We’re going to have to surrender,’ he said.

‘And abandon the food?’ asked Gerry. ‘Meekly step out, with our hands up, and abandon the food?’

‘What else can we do?’ asked Chris, as the blue-white light fogged the interior of the station wagon, and the racketing bull-horn demanded yet again that they should step out of the vehicle.

‘We can fight,’ hissed Gerry.

‘Fight? Against a helicopter? Are you nuts?’

‘Don’t you believe it,’ said Gerry. ‘A helicopter is the most vulnerable thing you can imagine. Didn’t they teach you that in the service? One shotgun blast in the rotor, and you’ll bring them straight down.’

‘I’m not sure I want to bring them straight down.’

‘Either you bring them straight down, or we starve, and go to prison,’ said Gerry.

There was a moment in which none of them spoke. The helicopter roared lower, circling around the station wagon, and Gerry’s face, already white from shock and loss of blood, appeared as livid as a phantom in the spotlight, with hair that flared blue as a devil’s.

The woman said, ‘We’d better get out. If we don’t get out soon, they’ll start shooting, and the last thing I want to do is die by default.’

Chris held out his hand towards Gerry. Without hesitation, Gerry hefted up the shotgun from the back seat of the station wagon, and handed it over. The woman’s name was Madeleine Berg, and she was the divorced mother of three children. She said, ‘Chris, we’ve been neighbours for a few years now. Let’s call this thing quits.’ Chris broke the shotgun open, ejecting the spent cartridges. He reloaded it, and then he said, ‘Maddy, if you want to get out now, then get out. This food’s going back to Menomonee Falls.’

Madeleine turned around and looked at Gerry. None of them knew what they really wanted to do. They were dazzled by light and deafened by noise, and the amplified voice from the helicopter was telling them to get out of their vehicle now! – you get me? – now! or face the consequences.