Bank Robbers Read online

She looked at her face in the mirror. How could she have deluded herself into believing Arthur was going to turn into some knight-errant and come riding in and save her from all this?

  “I liked it better the other way.” Snap, he’d turned off the lights, then leaned against her. She could feel how warm he was, and it had been so long since she’d felt anyone against her. It welled up inside her, this hunger, just simply to feel the touch of another human being, warm flesh.

  He broke her heart, is what he did.

  Cold-hearted bastard.

  Well, she was going to pull herself together. She was going to find a police station she wanted to spend the weekend in and would case the inside of a nearby bank.

  She stared at the pictures on her dresser. She stared a long, hard time at her son. He’d looked exactly like Nathan. When he was little she’d look into his face, hoping to see more of herself in him, but it never happened; he resembled Nathan.

  She looked at the last photo he’d had taken when he was alive. He was in an army uniform, and looked so reedy. Maybe it was his Adam’s apple, jutting out just above where his tie was knotted at the collar, which gave him such a gaunt look. His brown hair was chopped shorter than he’d ever worn it, and his head seemed so small under the big visored hat of the uniform.

  He seemed like a child playing dress-up in a man’s clothing.

  He’d be over thirty now if he’d lived. Maybe she would’ve been a grandmother. Maybe she would’ve spent her afternoons wheeling a stroller around, and wiping little noses and digging in the sand.

  God, what a waste. Dying on an island most people couldn’t find on a map, in a battle no one remembered, for a reason no one could explain so it made sense.

  If he were alive, maybe he would be close in age to Arthur’s son.

  That thought didn’t give her any satisfaction, and in fact made a small lump form in her throat, as it seemed very unfair that she, who had been honest and straightforward, should be in this position, while Arthur, who’d been totally, unabashedly criminal, should have a fine son and a business, and live well in his old age.

  A cold-hearted selfish bastard was all Arthur MacGregor was.

  Sometimes God made no sense to her.

  She walked carefully back into the kitchen and over to the sink. She filled a glass with water and began counting out the pills, two of these, one of those, half of the blue one, another one that looked like Contac. She swallowed them and picked up her purse. Again she looked at the gun. She walked over, picked it up and looked around the kitchen. Dottie opened the utensils drawer and put it inside.

  The thing gave her the creeps. Well, by Friday night she would hopefully be under arrest and on her way to being convicted of armed robbery.

  Maybe she was mad … crazy mad, not just angry mad.

  She opened the door and walked out into the hall.

  What a cold-hearted bastard Arthur MacGregor was.

  * * *

  ARTHUR picked up Dottie’s trail on the corner of Sullivan and Bleecker around ten o’clock. He bought a paper to distance himself from her and hung back a half-block length as he followed her east along the street.

  In Washington Square Park, she talked to a cop. Arthur watched the cop point and seem to give her directions. He watched Dottie walk off east.

  She veered over east on Fifth Street, and got past Broadway before she came upon what she was looking for.

  Her first police station. She grimaced and swallowed.

  It was horrible-looking! A sooty brownstone, with an ancient wooden police precinct sign over the door. And the windows were so dirty you barely could see through them. She had actually tried to see into a window, and found that a forest-green shade had been pulled down almost all the way.

  Well, if she was going to do it, she had to know what it looked like inside. She opened the grimy front door and walked in.

  Inside, it was even worse. The station house was gray and smelly, and the thought of trying to eat a meal in that filth made her shudder. She walked over to the desk and gave the officer behind it a weak smile.

  “Yeah?” he said, not looking up at her.

  “I,” she floundered, “I—” His eyes bounced up to her with that kind of police suspicion. “My … I’ve lost my dog,” she said quickly and strongly.

  The man’s eyes lowered and he pushed a form in front of her. She sat down and had just begun filling out a name when the front door flew open and two officers dragged in a man who was screaming at the top of his lungs. He was filthy beyond measure. His hands were cuffed behind him and he suddenly broke loose and began slamming into people like a battering ram. Blurs of uniforms ran past Dottie as officers piled on him, knocked him to the floor, and began punching him. He was pulled across the floor on his stomach toward two big double doors. Two cops ran ahead and held the doors open.

  The noise coming from down the hall sounded as if it were the door to hell itself. Screams and moans and clanging metal echoed into the outer office.

  “What’s down there?” she asked shakily.

  “Holding cells,” the officer murmured and took her form. “We’ll let you know if anyone sees your dog.”

  She walked out of the station house so fast her heart was pounding. She would never be able to survive that. God, what if they were all like that? No, she just had to find the right neighborhood, that was all. Some nice, quiet, wealthy neighborhood where the police spent their time writing out parking tickets.

  So, Dottie thought shakily, as she walked quickly west, the East Village was out. She was not even going to look at banks in that area.

  She stopped for a moment to calm down. She was afraid. Maybe Teresa was right. Maybe this was insane. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to survive in jail, and she should stop now.

  Maybe she should try the employment agencies again …

  She took a deep breath as a wave of humiliating memories about that washed over her. Like the personnel manager who had called enthusiastically about her resume and ‘wanted to see her immediately.’ And, twenty-five minutes later, standing at the door to his office, Dottie watched his face fall and his eyes go blank. She was not even asked inside. Interview after interview had gone the same way: She was overqualified, she was underqualified, she wasn’t right for their firm—what they meant was “too old.”

  Too old. At fifty-eight!

  Dottie began walking again, faster and faster as the image of the man screaming came back in her head. She took frightened strides. She had no choice. She wouldn’t settle for anything less than a nice, small, clean precinct; at the very least she would look for something she’d imagine would have decent food.

  * * *

  WHEN SHE walked out of the building, Arthur snapped to. He’d been leaning against a car across the street, trying to figure out what she needed in a police station.

  God, those places gave him the creeps. Even to this day, after years of comparably honest living, he still cringed like a guilty man whenever he was in close range to one. He dropped back at first, and then realized that he’d better step up the pace.

  Dottie was running down the block.

  At Sixth Avenue he watched her look around. Finally, she spotted a patrol car parked near Waverly Place. He watched her walk over to it and lean down, talking to the officers.

  Arthur hung back far.

  He watched her nod as an officer pointed west, down the street. She seemed to thank him and resumed walking up the street. She walked across Fourth Street, crossed Seventh Avenue, and Arthur watched her turn down Tenth Street. She kept going west toward the river, and Arthur, who was trailing by about half a block, stopped short.

  What was she doing?

  She had gone inside another police station.

  The momentary thought that she might be ratting him out for selling her the gun crossed his mind.

  * * *

  “MY DOG’S LOST,” she said to the officer.

  The officer looked up from behind the desk. “Here, I’
ll give you a form,” she said and handed Dottie the same form she’d filled out at the other station house. Dottie stood over the desk writing, and periodically she would stop and look hurt, so she could look around the room.

  A cheery banner hung on the opposite wall and read WELCOME TO THE SIXTH PRECINCT. There was a case of medals and trophies. It was clean. And it was light, the building was brand-new, it seemed, and it was a lot smaller than the other one.

  “What kind was it?”

  Her eyes darted over to the woman.

  “What?”

  “Your dog?”

  “Oh, it was a mutt.”

  “Aw, and they’re usually so sweet,” the officer said and began a several-minute diatribe on mutts versus purebreds.

  This was definitely the jail she wanted to spend the weekend in, Dottie thought and she smiled at the officer. There was another double door off to the side, and it was propped open. There was no screaming or yelling. She could imagine eating a meal in here. She could imagine that the cells were nice and clean.

  She finished filling out the form and pushed it back to the woman.

  “Well, to be honest, we don’t usually get any information on these things, but if we do…”

  Dottie smiled at her broadly. “You’ve already made me feel so much better, just knowing this precinct is here, you have no idea.”

  The officer smiled and with that Dottie went back outside.

  She turned and stared at the clean pebbled facade—there were even flower boxes planted out front, and there were several trees with flowers planted around their bases.

  Dottie felt herself exhale in sad relief.

  Now, all she had to do was find the nearest bank, and she knew exactly where that was. She turned and walked east on Tenth, turned down West Fourth and stood staring at the construction all along Sheridan Square. The street had been torn up, and there were Con Edison trucks, parked with big markers, all along several of the streets. But Dottie wasn’t even looking at the mess. Her eyes were focused on her bank, the one where she had an account.

  The Chemical Bank on Sheridan Square.

  * * *

  BY THE TIME Arthur made it to the corner of Seventh and Fourth, she’d vanished. He cursed himself for walking so slowly. He straightened up and walked to the edge of what was left of the sidewalk and stared past the construction workers and into Sheridan Square Park. He looked over at the small island shaped like a triangle. It jutted out onto Seventh Avenue and held a newsstand. He looked down West Fourth toward Sixth Avenue.

  She was nowhere to be seen.

  Goddammit, he cursed himself again.

  He was rusty at this. And he was ashamed at the idea he’d lost the trail of a fifty-eight-year-old woman. He walked to the coffee shop and pretended to read a menu that was Scotch-taped to the window. His eyes searched the room inside, to see if maybe she had stopped for breakfast.

  He walked to the other corner and looked at the building in front of him.

  A bank.

  He walked inside and saw her immediately. His eyes darted around the room, looking for the best vantage point from which to observe her. There was a long line of people. He walked over to the counter, made out a deposit slip and got on the line. He took the paper he’d bought out from under his arm and held it up high, as if his vision were bad.

  He was puzzled, as he peered over the top of the paper at her. For one thing, her dress seemed oversized and ragged. It was nothing like the neat new outfit she’d shown up in the night before.

  He knew before the day was out that he would wind up letting himself into her apartment to see the way she lived, but the shabbiness of the dress and the fact that she lived alone were not good signs.

  He felt stupid about selling her the gun now.

  On the other hand, maybe Sullivan Street was really dangerous at this point.

  He tried that thought on for size, and didn’t buy it. From what he’d observed, Sullivan Street was safer than the block they’d grown up on.

  He thought the crack about using a gun to shoot mice was cute.

  Then there was the fact she only wanted six bullets.

  That really didn’t sit well.

  If only he hadn’t let his temper get the better of him …

  Dottie surveyed the interior of the bank. It was a mess from an ongoing renovation. The room was almost shaped like a shovel with a handle; the end with the tellers was a wide square, and then narrowed into an almost rectangular hallway.

  She walked over to the area where the tellers were and picked a charge-card application out of the display, trying to peer over the high counter and into the teller area.

  The tellers were separated from the customers by a one-inch-thick sheet of what she was sure was bulletproof glass. The glass went from the top of the counter to several feet below the ceiling. And just over the openings where you slid the transaction sheets through, the glass was two inches thick.

  She wasn’t tall enough to see through to the other side. She looked over on the left. There was a makeshift wall where the bank officers sat at desks. There were only three of them now, perhaps due to the renovation.

  The customer service desk ran from the bank wall to the edge of the makeshift wall to enclose the office area.

  Next to customer service was a glass door leading to a small vestibule, and then another glass door which opened onto West Fourth Street.

  That was where the room narrowed into a corridor, lined with counters and deposit slips and a quick-deposit box on the right.

  At the opposite end of the bank was another set of two glass doors separated by a vestibule, which opened onto Sheridan Square.

  To the right of the doors at the far end were steps leading to safety-deposit boxes in the basement.

  Other than that, there was nothing extraordinary about the room, except for the noise of construction and the dust from the newly put-up plaster board. Emergency lights had been hung along the walls.

  She glanced at the ten people on line and then over to the guard. He was a small man, obviously of Latin descent, and his hands were crossed in front of him, and he was kind of rocking forward onto the balls of his feet and then putting his full weight back onto his heels as he stood. Her eyes slid down his body.

  On his right hip was a gun and holster.

  It was bigger than the gun she had purchased.

  She wondered if that made any difference in the world of guns.

  She tried to imagine Friday. She would wait until the afternoon, till almost three o’clock, before she’d do it. That way, she thought, they would have done a lot of transactions during the day and would probably have more money lying around, so they would take the attempt more seriously. She would enter and leave by way of Seventh Avenue.

  This, in the event that she actually got that far with it.

  She could line the people up against the wall, or maybe huddle them next to customer service, while the tellers handed over the money.

  That way they could be close to the phone lines, and it would merely look like either incompetence or naïveté on her part.

  So she figured if she hit the bank by ten of three, it would be her best shot to be caught. She felt tough. These were tough thoughts.

  She looked up and the toughness dwindled as the guard approached her.

  Arthur peered over the top of his paper at her.

  What the hell was she doing? That was the only thing that kept going through Arthur’s mind as he watched her standing still in the middle of the floor, looking around as if she didn’t know where she was or why she was here.

  It alarmed him.

  Maybe her mind was not right?

  He watched the guard walk over to her and say something he couldn’t hear, because just at that moment a table saw was turned on in the basement, and there was the sound of riflelike explosions from an air gun that was shooting nails into the walls, somewhere on the floor beneath them. He watched Dottie walk over to the counter and make out
a withdrawal slip, and she got on line behind him. He turned slightly sideways, so he could see her and watched her eyes wander about the room, and come to rest again on the guard’s gun.

  She seemed to be spending an inordinate amount of time staring at it, Arthur thought. She looked directly at him, and he turned back forward and waited.

  After a moment he knew she hadn’t recognized him. He refolded the paper and put it back under his arm. Arthur began looking around the bank. An amused grin went across his face as his eyes landed on two architectural drawings of what the bank was going to look like when it was all renovated.

  A bank that supplied you with its floor plan.

  How considerate.

  He started speculating about how he would approach pulling off a job here.

  Bank buildings just seemed to scream out to Arthur MacGregor, “Case me! Case me!”

  He always thought of them in the female sense.

  “Come on,” they seemed to say seductively, “look at how I’m laid out, see my fancy dress”—he’d always thought of the security measures as hooks on an evening dress.

  His job was how to undo them one by one, slowly, so the wearer became seduced and cooperative as she was undressed.

  He’d been thinking in very sexual terms all day, he thought.

  His eyes focused back on line and he realized there were only two people left in front of him.

  But this bank he’d pass over.

  Even his time-trusted technique of robbing banks wouldn’t work in this one.

  For one thing, it was the wrong size.

  He favored big, busy main branches, which would provide him with enough time to stand on line with his small memo pad and do the sketches he needed to create accurate floor plans of the space. He could gauge linear space to within half an inch.

  It also would acquaint him with the employees with whom he’d be dealing during the crime.

  He never pulled jobs at night. He also never took banks during banking hours. That was suicide. There was the unacceptable X factor of the public trying to shuffle in and out while you were trying to get on with it, which had made him cease early on to operate during business hours.

  He always robbed banks between 7 and 9 A.M., usually getting away a good fifteen to twenty five minutes before the doors were scheduled to open.