Bank Robbers Read online

  There was a silence and a smile drew across Dottie’s face. “And that radio would break down every Saturday night.”

  “Yeah?” Teresa said and grinned at her.

  “Remember the old radios with the tubes and wires in them? Well, if you just unscrew one or two of the tubes and loosen up the screws holding the connecting wires, those radios were just worthless. So he’d come down, and he’d take the whole thing apart, like he didn’t know Eileen and I had tampered with it…”

  Teresa was staring straight ahead, thoughts whizzing around her head. Arthur MacGregor, the bank robber, had been Dottie Weist’s lover?

  That was impossible.

  That was going to blow her whole image of him.

  He was a legend. He was one of those mythical people, larger than life—the kind of man you read about in expensive magazines. And the stories written about him never made him sound like a low-life criminal. It was as if the press gave him the nod—maybe it was a sideways nod—but it was a nod all the same. They made him sound like a hero. Big, good-looking man, smart, fast, and generous.

  Teresa had had a friend whose cousin had been in some kind of construction accident, and Arthur MacGregor had sent money for the hospital. She’d heard of him doing all kinds of things like that with the money he got from the heists. Once Arthur McGregor read an article in the newspapers about a kid with a deformed foot and sent over nine hundred dollars for the operation. She could remember the headline in the News: BANK ROBBER BANKROLLS OPERATION.

  And he was a funny guy. There was an incident she remembered with an FBI agent, who’d accidentally been shot by his own partner while trying to nab Arthur MacGregor. Shot in the leg. Not fatal, but he was crippled and on his back in the hospital for months and months. There were big articles about his poor family, and how the government compensation wasn’t enough. Arthur’d sent five grand along with a note suggesting he get into another line of business, one with better compensation and a more understanding boss.

  Boy, the press had a field day with that one.

  It was even fun being robbed by him. Teresa had a friend who’d been a teller in a bank in Connecticut when he robbed it and he’d broken into song; nearly put on a whole floor show for the employees.

  Teresa turned and looked at Dottie, still staring aimlessly at the kitchen table. This man could have the “Solid Citizen” as a lover?

  Naw. That just was too much to believe.

  The pot on the stove began to whistle, and Teresa went over to the counter. She dumped some coffee into a drip pot and poured water over it, and then another chilling thought occurred to her.

  She’d always heard that rumor. That Arthur MacGregor had been ripped up by some woman early in his life and that was why he never had a woman around him for very long and why he robbed banks with such a vengeance. In some versions of the story she was a Sunday school teacher, and in some she was a housewife, or a minister’s daughter. But Teresa discounted that, like all them rumors about Elvis Presley. Once you were famous, people tried to hold you up like that.

  “And when I walked in last night he was just cold and mean.” Dottie blew her nose one last time and thought about what she’d just said. No, he wasn’t the same man. “So I’m going to go get the bullets and tomorrow afternoon at three I’m going to rob the Chemical Bank on Sheridan Square.”

  “So you could go to the same prison as Leona Helmsley.”

  “Exactly.” Dottie sniffed, and set her jaw tightly.

  Teresa looked back at Dottie. For a woman she had always thought of as a snobby bore, the entertainment value she’d been getting from her the last couple of days was a real eye-opener. A grateful twinge went through Teresa; she needed this distraction from her own life.

  Miss Solid Citizen and the Bank Robber.

  This was much better than those stupid soap operas her daughter always watched. Teresa poured out two cups of coffee, set one in front of Dottie and sat down. She lit another cigarette and grinned wickedly.

  “So, you gonna tell me how you’re gonna rob this bank?” Teresa asked and Dottie opened her mouth.

  “No—first—tell me, Dottie, is Arthur MacGregor good in the sack?”

  Dottie closed her eyes and exhaled, shaking her head. “You’re a class act, Teresa.”

  * * *

  ARTHUR got back to the shop around five. He’d changed in the car, slipping out of his disguise and into the clothes he’d brought along as he sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

  He ignored the glare from his son as he walked directly to the back of the shop. He slipped the bottle of bourbon out of the bottom drawer and poured himself a shot and sat down.

  He had till seven to figure out how to make her talk.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ARTHUR shifted in his chair and stared at the sunset along Arthur Avenue. He was edgy as he waited for her, and his mind kept going over memories that were making him angry.

  Those weeks after Dottie blew him off were the worst he’d ever known. He went on a five-week drinking binge. When he couldn’t stand it anymore, he took to following her. He’d stake out the playground in Washington Square, spending entire afternoons hidden in disguises behind newspapers, watching her every movement. It made him crazy that someone else had her. He’d sit all alone on that bench, eating his heart out as she tended to a son who Arthur felt should have been his.

  He’d watch her body move through the park.

  A breeze lifting her dress just that much higher on her legs, so he could see the curve of an upper-thigh muscle, was enough to make him bleed inside.

  Thoughts of her never ceased. She was all over his brain, and only in extreme inebriation did the sound of her voice speaking or, worse, moaning beneath him silence itself.

  Even his dreams were controlled by the fact that she was out there and he couldn’t have her. He’d wake up in strange hotel rooms covered with sweat in mangled sheets, sometimes with a body next to him and sometimes not. Sometimes he could remember where the lady had come from and sometimes not.

  He bought himself a portable record player and a gun. He would sit for hours listening endlessly to the harmonica honky tonk sound of Jimmy Reed singing, “Baby What Do You Want Me to Do.” And playing with a gun he’d bought.

  There was the wailing sound of a harmonica. And one afternoon he cocked the gun as he sat on the side of the bed.

  And that was when Arthur realized that he was crazy. And that he had to leave this city or die. He took a train to Boston, for no other reason than it was the first one leaving. Boston didn’t make any difference. Arthur soon discovered he could be anywhere on the planet and he’d still be eating his heart out in drunken sessions in hotel rooms, with the constant playing of Jimmy Reed.

  One little slip-up and she was gone. It just seemed so morally sweeping. He’d done his time. He was ready to turn over a new leaf. Hadn’t she believed him?

  He’d spent his entire prison sentence taking a correspondence course to become a criminal lawyer. Those were the days when you didn’t have to go to a law school, you didn’t even need a college or high school degree; all you had to do was pass the bar to practice. And he set it up in his mind. He knew where their apartment was going to be; he knew how many kids he wanted; he’d planned it all sitting in a jail cell.

  He was in reach of the life he wanted with a woman he was crazy about, and a career which didn’t involve long jail terms—for him at least.

  And the letter from Dottie announcing her marriage?

  That was a joke.

  He completely discounted the possibility that she could be serious. Not with the way they felt about each other.

  No.

  He was going to get out of prison, rescue his woman, and set up a law practice.

  He’d had all those plans, plans that allowed him to live through the high suffocating walls, bad food, beatings, solitary. Nothing could shake his unwavering belief that he was going to have a life with Dottie.

  Oh, God, it hurt so
bad.

  It hurt so bad, he had to do something. Click. Replay Jimmy Reed.

  “Got me thieve, hide, hide, thieve, any way you want let it roll …

  Got me doin’ what you want me, baby why you wanna let go?”

  He listened to that verse over and over and over, like a madman.

  And after a time, he didn’t know how long, he thought, screw it. She doesn’t trust me? She’s not coming back?

  And from the spring of 1962 through the fall five years later, Arthur MacGregor took his pain out on the East Coast banking system, and any place with a safe or cash register.

  He robbed more banks in five years than anyone in the history of the United States.

  He developed a style. His disguises, his politeness became part of the program. But the biggest calling card he left was that song. The first time he did it he was standing at the door of a conference room, looking at twelve frozen, scared faces. And for a moment he felt pity for them, and a brief—very brief—twinge of guilt.

  First humming low, and then soon out loud, his voice suddenly rang out as he stared at the crazy faces:

  “Got me doing what you want me, baby why you wanna let go?”

  His voice rasped, and he did a couple of steps, and sang into the barrel of gun, like a microphone.

  He was really losing it.

  “You know that song?” he said to a round older woman, and she shook her head no, her eyes bulging with fear.

  “No? I’ll sing it.” His voice rang out again, and he shook his shoulders and his head, rocking forward and back.

  “O-oh, stand away from that phone, please, sir? Thank you…” he ordered, as he watched the president of the bank inch his way toward the black receiver on his desk. He went back to the song.

  He remembered dancing over to a man about his age.

  “You ever lost a woman?”

  “No.”

  “You lucky bastard. Stay away from them, they’ll drive you crazy and kill you.”

  The fellow looked at him and nodded, and Arthur knew this man knew exactly how he felt, because he gave Arthur a pitying smile as if to say “You poor bastard.” Arthur continued singing out in his Rivington Street voice. He could take their money and give them a floor show, all at the same time, that was how comfortable he was.

  The feel of a gun.

  Heavy cold metal in his hand was a daily necessity. It calmed him. It meant that for at least two hours he’d be totally preoccupied.

  He was compulsive.

  He’d finish one job in the morning and spend the afternoon casing the next. On the weekends he’d pull jobs on pharmacies, his favorite, as they always had a good amount of cash and truly laughable security systems. Gas stations were also popular, just to fill up the time.

  In the evenings, he’d look for long-legged redheads. Ones with that curve in the muscle on their upper thighs that drove him mad. He’d take them out and spend great amounts of money and treat them special.

  Then he’d take them back to hotel rooms and screw them.

  And after it was over he’d take pleasure in berating them for the ease with which he’d taken them to bed and he would make them cry and then he would throw them out, as if they were worthless garbage.

  That was when he was crazy.

  He had so much money he could have retired after one year. He had safety-deposit boxes stuffed with cash in small towns all over New England. His two partners were buying houses in the suburbs, and liquor stores. For his part, he had no interest in owning anything, nor did he have any interest in big fancy hotel rooms or flashy cars. So Arthur began sending money to people. Anyone who was in a fix and whose story caught his fancy, he kicked some to.

  He stole ten dollars from a gas station one Sunday afternoon because he needed something to do.

  But it wasn’t about the money.

  That was what no one understood.

  The FBI soon pegged him as the number-one wanted man in the country.

  Arthur shifted back in his chair, and looked at what was left of the sunset.

  The most wanted man.

  And that, Arthur thought, was what it was all about, wasn’t it?

  To be wanted.

  * * *

  DOTTIE stood at the corner and stared down the street at the darkened windows of MacGregor Pawn and Repair.

  She looked at her silhouetted reflection in a deli window. Her hands smoothed her dress and adjusted her hair.

  It was colder out than she had expected; she was shivering a bit and could feel goose bumps on her upper arms.

  She wished she had brought a coat, and then realized that she didn’t have a coat that would look decent, and that made her momentarily angry.

  She hated her life.

  A feeling of somehow being on trial, that knot in her stomach, and that nausea overcame her as she took a step. To hell with it.

  She walked straight to the door and grabbed the knob and pushed it ferociously. It gave a small amount and then slammed against a bolted lock. It sent a shock wave back through her shoulder, and a small shot of pain.

  She grabbed her shoulder and stepped back, trembling and feeling her heart thump so hard inside her rib cage she thought it was trying to burst through the skin.

  Breaking a bone, just the very inkling, terrified her.

  X rays of her leg haunted her.

  Dottie drew in a deep breath and held it, counting slowly in her head as she rubbed her shoulder and calmed herself.

  After a moment, she grasped the doorknob again, and with careful force gave another push.

  The door was locked.

  She stood back, staring at it. Goddammit, she thought. He didn’t show up. She’d wasted money on the cab all the way up here, and for what?

  Cold-hearted, lying bastard.

  It was then that her eyes focused on a rolled-up piece of paper stuck into the dusty, rectangular mesh-door guard. She pulled it out of the screen and opened it up.

  He was in Gianni’s on Arthur Avenue.

  What was he trying to pull here?

  She took the paper and crumpled it up in her hand, and she looked across the avenue.

  Arthur watched her through the large plate-glass window, as she peered at the restaurant from across the street. He watched her look both ways and stand still, as if she were deciding what to do.

  A waiter cleared his throat next to the table and Arthur looked up at him.

  “A bottle of Gattinara, please, and two menus.” Arthur said, and immediately his eyes shifted back to the big window.

  Well, he thought, here it is, zero hour.

  He gave one last look at the room. It was one of those old-fashioned Italian places with checkered linen tablecloths and candles stuck in empty Chianti bottles on each table. It was quiet and dark and intimate, and no one disturbed you, unless you wanted them to. Due to the early hour it was almost empty except for two couples, who’d been placed at opposite ends of the room for privacy.

  The door to the restaurant opened, and a gust of cool air blew in, making the candle on his table flicker.

  The beige-and-white polka-dot dress looked even better up close, although why she hadn’t worn a coat was beyond him. And then the unpleasant thought that maybe she didn’t have a coat hit him, and he lowered his eyes. He kept them lowered as the thought of the thrift shop came into his mind.

  “Well, Arthur?” Her voice was harsh, and he’d guessed that she’d psyched herself up for this second visit by becoming good and angry.

  He looked up, trying to appear startled.

  “You’re late,” he said.

  He watched her mouth move angrily, with no words coming out, and the waiter came up beside her, pardoned himself and put down the bottle of wine and two glasses. From under his arm he took two menus and placed them on the table. Dottie’s eyes followed the waiter as he pulled a chair out and stood smiling at her.

  It took a beat for it all to sink in—the bottle of wine, the two glasses and menus.
r />   “What the hell is this, Arthur?”

  “Dinner.”

  “I didn’t come for dinner. I have companions waiting for me,” she began. “We have reservations at the Coach House at…” She faltered again, as the word “Lasagna” on the menu hit her eye. “Nine,” she snapped.

  Her stomach was empty.

  “Sit down, so the waiter doesn’t have to stand there all night, and he can open the wine?”

  She stared at him suspiciously, gave a dignified glance at the waiter, and genteelly sat down.

  Well, Arthur thought, he’d won the first round. And he was secure in the fact that there were no companions who were going to be waiting for her at the Coach House. He’d also stacked the deck by choosing Italian. Dottie’d always had a weakness for Italian food.

  “All right, I can stay a little while,” she muttered, and placed her bag on the table.

  They both sat in silence, as the waiter popped the cork and poured them each a glass. Her eyes were darting nervously around the room, and he knew she’d been thrown by this.

  That was good. He wanted her off-balance.

  The waiter stood still for a moment and they both looked up at him.

  “Are you ready to order?”

  “Give us a minute,” Arthur said and the waiter nodded and moved over to the door.

  They both watched him go in silence, and then they both immediately leaned into to the center of the table and began talking in hushed tones.

  “What are you doing here, Arthur?”

  “I’m having dinner.”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “I’m hungry,” he said in deadly earnest, and grabbed the candle and moved it to the edge of the table, so he could see her entire face.

  It was quite lovely in candlelight—if you ignored the sneer, and the overall pissed-off attitude.

  He picked up his glass of wine and waited for her to pick up hers.

  She waited for a second.

  “I’ll have one sip, just to be polite,” she snapped at him, and he nodded.

  She took a sip, and her eyes slid over to the bread basket.

  She felt herself begin to swallow and took a gulp.