Bank Robbers Read online

  The wine felt warm in her stomach, and she realized she’d stopped shivering.

  “I want to talk to you, Dottie.”

  “About what?”

  “About last night.”

  “What about it?”

  He noticed her eyes kept sliding over to the bread basket, and he conjectured that her pride was not going to let her take so much as a crumb unless he took some first.

  Jesus, he’d been such a jerk last night, he thought, and now she was getting even.

  He reached over and took a bread stick and began to chew on it. He waited for her to follow.

  What she did was stare at his lips. And the harder she stared at his lips, the slower and more elaborately he made his mouth gestures, until she looked almost as if she were in a trance at what he was doing with his mouth. Her mouth began to twitch and she licked her lips and he could see how much she wanted a piece, but was on principle going to refuse the food.

  Christ, that blood of hers was stubborn!

  Most of the women he’d had in his life would’ve not only taken the wine but grabbed the bread, ordered, and would be well on their way to finding out if they could get a car or a coat out of the deal. But here this one was starving to death across the table, and would she reach for those bread sticks?

  Not Dottie O’Malley.

  Stubborn, thickheaded—

  “Dottie, would you take a bread stick so I don’t have to sit here chewing alone?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Try to choke one back.”

  She frowned at him and slowly reached into the basket. “I’m just taking this to be polite,” she warned.

  “Thank you.”

  “I don’t need your food, Arthur MacGregor.”

  “I know, you have reservations at the Coach House at nine.”

  “Exactly.”

  He waited until she bit into it, and he watched her expression turn soft as she chewed and swallowed.

  He loved the shape of her mouth.

  “They make them here, in the back.”

  “They’re very good,” Dottie found herself saying, and took a mouthful of wine. She swallowed and felt her stomach calm down.

  The waiter appeared, and Arthur looked up at him.

  Dottie sat still, wondering if she could in good conscience take dinner from this man.

  Now wouldn’t she look foolish? After having lied herself into a corner with that bit about the Coach House?

  She watched the waiter pour the wine, and then Dottie knew he would most likely ask for their order, and then she’d have to turn down dinner. In an Italian restaurant. With wine and candlelight, and she began to feel her resolve fold.

  But no, she wouldn’t look foolish, she thought, and felt her mouth sag.

  And then the solution came to her.

  “I need the bathroom.”

  The waiter gave directions, she smiled and nodded and slowly walked across the floor. Arthur looked at her walk off. Well, bravo, he thought. She’d figured out a way to take his food. And if he played his cards right, she was going to come back with him to his house in Rye, and that would be the end of all this nonsense of guns and bullets and thrift-shop dresses, he thought and grinned, and then looked up at the waiter. He was suddenly very hungry.

  “We’ll start with a hot antipasto, and a veal piccata, and”—his eyes ran down the pasta side of the menu—“lasagna. And two house salads.”

  He watched the waiter walk away and Arthur smiled to himself, as lascivious memories swished around in his head and wine swirled around in his mouth, and he lost himself somewhere in a Wednesday afternoon in a room in the Ambassador Hotel.

  And he watched her walk back. She stood in front of the table and stared down at him.

  “I ordered for you,” he said, not taking his eyes off her.

  “I’ll eat your food,” she said, and he exhaled. “After I get my bullets. Otherwise I’ll not stay here a minute longer.”

  Arthur felt his mouth drop, and his face began to harden as it became good and clear to him that she was not going to be commuting up to Rye, New York, or anywhere else with him.

  “What are you going to do with the gun, Dottie?”

  “Bullets, Arthur, now.”

  She stared at him, and he pushed his chair back. She was beginning to piss him off. He could only do so much of this dance for so long. The waiter appeared, fearing for his order, and Arthur waved a hand at him.

  “We’ll be right back, Oscar,” Arthur said without looking at him.

  He followed Dottie to the front door of the restaurant and opened the door for her. He fumbled with the keys to the front of the shop, and let them both in.

  “I’ll be out in a minute,” he said, walking to the back of the shop.

  He stood watching her, reached into his bottom desk drawer, and took out a box of bullets.

  Well, if this was the way she wanted it, then he’d oblige her. He turned the box on its side, just to make sure he’d picked up the right one.

  He stared at the sticker and the black-and-red words: BULL’S-EYE RIFLE AMMUNITION. God forbid he give her ammo she could actually use. She’d probably shoot herself just trying to load the thing.

  Yep, he thought, peeling off the sticker, that should slow her down. He tossed the sticker into the garbage pail next to the desk.

  He walked back to the front of the shop. He sat down behind the counter, and he could see her eyes watching his fingers as he drummed them on the top of the box.

  “Well?”

  “Why do you want a gun, Dottie?” he asked again.

  “Why do you care?”

  “I just want to know.”

  “Like I told you, I got mice.”

  “You’re not planning to do something stupid with it, are you?”

  She gave him a cold eye.

  “Like what?” She was icy. “You never cared one bit about me. All you ever cared about was robbing banks. I was right not to trust you.”

  That did it. He tossed the box on the counter and watched her sweep it into her handbag.

  “And now I’ll be going, Arthur. Since I wouldn’t want to chance you having to look at me in electric light.” Her voice had turned harsh. “And I sure as hell don’t want to look at your face either.”

  He watched her toss her head back and stand straight and, with great grace and dignity, her silhouette opened the door and softly closed it, and she was gone.

  And as his heart halfway sank, the other half was busy being angry. He’d had such high hopes that candlelight and lasagna were somehow going to make up for the night before. For a moment there, he thought he was going to get away with it.

  That swipe about the lights must have hurt, and hurt badly.

  A lot worse than he’d intended.

  He sat in the dark for a moment, then picked himself up and walked to the door of the shop to go back across the street and have his dinner. He figured it would take about twenty-four hours, but she’d be back.

  He locked the shop and looked up and down the street.

  There was no one on it.

  It would take her most of the night to figure out how to get the bullet chamber on the gun to open so she could load the thing, and then it would take a minute to figure out that she’d been given the wrong bullets. And yes, she’d be back. She’d get it into her thick head that she’d been rooked on top of it, and that would be an opportunity to come back up here and throw the thing in his face.

  And he’d have another shot at this mess he’d gotten them both into with his stupid temper. He thought back on his little dream about a home and children with this woman, and somehow it struck him as darkly funny that the only thing their relationship had produced was a substantial robbery record and now perhaps a suicide attempt, although that was beginning to seem less and less plausible to him. Not the way she was acting.

  And if he did begin to believe deep down inside that she was going to do away with herself, his last resort would b
e to report her to the authorities.

  Christ, what was she going to do with that gun?

  He stood at the corner staring at the big plate-glass windows of Gianni’s. All this business chasing her around had really pointed up how lonely he was, and he felt this ache in his stomach as he crossed the avenue.

  He’d go back and eat alone and he’d have them wrap up the lasagna, and he’d probably finish the bottle of wine by himself, have some shots of bourbon, maybe, get good and loaded to take the edge off almost having her again. And he’d pass out in the cab going home. In the morning he’d have Eva make him a big strong pot of coffee to soothe his hangover.

  And then he’d wait.

  * * *

  DOTTIE held the top of the purse, which wasn’t quite big enough for the box of bullets. She didn’t know how many came in a box, but it was so large, there must be thousands for the gun he’d sold her.

  She knew Arthur was telling the truth about the one-year mandatory if you got caught with an unlicensed gun. A year in a New York City jail.

  The thought made her shudder.

  She felt the clasp on her purse pop open again and she pushed it closed.

  The cab screeched around a corner, and she was literally thrown against the cab door. To her horror Dottie watched the contents of the bag spill out. There was a deafening symphony of noises, as the box of bullets emptied itself onto the floor of the cab. And, as the cab straightened itself out again, the bullets rolled like the tide going out.

  Roll, roll, roll, roll, crash. They piled up against the opposite door.

  Jesus, Dottie thought, almost wishing that she’d just taken six out and thrown the box back at him.

  It was her shopping principles. She’d paid for a whole box and goddammit, she was going to take the whole box!

  The cab turned another corner.

  Roll, roll, roll, roll, crash.

  The tide of bullets rolled back in, and Dottie realized she’d better do something fast.

  “What is that noise?”

  “My purse just spilled out all over the floor, because of your crazy driving!”

  Roll, roll, roll, to a clinking crescendo. It was a nightmare. Dottie sank onto the cab floor, desperately trying to scoop handfuls of bullets back into her bag.

  “What did you have in there, lady?”

  “You mind your own business!” she yelped at him. “You keep your eyes on that road. And slow down! We’re not on our way to the hospital, you know!”

  She had, by this time, gotten most of the bullets back into her purse. By the time the cab hit a red light and came to a stop, she was able to scoop up the last handful of bullets. And mercy of mercies, she’d crammed them into her bag just before the nosy eyes of the cabbie could focus on her.

  She gave him a glare and daintily pulled herself back up onto the seat.

  “Now you slow down and stop this crazy driving or you’ll get no tip from me.”

  When the cab finally did lurch to the front of her building she threw the money at him, with as meager a tip as her conscience could allow her, and, as she opened the door there was the tinkling sound of the leftover bullets hitting the sidewalk. She coughed loudly, trying to cover up the sound, and slammed the door. She watched the cab bump off down the street, and she closed her eyes and said one quick Hail Mary that there were no more bullets on the dirty floor.

  Or, if there were, that the cabbie’d somehow not think of her in connection with all this.

  She tiredly climbed the stairs to her apartment. She automatically flicked on the television set. She placed her bag on the kitchen table and thought about making herself some toast.

  Somehow, after narrowly missing the opportunity of lasagna, the idea of toast was unbearable. She filled a glass with water, unscrewed the bottle of Tums and chomped on her nightly dose of the pills. There was the familiar stiffness in her hip, after the long day. She sank down on the couch and gazed at the television set, not focusing on it.

  The ticking of the clock made her think of the nice checkered tablecloths and the candlelight. And the candlelight made her think of Rivington Street.

  Her earliest memories were of a cold-water flat and of being quickly changed into warm clothes. She had a lot of early memories, and in them the rooms were always dim, drafty places. And she remembered the smell of a sooty oil lamp that sat on a kitchen table with a cheap checkered tablecloth. Her family used that instead of the electric lights whenever possible. That was before they moved up in the world, and away from Rivington. Her mother had been best friends with Eileen Spinoza’s.

  Dottie O’Malley was the youngest of three; there were two boys older than she. She was born seventeen years after the younger brother, a fact her mother explained by saying, “God’s always surprising you in life, dear Dorothy. He saves the best for last.”

  And that was a very nice way to explain that she was obviously an accidental afterthought.

  As a child in a household of adults, some bordering on elderly, she was largely left alone. There wasn’t enough energy for her parents to deal with her, not that she was a tyrant or hyperactive, but a small child was simply too much for them.

  Everybody was tired all the time. Almost all memories of her father were of him asleep in his chair in the living room. He worked as a bricklayer six days a week, week in and week out, and on Sundays he slept.

  Every evening he would snooze, head tilted over, chin resting just below his right shoulder, mouth opened, eyes closed, his reading glasses slid down almost to the tip of his nose. She would play around his feet, and hope the glasses would someday drop into his lap. She didn’t know why this was so exciting to her; she had no plans for the glasses, and knew there’d be hell to pay if she touched them. But it was just that anticipation of something happening.

  The Daily News would be held open across his chest by his thick, meaty hands. They always had small scratches or nicks from the shards of brick that would splinter off as he’d stack loads on the trowel, and there’d be bruises too from dropping a brick here or there at the end of day when he was tired. Small dots of dried maroon-colored blood on the paper was evidence her father was home.

  Even in the deepest sleep his hands remained magically suspended across his chest. The paper would make a crackling sound as his chest expanded and contracted with the snoring. It was kind of musical in a way.

  Dottie doubted her father ever made it past the headlines without falling asleep. Sometimes he could be roused for dinner and sometimes he couldn’t.

  Her mother ran the house. She was a big, sturdy woman in body, with beautiful, delicate facial features and flaming red hair. She reminded Dottie of a workhorse. Stern and strong, and efficient and mirthless. The only time she smiled was Sunday in church. Dottie had inherited her hair and looks and long legs from her.

  Her mother was a schoolteacher, she taught second grade on the Lower East Side. She loved reading and books. She’d actually gone to college, her mother, which was a source of pride in the family. And she was well-spoken. Dottie was always taught to speak clearly without an accent. It was her mother’s theory that proper speech and good manners would take you farther than all the money in the world.

  And when Dottie’s father was out of work her mother would support them by teaching during the day and taking in sewing and laundry to do at night. She could sew seams with the most delicate stitches Dottie had ever seen. And she could iron anything, from a sheet to a fancy ruffled shirt, with the same expertise.

  It was the end of the Depression, and everyone worked and worked and worked, and at the end of each week there was very little money.

  Dottie’s eyes refocused on the television suddenly as she heard the name Arthur MacGregor.

  There it was. That stupid documentary on Arthur. Once in a great while Channel 13 would run a series on “Fame in America,” and for some god-awful reason, they’d chosen Arthur for one segment.

  It was haunting her.

  She leaned over to the
set and was about to turn it off when she heard a voice-over of him talking.

  His voice sounded very flat on tape. And she found herself sinking down onto the couch and listening to him. He was talking about how to rob a bank. She felt her eyes close and for a while she let the sound of his voice lull her. He was telling about how dexterously he could remove a gun from a guard’s holster.

  “And you walk up behind; if you bump them you can reach around, unsnap the holster and pull the gun out while they’re distracted, but you have to be fast.”

  And he was so proud of this.

  Dottie shook her head and opened her eyes in time to see a picture of Auburn. And there you have it, she thought. Arthur’s entire life.

  Tomorrow morning she was going to figure out how to load that gun, and then tomorrow afternoon was going to be the end of this.

  * * *

  TERESA lay in bed staring at the set. She couldn’t take her eyes off it. She’d never watched much of Channel 13 in her whole life, but she’d read in a guide they were doing a segment on Arthur MacGregor, and she was glued to the thing.

  She was watching in the hopes of tripping Dottie up on that ridiculous story about her and Arthur MacGregor, but as she lay still, smoking cigarette after cigarette, everything seemed to bear out the fact that the Solid Citizen had indeed been involved with him. The pictures of the house on Rivington Street matched perfectly, all the stuff about jail; if she hadn’t been involved with him then she was a great liar. Teresa sucked on her cigarette and wondered if she could ask Dottie for an autograph or something.

  She looked at the clock. It was almost eleven. She stubbed out the cigarette and gazed at the set. When she was little, she used to have this recurrent dream about becoming a famous person. She’d read movie magazines and the tabloids with a vengeance. It wasn’t just being famous, it was that you would get to know other famous people. She watched Arthur’s face, and a small tingle went through her. Jeez, what it must be like to be famous, she thought, and felt her face cloud.

  Now what was she going to do about those kids, who wanted to make her move down to Florida? Teresa turned off the light and rolled over to go to sleep to the sounds of a war movie.