“Like robbing a bank, Beautiful.”
“...Are you being funny?”
“Is that funny to you?”
“Well, I guess not. Not really.”
“It’s not funny to me either. OK, ’stead of all that beating and batting and banging around the bush, putting you in a pool, or whatever their idea was back in the greasy spoon, I got a proposition for you that’ll get you a mink coat today, a coat you can wear tonight, swing if that’s what you like in some club. And pretty as you are, you’ll be something to see. So what do you say? Will you do what it takes or not?”
“I say maybe, but I have to know more about it.”
“That answer pleases me.”
He turned to his friend, Bud, who nodded and said, “We don’t want no silly Jane that’ll jump off the roof if you tell her to. If she wants to hear more, it proves she’s got some sense.”
“Beautiful, what do you want to know?”
“In the first place, on something like this it takes people who know what they’re doing, so why would you want me, who knows nothing about it at all? Or do you want both of us? Or what?”
“...You done?”
“Well, that’s what I want to know first.”
“OK, we did have a mob, exactly the right-size mob, because the way we work it takes four. We don’t go in, shove a note under the window, and take what the girl hands out. We clean the joint out, and to do it that way takes four: one outside at the wheel of the getaway car; and three in the bank, two of us holding guns, the other holding the basket while the girl throws money in it. But the mob we did have we don’t have, not anymore we don’t. Because two boys who’ve been helping us out, two brothers who know their stuff, when we went to wake them this morning, one was stoned on horse, and the other wouldn’t leave him. So that puts us in the hole. But the job, if it’s going to be done, has to be pulled today. Today’s when the money is there, the extra payroll cash, and we dare not put it off, as maybe the word gets around, maybe the air smells funny, maybe something tells the cashier and he plays his hunch. From being in the hole we’d be in the soup, which we don’t really enjoy. Make a long story short, if today is the day, we need someone, and you fell into our lap — on account of you wanting that mink coat. Now, does that clear it up for you?”
“Well... yeah. I guess so. A little.”
“Chuck?”
“...There’s just one thing: so she wants a mink coat and that’s why you picked us out. But why would you trust us on something like this? How do you know I won’t call the cops? Phone from the motel and tell them there’s a couple of guys outside fixing to rob a bank.”
“OK, go ahead and call.”
“...You mean now?”
“Sure. By the way, what you going to tell them?”
“Like I said, that you’re fixing to rob a bank.”
“Which bank?”
“Well, I don’t know, you haven’t said.”
“If you don’t know which bank, you’ve got nothing to tell. It’s not against the law, fixing to rob a bank, if you don’t know which bank it is, so they can set up their stakeout. They can’t take me in for fixing. But they can take you in, and will.”
“...Take me in? For what?”
“Protective custody it’s called.”
“Protective? From what?”
“From having happen to you what generally happens to guys who rat.”
“Now I’ve got it. OK... sir.”
“I’m glad you have. Do you drive?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Beautiful?”
“I do, of course. But there’s something I have to do — go to the motel and pay for my call.” I explained about it and said, “I want to wind it up, so it’s not on their books and not on their mind. It’s a little thing, but I don’t want it to dangle.”
He stood staring at me, and I knew what was in his mind: that I wouldn’t have to phone the cops, just tell the woman to do it, and then come back real quick with a grin on my face and stall till the squad car came. At last he said, “OK, I’ll go with you.”
“No!”
That was Bud, coming to life like he was hit with a whip and proving at last that he was more than a stooge. He lit into Pal but rough: “You want to throw it away, the one edge they give us, spite of their both being punks? That nobody’s seen them with us, to idemnify? You go in with her, every goddam jerk in the motel can crucify you in court. It makes sense, what she says. I say let her go.”
“OK, Beautiful. Go.”
So I walked up to the motel, went in, and paid. When I came back, Bud said, “Let me look at you, kid.”
“Right in the eye, Mr. Bud. You see something shifty?”
“OK.”
“I want that coat.”
“I said OK.”
Bud asked, “Are we set?”
“There’s just one thing, sir.”
That was Rick. Pal said, “OK, Chuck, what is it?”
“This money, this dough we’re supposed to get, how’s it going to be split, Mr. Pal?”
“...Why, four ways, of course.”
“And when?”
“Soon as we switch cars. On a thing like this we use two to throw off whatever’s on our tail. Once in the second car, we can stop and make the split — put Beautiful’s share, and yours, in your bag, our share in our bag, which we have in the first car. Then we set you two down, you flag a cab and go with Beautiful, help her pick out the coat. You still don’t know us, who we are, to tell any tales, and likewise we don’t know you. Fair enough?”
“I guess so. OK, sir.”
“Beautiful?”
“I already said. I’m in.”
“Let’s go.”
5
He picked up my bag and led to the parking lot, the one in back of the coffee pot. He took keys from his pocket, unlocked a black sedan, then handed the key ring to Rick, telling him, “O.K., Chuck, let’s see how you handle a car.” But Bud cut in: “Not him, the girl. When we wind up that heist I want this car to be there.” So Pal took the ring from Rick and gave it to me, first picking out the key I would want, and told me, “Get in there, take it away.” So I did, slipping the key in the ignition and starting the motor, then lifting the door locks so he and Rick and Bud could get in on the other side. He got in beside me, Bud and Rick behind. Back of me, upended on the back seat, was a zipper bag like mine except bigger, while on the floor in front of it was a wastebasket, a metal thing chocolate brown in color, with slots in the sides. Pal put my bag on the seat between him and me, then snapped all the door locks down, except the one back of me was already snapped down. “OK, Beautiful, when you get off the lot, turn right, then run straight ahead till I tell you to turn. You’ll be taking a right.”
“Right, straight ahead, then right?”
“That’s it, take it away.”
So I turned onto the street, which was called Wilkens Avenue, and right away Bud chirped up, “She’s OK, she drives like we want.”
And Pal explained to me, “What he’s talking about, Beautiful, is that signal you gave. Strictly speaking, you didn’t have to, from a parking lot to a street, but you did anyway, from habit, which is what we want. Because on something like this it’s the little things that can trip you. You line all the big things up, and then you go through a light, or park next to a fire plug, or don’t stick that flipper out — and a cop flags you down. But you do stick it out, so OK. Keep it up, you’re doing fine.”
We passed Colypte, and he said, “Take it easy, also slow down for a couple of blocks so you get the run of this street. This plant, it’s part of this job we’re pulling.”