Id zap me
iz mad ape
iz mad
mad
The other thing about reasons was that when she failed to provide a reason for something she had done, even when it was something she’d done without a thought, without, as it were, having had any reason at all, there was trouble. If she dressed in black, they wondered if she was mourning prematurely. If she dressed in a colorful print, they wondered if she’d put her daughter out of her mind. Why are you crying? Why aren’t you crying? Are you on tranquilizers? Pep pills? Have you been drinking? She was obliged to fabricate reasons for the way she dressed, for the jewelry she wore, for the hairstyle she preferred. No wonder that in the midst of this flurry of improvisational rationalizing she had to perform she sometimes got it wrong. There were the professional explainers, like Henry Kissinger, and then there were private citizens. And of course the newspapers, those mandarins of cause and effect, were all over her. Rainstorms and scarce parking spaces and the profusion of sex in today’s motion pictures, they had an explanation for everything. Nobody wanted only news; they wanted reasons as well. If you didn’t give them a good reason, they just made up a bad one for you. Here was a good example: Dutch Reagan had offered her, simply as a formality, her own seat on the Board of Regents of the University of California, a seat she’d occupied since 1956, those happy days. Of course she accepted the reappointment. It was a responsibility, it was a privilege, it was an honor. What it had never before been was news. But were those good enough reasons? Why, no. The reason, Lydia was startled to read, was that she was arrogant. It was arrogant not to allow herself to be pushed around by the gangsters demanding that she leave the board. It was arrogant to have done so without wringing her hands over it in front of the TV cameras.
Outside, a young man from KRON dashed out from under the canopy and began to sing a few lyrics from “Singin’ in the Rain.” There were a few laughs, a general murmur of appreciation. A little something to break up the routine of another boring day spent standing outside the Galton house. It was a practical form insanity could take. Or anger. Probably anger. Lydia remembered going to pay someone a call at the Huntington Hotel once upon a time and spending a perfectly awful afternoon, drinking tea and dodging catty remarks. It had been one of those visits. Afterward, stepping off the automatic elevator on the lobby floor, she’d paused on the threshold and then ducked back inside to press each of the buttons, from B all the way up to PH. She had no idea why other than that she’d been angry. “Singin’ in the Rain” was about the least angry song she could think of; it made “Happy Birthday to You” sound like “Ride of the Valkyries,” but why wouldn’t they be angry, standing under a canopy in the rain all day like a bunch of damned fools?
The doorbell rang, and there she was getting up, rising from her perfectly comfortable seat. She could greet Agent Polhaus or she could take cover in the bathroom. Probably she would go downstairs and meet her visitor. Hear him out. And then see him out. She had begun to suspect that Polhaus’s motivation for calling on them to deliver his status reports derived more from his interest in the twelve-year-old Laphroaig they kept behind the bar than from any sense of decorum or professional courtesy. She felt as if she ought to say, No daughter, no scotch. But then she’d be in hot water again. Well, whatever his “reasons,” there he was, and if Hank wasn’t going to hide from him, she was damned if she would.
TRAINING AND PLANNING. Tania scouts the area, working from Yolanda’s painstakingly detailed notes, typed up on the Royal portable (§VI.A.2., knowledge of main access routes, natural barriers, defiles, parks, schools, dead-end streets, stop signs, stoplights, shopping centers, parking lots).
Teko picks Jeff to lead the Bakery Operation, but Jeff greets the suggestion with naked panic. Teko persists; they conduct drills under the assumption that Jeff will be in command. Quickly it becomes clear that Jeff can’t even rehearse the job without fucking up; so huge is his nervousness that the hand in which he holds his unloaded pistol shakes disconcertingly; he stammers and falters when demanding money from Susan or Tania. Teko agrees to take over. Jeff will cover the bank with a shotgun and keep time. Three minutes in and out.
She and Roger drive all the routes, for the hell of it, to have it down, to get out of the safe house: W Street to Arden Plaza; Arden Plaza to the switch point; switch point to the McKinley Park rendezvous; back to W Street. Yolanda’s list is all heads and subheads and sub-subheads (§VI.A.4.d., final dry run with all drivers), multiple indents. It’s a thing of beauty, they agree. A glimpse of the inside of her head.
Tania’s not at all sure why Teko feels confident about handing a nervous man a shotgun inside a confined space. Just say she’s glad she won’t be anywhere nearby. Still, she diligently instructs Jeff in the weapon’s use, shows him how to hold it, how to swing it in an arc. She teaches him the zone system, though she knows the gun’s sawed-off barrel makes the knowledge useless. Still, maybe her expertise and confidence will rub off. The shotgun was her first firearm; she learned it by feel in the closet. This particular gun dry fires awfully easily, though. A hair trigger, she and Jeff agree.
On the way back to W Street they pull over near Southside Park, deserted at this hour, or rather two figures are on the lakeshore, practicing tai chi with complete absorption, remote beyond the physical distance. Across the street, the freeway structure and beyond that a windswept softball field. She turns to Roger.
“OK, wheelman. Fuck me, now.”
They do it in the car. Under the trees in the park. Roger is reluctant to fuck in the house ever since awakening one night in the living room to find Teko sitting in the sagging chair opposite him and Tania, holding a submachine gun in his hands, a sign of a growing craziness he could feel but couldn’t put a name to.
One afternoon Jeff lets the muzzle cross her as he moves with the weapon. She is about to tell him, again, “Be muzzle aware,” when she hears the click. For a moment they freeze.
“Sorry,” he says, finally.
“Keep the safety on,” she advises him.
“In the bank?” he asks.
“Especially there,” she says.
Three minutes in and out. That’s all.
A FEW CARS HAVE already parked at Arden Plaza. Susan watches the Chevy turn into the lot, bouncing on its ruined shocks. Some depositors stand waiting outside Guild Savings, their hands buried in their pockets against the early-morning chill. Inside, a man in a suit bows deeply, unlocking the front door. His necktie slips out of his jacket and swings free for a moment as he works the key in the lock at the base of the door. Standing upright, he carefully straightens the tie and places it back where it belongs before opening up, waving the customers in, holding the door as they pass.