“Goddamn. How much notice are they going to give you?”
“The previous week we’ll be told if there are any Pooled Deposits the following week, so I’ll get no more than seven days.”
“Damn. That’s not good for us, is it?”
“No, we’ll lose a chunk of one of our weekends if I have to be in that early,” he trailed off into his own disappointed thoughts.
“But that still leaves us loads of nights when we can be together doesn’t it?” she asked hopefully.
“Yeah... yes, of course. And because it’s a new roster, looks like the first Pooled Deposit is going to be on June 16.”
They finished their coffees while Mary Lou stroked Carter’s leg to show she felt his sadness, but in reality she just saw dollar signs. Dollars held by Frank or dollars held by Carter, finally.
The bus couldn’t turn up fast enough for Mary Lou; the trip home lasted a lifetime. She zoomed off the bus and made her way back to the apartment as quickly as her skirt let her.
◆◆◆
Mary Lou shot through the door with a smile on her face, threw off her coat and skipped over to Frank’s armchair to fling herself on his lap.
“What’s up, babe?” asked Frank having wheezed at the moment she landed on him.
“Have I got some good news, hon’!”
“What good news?”
“They’ve arranged next month’s payroll runs.”
“Oh?”
Frank set bolt up with a straight back, holding Mary Lou around the middle to stop her falling on the floor.”
“The second week of June. The biggest run is going to be in the second week of June...
“... and that’s when we hit the bank.”
“For sure!”
“Do you know when in the second week exactly?”
“Not quite. Usually they use Monday to receive the cash, Tuesday to hold the cash and Wednesday to transport it to the other branches.”
“So it’ll be Tuesday, then?”
“Most likely, but I won’t know for sure until the end of the previous week.”
“Okay, game on. Sounds like we have a plan. Sounds like we have a fucking plan.”
And they did.
◆◆◆
They sat in each other’s arms for a spell, soaking in the meaning of the news Mary Lou had imparted a few seconds ago. She thought about the planning, the talking, the time she had spent with Carter the past nine months. Of the fact this was all going to be a memory soon. She imagined how Frank would react when he got into that vault and found there was no money in there. How Carter would deal with laundering all that money. And she asked herself, yet again, whether she would be better off with a class act like Frank or the risky Carter. Who in fact was most likely to actually steal the money? To walk out of that bank with the cash in a bag. The truth was she had no goddamn clue.
As the future seemed so unclear, even in the midst of the almost absolute certainty of the date of the job, Mary Lou decided the best thing to do right now was to live in the moment. Live in the here and now because if nothing else that was very clear and very certain. She kissed Frank over and over again and so began another night of tasting each other’s bodies until they fell asleep.
Beyond the moment and despite the class act her Frank undoubtedly was, Mary Lou was beginning to believe maybe Carter could pull it off. Mainly because no-one would suspect him of doing anything as audacious as robbing a bank: not JH, not Grimble and certainly not Frank. And if that was the case she should follow the money and that would be in Carter’s pockets.
29
Later in the evening Mary Lou went over to their trysting place to cook linguini and make sure she’d understood everything Carter had said to her. He arrived way too late to eat: the pasta had gone cold and Mary Lou knew that meant Carter had been back to the house with Rita and they’d had another in a long line of arguments. It was part of Mary Lou’s job to hear him and make him feel safe again and she braced herself for just that task.
When Carter did arrive, he was in a foul mood. She could smell on his breath he’d way more than his usual one shot of scotch. His breath and his generally aggressive air.
“How’d it go at work, dear?” she asked but he snorted and replied: “Shit.” But that was all she could get out of him.
Swaying with liquor, Carter noticed another meal gone cold on a table and rolled his eyes, sighed, turned round and switched on the TV to slump in a chair, watching blindly at whatever game show was broadcast.
A few minutes later a ham sandwich appeared on the arm of the chair and he grabbed it and stuffed it down without a word. Missing two dinners had made him hungry. Carter put the plate on the floor by his feet and carried on staring at the TV.
“Better?”
“S’pose. Those shit heels at the bank. It just pisses me off, it really does. I’ve been working there for five years and that pinhead George slaps me with the first Pooled Deposit duty. What’s the point of putting the time in, if you don’t get anything back? I mean...” Gulp of whiskey. “... is that what I’m worth to them? Just a hired hand to open a door and count some bags of cash, f’Chris’ sake?” Gulp of whiskey.
“Well, say something for fuck’s sake? Am I right, or what?”
“Yes, dear.”
“Yeah.” Gulp of scotch. “And another thing...” Gulp. “... how long do I have to wait for a promotion? I’ve brought in so much money through investments, they can’t have failed to notice, surely.” Gulp and a dribble of whiskey onto Carter’s chin, wiped off with his spare hand.
Mary Lou hadn’t seen him like this before. He’d be grouchy with her if he and Rita had had an argument but this was clearly more than the next scene of the final chapter of their relationship and marriage. There was an unpleasant edge to Carter tonight and Mary Lou didn’t like it. “Booze changes a man,” she thought as Carter started railing against anything said on the TV program before him. Even the ads.
She had a couple of options at this point. She could walk out the door and leave him to stew in his own juices and deal with the consequences once he’d sobered up. She could ply him with more booze until he fell asleep, but that might mean he started getting nasty to her and there was no way she was going to put up with that - from him. Or she could keep seeing the night out and hope his mood changed because she really did want to check she’d got the right date in her head for the first Pooled Deposit run.
Mary Lou weighed all the options and figured the smartest move was to extricate herself from the apartment and try again another time. She could be home in about fifteen minutes and that was a much better idea than to stay in the same four walls as this fucker right now.
So while Carter ranted at the TV, Mary Lou grabbed her coat and walked out into the Halethorpe night.
◆◆◆
Carter looked round at the sound of the door slamming shut to see the absence of Mary Lou. Later, when the TV crackled white noise at him, he fell asleep in the armchair, his whiskey glass out of his hand and onto the floor. The bottle long since emptied.
When he woke up at around six thirty, Carter couldn’t feel his toes as the apartment was quite cold and he’d been in the chair all night. He twisted left and right looking for Mary Lou and ran into the bedroom in the hope of finding her there, but there were no signs at all. Then he remembered not seeing her before he went to sleep and the door slamming on his rant.
“I am an asshole.”
There was no-one to disagree with such a clear self-assessment, so Carter nipped into the shower to take the cobwebs of alcohol out of his brain, put his clothes back on and headed to Lansdowne to grab breakfast in the Dulce Caffe before starting work.
The irony of Carter’s arrival for breakfast before seven was entirely lost on him as he was still feeling sorry for himself. The previous night’s haranguing had fled his mind; now he was sorry because he’d forced Mary Lou to leave the apartment rather than deal with his mood.
The one cl
ear thought Carter did have during his time at the Dulce was that if the Pooled Deposit drop was happening next month, the chances were Frank Senior would want him to grab the cash on one of those days. This gave him a cold judder down his back and a sinking feeling in his stomach, but there was no getting away from it. One way or another, he was going to pay his debt back. And this way, he’d be able to not just be clear and free of money problems, but he’d also rid himself of Rita and all those problems too. And he’d gain Mary Lou if he hadn’t fucked everything up with her last night.
At a quarter to nine, Carter left the diner and headed to the First Bank of Baltimore’s Lansdowne branch. First, as usual, he went into the staff kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee, just as he did every morning. Then he went next door opened his locker with the key he had attached to his house fob. Inside was an emergency cut throat and shaving foam, toothbrush and toothpaste. All on the top shelf along with a spare hair brush. Beneath, resting on the floor, was one of his black cases. Empty, sagging in the middle under its own weight. Waiting for a time to be used.
Carter then swung by the kitchen to grab his coffee and headed for his desk. Underneath, leaning on one side, was his other case. Also waiting for the moment to spring into action. Grimble stared at him so Carter grimaced a smile back just to annoy him.
The cases were ready. All Carter had to do was fill them with cash and leave the bank before the end of a Pooled Deposit day. June 16 or thereabouts.
◆◆◆
Two nights later, Carter and Mary Lou met up at the apartment. Carter entered first and he sat on the sofa until she arrived. When he heard Mary Lou’s key in the door, Carter stood up and put his hands in his pockets.
Mary Lou opened the door, looked at him and smiled.
“Hi.”
“Hi, dear.”
“Um...”
“Yes?”
Mary Lou hung up her coat and sat down on the sofa. The far end of the sofa, back straight, legs together and hands held on her knees. Carter sat down to mirror her.
“Well?”
“Mary Lou. I behaved badly last time we were here. I’d got bad news at the bank, had bad news at home and it was all too much for me.”
“Right.”
Calm voice, head slightly angled to one side, listening.
“So I shouldn’t have turned up drunk and all. And shouldn’t have laid that shit down on you... Sorry.”
“Thank you for the apology.”
Carter put his hand out and Mary Lou held it with a light touch and a gentle squeeze. Her body relaxed a bit and her legs were less clenched together.
“Thank you for coming over this evening and listening to me. Again.” Carter smiled at Mary Lou because he knew the amount of time she’d spent hearing his problems and talking through their solutions. She smiled back, still cautious.
“I just don’t want my behavior to change how you feel about me. I was genuinely scared you wouldn’t show. I don’t know what I’d do without you...”
Mary Lou put her other hand around his so it was sandwiched between hers. Her fingertips touched his knuckles and that was comfort enough for him.
“You mean so much to me. Once Rita is out of my life, we can be together properly.”
“And I’d really like that too. It’s not easy...”
“I know, I know.”
“But I have to be sure we’re good. I have to be sure I’m going to be safe with you. I’ve had relationships before where he’s got nasty and I don’t want to be in that kind of situation again.”
“Oh god! Oh god. No, I mean. I’d never do anything to hurt you. Christ.”
“Or make me think you might hurt me. That’s important to me too.”
“God. I’m so sorry,” and Carter crumbled, crying and folding his body forwards so his head and damp tears were dripping over their hands. Eventually he stopped and she carried on stroking the back of his head to reassure him.
He sat back up and blew his nose. His red eyes dry but doleful. Mary Lou’s body was totally relaxed by now. She smiled at him and stood up.
“There’s one thing,” she stated with a glint in her eyes. Mary Lou turned and faced Carter, still sat on the sofa. She unzipped her skirt and it dropped down by her feet. Her rose was in his eye line and he could smell her on his tongue.
“Lick me until I feel better about you,” she said. And he did.
30
Pete was in a strange old mood and he wasn’t too sure why. Yes, he’d been whoring around for a week or two with nothing to show for it other than a sore head and a sore dick, but he was used to both those sensations and it didn’t bother him any. No, this was different and he didn’t think he’d experienced anything quite like it before in his life.
After four hours tinkering under the hood of one of the Fords, the Wheels gradually began to realize what was up: he wanted to see Lucy again. He wanted some companionship. So Pete finished the work on the engine and motored down to the Joppa exit of the I-95 and scooted down the South Mountain Road in search of the taste of Java.
There she was in her tight-fitting waitress overalls and dress, with one hand on her hip and the other pouring coffee into a mug.
Pete went to the counter and sat down and waited. Sure enough when Lucy handed the coffee over to the John, she looked up and noticed Pete and walked over to him.
“Well hello, sugar! What can I get ya?”
“A whole heap of lovin’ and a cup of your best coffee,” Pete said with a smile, or the nearest available expression he had on his face.
“You can plonk your spoon in my coffee cup any time you want, my dear,” said Lucy. What she uttered made little sense most of the time, but somehow it sounded dirty and that’s what the guys liked so she got good tips. She’d stopped listening to herself in the diner about the third day after she arrived. And that was best part of twenty years ago.
“Sure would like to show you that spoonful, darlin’” replied Pete with a twinkle in his eye. “When’s closin’ time?”
“Late in the night, dear, but my shift ends at five, so you drink your coffee and I’ll be more or less done.”
“Mighty fine.”
Sure enough he sipped his drink to the dregs and when he put the mug down and wiped his lips on his sleeve, there was Lucy stood next to him, no overalls but still wearing the dress two sizes too small for her. This was another trick she used to increase her tips: having tits that looked like they were about to fall out every time she bent down kept the middle-aged men’s money rolling in.
Pete drove them round the corner to Lucy’s trailer and they went inside - like so many times before. Without a blink or turn of her head, as soon as Pete shut the door, she unzipped her dress and threw it in a wardrobe.
There Lucy stood, wearing a red bra, striped blue panties and flesh-colored panty hose, which she proceeded to roll down and shove into a drawer.
“Pete, have you suddenly got shy on me or do you want to watch?”
Pete’s cheeks reddened ever so slightly, because he didn’t think he was shy and the idea of watching very much appealed to him at this point in the afternoon.
“I ain’t shy, for sure, ‘n’ I sure as shit like what I see.”
Lucy smiled and started slow dancing in front of him, using both hands to push her tits together and swaying from hip to hip to the beat of some imaginary music in her head. She leaned her head back, still pushing and pulling at her tits and then she undid her bra, still swaying from side to side. The bra dropped towards the floor but she scooped it up with a foot and kicked it up to catch it. Then she threw it straight at Pete’s face - during this time, he’d sat down on the sofa bed, all the while grinning and licking his lips, clapping along to the rhythm in Lucy’s head.
She put her hands on her belly and eased them downwards so her fingers were under the top of her blue striped panties and Pete could start to see her bush. Lucy did that a couple of times, pushing down just a half inch more each time, staring at Pet
e as she danced, watching him react to her teasing him.
Finally she pushed her panties all the way down and stood in front of Pete, bare ass naked like the day she was born, only with great curvy hips and a pussy that smelled of sex.
◆◆◆
“Stop your lookin’ now and earn your keep,” she whispered to him. Pete stood up, dropped his trousers and grabbed her with both hands, one on her ass and the other on a tit.
Five minutes later and it was all over. Pete had more or less come inside her and they were sharing a cigarette both lying on the couch, although two of their legs were firmly on the floor.
“In a couple of weeks time, I’m gonna crash here like I did before, okay?”
“Sure thing, dear. You can plant yourself in my trailer any time you want.”
Pete stuck around for a day or so. The following morning Lucy went to work on the day shift and was back by just gone five in the afternoon. Pete spent his time sleeping and watching daytime TV on the black and white portable Lucy had bought the previous year. There was only a mix of chat shows and quizzes, neither of which Pete found interesting, but he was fascinated by the TV itself, because he had only seen one in department store windows or in the joint.
He was lying on the sofa bed with his feet up when Lucy returned and she smiled, hitched up her tight fitting dress. The hem rode a good six inches above her knees so the men could imagine seeing her crotch - more tips, thank you - and sat astride Pete. Without a word being said, she unzipped his jeans, grabbed his cock and pushed it past her panties and inside her.
In less time than it took Lucy to pour her famous cup of coffee, Pete had come and lay back, satisfied with himself and his world, but he knew he had to get back to his yard and finish off fixing those cars. He slapped Lucy on the thigh, kissed her on the lips while squeezing a tit, and said: “See you soon, babe.”
“I’m countin’ the days, dear” she said, lying down to watch the TV still blaring out in the background, relaxed, legs apart, hand on her crotch. After Pete left the trailer, and she heard his car growl back onto the main road, Lucy hitched up her skirt again and this time made sure she climaxed too.
The Heist Page 14