Death of the Extremophile

by Stuart Parker

  *

  The second bank was in Pontiac and Hope was looking forward to it, for it always went the same way: the first bank blew off the nerves, got the muscles loosened up and limber and raised the confidence - as, if there were a second, he must have survived the first. His throat was looser as well.

  ‘You want to know what a schedule feels like, try robbing a bank. Your poster says service with a smile.’ He discharged a bullet into it. ‘And look, it’s still smiling. That’s what I call a cheerful company policy. And that’s why I wouldn’t want to bank anywhere else.’

  He again distributed the canvas bags to staff and watched the wads of notes getting stuffed within.

  His thoughts drifted to his late night encounter with Hawkshaw and he even began to daydream. Maybe she was right that he had a high breaking point, and she seemed pretty impressed by it, but how good was it really when he could be in the middle of his second armed hold up for the day and be so recklessly bored by it?

  It used to be different. Back in the days when he was still learning the trade, working in small tight gangs, and when he really needed the money. He went out solo very early in his career, realising that despite the advantages of working in gangs, there was one distinct drawback that could not be ignored, that would spell certain doom for any bank robber given time: his work would be discussed.

  Hope did not know what had become of his partners in crime from those days, not unless their deaths or imprisonment had been big enough to make the papers. That had accounted for most sure enough. But one or two had slipped through the net. McCrann and Krahli. Old hands, even from the beginning. He considered even trying to check up on them but knew they would have only greeted him with polite disappointment for his sentimentality. A criminal simply needed a serious threshold for loneliness. It was a profession in which friends were fragility.

  Hope wrapped up the robbery of the Pontiac branch of the Illinois State Farmers Bank even earlier than he had done at Sacksville. He just wanted some more of that fresh air.

  He spent the rest of the day making his trail cold: he was car swapping, driving and car swapping some more. By dusk he felt as satisfied as he could be and headed back towards Pontiac, stopping in at the cemetery. Amit Henton’s name was now familiar enough that he would not forget it and that was what he used as his own substitute bank.

  There were graves all over America with bags of money buried just beneath the surface. All Hope’s past accomplices who had suffered a violent death had received such visits - he thought it more appropriate than flowers. There were friends and sweethearts as well. And now it was Henton’s turn.

  Hope had not counted up the day’s takings but it was certainly a few thousand dollars. He kept a couple of hundred to live on and then like a grave robber in days past went to work; his job, however, was easier as he was making a deposit.

  Once it was done and he was as satisfied as he could be in the fading light that the grave was back to looking as it had been, he turned his attention to his other reason for being there. Alison Monet’s grave was not hard to find, for it was one of the latest additions to the cemetery and thus had a brand new slap of marble for its headstone and was copiously decorated in bright funereal flowers.

  The headstone said she had lived twenty three years. It did not seem enough time to find out what the world was really all about. But how many years were enough for that?

  Hope remained standing there until darkness was well and truly ensconced. He was still alive. He still had his chance.