Al nods. “Sometimes your dreams hurt worse than real life. Sometimes—”
“I don’t even remember what the whole thing was about,” interrupts Willie. “What could it have been? I came home from work, and Helen told me he did something wrong, whatever it was. So I ask him why he did it, and he says he didn’t do it. So I smack him on the rear end, and I ask him again. He still says he didn’t do it, whatever it was.”
“Will—”
“So I smack him again. I was young at the time, and I didn’t want him to get the best of me. I was gonna prove something, something about discipline. Can you imagine that?”
“Willie,” says Al, “that was a long time ago. A long time. I’m sure the boy forgave you. I read somewhere that children really want discipline, that they understand it’s a form of love.”
Willie has turned back to the window. “I kept smacking him across that little rear end of his till he finally says, ‘Yeah, yeah,’ whatever the hell it was, he did it. Then he ran to his bed and put his face in the pillow and wouldn’t look at me.”
Al sways back and forth. He doesn’t know what to say. The sound of Willie’s dry sobs is like a file scraping. “Hey… Will… come on, Will. Will—”.
“We never had any fun after that,” chokes Willie. “He only lasted till he was eighteen, that kid. I never got a chance to explain.”
Al runs his hand through Willie’s thinning hair. He feels the gaunt body quiver, like a dry reed in a wind. “Aw, Willie,” he says. “Come on, Willie.”
Five-thirty a.m. The alarm clock-radio in Joe’s room went off softly. Joe reached over to silence it. He sat up, stretched, and climbed off the bed. He felt a surge of rippling energy. Today was special.
He walked out into the hallway. Passing Al’s room and then Willie’s, he turned on their lights. In the kitchen, he got coffee started then went to brush his teeth. Al had beaten him to it. Still bleary-eyed, he was staring into the bathroom mirror, great globs of mint-green foam obscuring his lips and running down into the hairs on his scrawny chest. A moment later, Willie was peering over Joe’s shoulder.
“He’s foamin’ at the mouth,” said Joe. “Must be rabies.”
“He uses toothpaste like it’s suntan cream,” said Willie. He reached forward to tap Al on the shoulder. “You could cover your whole body with what you got on your teeth there.”
“Luh muh,” said Al, rinsing out.
“No wonder the big tube we bought last week is practically gone,” said Willie. “Really, you don’t have to use that much.”
Al put down the plastic cup. “We’re gonna be rich in a couple hours. Leave me alone.”
Willie peered into the mirror, passed his hand across the stubble on his face. “I dunno if I should shave.”
Joe returned to the kitchen.
“You gonna shave?” Willie asked Al.
“I ain’t sure,” said Al.
“Joe?” yelled Willie.
“What?” said Joe from the kitchen.
“You shaving?”
“Nope,” said Joe. “I’m pouring coffee.”
Willie looked at the ceiling. “I mean,” he said patiently, “are you gonna shave?”
“I’m not,” called Joe. “You can if you want to.”
Willie shrugged as Al turned to leave. “What the hell for?” he said.
In the kitchen, the three of them sipped their coffee and tried to match up bullets with their pistols.
“Nope,” said Joe, attempting to jam a .45 slug into one of the .38 chambers. “No good.”
The ammunition was spread all over the table, mingled with the butter, sugar, and toast. “Here,” said Al, offering a bullet of smaller diameter. “Try this one.”
Joe peered over the top of his reading glasses. “Nah, that’ll be too little.” He pointed to a bullet that had rolled up to the butter. “Give me that one over here.”
Al handed Joe the slug. It fit perfectly in the chamber. “That’s it!” said Joe delightedly. “We need more like that.”
They sifted through the bullets until Joe had filled up the chamber. As Willie handed across the last slug, it fell into the sugar. Al retrieved it. “Here’s some candy-coated persuasion,” he said.
With a snap of his wrist, Joe popped the chamber shut. “That’s one down,” he said
Ten minutes later, three completely loaded revolvers rested near Joe’s saucer. “You think maybe we oughtta take some extra bullets along?” asked Al.
“What for?” said Joe.
“Just in case.”
“In case of what? We ain’t gonna have no shoot-outs.” Joe stared at Al for a long moment. “You think we should?”
Al shrugged.
“Ah, what the hell!” said Joe. “Maybe we better take a few. Don’t cost nothin’.” He slipped some bullets into his pocket.
When breakfast was finished, Joe got his airline bag and placed it on the table next to the three disguises. All the men had on sport jackets, but Al was the only one wearing a black bow tie.
“My” said Willie. “Don’t you look snappy.”
“He thinks he’s goin’ to a dance,” Joe said.
“I used to wear this when I was bartending,” said Al innocently.
Joe handed Groucho glasses to each of them and then indicated the guns. “Take whichever one you like.”
“Don’t make no difference to me,” said Al.
Joe picked up the nearest gun and stuck it in his belt, buttoning his jacket over it. Al did the same. Willie took the last pistol.
“Okay,” said Joe. He grabbed the airline bag, spread his legs slightly apart, and made his voice like Edward G. Robinson’s. “Let’s get goin’, you guys.”
It was 7:45 in the morning, and the streets were clogged with rush-hour traffic. Joe and Al crossed against the light, Al calmly holding up a hand and bringing two cars to a screeching halt, their drivers cursing. Willie waited for the signal to change before following them. They waited fifteen minutes, then boarded a crowded bus, where they were forced to separate. Al gave his seat in the back to a grateful old woman who seemed far more robust than he did. Joe stood near the front and checked his watch every two minutes, and Willie sat near the door, covering his face with his hands.
“You got a cold?” said an elderly man next to him.
“No,” mumbled Willie through his fingers.
“The reason I ask,” said the man, “is I see you holding your nose. Truth is, I don’t blame you. It stinks in here. If my nose wasn’t stuffed, I’d also hold it.”
“Allergies,” said Willie.
“You’re lucky,” said the man. “You don’t have to inhale the smell. You know what it is? It’s the element. The people. The people nowadays stink. Years ago they didn’t. Now they do.”
Willie nodded, as if contemplating a keen observation. After a while, he noticed the elderly man sniffing, then saw him edging away. Willie stood up as the bus approached the Corona stop. “Tell you the truth,” the man called when Willie was halfway to the door, “you stink too.”
The three men stood on the corner, watching the bus pull away. Al tapped the front of his jacket to make sure his gun was still well-hidden. Joe looked around. Groups of black men congregated idly on the street. There was a card game in progress on an overturned refrigerator.
“Bad neighborhood,” said Al.
“Nah,” said Joe. “It’s just not white, that’s all.”
“We gotta watch we don’t get mugged.”
Joe patted the bulge at his waistline. “Somehow,” he said, “I’ve never felt safer.”
They began to walk. “Couldn’t we run down the whole thing one more time?” begged Willie.
“Please,” said Al. “If we talk it through again, I’m gonna start getting confused. Enough is enough.”
“But what if I forget what to do while we’re in the bank?” said Willie. “It’ll be a disaster.”
“Don’t you worry about a thing,” said Joe. “It’s like swimmin
g. It’ll come to you.”
“Swimming only comes to you if you done it before,” said Willie.
“Will, I’ll be watching out for you,” said Joe. “Believe me. Trust me. Stick by me and stay loose.”
“That’s what I used to tell my girl friends,” said Al. “They didn’t believe me either.”
Joe spotted a rusty looking cab with half its front bumper missing. “Gypsy,” he said. Placing two fingers in his mouth, he produced an ear-splitting whistle. The cab made a sharp U-turn and rolled toward the curb.
“I didn’t know you could whistle like that,” said Willie, his voice filled with admiration.
“Well, I haven’t done it in a while,” said Joe, “but as I said, things come to you.”
“I used to practice at that for hours,” said Willie. “Never could get it, not even once.”
The cab came to a halt a yard ahead of them. Joe walked around to the driver’s side and leaned in. “How you doin’ today?”
The driver was a squat Puerto Rican with bloodshot eyes and yellowish skin. “You chwan a ride?”
“Yeah,” said Joe. “Me an’ my friends would like to know how much you’d charge to take us to Manhattan and back.”
“Manchattan, yes.”
“See, one of my friends gotta go to a bank on Fortieth to sign a will.”
“A will, yes…”
“We’ll only be there for about five minutes, the guy’s already waiting for us.”
The driver stuck his head out of the cab to look at Al and Willie. Al turned sideways. Willie smiled. Three senile old men, he figures, thought Joe.
“Thirty-fi’ dollars,” said the driver.
Joe clicked his tongue. “Thirty-five,” he repeated. “Jesus, that’s a lot.” He shook his head. “I don’t know if we got that much.”
The driver narrowed his eyes, hesitating. “Tell ju chwat. Ju look like nice people. I gonna charge ju, mmm, thirty bucks instead. Take fi’ dollars off.”
Joe smiled and nodded. “It’ll be thirty dollars,” he told Al and Willie. Not waiting for them to respond, he said, “That’s still a lotta money, but okay.”
They piled into the cab with surprising vigor.
They sat quietly in the back seat, the metal grating of the Queensboro Bridge humming under the taxi’s wheels. Willie looked out at the silvery framework of cables and girders, gleaming in the morning sun. “Did I ever tell you?” he said, “I used to swim in the water right under here.”
“You told us,” said Joe. “You told us.”
“Well, here’s somethin’ you didn’t know,” Al chimed in. “My father helped build this bridge.” Joe looked at him skeptically.
“Yeah, yeah, he come here from County Cork, right around the Black Hills of Dakota gold rush. He wasn’t interested in gold himself—didn’t believe there was any, he once told me. He found a job working in the sewers, but it was so damp down there all the time that he started getting the arthritis real bad.”
“I hear that’s inherited,” said Joe.
“Sure it is,” said Al. “I got it myself.”
“I meant it didn’t have nothin’ to do with his bein’ damp. He woulda got it anyway.”
“That, I don’t know,” said Al, “but, regardless, he got himself work layin’ brick on the Brooklyn Bridge. Later on he helped build this here one. He was number two-oh-six in the Bricklayer’s Union. Even after he saved up enough to buy the luncheonette in Jersey, he still enjoyed layin’ the bricks. He added walls all over the place.” Al stared at the bridge’s massive towers, following their lines upward to the cerulean sky. “Boy…” he whispered, “he’s been dead a long time.”
Ten minutes later they were creeping crosstown on the congested streets of Manhattan. “So how you guys feelin’?” asked Joe.
“Like I was goin’ to my weddin’,” said Al.
“Is that good or bad?”
“You’re askin’ me?” said Al. “I never did make it to my own, you know that. Couple of times I was ‘in transit,’ as they say, but about halfway there I had a little change of heart.”
“And that’s how you’re feeling now?”
Al smiled. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You ain’t gonna catch me leapin’ out of the cab, if that’s what you were thinkin’.”
“Never crossed my mind,” said Joe. He turned to Willie. “And you?”
“I,” said Willie slowly, “feel like a million bucks.” He was beaming.
Joe raised his eyebrows. “Maybe we should’ve taken a bigger bag.”
The cab eased into Fortieth Street and cruised about halfway down the block before double-parking in front of the bank. The driver swiveled in the seat. “This chwhere jus wanna go, ri’?”
“Right,” said Joe. “You wait for us here, okay? We’ll be only two minutes.”
The driver looked skeptical. “I try,” he said, “bu’ the cops, they don’ like to see ju double park. Son-tines they make trouble, chase ju away.”
“Tell anyone who gives you trouble that you’re waiting for a fare,” said Joe. “Tell them we’ll be right out.” He paused. “Say that if they bother you, you’ll take it up with the Taxi Commission.”
“Chwa’s the Taxi Commission?”
Joe tried to keep the grin off his face, but did not quite succeed. “Look, don’t worry about anything,” he counseled. “Just wait for us.”
“Okay,” said the cabbie, “bu’ if ju don’ see me chwhen ju come out, it means I cruise aroun’ the block, an’ I be ri’ back.”
Joe’s gaze was unwavering. “Try not to,” he said. He turned to Willie and Al. “Ready?”
They nodded.
“Let’s go!”
They scrambled out of the cab and headed toward the bank’s entrance. There, sheltered by the overhang, they quickly put on the disguises they’d kept in their pockets. Joe and Al, hands on the bulges at the front of their coats, scarcely heard the tiny snap of plastic as they moved toward the revolving door. They were inside the bank before Willie’s cry reached them.
“These won’t stay on!”
Joe, his hand already gripping his pistol, glanced around. He saw Willie outside on the street, struggling to position his Groucho glasses—one of the temple pieces had broken off.
“Just hold them on!” said Joe urgently. He turned to scan the bank. There were perhaps a dozen customers present in addition to the tellers and executives. The guard had not stirred from his chair in the corner. Calmly, Joe nudged Al in the guard’s direction. The man was facing away from them, staring at a woman customer on one of the lines. Joe cleared his throat. When the guard turned, he found himself staring directly into the muzzle of Al’s gun.
“What? What’re you—”
Al moved the pistol so that the barrel pressed against the man’s temple. “Let him feel cold steel,” Joe had counseled earlier. “Be it the twentieth century or the tenth, that’s always been a sure way to put fear into somebody’s heart.”
Joe unbuttoned the guard’s holster and withdrew the gun. “You so much as blink too fast and, so help me,” he said ominously, “my friend here will splatter your brains all over the wall.”
Al’s eyes widened at Joe’s harshness; the threat was more vicious than he’d expected. Still, when the guard’s gaze swung slowly toward the gun at his head, his expression all terror, Al managed to keep his own look cool. “Look professional,” Joe had said. “Like you don’t really mean to kill, but would if you had to.”
Joe started toward the counter, gun out ahead of him, airline bag at his side. He saw Willie just inside the door. With his left hand he was pressing the Groucho glasses against his face; his right waved a pistol in the general direction of the guard.
Joe stopped at the rear of one of the lines of customers. “All right,” he shouted, “this is a stickup!”
Several people turned to stare, more out of curiosity or annoyance than fear, while others seemed not to have heard. A few of the tellers looked up.
“It’s a stick-up!” repeated Joe. He moved toward one of the cages. All the tellers had now gone rigid. “Touch them buzzers and we start blasting!” he barked.
The customers conversations ceased. The bank was absolutely silent. “I want everyone out here to get down on the floor!” ordered Joe. He swept the gun around expansively.
A few of the customers knelt, but most remained rigidly erect. “I said down!” yelled Joe fiercely. Six women and three men flattened themselves against the floor. Two people didn’t. One of these, a black man, squatted on hands and knees; the other, an old woman, simply remained erect. Joe addressed the man. “You hard of hearing?”
The man looked at him sullenly. “Ah down as much as Ah gittin’.”
“No, you ain’t,” said Joe. He aimed the gun carefully at the man’s broad face. “Either you kiss that floor or I give you a third eye.”
Slowly, his resentment palpable, the man complied. Joe turned to the elderly lady, who was resting heavily on a wooden cane.
“I kent get down, so you vanna shoot, you shoot,” she said. “And I’ll tell you somethink else, don’t think you’ll frighten me by givink a third eye. The other two don’t work as it is—I got glaucoma on the left side—so for me an extra one vould be a gift.”
“All right, just stand still,” said Joe. “Now—”
“I’ll do what I ken,” interrupted the old woman. “I’d like to see you stend still if you had what I got.”
Joe knew he’d better ignore her. The slightest display of sympathy or even humanity would result in an hour-long medical report complete with operative history and doctor bills. Instead, he addressed the tellers. “All you back there! Start pushing that money through them windows!”
No one moved. One teller, a young woman, look over at a co-worker, rolled her eyes, and shrugged. Joe became worried; they were not taking him seriously. He whirled at a squeaking sound behind him, saw a young, annoyed-looking executive heading briskly in his direction.
“What is this?” said the man. “I’m the manager here.”
“Shut the hell up!” shouted Joe. “Get down on the floor!”
The executive squinted. “Who are you?”
“I said, ‘Get down!’ ”
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