Going in Style

by Robert Grossbach

  The man dropped to his knees. “Do you have an account here?” he asked stupidly.

  Joe cocked the hammer. “Mister, this is a robbery. One more wise-aleck remark and your head will be a bowling ball.”

  The executive still seemed skeptical. Possibly he’s just reluctant to get his suit dirty, thought Joe. The manager looked up at him sternly. “Are you kidding?” he said. “Is this some kind of joke? Because if it—”

  Joe fired at a large wall clock behind the counter. The shot echoed deafeningly around the vaulted interior. Broken glass sprayed the desktop calculators; the minute hand landed intact on somebody’s deposit slip. The net effect, however, was salutary; everyone, including Al and Willie, snapped to attention. Quickly, the tellers began to pile money on the counters. The executives and customers—except for the old woman—lay flat on the floor.

  “That’s better,” said Joe. “No nonsense and no one gets hurt.” He turned to Willie, saw that he was okay, and turned back. The stacks of bills in front of the windows were growing substantially. “Keep it coming,” said Joe. “Keep it coming.” He switched to his Edward G. Robinson voice. “And I mean all of it. You hear? All of it.”

  Suddenly, behind him, there was the sound of laughter. He spun, saw two businessmen push through the revolving doors. So absorbed were they in conversation that they seemed oblivious to what was going on.

  “Hey!” shouted Willie.

  One of the men glanced over at him.

  “Yeah, you, fathead!”

  Joe was amazed at Willie’s aggressiveness. Willie approached the two businessmen and waved his gun in front of their astonished faces. “Both of you! First thing, shut your goddamn mouths. Second, get over there with the others and lie down.”

  One of the men turned to the other, as if his companion would confirm this was actually happening.

  “C’mon,” yelled Willie. “Get over there!”

  The men walked stiffly to the line of customers and lay down at the end, seemingly determined to maintain their proper place in the queue even under these trying circumstances.

  “Yeah,” said Willie, still brandishng the pistol theatrically. “That’s right. Just lay there and don’t get any bright ideas. No one needs a dead hero, understand?”

  Joe and Al, who was still covering the guard, exchanged looks of disbelief. Willie sidled over toward Joe. “What?”

  “Nothing,” said Joe. “Help me fill the bag.”

  They walked down the counter scooping up the piles of bills. In a moment, the airline bag was overflowing.

  “Shoulda brought a laundry sack,” muttered Willie.

  Joe struggled to close the bag’s zipper, finally did so at the expense of a thousand dollars. The tellers, he saw, were staring at him. “All right,” he snarled, “I want all of you to lie down also. Let’s go! Everyone!”

  The tellers dropped to the floor. One young, pretty one smiled at Joe seductively. Her skirt rose along her legs. Joe looked away. “Make it snappy!” he shouted, more to regain his own concentration than to insure compliance.

  Al motioned to the guard. “You, too, Pop.”

  Wordlessly, the guard sank down. For a moment, there was an eerie silence as Al, Joe, and Willie stood among the prone crowd.

  “I guess that’s it,” said Joe quietly. “Let’s get out of here.”

  They were almost to the door when the old woman began to speak. “Listen,” she said, “before you go I vanna tell you vun think.”

  Unaccountably, the men stopped.

  “Next time, don’t make so much noise,” continued the woman. “Everythink else, okay, but that shot was unnecessary. Hurts the ears.”

  One by one, Joe, Al, and Willie went through the door. Outside, they pocketed the disguises and headed toward the curb. Joe felt an immediate relief; the gypsy cab was still double parked. Holding the airline bag as inconspicuously as possible, he climbed into the back seat. Willie and Al followed. Joe glanced back into the bank as the taxi began to move. He could see no one; everybody was still on the floor. The cab neared the end of the street.

  “Any problem?” asked Joe, straining to sound casual.

  “Not for me,” said the driver.

  “Good,” said Joe.

  “An’ chwat about ju?” asked the cabbie. “Did ju sign jour will?”

  Joe was surprised the man even remembered. “Yeah,” he said. “We’re all set. When I die, my entire Social Security check goes to Fluffy.”

  “Fluffy is jour wife?”

  “My cat,” said Joe. He leaned forward, smiling, as they came to the corner. “Listen, uh, how about just makin’ a right turn here and goin’ down to the end of the block, okay? It’s a beautiful mornin’ out and I think maybe we’ll walk around for a while instead of heading straight home.” In the rear-view mirror, he could see the driver scowl.

  “Chwat abou’ the money?”

  For just an instant, Joe panicked. Then he understood. “Oh, you mean the thirty bucks?”

  “Jes, the thirty bucks.”

  “Oh, of course, you get it. Sure. A deal’s a deal.”

  The driver relaxed.

  “We just figured maybe we’d go to a park,” added Joe. “Play checkers or something.”

  The cab pulled up to the corner of Forty-first Street. A subway entrance was ten feet away. As Al and Willie climbed out, Joe handed the driver three tens and a one.

  “Here you go,” he said. “Keep the change.”

  “Thank ju berry much,” said the cabbie.

  “That’s all right.”

  “Chab a nice day.”

  “I will,” said Joe. “I definitely will.”

  The three men hurried down the stairs. “Wait a minute, wait!” shouted Willie, trailing behind.

  “What’s the matter?” Al called back.

  Willie pointed to a sign. “This is an IRT. Don’t we need a BMT? The other day we took the BMT.”

  Joe motioned for him to hurry along. After all the years of driving his taxi wherever he wanted to go, Willie was as unfamiliar wth the subway system as a tourist. “We’ll change in Queens,” said Joe. “Don’t worry about it.”

  At the bottom of the steps, there was a long line in front of the token booth. Al immediately took a place on the end. “Jesus!” he moaned. “We’ll be here for hours.”

  Joe passed him right by. “No, you won’t,” he said. “I got tokens already.”

  Al gleefully followed him to the turnstiles, where Joe fed the tokens into the slots. Out of breath now, the three men walked briskly down to the far end of the platform. Joe looked around. The only person within twenty feet was a drunk propped against one of the peeling walls.

  Joe removed a neatly folded brown paper Waldbaum’s grocery bag from his jacket. He handed it to Willie. “Hold it open,” he ordered.

  As Al shielded them with his body, Joe stuffed handfuls of bills from the airline bag into the paper bag. In the distance, there was a faint rumble of heavy machinery. Joe’s hands increased their speed.

  “Train’s comin’,” said Al.

  The airline bag was still half full.

  “Al!” said Joe urgently. “Give me a hand here!”

  Al began to assist Joe. There was no concern now about anyone watching; all efforts were concentrated on beating the train. Joe looked around, saw the rapidly approaching headlight pierce the blackness of the tunnel.

  “Come on, come on, come on!” he shouted.

  The train was at the far end of the platform, and a small mound of bills still remained. Joe reached one more time to snatch up two fistfuls; Al did the same. The gust of wind from the moving cars blew most of the remaining money into the air. The train came to a jerky stop, and the doors slid open. Willie tried to grab some of the loose bills.

  “Forget ‘em!” shouted Joe.

  Willie ignored him. Joe handed the now-empty airline bag to Al and pointed to a nearby garbage can. “Throw this in there!”

  Al rushed to the can. Joe took th
e paper bag from Willie, rolled up the top, and plunged toward the train. Halfway down the platform, he could see the conductor peering out to check if all passengers had boarded. He watched Al scramble for the door nearest the garbage can, saw him slip inside the car just as the rubber-lined metal panels slid shut. Suddenly the-doors re-opened. A woman thirty feet away had been caught with her handbag outside the train.

  “Hold ‘em!” yelled Willie. He darted around the platform in a squatting position, grasping at the loose bills.

  Joe strained to push back the doors, which once again had started to close. It seemed that Willie had gone completely mad; he was laughing and hopping about crazily.

  “Let’s go!” Joe shouted.

  Willie, breathless, scuttled into the train. His pockets were stuffed with bills. Al had lurched over from the other end of the car, and the three of them quickly found seats as the train sped away from the station.

  The subway ride was a time of silence. There was substantial paranoia concerning the other people in the car. There was the fear of assault by the gangly black man gazing at the wall map, by the heavily muscled Latin with the scarred face, by the raucous, radio-carrying group of teen-agers who walked up and down the aisle. But this apprehension was not the usual, low-key, helpless dread of personal assault. This was anxiety born of glorious and magnificent accomplishment. They had done the impossible; they had something worth stealing. And so the focus of their concern was that nothing should spoil the perfection of this most memorable of all mornings.

  In this, at least, they were not to be disappointed.

  9

  Tears’ End

  They sat at the kitchen table in their undershirts, peering at each other above the stacks of bills. Each of them had a pencil and a sheet of paper. As a group of bills came off the central pile, whoever had taken it would secure it with a rubber band, tally and note the value. Joe was finished first. He stood up, stretched, and walked to the sink to sharpen his pencil.

  “How you guys doin’?” he asked.

  “Sshh!” said Al, annoyed.

  “Sorry, sorry.” Joe returned to the table. “Let me know when you’re ready,” he whispered.

  “A minute,” said Al. He tallied a final stack of bills, wrote down the figure, looked up. “I’m ready,” he announced.

  Willie looked up.

  “All set?” asked Joe.

  “No, I’m not ‘all set,’ “ mimicked Willie. “How the hell can I concentrate with you and him bother-in’ me every two minutes? What the hell is this, a math contest? A man can’t think!”

  Joe soothed him. “All right, take your time. No need to rush. Some’s a little slower than others, no problem.” He winked at Al.

  Willie glared at them, but resumed work. Deliberately, enjoying the impatience on Al’s face, he counted out the last two piles of bills. He looked up and when he’d jotted down the final number. “Ready,” he said calmly.

  “I got eleven thousand, five hundred and eighteen dollars,” said Joe, writing on the paper bag. “Al?”

  “Nine thousand, eight hundred and twenty-one,” said Al.

  Joe wrote the figure under his own. “Willie?”

  “Fourteen thousand, two hundred and sixteen,” said Willie, smiling in self-satisfaction. He leaned back in the chair. “Some may be a little slower than others, but some may also have a little more than others.”

  Joe’s pencil flitted over the three figures. His lips moved in silent computation. Finally, he gave a low whistle. “Wow,” he mumbled.

  “What?” said Al.

  “Thirty-five thousand, five hundred and fifty-five dollars.”

  “Holy Mother of Jesus,” breathed Willie.

  Joe was working on a division problem. “That’s… eleven thousand, eight hundred and fifty-one dollars apiece,” he said after a moment. “Plus change.”

  “I’ll be dipped,” marveled Al.

  “You can keep the change,” said Willie to Joe. “I’m rich. I don’t need it.”

  “I never expected this much,” said Joe. “Something, a few grand maybe, but this…” He shook his head. “This is great! Damn, it’s great!” He clenched his fist and waved it in the air.

  “We shoulda hit the safe, too,” said Willie reflectively. “We were right there. We shoulda hit the safe.”

  “Capone, here, ain’t satisfied with the haul,” said Al. “He thinks you’re holdin’ out on him, Joe.”

  Joe narrowed his eyes, assumed the Edward G. Robinson voice. “He’ll get everything that’s coming to him, you hear? Everything.”

  “All right,” said Willie, “so much for basking in glory. Now what?”

  “The first thing we gotta do is get rid of the clothes we wore and get rid of all this cash. We can’t keep it around here. If they find out who we are, they’ll tear this place to pieces.”

  “And it would be worth it,” said Al.

  “What?”

  “Just to see the look on Mrs. Flaum’s puss. I’d give eleven thousand bucks if she was forced to watch the cops bust up her precious apartment.”

  “Never mind,” said Joe. “It’s something we gotta allow for.”

  “No problem,” said Al. “I got a suitcase that I keep at Pete and Kathy’s. It has some of my important papers in it, in case something happens.”

  “What important papers you got?” asked Willie. “Collection of bubblegum cartoons? Them puzzles you’re always doin’ from the News?”

  “Laugh,” said Al. “Go ahead. But when they find my numbered Swiss account after I kick off, you’ll be sorry you wasn’t nice to me.”

  “I won’t be sorry,” said Willie.

  “Does the suitcase have enough room in it?” asked Joe.

  Al measured the stacks of bills with his eyes. “Yeah, I think there’d be enough space.”

  “Does it have a lock on it?”

  “Oh, sure. But you know Pete and Kathy. They’d never look into any of my stuff anyway.”

  “How’s that with you, Willie?” asked Joe.

  Willie’s expression seemed pained. His tongue worked inside his mouth.

  “We could find someplace else,” offered Joe.

  Willie shook his head. At last he said, “Al’s suitcase will be fine.”

  Joe saw that his friend’s face was ashen. “Willie…”

  “Yeah?”

  “You feel okay? You look a bit pale.”

  Willie touched his throat. “Little indigestion,” he said. “I think that hotdog I had the other day is finally catching up with me.”

  “You want something for it?” asked Al. “I got some tablets that—”

  “No, no, I’m perfect,” said Willie. “You know nothing bad ever happens to the rich.”

  “Then we’ll go ahead and store the dough at Pete’s?” said Joe.

  “If you guys think it’ll be safe over there, it’s all right with me,” said Willie.

  Al stood up. “Well, I oughtta get going then. Pete’s been coming home in the afternoons, and I’d like to get the guns back before he gets there.”

  They began to consolidate the mounds of cash on the table. Joe noticed that Willie’s movements were sluggish and strained, almost as if he were under water.

  “I think I’m gonna stop on the way,” mused Al, “and pick up some ice cream for the kids. Maybe some toys also. No matter how much they have, it’s never enough.”

  Joe kept staring at Willie. “Will, maybe you oughtta rest a while, huh?”

  Willie nodded reluctantly. “Yeah, I suppose,” he said. He leaned back heavily. “I’ll have to watch what I eat for a while.”

  Pete came home just as Al was leaving. The money, still in the Waldbaum’s paper bag, was now resting securely in a locked suitcase in a basement closet.

  “Pete,” said Al, “how are you?”

  “As long as I keep my jobs straight, I’m fine,” said Pete. “When a customer says to me, Fill ‘er up,’ I gotta think’ whether he means J & B or unleaded premium.”


  “It’s tough,” said Al. “I know. Bartendin’ alone is no picnic, and two jobs.…I wish I could help.”

  Pete reached out to pat his cheek. “Aw, you’re a sweetie pie. Thanks, Al.”

  Al nodded. A slow smile spread across his face. “How do you make a Bronx cocktail?” he asked.

  Pete grinned back. “One ounce gin, one ounce vermouth, juice of one-quarter orange. Shake with ice cubes, strain into cocktail glass.”

  “Son of a gun,” said Al. “Not bad. You forgot only two things.”

  “Two?” said Pete. “Jesus, I thought I had it. Okay, you’re the real bartender here. Shoot.”

  “You gotta dust it with grated nutmeg—”

  “Ah…” scoffed Pete.

  “—and it’s to be served only when a subway train passes.”

  “Now that’s something I didn’t know,” said Pete. “That is learned only after forty years of bartending.”

  “Try fifty,” said Al. He looked at Pete sympathetically. “And hope you never get that much experience.”

  In the park, squealing children ran back and forth under a water sprinkler while the old folks watched from nearby benches.

  “Looks good,” said Joe. “I feel like going in there and joining ‘em.”

  Willie nodded and patted his face with a handkerchief. He seemed unusually pale. Joe saw his lips working. Next to them on the bench, an old woman was listening to the news on a portable radio.

  “You look like you’re sick,” said Joe. “You feel okay?”

  “Fine,” said Willie. He belched, and the old woman turned away.

  “Should we go get you some Alka-Seltzer or something?”

  Willie shook his head. “Nah. The fresh air will take care of it.”

  Joe stood up. One of the children had fallen while running through the shower. The little boy had landed heavily on his hands and knees; he was now screaming hysterically. Joe walked quickly over and lifted the howling child off the ground. “Shhh,” he said softly. “There, there. Easy. You’re okay.” Tears ran down the boy’s cheeks; he was only about four or five years old.

  “Show me where it hurts,” said Joe.

  “Hurts!” wailed the boy.

  “Is it your knee?” Joe saw a young woman detach herself from a group of friends and amble in his direction.