by Brian Keene
Finally, Thursday came and it was time.
The morning of the robbery, Michelle had an early shift. When I woke up, she and T. J. were already gone. She'd left me a note on the refrigerator: “Tommy—I forgot to tell you. I tried to use the ATM card last night after I picked T. J. up, but it was declined. It says that we're minus two hundred dollars! Can you please call the damn bank today and find out what happened? Does this have to do with the layoffs? This is why I wish you'd let me help you do the bills. Love you, Michelle.”
It was good that they were gone, since I couldn't seem to stop throwing up. Part of it was the disease, but a lot more of it was my nerves. I'd been over it in my head a hundred times, but now that the day was actually here, I was scared shitless.
John was scared too, and I saw it on his face when he arrived to pick me up. Neither of us mentioned it. We didn't really talk at all. Instead, we listened to Outkast and sang along a little too loudly. We stopped at Sherm's and he slid into the backseat, cup of coffee in one hand and a burning cigarette in the other.
“You sure about this, Tommy?”
I nodded in confirmation.
“Then it's on.”
John let out a strangled sigh and we drove toward the edge of town.
“Carpet Dick, tell me that you checked the car over yesterday like I told you to, right? Turn signals and brake lights and everything are working? Filled the tank up, checked the oil and all of that shit?”
“Yep, we're good to go.”
“Then let's go over this shit one more time,” Sherm suggested. “And slow down. The last fucking thing we need right now is to get pulled over for speeding.”
“Sorry.”
“Okay, this is how it goes. When we get to the strip mall, John parks behind the Chinese place, next to the big garbage Dumpster. There's no traffic back there, garbage pickup isn't until next Monday, and the Chinks don't go outside for a smoke break until noon, so nobody will see us. After that, Tommy, me and you walk around the side, pull the ski masks down, and burst hard-core through those bank doors. No fucking names. You don't call me Sherm and I don't call you Tommy while we're in there. Just remember, and I mean it, Tommy—this has to go down hard. That means yelling and cussing and shouting and pushing people around and shit. We need to get their attention with a quickness. It's the only way this thing is gonna work. We've got to let them know who's in charge. We may have to bloody a few noses or punch some motherfucker in the mouth to get their attention. There will probably be some violence. Be ready for that.”
“But no shooting, right?” I wanted to make sure we were absolutely clear on this point.
“Right man, no shooting. The guns are just for show. Worst-case scenario, I shoot a hole in the ceiling.”
I shook my head. “No, Sherm. No shooting at all. We agreed on that from the beginning.”
“Relax. Like I said, it's a worst-case scenario. And this is gonna be easy. You're getting worked up over nothing, dog. You'll see.”
“Now what if I hear you guys shooting?” John asked. “Then what?”
“Jesus fucking Christ. What the fuck did I just say, John? Did I stutter or something? There's not going to be any shooting. You just stay in the car and keep out of sight.”
He took a sip of coffee, calmed down, and continued.
“Once we're inside and have everybody's attention, we do the takeover. With John in the car, we won't have an extra person to watch the door and make sure that the hostages don't try to make a break for it. So when we go through, turn the sign on the door from OPEN to CLOSED. We'll make them all lie down on the floor, away from the door. That should make it easier to cover them. The door will be in your sight the whole time, so you'll know if somebody else is coming. You hit the cash drawers while I hit the vault. Like I said before, we don't have to worry about the dye packs. Just check your shit and make sure they don't slip you one of those tracking devices. Once we've got the cash in the backpacks, we haul our asses out the door, get to the car, and we're gone before five-oh even arrives.”
“That's where I come in.” John sat up straight.
“Yeah, John, that's where you come in. Let's see how well you were paying attention. What route are we taking?”
“York Road and 116 to Codorus Road, if there's no cops on our tail,” he recited from memory. “After that, we take the old Glen Rock road to Jefferson, then out past LeHorn Hollow, through Shrewsbury and down to the Maryland border.”
“Beautiful. You remembered. What if we go with plan B and head toward Littlestown instead?”
“Head toward Littlestown, then we drive over the border into Westminster, and grab the 140 to 795.”
“In either case, where do we go when we're in Maryland?”
“Cockeysville. Plan A, we take the Susquehanna Trail to Interstate 83, then grab the Cockeysville exit. Plan B, we take 795 to Interstate 83 and again grab the Cockeysville exit. Once we're there, we take Cranberry Lane up to the woods, go down the old service road that leads back to the power lines, park out of sight in behind the trees, switch the license plates on the car, split up for a little bit, then, if nobody has found the car, we meet back there after dark.”
“Then we count the money,” Sherm finished, “and start living large.”
“You really think we'll nab that much?” I asked.
“Yo, I'm telling you; a bank like this in a town the size of Hanover, we could easily walk away with forty or fifty thousand today. Most of that goes to you, of course, but even with the little cut that Carpet Dick and I are taking, it's still all good.”
“Especially since we're laid off,” John agreed.
I tried to picture it, tried to imagine holding that much cash in my hands, smelling it, feeling the paper between my fingers, and found that I couldn't. But that was okay. In a little less than an hour, imagination wouldn't have to suffice. It would be a reality.
Sherm's crib was on one edge of Hanover, near the lake. The strip mall and the bank were on the other side, right on the border with McSherrystown. On a normal day, it took twenty minutes to drive from one side to the other. But that day, it seemed to take an instant, like we were traveling at light speed.
John turned into the parking lot. He gripped the steering wheel hard and his knuckles popped. I noticed they were white. Staring straight ahead, he drove around behind the strip mall and parked next to the Chinese restaurant's garbage Dumpster—just like we'd planned. The look on his face was one of resolve. He reached for the keys, but Sherm stopped him.
“No, just let it run. Last thing we need is for you to shut this car off, and we come out with the money and it doesn't fucking start again.”
John shrugged.
“Is the coast clear?” Sherm asked, craning his head around.
“I didn't see anybody,” John's voice was hushed, somber. “There's a Drovers Water delivery truck over there, but it's empty. Look's like it's just the three of us. You guys see anyone?”
I shook my head.
“Cool. Me neither.” Sherm placed a hand on my shoulder. “You okay?”
“Not really.” I coughed.
“What's up? Don't tell me you're getting cold feet.”
“For the past week, I've been throwing up nonstop, and this morning was no different. Even when I'm not puking, I feel like I'm going to any second. Puff Daddy is remixing shit in my head, along with a military drum corps and a few howitzers and some scientists setting off nuclear bomb tests, and every inch of my body hurts. I've got aches in places where I didn't even know you could get aches. Sometimes my fever is hot enough to fry an egg on my head, and other times it just makes me sweat a little, but it's always there. I've been bullshitting my wife. She's on the verge of figuring out that I lied to her about our finances, and once that shit hits the fan, it's only a matter of time before she learns what else I've been lying to her about. Like the fact that I've been laid off, and I'm still pretending to go to work. Or the fact that I'm fucking dying. God ain't gonna step
in and cure me because I recently learned that He doesn't exist. Oh, and before I forget, in about two minutes, I'm gonna rob a fucking bank. So no, Sherm, I'm not all right. I'm really not. But thanks for asking, man. Thanks a lot. That means a lot to me.”
“Yo, can that sarcasm shit. You want to quit? Because this is our last fucking chance here, Tommy. Once we get out of this car and enter that bank, there ain't no going back.”
I stared at him, stared at John, closed my eyes, and opened the door. His words echoed in my head.
Ain't no going back . . .
My mind had already been made up.
“Let's do this.”
There are certain moments in your life that, when you think about them later, happen in slow motion. In reality, it probably took us thirty seconds. But sitting here now, when I replay it in my mind, it took hours. Everything was in bullet time, like in The Matrix. I can step outside myself, and envision it from someone else's view, as if it's a movie, changing camera angles and adding a sound track.
Sherm and I got out of the car. We pulled the ski masks down over our faces. Beneath our jackets, each of us clutched a pistol in one hand. We each had a large backpack slung over our shoulders. The smell of fried rice and rotting garbage hung thick in the air—so thick, that even my diminished sense of smell could pick it up. For a second, I thought I heard the sound of a car, coming down the alley behind the strip mall, but it was too late, too late to call it off. We were already moving. What had been put in motion couldn't be stopped.
We didn't falter. We didn't look back. Without saying a word, we walked around the side of the restaurant, turned the corner, and there was the bank.
Just as Sherm reached for the door, it opened toward us. An old lady stepped out, blue hair done up in a perm. She was clutching a deposit ticket in one hand and rifling through her purse with the other. She stopped, gawked at us, then let out a little gasp. Her deposit ticket slipped from her quivering hand. Rather than floating to the sidewalk, it seemed to hover in the air, suspended in time.
“Oh my . . .”
Sherm growled in slow motion.
“Get . . . back . . . inside . . . the . . . bank . . . bitch!”
He shoved her forward into the lobby, and she kept repeating “Oh my . . . Oh my . . .” like a mantra. She clasped a silver crucifix hanging around her neck. Another person noticed us, an older, bearded man wearing faded blue jeans and a chambray work shirt. He was at the end of the line, his eyes registering surprise and disbelief. He opened his mouth to say something but Sherm cut him off.
“All right motherfuckers! Everybody hit the goddamn floor, NOW! Right fucking now! Let's go!”
“You heard him, assholes,” I shouted. “Do it! Get the fuck down! Move!”
Now all of the customers in line turned, and as time slowed even more, I sized them up, studying every detail. A pretty woman about our age clutched the hand of a young boy. Looking at him reminded me of T. J., and I forced the image from my head. The boy looked just like the woman, hair the color of honey, high cheekbones, a short nose, even the same complexion. Both had frightened, wide eyes. She pulled the boy to her side, shielding him as best she could. There was no ring on her finger. Divorced, or a single mom. In front of them was an elderly bald man with glasses and a cane. He shook so badly that his knees knocked together and I thought he might collapse. There was an overweight guy in a Hellboy shirt, obviously the victim of too many nights spent reading comic books and wolfing down candy bars and potato chips, and in front of him, a hefty, solid man in his late thirties, wearing a leather jacket and polished black boots. He looked like a biker. He had steel in his eyes instead of fear, and I knew right away that we'd have to watch him carefully. Rounding out the group were two tellers, one young and blond, the other middle-aged and dyed auburn; and a slick, oily guy in a suit that just had to be the manager. His name tag read KEITH and below that, BRANCH MANAGER. He smiled, as if believing he was the victim of a hidden camera show.
“I SAID GET THE FUCK DOWN!” Sherm bellowed, and this time, they understood.
They screamed as one, except for the guy in the bike leathers, who stood completely still, and Keith the Manager, who kept on smiling. The old woman toppled over in mid “Oh my” as Sherm pushed past her. She hit the floor hard, and was silent. The contents of her purse spilled out around her, and she rubbed the crucifix intensely. The young mother crouched down, pulling the kid with her. The boy's eyes went from Sherm and me to the old woman and the old man, and he whispered something to his mother. The bearded guy dropped to the carpet and so did the fat boy, pulling the velvet line ropes along with him. The brass poles crashed onto the floor and I noticed a dark, wet stain on his fly. It was spreading fast. The younger teller froze in midtransaction, a stack of twenties falling from one limp hand and fluttering to the floor like green-and-white butterflies. Her other hand reached slowly beneath the counter.
“You hit that goddamned alarm and I'll cap your cute little ass, sweetheart,” Sherm warned her. “Get your fucking hands up where I can see them. Don't make me tell you twice!”
She froze, biting her lip in fear, while the older teller started to cry.
“Both of you get out here and get down on the floor with the rest of them. Now!”
The biker remained standing.
“Do what we want and nobody gets hurt,” I chimed in, trying to sound sincere but hard-nosed at the same time. “We're just here for the money.”
I reached out and flipped the sign on the door from OPEN to CLOSED.
“Hey”—Sherm whirled on the biker—“are you fucking deaf? Get the hell down on the floor. Now, asshole!”
The biker kept his hands in the air and slowly started to kneel.
“You”—Sherm waved the gun at Keith the Manager—“get the fuck over here.”
“We-we'll cooperate f-fully, gentlemen. There's n-no need for violence.”
“If I want your fucking opinion, I'll beat it out of you.”
He motioned again with the pistol, and Keith did as he was told. Sherm was too busy watching him to notice the biker drop to one knee and reach inside his coat. Slow motion switched to stop time as he clutched something inside his leather jacket and drew it out. I caught a glimpse of a holster and the bank's fluorescent lights flashed off of something metal. I opened my mouth to warn him and Sherm both, and found that I couldn't.
“Let's go.” Sherm told Keith again. “Come on! I'll fucking drop you right there, man.”
The biker pulled out the handle of a pistol, not as large as ours, but it looked like it would do the job just as well. Then the handle was out in the open and so was the rest of the gun. I blinked the sweat from my eyes and in that fraction of a second he was aiming at Sherm.
Time snapped back to normal and chaos came with it. My paralysis shattered.
“Sherm! Look out! He's got a gun!”
The biker whipped toward me and suddenly there was an explosion. I staggered backward, expecting to feel the bullet punch through me. Instead, the biker's hair puffed up in the back of his head, as if caught in a breeze, and then his brains and little fragments of skull exited through his forehead, splattering onto the carpet. At first, I thought that I'd gone deaf, but then my ears began to ring over the screams of the customers. In shock, not understanding what had just happened, I turned to Sherm. Smoke billowed from the barrel of his .357, and the stench of it filled the lobby.
“Sherm,” I hollered, “what the hell are you doing?”
“I said no names, goddamn it.”
“You said no shooting too. What the fuck did you do?”
He grabbed Keith by the sleeve of his suit jacket and shook him hard, but the manager didn't seem to notice. He just stared in horror at the dead body on the floor.
I coughed, then looked back down at the biker. Blood was pouring from his head like water from a faucet. It didn't look anything like the movies. The whole front of his head was gone—scattered about the floor and embedded in the ca
rpet. I fought to keep from puking. The old man with the cane, the comic geek, and the younger teller did it for me, all three at once. The little boy glanced at the gore, then closed his eyes and buried his trembling face against his mother. She just stared in shock, her face blank.
“You said no shooting.” I shouted again.
“Just keep them down on the floor and get the cash drawers,” Sherm ordered. “Keith, you and I are gonna open the vault. Any questions?”
“I—I c-can't open the—”
Sherm punched him in the mouth. Crying out, he stumbled back a few steps, his knees buckling, then he regained his balance. Blood trickled from his split lip.
“Let's be real fucking clear. Lie to me again and you'll be sucking on a .357 round instead of my fist. Vault! Open! Now! Do you have any questions?”
Wiping the blood from his mouth with the front of his tie, Keith led Sherm down a hallway to the back. I stepped over the biker's body and headed toward the cash drawers. His head was still leaking blood, and the comic book guy, now that he'd finished puking, was still leaking piss. The stench of it all, combined with the gun smoke and sweat and overall fear in the room was nauseating, and I felt sick again.
“Can't breathe . . .” the old man gasped.
“Everybody just stay down,” I choked. “It'll all be over soon. We just want the money.” It sounded stupid and empty in my ears.
The mother whispered to her son. He inched forward.
“Benjy, keep still.”
“But Mommy, he's sick. Both of them are sick. One in the head and the other one here and here and here.”
He touched his jaw and throat and chest, and I wondered if he was talking about me. But there was no way the kid could know about my cancer.
“And so is that old man,” the boy continued. “He's going to die.”