Thigh High

by Christina Dodd

  Something had changed, something that erased the friendly attitude.

  She could blame MacNaught, but he wasn’t here now.

  She could blame Stephanie, but having the Stephabeast in the bank was like standing downwind from an outhouse, anyway.

  No, Nessa was the one casting a pall over the bank, and she had to stop right now. She might still nurse a deep, dark, writhing, angry ball of resentment at Mr. MacNaught, but that was no reason to take it out on the tellers and the customers.

  After all, tomorrow was Fat Tuesday. Outside, on the streets, le bon temps reached a frenzied climax composed of strong liquor, good food, and a fair amount of illicit sex. At the Dahl House, the aunts were preparing a special dinner from every rich, luscious ingredient that would be forbidden during Lent.

  So she, Nessa, would put a smile on her face and stop grumping around—and while she was at it, she would watch Stephanie and see if she could catch her slipping a little cash into her pocket. If she was the reason Mr. MacNaught had forced Nessa to remain with the bank, Nessa would personally pull every dark root out of Stephanie’s blond head.

  The thought made her smile with genuine mirth, and at once the noise level in the bank picked up. The noon rush became animated as tourists hustled in and regulars came from their jobs. Nessa kept smiling. The tellers kept smiling. Stephanie slipped into her office and shut the door, which made the place positively jovial, and for the first time in days, Nessa felt…normal. In control of her life and her emotions.

  She’d moved into an apartment this weekend, her first very own place, and this morning she’d gone out for breakfast.

  She didn’t have to tell anybody where she was going. She didn’t have to explain that her pots and pans were still packed. She simply got dressed, went into the Quarter, ate, and came to work, and during the whole hour, she hardly spoke a word to anyone.

  It was blissful.

  She loved her aunts, but the constant chaos they loved had been chafing on her, and it wasn’t as if she wouldn’t still see them every night.

  Moreover, she didn’t have to work here forever. She had the job with Pootie who, only last night, had grunted, “Good,” when Nessa made a buy.

  The panties Stephanie held…well, the truth about Mac MacNaught had pulled the teeth on that little threat. In fact, if Stephanie wanted to keep her job, she’d probably better keep her mouth shut about MacNaught’s sex life.

  Furthermore, when MacNaught came back, Nessa would take matters in her own hands. She would force him to sit down and show her the discrepancies in the books, and Nessa would figure out the problem…. The bustle had died down, so Nessa headed for her desk.

  The metal detector went off.

  Something hit the floor.

  Someone had dropped something. Or fallen down. And the marble floor was hard.

  Nessa held her breath as she turned, expecting to hear some child’s scream of pain, ready to run for the first aid kit—and instead saw Eric flat on his back, his eyes closed, blood gushing from a gash on his forehead.

  A grubby, scowling Ryan Wright stood over him, gripping a semiautomatic pistol—and it was pointed at her.

  Above the screech of the alarm, a horrible, awkward silence gripped the bank, and Nessa’s first thought was, Where’s Mac MacNaught when I need him?

  Carol screamed, a good loud one.

  Lisa yelled, “Everybody down!”

  Everyone obeyed, tellers and customers, leaving only Nessa and Ryan standing.

  In slow motion, she lifted her hands. “Ryan, what are you doing here? I thought you got out of town days ago.”

  “I did,” he said between gritted teeth. “But my picture was everywhere. I couldn’t catch a ride, I couldn’t even get a sandwich. So I hid in the swamps.” His voice rose. “Do you know what it’s like in the swamps?”

  Nessa inspected him. He looked considerably worse for wear. A scraggly beard covered his chin and neck. His clothes didn’t fit and mud and stains covered them. Red blotches speckled his forehead and arms—mosquito bites. He looked like one of the homeless of New Orleans. No wonder no one had glanced at him twice. “I’ve heard there are water moccasins in the swamp. And their babies.”

  “I saw them.” He scrubbed at one ankle with his other foot—chigger bites.

  “You’re a mess,” Nessa informed him.

  He scowled. “And it’s his fault.”

  “Whose fault?”

  “That bastard Mac MacNaught.”

  Briefly a memory surfaced; Skeeter saying, “Ryan’s got a real case of the ass for the bank owner, I don’t know why.”

  “Okay, I’m going to turn off the alarm for the metal detector.” Nessa walked slowly toward the control panel. “We already know what set it off.”

  Ryan held the pistol in both hands and tracked her as she moved.

  He was making her nervous.

  He was pissing her off.

  But she kept her voice calm and pleasant. “Robbing this bank doesn’t seem like a good idea. I can guarantee at least one of the tellers has already set off the silent alarm. The cops are on their way. Why don’t you put down the gun…?”

  “I’m not robbing the bank,” Ryan said.

  “Okay. What are you doing?” She shut down the metal detector and, except for the sobbing of one trembling teenager, blessed silence fell.

  “I’m waiting for MacNaught to show up and try to rescue his sweetheart.” Ryan’s satisfaction permeated his tone.

  Nessa found herself the center of every eye. She sighed. After this, the gossip would never stop. “That’s why you’re aiming the gun at me?”

  “Smart girl,” he approved.

  “So it’s a hostage situation.”

  “More points for Nessa!”

  She had hated this guy from the moment she met him. Now she found herself loathing him. “Since it’s me you want as a hostage, can we release the customers and the tellers?”

  “I don’t kill innocent people,” Ryan said. “That’s for the likes of Mac MacNaught and his father.”

  Using the voice she used to calm an irate customer, she said, “So everyone should very slowly stand up and file out the door.”

  “Everyone but you.” Ryan smiled. “You need to go stand in the middle of the lobby so when MacNaught gets here, he’ll see you right away.”

  “Can we let the people get out of the way first?” Nessa didn’t wait for his answer. “Customers nearest the door go first, and please take your time. We don’t want to startle Mr. Wright. Donna, as you go out, would you help the young lady? She seems to be hysterical. Jeffrey, Eric is stirring. You need to encourage him to leave if he can. You’re all doing very well. That’s right. Stay calm.” Briefly, Nessa sent a thought to Stephanie in her office. But if Stephanie was too chicken to come out, then she could huddle under her desk until she rotted.

  When the last customer and teller were out the door, he indicated the middle of the floor again. “Sit down and let’s wait for your boyfriend.”

  Forty

  “I wonder what’s going on up there?” The driver of Mac’s town car craned his neck. “Looks like something’s going on at the bank.”

  Mac looked up from the alarm schematics Gabriel had given him. “At the bank? Like what?”

  “I don’t know. There’re cops and an ambulance. They’ve got the street cordoned off. Probably somebody looked at their mortgage interest rates and had a heart attack.” The guy laughed, caught himself, and coughed.

  “That must be it.” Mac bundled the papers into his briefcase. “Drop me off here.”

  Yellow police tape cordoned off the street. It didn’t even slow Mac down.

  “Hey!” one of the officers yelled, before recognizing him. “Mr. MacNaught, you got here almost as fast as we did.”

  “How about that?” He examined the area.

  The tellers were standing on the street, crying. The customers were being interviewed by the police.

  His heart began to pound
.

  Robbery? Maybe. More copycat Beaded Bandits. Maybe the return of Ryan Wright.

  But where was Nessa?

  He caught sight of Georgia. Yelled her name.

  She hurried to him, talking as she walked. “That scumbag who pulled off the other two robberies came in with a semiautomatic pistol, knocked out your security guard, and took Nessa hostage.”

  His heart started pounding harder.

  Ryan Wright was the human element Gabriel had been talking about. The guy so desperate he didn’t care what happened, and he was determined to get his way.

  “She got him to release the tellers and customers. The perp and Nessa are in there by themselves. We’re lining up the SWAT team.” Georgia used the cop voice, the authoritative one they’d trained her to use with excitable family members. “As soon as we can get a clear shot—”

  “No.” His blood cooled as he thought the situation through, made his plans. “We can’t wait for that.” Catching Georgia’s arm, he asked, “Can you get me on the roof?”

  “On the roof? Look, MacNaught, there’s nothing being on the roof can gain you.”

  Mac looked Georgia right in the eye and in slow, precise tones said, “Mr. Vycor would disagree.”

  It took Georgia only a second to digest that. Another second to make the necessary leaps of logic. “I’ll come with you.”

  “No.”

  “Mr. MacNaught.”

  “No. And I need a pistol.”

  “All right!” She grabbed his sleeve and started with him toward the fire chief, who was standing by. “But I missed capturing the Beaded Bandits, and I’m making a big sacrifice here.”

  “Get in position. Keep your eye on Nessa. If you catch a glimpse of the son of a bitch who’s got her—shoot to kill.”

  When the last person was out the door, Ryan waved the pistol at Nessa. “Now lock it behind them.”

  She took a breath. If she didn’t lock it, if she gave it a push and ran outside instead, she could probably get out. She looked at the semiautomatic in his hand. Although probably not alive.

  She looked outside, saw a cordoned-off area with police cars, fire engines, and flashing lights.

  Good. The cops were here.

  One uniform bobbed into view and gave her a thumbs-up.

  Georgia.

  The sight put heart in Nessa. These were her cops, her friends. They weren’t going to let her get killed.

  And in a darker, secret part of her mind, she knew that somewhere out there, Mac MacNaught walked the streets. He believed she was his, and he would not let her die.

  With a decisive click, she locked the door. Locked herself inside with a world-class nutcase.

  But this was Nessa’s bank, and she knew its secrets.

  “What are you doing?” Ryan asked as she strolled toward the vault.

  “I figured you wanted the bank to fund your getaway, so I’m going to open the vault for you.”

  “Don’t bother.” Ryan limped after her, keeping away from the door and close to the wall. “I’m not interested.”

  She punched her code into the electronic panel. Turned and stared at him as the door opened. “You’re not interested? You were interested enough last week when you knocked off one bank and shot up another. There’s a lot of money in there.”

  “I’m not going to go in and get it and let you shut me in, and I’m not going to let you go and shut yourself in, so you might as well get over to the middle of the floor, where your boyfriend can see you, and stay there.” His voice rose with every word until he was yelling, half-hysterical with fury.

  “All right.” Nessa lifted her hands again. She walked to the middle of the floor, then glanced around. “Do you mind if I use my office chair? The floor’s hard, and that’s tough in heels. But I guess you know about that.”

  “Are you being funny?” The way his fingers tightened on that gun…

  “No. I don’t think so. I’m not feeling really humorous right now.” She walked to her desk.

  “Don’t touch anything but the chair.” Ryan sank into a seat along the wall facing the teller counter.

  “No problem. It’s not like I have my own pistol hanging around in a drawer. That’s against bank policy. We would shoot the manager.” As she talked, she glanced at her desk, seeking a weapon. Any kind of weapon.

  The best she could do was the roll of quarters, which would be great if she had the arm of a professional pitcher. Actually, years of softball in school had taught her one thing—she threw like a girl. Last week was the only time she’d even come close to knocking someone silly, and those hail stones were a lot lighter than a roll of quarters…. The realization struck her. She looked up at Ryan. “Hey. In that alley. That was you who tried to hold MacNaught and me up!”

  Ryan sneered. “Aren’t you smart?”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “It was impulse. I saw that bastard. He was wearing an expensive suit. He had an executive haircut. He was with you. And I wanted to kill him just for the hell of it.” Ryan projected a breathtaking hatred for MacNaught.

  “Oh.” Picking up the roll of quarters, she put it in the seat of her chair and started toward the middle of the bank. The wheels squeaked as they rolled across the marble.

  “Right there,” Ryan said, “where he can see you as soon as he comes through the door.”

  “Aren’t you expecting a lot of MacNaught?” She seated herself on her chair, making sure she was easily visible from the vault. “What with being in the swamp, you may have missed the news flash, but I was a little upset when I found out he’d been lying to me about being an insurance investigator.”

  “Like that’s the worst thing he ever did.”

  “I want to know a guy’s real name before I sleep with him. Did he lie to you about his name before he slept with you?”

  “Before he came along, you didn’t used to be a bitch,” Ryan said resentfully.

  “I admit, he did release my inner bitchiness. But having you use me as a hostage is working it up, too.” She rolled the chair back and forth, back and forth, working herself slowly closer to one of the customer-service centers stocked with pens and deposit and withdrawal slips. The marble block was antique, solid all the way to the floor. In case of gunfire—and unless she did some fancy talking, gunfire was inevitable—the service center would do as a barricade. “So I’m guessing you coming to New Orleans and robbing MacNaught’s banks wasn’t mere coincidence. You must have put a lot of planning behind it.”

  “I like to keep up with what’s happening to MacNaught, so when I read about the Beaded Bandits, I thought, Now, that’s a plan I can get behind.” For the first time, Ryan smiled in his familiar, smirky-guy way.

  That’s right, Nessa, keep him happy. “Where did you read about it?”

  “On the Internet, in the New Orleans Times-Picayune.”

  “I didn’t realize you’d been here that long.” He was shaking his head even before she finished speaking. “Why were you reading the Times-Picayune?”

  “I did a Google search for MacNaught’s name and found the story, and us guys in prison have a lot of time to read.” He chortled at the look on her face, and said, “Assault and battery with intent to commit murder.”

  “What?” Even to herself, she sounded stupid.

  “Isn’t that what you were going to ask? Why was I in prison?”

  “Yes. That was what I was going to ask.” And suddenly she comprehended, where she hadn’t before, the seriousness of the situation. Not that having a guy hold a semiautomatic pistol on her wasn’t serious, but before, she’d been facing Ryan Wright, part-time street musician and full-time loser. Now she knew he understood violence, and if that grin on his face was anything to go by, enjoyed it. “You said you didn’t kill innocent people. Are you going to kill me?”

  “You’re not innocent. You’ve been fucking Mac MacNaught.”

  No answer for that. “You’re a repeat offender. You’re going to go back to prison, may
be to death row.”

  “No. I am not going back to prison. And if you want to blame somebody, blame little Jeremiah, because this whole goddamn mess is his fault.”

  She twirled her chair in a circle, picked up the roll of quarters. “What did MacNaught do to you?”

  “Him and his father. What a pair they were.” Ryan’s brief smile was gone. “And his mother. God, was she ever a whore. My dad used to say she got what she deserved, sleeping with that son of a bitch.”

  “You mean Nathan Manly?”

  “Nathan Manly.” He rested the pistol on his knee, pointed at her, and used his other hand to rub his leg. “Do you know where I’m from?”

  “Somewhere up North.”

  “From Weathertop, Pennsylvania, home of Manly Industries.”

  Nessa was starting to understand. Deftly, she plucked at the paper rolled around the quarters.

  “And do you know where Mac MacNaught is from?”

  “Weathertop, Pennsylvania, home of Manly Industries?” She got one side of the roll free, and started on the other.

  “Right you are. My dad was a good man. My mom always said so. He worked hard, for goddamn Manly Industries, and he drank hard, and he…” The pistol shook as if jolted by an earthquake.

  “He hit hard?” Nessa guessed.

  “All us kids would catch it every once in a while. A couple of bruises. No big deal.”

  No big deal, except Nessa felt sorry for the man holding her hostage.

  And her aunts would want to know why was she listening to Ryan Wright and she wouldn’t listen to Mac MacNaught.

  Listen, God. I understand. This is a lesson. I recognize that. I’m learning.

  “Everybody got a few smacks from their old man except the little prince, Jeremiah MacNaught. His father didn’t live with him, because his father was married to someone else and had another kid with her. You know, I used to envy him? His father would show up once or twice a year and give him presents and take him through the plant. He never beat him. He wasn’t around long enough for sweet little Jeremiah to get on his nerves.” Ryan snorted.

  “Then Manly Industries crumpled, the whole organization, and your father was out of a job.”