Pistol Fanny's Hank & Delilah

by Welch, Annie Rose

  Hank couldn’t wait to get home and take a hot shower. He was meeting the guys at Dylan’s before they headed to the batting cages, but his muscles still felt stiff, his entire body sore with what felt like the flu. Warm water seemed like a gift sent from heaven before he was off to abuse himself again with strenuous exercise.

  As Hank passed his bank, he figured he should stop and get cash. The batting cages used tokens, and he needed cash for the coins. All he had was his credit card.

  He walked into the cool air of the old bank, the coldness of it engulfing him. He shook his head, thinking about how much easier it used to be just to carry cash and not worry about a plastic card. After he saw the line, he thought, Heaven Almighty, I’ll never make it back to Dylan’s in time to ride with them. This is going to take forever and a day.

  The bank seemed to be cutting back on help. Lately a young girl had been working, and it was just usually her and the old manager. The man had been around since Hank was just a boy. Hank searched for him and spotted him through the glass doors in the back, slumped over his desk, fast asleep. He should just retire.

  Hank pulled out his gum and started to chew hard. After ten more minutes, two people had been helped and the line was finally starting to move. Still, the place was packed. An older gentleman was arguing with the girl teller, complaining about how in his day businesses catered to their customers, not the other way around.

  “It’s a doggone shame how my hip is hurting me and you are taking your good ole time!” the old man rattled on, just like an old truck spluttering and backfiring down the street.

  The girl wiped at her eyes, apologized profusely, but he was having none of it. He continued to complain, until finally, he asked to speak to Mr. Speckle, the branch manager.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Weinzer.” The girl moved her eyes to the line and then over to the glass, where behind sat a still slumped over Mr. Speckle. She bit her lip for a moment. “Mr. Speckle has been having some troubles at home,” she whispered, and Mr. Weinzer put his ear up, closer to her mouth. “And he’s always so very tired. I truly apologize for the inconvenience, but if you’ll wait right here, I’ll get you some coffee for your time.” She smiled.

  Mr. Weinzer hung his cane on the sill and slapped it with the other hand. “Coffee for my time?” He seethed. “I might be cold before the coffee, young lady!”

  The girl looked sick or like she might cry.

  Hank asked the man behind him if he would hold his place in line. The man agreed. Hank walked to the beginning of the line, excusing himself as he did so.

  “Mr. Weinzer, is that you?” Hank asked, and the man nodded.

  Then recognition lit up his expression. He grabbed his cane and poked Hank in the ribs with the dirty side. “Is that you, little Hank Rivers? I heard you were in law school…”

  Mr. Weinzer went on and on, until finally the teller was finished with his transaction. As Hank walked away, the girl winked at him and mouthed “thank you.” Then she handed him a pocket protector with the bank’s name printed on the front.

  Hank moved back to his rightful place in line. He looked at the pocket protector and laughed. Since he didn’t have a pocket on the suit, he clipped it between the spaces between two buttons on his shirt. It barely hung there and he had to secure it every time he moved up a space in line.

  Hank kept yawning, really feeling the night. He wished they had some kind of music on to keep him awake. Anything. He wasn’t feeling picky.

  Two hands wrapped around Hank’s eyes. He tried to turn but felt something pressing against his ribs. He moved a bit and knew it was fingers. When he turned around, it was Curly, laughing his face off. Even though they were grown men, the Cootie bug still followed him around.

  “What are you doing here?” Hank said.

  Curly plucked his pocket protector. “You’re not the only one who banks here. You don’t own the county, Hankie Pankie Toots.” Instead of asking the man behind them if he could cut, Curly just did.

  Just then, music started playing. Hank looked up at the ceiling, wondering if it was a miracle, or if big brother was somehow tapping into his psyche. He recognized the tune but couldn’t automatically place it. Snappy and jazzy, it was just what he needed to keep his eyes open. It seemed, though, the teller was a little surprised by it. She was looking around, especially toward Mr. Speckle’s office. He was still in his office cutting wood.

  “Excuse me, ma’am.” The teller pointed behind Hank and Curly. “You can’t bring those in here.”

  Hank turned around to find a woman a couple of people back holding balloons. He couldn’t see her face because the inflated circles on a string hid it. Hank turned back toward the teller again, just for a brief moment, to see what her reaction was going to be. Her eyes were wide open and she was pale. Hank whipped around. Everyone was staring now, mouths agape. Even Curly was shocked still.

  The woman with the balloons had somehow morphed into five. They were all holding balloons in front of their faces. They were in a line formation, and each was dressed exactly the same. Hank couldn’t tell one apart from the other. They were all wearing black, long-sleeve, button-down shirts with the collar raised around the neck, silky black pants that seemed to easily move with them, pink suspenders, and black high heels with pink soles.

  They all seemed to be exactly the same…voluptuous. Every curve and dip was identical. Hank’s head was spinning with unease—how could one woman actually be five? Or vice versa?

  What Hank hadn’t noticed at first was—the one in the middle had a pink holster around her waist, two pistols on either side of her lusciously shaped hips.

  Oh, hot damn. Hank swallowed hard.

  The woman to the left of the pistol-toting woman held an older-looking boom box. He realized then that the music wasn’t coming from the bank, it was coming from them.

  The music bopped, and right on tune, the girls all held out one of their black-gloved hands so that each was available to the girl next to her. Then they did something that shocked them all; they began tapping in Morse code.

  After they were done, the one with the radio held it up while still holding her balloons in the other hand. A formal voice broke through the jazz tune, asking all of the children and women to please exit the building in an orderly fashion. There would be someone outside to meet them, just for a few minutes, just until business could be conducted inside the bank again. They apologized for the inconvenience—Thank you kindly for your understanding.

  Hank blinked and shook his head.

  At the exact moment the woman who held the radio was doing her part, the center of them all, the one with the pistols, released her balloons toward the bank’s cameras. In the blink of an eye, both guns were pointed at the young teller.

  The teller girl blinked twice and moved back. Something about the way she blinked seemed strange to Hank. It didn’t seem nervous. It almost seemed intentional, maybe? No, he was losing his mind. She looked scared.

  It was all happening so quickly that Hank was getting dizzy. He was able to see the gunwoman’s face now. Her second face, anyway. Her real face was covered in what looked like an ivory mask that covered her ears down to her throat. It was almost translucent, the features feminine, the lips bright pink with an exaggerated smile. The only openings showcased her stone-brown eyes.

  She wore a short blonde wig that barely stuck out of a top hat. Hank assumed they all matched. And Hank assumed right. There was nothing significant that helped him tell them apart. One small detail stuck out though. The one with the boom box had one eye set into a permanent wink. Some people just couldn’t conform no matter what.

  Curly lowered his head and put his mouth close to Hank’s ear. “Heaven Almighty, they are feminists with guns, and they’re going to kill us all. We are the men on the sinking ship, left to drown like rats! I want to abandon ship, abandon ship!”

  Hank couldn’t answer him. He was stunned into subordination. Finally, all the women and children had left the bui
lding, leaving behind only the men and the teller girl. Hank didn’t even think she had had a chance to push the panic button. Mr. Speckle was still snoring in his office.

  Gunshots started ringing in Hank’s ears. The holster woman was blowing up the cameras with her pistols. The automatic reaction to cover his ears and close his eyes was tugging at Hank’s natural defense system, but all he could do was watch with wide eyes, ignoring the pain.

  The motion of the pistol woman’s fingers on the triggers was almost too quick for Hank to see. She was shooting so quickly that it almost seemed like an illusion, an extremely well-crafted magic trick from one of the world’s most famous magicians—in this case, the pistol woman.

  It couldn’t be a trick. The cameras were exploding and Hank’s ears were ringing something fierce. She was holding those pistols just as naturally, and as confidently, as some women hold newborn babes. You never try to take a crying baby away from a woman. Never, Hank thought.

  A bunch of women? Hank could hardly believe it. These were no ordinary bank robbers. No, that would be a crime in itself to even try to call them that—these were simply she-devils on heels. Hank could tell.

  After the pistol woman stopped her shooting, which only took a few seconds considering how quickly she shot, she pointed the gun at the crowd of men and they all raised their hands. She made a motion for them to get on the floor. They all followed her instructions.

  Hank concentrated on the pistols for a second. They looked vintage and were decorated with intricate designs. One of the handles read: Pistol.

  Hank stole a quick glance at the teller girl. Her back was against the wall, both of her hands up in surrender, one of the she-devils keeping watch over her. The she-devil keeping a firm eye on the teller didn’t even have a weapon. Hank wondered why.

  Then it dawned on him, the one with the pistols was so quick, he didn’t believe anyone else needed a reinforcement of any kind. He was going to call the teller-sitter Antsy. Out of the bunch, she was the most anxious, but not in a worried way; she seemed to feed off the energy of the crime.

  Pistollette—that’s what Hank decided to call her—nodded her head after all the men were down on the ground. The music came louder and Hank was finally able to recognize the song. Ray Charles was singing, Hallelujah, I Love Her So!

  The show really began then.

  Boom Box (the one in control of the radio) clapped her hands. One of the other she-devils jumped up on the counter and started doing complicated flips. She back flipped and held out a bag for teller girl, and teller girl started dumping. She front flipped and back flipped with the grace of a highly trained acrobat. And she did it in time to the music. Hank was going to call her Acrobat. That’s as creative as his mind would allow him to be in that moment.

  The man next to Hank lightly jabbed him in the ribs. When Hank looked at him, he mouthed, “What?” Hank just shrugged. They may have been trained killers, but this was much more than that. This was a show to go right along with the fear and uncertainty of it all. It was like they were making a mockery of the crime.

  And they might have all been voluptuous, but they were all graceful, nimble, and stealthy, almost like feminine cats in the darkened night going after squeaking male rats. Or classically trained thieving ballerinas who happened to also tap dance to the sound of robbery.

  The Antsy she-devil, who had now moved the teller closer to the entrance and exit doors of the bank, was actually tap dancing! Their steps were light, so light, you didn’t know they were around you until they were looking you in the eye. Every step was planned, premeditated, and nothing was wasted. Not even movements. For him it was movements, but for them it was precious seconds.

  Once Hank was able to regain his wits, he realized just a very short amount of time had gone by. No longer than two minutes, maybe. One of them had disappeared into the back room. He was going to call her Explosive, because he had the feeling she was going to blow something up.

  He had to try to identify them in some way. They had to have something, anything, just one small detail that would set them apart, give away something they never meant to. Nothing is ever perfect, and right on the outside of perfection rests the secret to entrapment—there had to be something. There’s no such thing as the perfect crime.

  Their bodies were the same, their heights all the same. It seemed like the inches of their heels had them standing at the same height. They didn’t speak. They spoke in Morse code, and if he was a real idiot, he would believe the voice on the radio belonged to one of them. But Hank was no idiot.

  Hank concentrated on their shoes. He knew exactly what a size six looked like because June-bug wore that size. She had him bring some of her old shoes down to Goodwill, and when he was unloading the boxes, he put his hand in the shoe. He knew the measurements of his hand to the heel.

  It wasn’t everything, but it was something. Hank could work with that. He held his hand up and tried to line it up with the she-devil in front of him. Curly elbowed him in the ribs. Hank’s eyes flew up and met Pistollette’s. Pistollette—two L’s for the guns she carried, and Ette because she was just so damn feminine with her manly guns.

  In that exact moment, Hank’s world, his time, started to crawl forward. He was approaching that black hole where time starts to creep, just before you’re swallowed up and it stops all together. Something about the way she moved was dangerous, lethal almost. As she came closer to him, his heart started beating rapidly, and he broke out in a cold sweat.

  Hank found that even though he should have been terrified of the gun pointing at him, the gun was the least of his worries. It was her proximity, her lethal movements, her sly walk. Such easy grace she emanated during a grave time. She was spicy, sweet chocolate to him for some reason. He could’ve sworn he smelled it in the air even.

  She came even closer, and when she slid down to meet his eyes, the way she moved, so silkily, so smooth, forced him to close his eyes in response. She was a physical interpretation of ecstasy. She moved him so, like the hot-blooded lover does before they claim your heart.

  When he opened his eyes, hers were staring back. Deep brown, just like he had first thought. But he knew that wasn’t the true color of her eyes. He didn’t know how he could be so sure, but he was. With all that he was, he was sure. This was a part of her, but he was sure there had to be more.

  She pointed to his hand, still in the same measuring position, the feeling of disappointment rolling off of her in a powerful way. Not even an impatient gesture, or a fierce look, and Hank could feel how calm but deathly she was.

  Hank wasn’t worried about that. He wanted her to stare at him just like he was sure he was staring at her. It was like the core of his being was being pulled toward this very moment of his life. He had a feeling she could be the period at the end of his story. Everything around him shook and shimmied, and yes, it could have been the explosives blowing up the back room, but he was sure it was her. She was rocking him to his center. She was blowing him up, piece by piece, so that his gravity was forced to adjust to a pull he wasn’t familiar with.

  The explosion finally woke up Mr. Speckle and he pressed the panic button in his office. He quickly hid, his fibrous hairs and ancient eyes the only thing visible from under his desk.

  Pistollette pressed the gun into Hank’s chest. Anxiety and something else took over…not fear, not exactly. It was her, Pistollette. She was getting achingly close to him. He wanted to touch her, to say, this isn’t all of you, why are you doing this?

  She pushed even harder, like she could read his mind. She was testing him, Hank thought. Her eyes whispered, I dare you. Hank leaned into the gun, pushing his heart against the barrel even further. Dare accepted. One better, he was challenging back.

  Hank shivered. He took a deep breath and his world went around and around, right around her. He had to steady this untamed want he had for her. He wanted nothing more than to slam her back against the wall while he kissed and loved her wildly, until the weapons she hi
d behind went crashing to the ground.

  “Isn’t it funny how you’re the one with the gun to my heart, and I believe you’re the one who needs saving.” Hank’s tongue trembled with the words.

  Pistollette kept the gun steady, but she dropped her eyes to the floor. She had a tell. Just like he had one, his eye, and for some reason, even though he knew it was beyond ridiculous, Hank believed her tell was just for him. And in that instant, he knew his heart was gone. She stole it when she looked away from him. Wherever she went in the world, a piece of him would always go with her.

  Pistollette looked to the left and then to the right, and then once more at Hank. She gracefully stood and moved back toward the rest of the bank-robbing women. Hank couldn’t keep his eyes away from her. He refused to. How was it that at the most inopportune time of his life, he felt like the situation turned into a cornucopia of blessings? For Hank, it was like turning plain ole water into the finest of wines.

  Acrobat flipped once more, landing on the floor, and then she flipped once more and went right into a split. In a split second she was up again. Boom Box lifted the machine again. Out came the graceful voice, but this time the melody in the foreground was deeper, solemn, country.

  Thank you for your time, we must go now, but we sure hope you enjoyed our show! One last parting gift before we go, but you might want to cover your ears, ’cause it’s going to blow!

  Hank stuck his fingers in his ears, as did all the men. He didn’t know what was coming next, but when he saw Boom Box start to throw tiny Dum Dum suckers in the air, he had a pretty good inclination. The Pistollette magician was about to start her parting gift.

  It didn’t even seem like she was watching them as her pistols shot the tiny suckers out of the air. Every time one would go up, it would blow up. Heaven Almighty, it was a Dum Dum! Hank could hardly see them when they went flying up in the air, and she was shooting them like they were big birds in the sky.

  Antsy threw a card at her. Pistollette shot it clean out the air. It ended up in two pieces, one of the pieces drifting to the floor, landing right at Hank’s feet.