Crumbtown

by Joe Connelly

  “Oh shit,” Little Eddy said.

  Rob and half the crew ran crowding into Cam standing next to the desk, Don and the detective lifting the actor’s shirt over his head, a hole like a new nostril between Cam’s ribs, blowing pink bubbles down his back.

  “Do you mind if I sit,” Cam cried.

  “Of course,” said Rob. He turned to the boy in suspenders. “Ambulance?” he said.

  “I’m trying to get through.”

  Tom ran in from the corner, helping Cam into a chair. He glared at Eddy, then Rob, “You bastards,” he said, “you shot me in the back.”

  “I want these twins out of here,” Rob said, “clear the area.” Arnold grabbed Tom’s arm and helped him walk to the door. On the way outside, he grabbed Tim’s.

  Cam raised his head. “It’s okay, Mr. Landetta. I think I’m okay,” he said. He tried to stand and stood. “Really. I’m all right. I can do it,” covering the hole with his hand.

  “Are you sure, Cam. It looks like it went in your back there.”

  Cam took three steps and turned around, three steps more, “I’m fine. Please. I really need this job.”

  “What do you think, Detective?”

  “I’m no doctor,” Hammamann said, “but I once saw a man with the same wound doing the cha-cha at a Mexican wedding. You can never tell.”

  “Okay, we’ll get back to work then,” Rob said. “Cam, you sit this one out, you just let the paramedics take a look, is that all right with you, Lieutenant?”

  Hammamann looked around the room. It wasn’t all right. He was a police officer. A man had been shot. Someone had to be arrested. Harry always prided himself on knowing who could be arrested and who couldn’t. He picked the gun off the floor, put it in his pocket. Then he walked over to Don and grabbed his arm. “All right come on.”

  “I didn’t shoot him.”

  “You know the rules, Don. Special parole. Don’t make this any harder.” He was going to have to take care of Tim himself. Don wasn’t up to it. Harry could see that now, Creosote had taken the man’s heart. Do enough time and you never get out, a life sentence. “Come on, Don,” gripping the arm tight, past Rob and Little Eddy, all eyes on the floor, to the front of the bank, Cam near the door, his head in the arms of the security guard.

  “For God sake,” the guard sobbed. “Why aren’t we helping this man.”

  “Where’s the ambulance?” Rob said.

  “Really, I’m all right,” said Cam.

  Harry stopped at the top of the steps. “Just remember, Don, when you get back to prison, that they have to pay you for a whole week. Even if you only worked one day. It doesn’t matter how many days, if it’s less than a week, then they pay for the whole week.” He searched Don’s pockets, pulling out two twenties. He searched his own pockets, pulling out the keys. “All right. Where’s my car?”

  45

  Once Arnold had deposited them outside the bank, Tim turned to Tom and said, “Now look what you’ve done.” They stepped down the stairs to the bottom, where they were run into by Sammy the Robot, who asked Tom to quickly drive the detective’s rental to the storage lot on Louie, where the spare ambulance was parked. Sammy said to make it double-quick since every mother on his radio was screaming for an ambulance. The twins walked to the car, Tom having to listen to Tim talk about how proud he was going to be assisting Dyan Swaine on the set, how people working on location were always having sex. Then Tim started again the story about giving Dyan cigarettes, and it became too much for Tom, who wrenched the gears into reverse and kicked the gas.

  The car leapt into Lemmings, its front end swerving a moment before straightening. Tom touched the brakes briefly, then back to throttle, still gaining speed as he reversed into Dyre, the transmission howling.

  “There’s the ambulance,” said Tim as they drove past the lot. “Stop, Tom. Didn’t you hear what Sammy said? All right, that’s it, stop the car.”

  Tom buried his chin deeper into his collar, chewing his arm as he curled onto Van Brunt, his right foot never giving up. He was one of those people who drove better in reverse, a talent that kept him regularly employed among the production companies shooting there, who were always needing cars and trucks parked and backed up.

  “Stop the car, Tom.”

  “I’m the one who made that story work,” said Tom. “I’m the one who told it, and I’m the one who sold it, and this is my thank-you, a bullet in the back.” He hurdled under the red light, back onto Lemmings, the bank rearing three blocks up. When he lost his temper this way he could reverse in circles up to an hour.

  “I agree that it was not right the way they did that,” said Tim, “because what you did for them is very important, but by the same token not everybody can be a star, Tom, the simple laws of numbers. Now let’s let me do my job here. Okay?”

  Tim lunged for the steering wheel, coming away with Tom’s hand, the car now driving itself, striking out for electric poles and parked vehicles, then turning its attention to the man running down the bank stairs, another one running behind. The first man entered the street, turning in front of them, three strides and the rear bumper caught his knee, kicking him to the trunk, where he remained until Tom’s brother was fought off, Tom’s hand once again steady on the wheel, passing the bank without slowing down. Tim pointed to the man on the trunk and said, “Now look what you’ve done. You’ve run over Don.”

  46

  Don had been waiting with the detective for the car to be brought back, Harry holding tightly on his arm while Don went over in his head all the things that had gone wrong. From the moment he stepped out of prison he’d been a step behind everything, acting without thinking, actions that made him feel so apart, like someone was pointing a remote control, clicking RUN IN, or SHOOT, or RUN AWAY.

  They watched the detective’s car turn onto Lemmings, backing toward them, Hammamann starting him down the stairs. “All right, Don.” And then it happened. No decision. Just a click. He was twisting his arm free, running down the steps, words shouted after, “Where are you going?”

  Away through the parked cars and into the street, the wind under him, the fear making him lighter, like he was eighteen again, remembering how he used to love running from the cops. After half a block it was all behind him; he was going to find Rita, and the thought of seeing her again made him go faster; it carried him off his feet. He wasn’t running anymore; he was being taken, on the trunk of a Palais Royale, wondering at how much faster things happened now than he remembered, how long his days were outside of prison.

  47

  “Don’t stop the car,” Tim said, the two men twisting their necks to see through the rear glass, Don struggling to hold on. Tim opened the window and leaned out and yelled, “Don, do you still want us dead.”

  Don held the antenna with both hands, his back on the window, his feet on the trunk. He looked up at the sky, the speed of the car, the wind in his eye, letters and numbers rolling over him, fingers pushing the buttons, back to prison again.

  Tim slid in from the window, “I think you stunned him.” He bent over the dials of the radio, “How about some music,” tuning through the Russian taxis to the booming voice at the end, Detective Hammamann’s voice, explaining how if his car was not returned to the bank immediately, and with Don on it, the twins would be charged with the following crimes: grand larceny of a police rental, hitting and abetting an escaped prisoner, speeding backward on a television set.

  The car swerved right as Tom twisted himself further to see around Don, “All right, now what are we going to do?”

  “We got no choice.” Tim picked up the microphone, he pushed the button, “All right, Hammamann, we’re coming in.” He dropped the mike and looked at Tom. “I hate that son-of-a-bitch detective, but at least he’s not trying to kill me.”

  48

  Detective Hammamann put the radio back in his pocket, pulled out his gun, and walked down the steps into the street the way Lieutenant Gates did it on Ten Thirteen. He stoppe
d and stood in the center of the road with his legs apart, raising his gun at the spot where he expected Tim would be. The scene was set, this was his test, Loretta couldn’t have written it any better: Tim in a stolen cop rental, driving an escaping felon, driving right toward him. Hammamann had never shot anyone, but he couldn’t hesitate now. He might just shoot Don and Tom while he was at it. The proof of his love. He wouldn’t be able to go to the funeral, no Loretta on his shoulder, no picnics by the river. Months they’d have to stay apart, years, a love in secrecy, just like they had now. No greater test than that. He watched the car make its turn, sighting his gun on the passenger window.

  49

  Don held the antenna with both hands, his back against the trunk, staring at the power lines passing over, three per block, cutting the sky into squares, equal sections of the same picture. They turned onto Lemmings, his legs riding over the side, pulling himself straight to look down over the end, the bank five blocks away. He was going back to prison again, five years, maybe more, to lie in his cell and think about his one day out, how he managed to replay every mistake he’d ever made, like the last forty years were just a rehearsal, the sad story of Don Reedy, a life in twenty-four hours.

  He just never caught up. Except for his afternoon with Rita, and crashing through the doors of the bank. These were the only times he’d felt in control. Everything else he’d been playing from behind, reacting when he should have been acting. The director was going to blow the vault, throw real money in the air, fifty thousand dollars’ worth. All Don had to do was look tough and go along. They were giving him the best part, the lead, a chance to start in front, and he missed the bus, and there wouldn’t be another. He lost the girl and he lost his boss, lost his parole, lost his gun. A loser’s ending. Again and again.

  He lifted his head from the trunk, Harry Hammamann waiting in the street, gun raised, standing like a cop. Two blocks. Don rolled to his chest, pulling himself to the roof. Not like this, he said. He’d rather be shot. And he wasn’t running away. You can’t run with nothing. When you’re playing from behind you’re just waiting to get caught, going to prison for all the wrong reasons. Because the only way to get ahead was to stay in front. Maury’s Law. Take the lead and never give it up. They were using real money in the robbery scene. Tomorrow morning. If he made it that far. Don was going to take it back.

  He leaned over the driver’s-side window and reached in and grabbed Tom’s foam-padded cervical collar, twisting it once around his fist, feeling Tom’s breath catch. “Stop the car.”

  Tom let go of the wheel, punching at Don’s hands, his face, Don twisting tighter, “Just stop the car, I’ll let go if you stop the car.” Tom’s cheeks turned pink, then grape. He stepped on the brake, crying with the air coming in, Don’s head climbing through the window, into the backseat, twisting the collar again, his other arm around Tim’s neck, “It wasn’t our fault,” said Tim.

  “It never is,” Don said. “We’re going to the piers.”

  And that’s when Hammamann began to shoot, the bullets striking the bus on the corner, a fake dry cleaners store, a no parking sign. Tom shifted into drive, the car shooting forward.

  Ten

  SCENE 50

  Rita had to walk through a thicket of metal poles to get to the front doors of the bar, men carrying in coffeemakers and lighting equipment. Inside, the front tables had been taken out with the computers and phones, and in their places stood two racks of clothes, a rainbow of rayon slacks and bowling shirts. She walked up to Joe Far, sitting at the bar, another man standing next to him, applying makeup to Joe’s face. “No. No. Too much,” Joe winced. He turned to Rita. “They only let me work if I’m in the show.”

  She hung up her jacket, about to wash the glasses when she noticed a woman standing next to her, behind the bar. Tall and young and somewhat oriental, very pretty, with a furry green shirt tied at her waist, the tattoo of a caterpillar hanging off her hip. She glanced at Rita and then went back to the mirror, adjusting the skin that was closest to her lips.

  “What are you?” Rita asked.

  “I’m the bartender.”

  “You are bartender?”

  “That’s what they tell me.”

  “Rita,” yelled Joe Far. “Please you come here.” He pointed to the next stool. “Please, you fired. I’m sorry. They tell me this morning. I tell them to fire me too, but they say I have to be on TV. I think it’s important, don’t you. My family will see, they will understand.” Joe lifted Rita’s hand. “I’m sorry, Rita. You’re the only good person.”

  The makeup man returned and began spreading Joe’s cheeks with glue. “Enough,” said Joe. He pushed the man away. “No beard.”

  Rita stood and turned to go. Then stopped. Where could she go? Joe grabbed her arm. “Have a drink, Rita. Have one drink with me. Quickly. They start shooting show.” He shouted over the bar, “Two vodka martinis. Do not shake.”

  The bartender spoke to the mirror. “What did I tell you already?”

  Joe raised his fists and shrugged and turned to Rita, “She say she not really a bartender. She only plays one for TV.”

  51

  Tom drove down Lemmings to the water, a right on Marginal, under the factory bridge, stopping at the broken gates. Don pulled tighter on Tom’s collar, Keep going, he said. Down the long rubbled drive, brick walls towering on either side, hooks rusting over crumbled arches. At one time the largest maker of erasers in the world. When they were near the end Don told Tom to stop, then reached over and pulled out the key. He climbed out and walked to the water’s edge, this pier that used to go on forever, Tom yelling after, “What do you want?”

  They had come here every day as kids, Don running the games, stinkball and crumbtag, crooks and robbers shooting through the arches. Happy’s deaths were always the most theatrical, long writhing moaning. Tom always denied he’d been hit. Tim liked to throw himself in the water, forcing his friends to save him.

  When Don was a little older, he’d come here alone, the stars on the ocean, his ships on the wind. Bringing his blanket the nights his parents fought. The week he’d spent hiding in the warehouse after his father’s funeral, mid-February, until Tim and Tom told Maury, who told his mother. Taking them out for a lemon slush he couldn’t touch, Don kicking Tim under the table. He wanted to kill them. Five years later they were stealing cars together, worst thieves Don had ever seen. Fifteen and they were in the banks, Maury saying what a fool he was to work with the twins.

  Tom was low in the driver’s seat, trying to hot-wire the Royale with a penknife. The sun behind them, windowless houses on Drywell, lines of gutters twisting up the short hill to the bank, highest point in Crumbtown. Don needed information, how they were bringing the money in and when, inside the bank or out. It could be easy, with the smoke machines going, actors wearing masks, carrying fake guns, Little Eddy holding a bag of money. It could be very easy. He needed a driver.

  The engine started, Tom’s head rising behind the wheel, the Royale backing away as Don walked toward them, backing into the brick wall, stalling there. Don came up to the window, “The steering’s locked.” He opened the door, Tom still fighting with the wheel, a penknife jammed into the ignition.

  Don grabbed Tom’s wrist, twisting it over until the knife fell out. “Get out of the car,” pulling him out. “Let me see.” He checked the lock, opening the screwdriver from the knife, working it in.

  “What are you doing?” Tom said. “You’ve got the keys.”

  Don turned the wheel slightly, feeling for pressure on the blade. Twenty years since he’d jacked an ignition. He had to see if he could still do it. “I’m making a withdrawal,” he said. “Tomorrow morning. The Dodgeport Savings and Loan.”

  Tim got out of the passenger seat, walking around to stand nervously with his brother. “That bank’s closed, Don, eight years.”

  “I’m not robbing the bank. I’m robbing the robbery. They’re using real money in the show. The director just told me. Fifty th
ousand dollars.”

  “Fifty thousand.”

  Don lowered his head beneath the dash, a tangle of red wire. “That’s right, and I need to know the schedule there, how they’re doing it. Who would know this?”

  “Crazy Louie,” Tom said.

  “He runs the coffee truck,” said Tim.

  Don touched the leads and the engine kicked in. He gunned it to the water, skidding half a circle to stop at the edge, the twins in front of him, waiting for a direction. They’d never gone to prison, not one day. Don had gone four times. The fortunes of Crumbtown. Whose fault was that? He pulled up slowly. “Get in the car.”

  “I don’t know,” said Tom.

  “Yeah,” said Tim. “I don’t know.”

  “I’m not asking you. Let’s go.”

  One at a time they slid in the back, carefully buckling their belts. Don drove out the gates, a right and a left, Tim leaning forward, “Robbing a robbery,” he said, “is that a crime?”

  52

  The bar’s door slammed closed, the talking stopped, and Rita turned to see Don come in, eyes searching wildly a moment before finding hers, blinking in the lights. He was going to start in about last night, she was sure of it, all the things she’d been hoping to forget. She raised her arms, she didn’t know how it would go, but when he was close, she saw they were the same eyes as yesterday evening, when he’d first asked her to dance.