by Joe Connelly
She opened the door, five of them out there, not one would look her in the eye. “Where’s King?”
“He called in sick,” Gary said. “We’ll escort you today.”
She came down a step and held out her hand. No takers. “Bunch of hyenas,” she said, “you can taste it.”
“It’s just a job, Dyan.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, let’s go.”
Everyone had come to see her final performance, the entire cast and crew, at least a hundred people lining the two-block walk from her trailer to the set. A few waved; Dyan tried to remember which ones. Most of the others just stood there grinning like weeds in the sun. And then someone yelled “Bitch,” and another “Die bitch,” and it was all over, up and down the line, Gary lamely holding up his hands, “Now now you people.” She kept her head high and straight; she did not cry.
Earlier, in her trailer, she almost gave in, almost called the producer and said she’d take a cut in pay if they let Captain Palmer live. The Real Adventures of Robin and Rita had no script, no proven actors. She’d been worrying about it all morning. Now she was calm, ready; these people were making it easy.
59
A sporty new Dahlia stopped in front of the Dodgeport savings bank. Four actors got out and walked up the steps toward the cameras filming them from the top. The men wore black ski masks with a backward C stitched to the front, from forehead to chin. They climbed the stairs in single file: Little Eddy in front, followed by Arnold Pascovic, Renaldo Stein, and Anthony King in the back. King had been called in the afternoon before, an emergency opening for a bald bank robber, starting immediately. He often took bit parts with TV shows, his acting résumé was on file with the mayor’s department of television. It listed his previous experience as a pimp, informer, and convict, and the small roles he’d played, cops and court officers, mostly. His biggest part to date, a rookie police officer shot in the chest.
At the top of the steps Little Eddy raised his hand and waited for the other robbers to line up behind. He dropped his hand, the men pulling out their guns as they walked past. Eddy followed them in.
“Cut, cut, cut,” said Rob Landetta, stepping out from behind the camera, “we got them going in, and since we’re here and the light’s good, let’s shoot them coming out. This will be after the robbery now, the vault’s exploded. I need Sammy inside with the smoke machines; the flames we talked about.”
The bank robbers came out and Rob leapt forward to shake their hands. “You guys were great. King, you’ll be leading the way out. Eddy, you’re last, maybe twenty feet behind, and you’re holding the bag of money, right. Where’s my bag of money, folks?” Rob walked down the steps to the car, “Okay the first three robbers come down like this and pile in the car. Eddy you jump onto the trunk and turn around to face the customers coming out. Then you take some money out of the bag and throw it in the air with a big old whoop. You toss the bag through the sunroof and dive in after. Any questions.”
Little Eddy stepped forward and said, “Yeah, Don doesn’t whoop.”
“Okay Eddy, that’s fine, whatever you think he should do.”
“And Don doesn’t bring anybody flowers. That’s right out.”
“What flowers, we said nothing about flowers.”
“I’m just telling you.”
Rob’s assistant grabbed his arm, “The money, sir. It’s over there,” pointing to the armored car that had appeared on the corner.
Brian Halo sat in the back of the armored car with another man Rob had never met before, who looked and dressed like a very old chauffeur. “Rob, hi, I want you to meet the mayor. Your Honor, this is Rob Landetta. Mayor Maury has been kind enough to loan us this money, and I don’t know if you’re aware of this, Rob, but the mayor is the chief financial backer of this show. Without his support, none of this would be possible.”
“Thank you,” Rob said.
The old mayor nodded cheerfully, cheeks blown outward like he was playing a trumpet. Brian Halo opened a black leather satchel and showed Rob the bills inside, “Fifty thousand dollars, no interest, and for these favors he’s done for us, the mayor has a small request.”
“Go ahead.”
“A very small change,” said Brian Halo. “One name for another. What the mayor is asking is that everywhere the name Don appears in the script, it be replaced with the name Maury, and, of course, then replace all the Maurys with Dons.”
“Can’t be done,” Rob said, “the bar scene we shot last night. They call him Don.”
“Not a problem, we’ll dub over it. Okay?”
Rob looked over at the grinning mayor. “No, it’s not okay,” he said, and stepped out of the doors and looked back, and with an almost audible crash the mayor’s cheeks collapsed. It became, Rob could safely say, the saddest face he’d ever seen. Rob looked down at the man’s shoes, black boxes shaped like the cabs of pickups.
“That’s it then,” Halo said. He closed the bag and bowed his head. “Show’s over.”
The boy with suspenders ran up, “We’re ready, Mr. Landetta. The fires are going. We only have a few minutes.” Rob stood at the back doors. He’d never seen the inside of an armored car before, but he doubted leather bench seats and mood lighting were standard.
“Okay,” Rob said, “I’ll make the change.”
The mayor stood and opened his arms and beckoned Rob in. He was happy again, so much so it hurt Rob to see it, the patched eyebrows leaping up his head, cheeks blown up to painful limits. Rob grabbed the bag out of Halo’s hand and started toward the set, a few steps and a familiar hand around his neck, “He’s a brilliant man,” Brian Halo said, “once you get to know him. The FBI has three separate investigations going against the mayor. They bugged his house, his office, but he hasn’t said a word in years.”
Rob looked down the street at the bank, the first traces of smoke from the front doors. “I’ve got to get to work.”
“Yes yes, to work, and we’ll use some of this footage for The Brian Halo Show tonight. Take some extra shots of me on the set, too, talking with Little Eddy, that sort of thing, get the publicity wheels turning. Nothing can stop us now.”
60
The four of them waited in the black Cantor that Don had stolen that morning, Tim and Tom in the front, their old masks from ten years before, white skin pushing through where the moths had been at them. Don and Rita sat in the back, on opposite ends of the seat, wearing the new masks Crazy Louie had made for them, same backward C stretching from forehead to chin, for Crumbtown. Tom smoked behind the wheel, checking the rearview mirror every few seconds, two blocks away the camera crews setting up across from the bank.
“It looks like they’re almost ready,” Don said. “Are we ready?”
Tim pulled his mask halfway up. “Can I make a phone call?”
“No.”
“I just want to call Loretta, tell her I won’t make it home for dinner.”
“You haven’t been home in months,” Tom said.
“That’s what I’m saying, they must be worried by now and I think they deserve to know why I’m late. That I’m going to be killed here today.”
“Nobody’s getting killed,” Don said, but Tim was already running up the street, the pay phone on the corner, pushing the buttons.
“I want to make a call too,” said Tom.
“Get out then,” Don said. “Better you leave me now than when we get to the bank, like you did the last time.” He looked over to Rita sitting next to him, face pressed against the window. “That goes for everyone who’s run out on me.” He waited for her to speak, her eyes locked across the street, another language.
Don had woken at six that morning and found her sleeping on the couch, shoes on like she’d been out. He took off to steal the Cantor, and when he came back she was downstairs with the twins, watching TV. She wasn’t talking. He wasn’t asking. Then Crazy Louie called and they were going out the door and he turned to her, You coming or not? She nodded her head and here she was, sit
ting next to him.
“Because I’ll do it myself,” Don said. “Now that I know how easy this is going to be, what Crazy Louie just said on the phone.”
Tom lit another cigarette, pointing it at the bank. “What about the armored car?”
“Like I told you, actors. Hammamann’s out looking for me. The guns are fake. They’re being very careful after yesterday. All you do is back the car up as Eddy’s coming down the stairs. I get out and take the bag. You drive us away.”
They turned to see Tim walking toward them, hands in his pockets, kicking stones in front of him like a schoolboy just suspended. He sat down in the front seat of the Cantor. “Let’s go,” he said.
“What did she say?”
“She changed the locks and she’s changing the phone and changing her name.” Tim pulled the mask down his chin, buckling his seat belt. “I still don’t know what she’s so angry about.”
61
“I’m a Don. I’m not a Maury,” said Little Eddy.
“It’s just a name,” Rob said. “It doesn’t matter.” The two stood near the front doors of the bank, a thickening puddle of smoke that had taken the floor away with their shoes to their ankles.
“I’m just supposed to blink my eyes and be a Maury.”
“Look Eddy, your name’s not called in this scene. You can be Don here. No one will know.”
“I’ll know,” Little Eddy began to pace, swinging the bag on vanishing legs, the smoke rolling in like breakers from the machines pumping it out near the vault, taking away the bank manager’s desk, the tellers’ stations, turning the bank customers into apparitions. “Oh shit I forgot my lines,” Eddy said. “What are my fucking lines.”
“Eddy you don’t have any lines.” Rob looked down; the smoke had taken his hands. In the lobby the bank customers disappeared and appeared and then were gone. From the space where they waited came angry groans, a man shouting “Where’s my money?”
The boy in suspenders tapped his arm, “Mr. Landetta,” all Rob could see were eyeglasses and hair. “The bank customers are becoming unruly, sir. They say they want their money now. We hired them off the street like you asked. I think some of them have been drinking.”
“Okay, we’re rolling, let’s go.” Rob opened the doors, smoke rushing for the exit, billowing over them. “Action,” he shouted, pushing the bank robbers outside, down the steps, the first three falling into the parked Dahlia, Eddy climbing onto the trunk.
Rob called to the bank customers in the lobby, “Go, go,” herding them out the door, the men stumbling down the stairs, stopping in a pile at the feet of Little Eddy, stepping forward as they pulled one another back. Eddy reached into his bag and pulled out some bills and held them over his head, over the men, waiting. Several moments passed. He’d forgotten what to do next. “Come on,” one of them said, “gimme gimme gimme,” and soon all the customers were shouting it, twisting and bowing like courting pigeons, swinging their arms up and down, the Gimme Shuffle. Eddy leaned back as if to throw the money, then clutched everything to his chest.
Brian Halo stood behind the camera crew across the street. “Keep shooting,” he whispered. He watched the events through his handheld monitor, which received transmissions from the cameras, the little TV inches from his face. “Beautiful,” he said.
62
“Get ready,” said Don, “they’re coming down the stairs. Okay there’s Eddy and he’s carrying the bag, let’s go.”
Tom squeezed the Cantor into reverse and opened the gas. Tim grabbed the dash, “I hate this part.”
Don sat against the back door, his hand on the handle. He turned to Rita, the other side of the seat, still looking out the window. Not one word to him all morning.
She felt his eyes breaking in, poking around for an answer. When all morning she’d been trying to say it, waiting for the right time; now there was no time. “I am sorry about last night,” she said, turning to see.
He moved closer, the middle of the seat.
“I could not stay in the room. I went outside, across the street. I watch you come from the store and upstairs in the window I saw and I waited too long. You were sleeping and I did not wake, only watching.” She closed her eyes, her hand somehow knowing where to go, and there he was, all this time, his lips pressing hers through the mask, endlessly forgetting, everything kissing.
“I can’t see,” Tom yelled. “Get down. Get out of my way,” slapping Don in the head. “I can’t see.” He hit the brakes, but by then it was too late.
63
Little Eddy jumped up and down on the Dahlia, a handful of money over his head, yelling to the crowd of men, “I can’t hear you,” their voices rising back, one indigent roar, “Gimmegimmegimme.” Eddy leading them on, jumping higher with every cry. He was still in the air when the Cantor skidded into the Dahlia, the crash pushing it back just enough so that when Eddy landed it was on the Cantor’s trunk. He fell against the rear window, staring through the glass, another gang wearing black masks. He rolled to his knees, gripping the bag as the mob of bank customers moved in.
Don and Rita were parted by the impact and sent to their seats, the crack of Eddy’s head on the window. The door jammed, Don kicking it as he watched Eddy roll off the trunk, still holding the bag as he ran up the street, twenty bank customers chasing after. Don recognized some of them from his time in Creosote, others he knew from other times, other prisons. “Drive, Tom, what are you waiting for.”
Tom pressed on the gas, the Cantor refusing to move, his foot to the floor, wheels spinning below. He shifted into low, and slowly the larger Cantor began to go, dragging the Dahlia behind them, trunks locked from the crash. Down Lemmings the short hill to the water, getting faster, passing the bank customers that were surrendering early, until they were gaining on Little Eddy.
Don raised himself out the window, the roof to the hood to the front bumper, Eddy twenty feet ahead, ten. He reached forward for the bag, almost there when he felt the car hesitate, suddenly slowing again, like they were pulling a much larger weight. It was the bank customers, all twenty of them, climbing onto the Dahlia as it passed them, clustering on the roof and doors like circus clowns.
Don crawled to the back, kicking the men on the trunks, “Get off,” watching them fall only to run up again, helped back on by their friends. “Look out,” said one, pointing to the street behind, “here come the cops.” Everyone turning to the armored car approaching, a cameraman on the roof.
64
Rob sat next to Brian Halo on the leather bench, Maury the mayor in the captain’s chair across. “What the hell happened,” Rob said. “Who’s in that car? Where’s Eddy going?”
Brian Halo stared into his handheld television, the footage from the cameraman above. “Fantastic shot, but we’re too close.” He banged on the front wall of the cab, “Slow down, we don’t want to overtake them.”
“What are you talking about? We need to stop Little Eddy and take him back to the bank.”
Brian Halo pulled Rob into the TV, “We have to use this.” He banged on the roof, yelling “Closer on Eddy, that’s it. Look how steady that shot is, from a camera on the roof, amazing.” Halo turned to the mayor and said, “Your Honor, for an armored car it’s a very smooth ride.”
The mayor smiled as if he’d just been handed a small child.
“You’re getting your money’s worth today, Mr. Mayor. It would have cost us thousands to set this up ourselves.”
The mayor’s eyes doubled in size, his mouth rounding in joyful surprise. He nodded, holding out his arms for the little TV.
“Take a look.”
The mayor made a face that said thank you, and then another face to show how impressed he was with the quality of the image, so clear it was almost like being on the roof himself. He watched the close-up of the little man running ahead, the view widening to show the dark Cantor in pursuit, then widening more, Marginal Street all the way to the eraser factory bridge, two blocks up. How many times had he promised
to tear that bridge down? It was too low; buses had to go around, trucks getting stuck, his armored car could barely clear, he knew, less than a foot to spare. And the cameraman on the roof. They were getting closer, half a block away, the picture shrinking from the bridge, back to the Cantor. The cameraman didn’t see the bridge. They were going too fast. The cameraman was going to hit the bridge.
The mayor stood and pointed up, then back to the little TV. He banged on the window that separated them from the front, pointing to the roof again.
“What is it, Your Honor?” asked Brian Halo. “What’s wrong?”
The mayor brought the little screen to his face, the view from the camera jerking up from the street, to the bridge rushing in, a moment to focus, the bricks getting larger, a red wave crashing over. The mayor let out a shortened cry, the only sound he’d made that day, followed by a shortened thud overhead. The screen black. He dropped the TV and grabbed at his chest, and fell face-over on the floor.
Brian Halo picked up the little television. “We’ve lost the camera,” he said. He pointed to the mayor, motionless on the floor, “And I believe the mayor has stopped breathing.” Rob moved next to him, the two of them bending over. “This mayor is definitely not breathing,” Brian Halo said. “Do you know CPR?”
“I do,” Rob knelt beside the old man, rolling him over, the face that now looked like an inflated fish. Rob stood quickly, “No I don’t,” he said.
“Now we’re stopping. Why are we stopping?” The little window to the front seat crashed open, the driver behind it. “We had a little accident.”
65
Don saw the bridge pass over, the cameraman’s fall, bank customers cheering as the armored car came to a stop. He climbed across to the Dahlia’s trunk, kicking and pushing the men off, enough to bend down and see how the cars were connected, one bumper atop another. He tried with his hands first and gave up and stood and jumped on the trunk, three times until he felt it let go, leaping back as the Cantor shot forward.