At four in the morning, a patrol car moved past the alley. Lee lurked in the dark, watching the car stop outside the Shamrock. He was aware of everything again, of the close proximity of the concrete walls on either side of him. He lifted the walkie-talkie from the garbage can and spoke into it.
— I got a bull out here.
Maurice’s voice came back: What do you see?
— One car. Stopped up at the hotel.
Gilmore’s voice: Wait. Just watch them for a minute.
Lee had been fatigued before this. Now he was awake and aware of how cold he was. He turned down the volume on the walkie-talkie so it was just audible.
— There’s nothing on the scanner, said Maurice. What is it, just one car?
— Yes.
— One, two cops, we can take care of if they come around back here.
Lee was going to say something. He pressed the send button on the walkie-talkie. But he said nothing. He moved the fingers of his other hand to get the blood flowing.
— Lee?
— Wait.
The patrol car moved again. Nobody had gotten out of it. The car climbed the rise. Lee watched it till it was out of sight. He counted to five and then to ten.
— They’re gone now. They were just looking at the hotel.
— Keep watching, said Maurice. I want to know if anybody’s coming back this way.
Lee wanted a cigarette, but his fingers in the gloves were too clumsy with cold. He put the walkie-talkie down. He pulled his gloves off and put his hands down the front of his pants. He pressed his fingers between his thighs. His fingers throbbed when at last the blood moved back into them.
Maurice called him on the walkie-talkie five minutes later to ask if the cops had come back, and Lee told him they had not. Ten minutes after that he put the walkie-talkie down on the garbage can. He ventured out to the front of the alley again.
Then he went out onto the sidewalk. He looked in either direction. Down street of him, the stoplight blinked like some endless portent. Without giving it much thought, he wandered out into the middle of the street and stood where the patrol car had left its tire tracks. He thought the end of the world might look something like this. Undramatic. Just emptied out. And he, the last man.
He went back into the alley, thinking his solitary thoughts.
The walkie-talkie was speaking, urgently but hushed because he’d lowered the volume. Lee picked it up and said he was listening.
Maurice: Lee, where the fuck have you been?
— I didn’t hear you.
— Get back here. We’re packing up.
He came into the parking lot, stiff with the cold. He could see Maurice loading the tool bag into the van. Speedy was in the driver’s seat.
— Go in, said Maurice. You’ll see the way. Quick. Sixty seconds.
Lee put the walkie-talkie into his pocket and went through the back door into the bank.
It was black through the door. There was a powerful stink of burnt things. He saw a flashlight flick twice, quickly, up ahead, offering just enough light to reveal the dimensions of a hallway. It was Gilmore. Coming close to him, Lee could sense the man laden with something. A duffle bag, perhaps, thick with contents.
— Take the flashlight. Go up around the corner and don’t turn the light on till you’re there. You’ll see where to go. There’s three more bags. Make it quick.
He took the flashlight from Gilmore and felt his way around a corner. He turned the flashlight on. He was in an office. To his left was the wall where the door to the vault was set. The door was untouched. They’d cut the hole beside it. He could see where they’d pulled the carpeting back so the molten concrete slag from the cutting would pool only on the subfloor. The hole itself was roughly three feet square. Everything around and above it was burnt, up to the ceiling tiles. Smoke was still dense in the room. If the interior alarm hadn’t been successfully cut, Lee wondered who would have arrived first, the cops or the fire department.
The leather welding apron had been laid over the bottom of the cut. As Lee folded himself through, he could still feel heat baking off the concrete. The wall of the vault was eighteen inches thick. Where the rebar had been cut, the metal still had a cherry glow, and he was careful not to touch it. He prodded his foot down onto the rubble inside the vault. The air was almost un-breathable with smoke.
He stood up and shone the flashlight around the vault. There was smoke damage all over the ceiling. Dividing the vault in half was a barred gate but they’d hammered that open. He saw a metal table and floor-to-ceiling safe deposit boxes. Most of the boxes had been smashed open and pillaged. He saw old family photographs strewn about the floor, documents, deeds, promissory notes, insurance policies. He saw a broken urn, someone’s ashes spilled out of it. The three remaining duffle bags were in the middle of the floor, stuffed full.
— Lee, goddammit. You got to move quicker.
Behind him Maurice was crouched on the other side of the hole.
Lee grabbed the first bag. Whatever it was packed with was dense and irregular and heavy. He pushed it through the hole. Maurice pulled it out of the way. Lee pushed the second bag to him. He went back for the last bag and then he looked over his shoulder. Maurice had his shotgun butt-down on the floor with the barrel canted forward through the hole.
— How about you get that gun out of the hole, said Lee.
— What? How about you hurry the fuck up.
— Maybe I don’t like how you have that thing pointed.
— This isn’t a goddamn game.
— I know.
But Maurice moved the shotgun out of the hole.
Lee hauled the third duffle over and pushed it through. He followed it as quickly as he could. All was dark except where the two flashlights lanced about like phantoms.
Maurice spoke close to Lee’s ear: This is not a goddamn fucking game, Lee.
Lee hoisted a bag up over each shoulder. He could feel Maurice watching him. He switched off the flashlight and went back the way he’d come. The door was a faint outline up ahead and he was conscious of how much of his back was exposed to the man behind him. But he got outside without incident. Nothing had changed in the parking lot.
Maurice came out. He had the shotgun in his right hand and the last duffle bag in his left. The back door of the bank closed evenly in its frame, so that its breach would not be readily apparent. They crossed the parking lot towards the van. The engine started. In the haze of the brake lights he saw Gilmore hop out to open the back of the van. He and Maurice dropped the bags into the space behind the seat. The tool bag and the burning-bar rig were already packed under the drop cloth. They closed the doors. Maurice went ahead of Gilmore and got in the back seat. The van started to move forward.
That was it. All it had ever been.
Lee stood dumbly, watching them leave.
Then the van stopped. The back door opened, Maurice’s face hung halfway out: Get in, Lee, get in the fucking front. What are you waiting for?
Lee jogged up and opened the passenger door and got in. He hadn’t even closed the door before they were moving again. Lee looked up once and in the rear-view mirror he could see Gilmore and Maurice in the back. Maurice with the shotgun on his lap.
— What did you think? said Speedy. We were leaving you back there?
— Speedy, said Maurice. Shut the fuck up till we get back.
Lee said nothing. He took a cigarette out of his pack and lit it. He had three cigarettes remaining.
Pete woke up and saw by Emily’s alarm clock that it was five o’clock in the morning. He pulled himself away from her warm body. When he’d finished dressing, she stirred and took his hand. She put it to her breast and he felt the nipple harden.
