later. With Michael. Whoever the fuck Michael was.
Next stop: a Mailboxes, Etc., where he nicked a package in a metal bin meant for Herman Wolf in Warminster, Pennsylvania. Sorry, Herman. It was the right size.
On to SuperFresh.
Lennon flashed back to his favorite chapter from
Nussbaum probably never had to worry about stealing toy beepers or packages from mail services.
SuperFresh was like every other American supermarket he’d visited—bright, cool, crisp, white, frigid, and overstuffed with food neatly packed into every conceivable shelf, corner, and aisle.
Lennon placed the bomb on top of a stack of Fruity Pebbles—on sale for $3.99 this week—then walked over to the bank teller. He waited his turn, then slid the note across the Formica countertop.
Saugherty had holed himself up in the Comfort Inn up in Bensalem, right off Route 1, just out of the city limits. He took a corner room so he could see the highway. He didn’t want the flashing cherries and blueberries to come screaming out of nowhere. He was still under investigation, as far as he knew. He hadn’t made himself reachable.
The room was packed with the necessary supplies: the police scanner, of course, to see if his Irish bank- robber buddy had emerged. Two sixes of Yuengling Lager in a hard-case cooler. Three bottles of Early Times. A bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Two bottles of Ketel One—a buddy of his had turned him on to that stuff. Sipping vodka. Go figure. Six bottles of water. Two sticks of pepperoni; one block of sharp white cheese. Box of Ritz. Rye bread, liverwurst, mustard, fat red onion. He stuck the liverwurst and sharp cheese in the cooler with the beer. The rest could stay out.
He’d also paid a visit to his private armory over in Tacony, along the river. There was a bunch of stuff in a black canvas bag under the bed.
Saugherty had been listening for key words like “bank robber” or “heist” or “Wachovia” or “Lennon,” but then caught the police code for body dump. He called a friend on the force and asked for the skinny, which was: woman, late twenties, found naked at Forty-ninth and Grays Ferry, her wrists and ankles bound with brown extension cords and her body smeared with peanut butter. She was three months pregnant.
Wait, back up, said Saugherty. Peanut butter.
Yeah, confirmed the source. Peanut butter. People on the scene thought the killer—or dumper—smeared it on so rats from the area would eat the evidence.
You got a photo? asked Saugherty. Something nagged him about this.
After some back and forth, the source agreed to fax a photo of the woman’s face over to the Comfort Inn’s business center. Saugherty took another three sips of Early Times, then wandered down there.
He got the faxed photo.
Holy fucking shit.
The girl across the counter looked down at the note. She was pretty, in a geeky kind of way. Her brown hair was cut unflatteringly and she wore chunky glasses that her Goth friends probably thought were cool. But Lennon liked her look. He didn’t like that he was going to cause her some major grief this morning. This is why he enjoyed getaway driving: no personal interaction, no countermeasures, none of this at all.
She looked up at him questioningly. Are you serious?
Lennon froze his face, deadpan. Yes, I’m fucking serious. He let her see the toy beeper in his hand.
The girl nodded, then started to busy herself under the counter.
Lennon waited.
“We’re supposed to put a security packet in here,” she said, quietly. “But I’m not going to do that. I want you to know that, okay?”
Lennon nodded.
“It’s not much, either. Just a little over a thousand. But I’m not holding back.”
Lennon blinked at her. Come on, love.
“Just don’t hurt anybody, okay?”
Enough was enough already. He raised the toy beeper.
The girl slid him the money, tucked in a white plastic bag. She hadn’t asked if he’d wanted paper.
Lennon took the bag and walked toward the exit. There was a little boy trying to rattle a prize out of a small red machine in the aisle and a young couple pushing a cart full of bagged groceries. He stepped around them and through the automatic doors, which whooshed open at his approach. Through the vestibule, to the other set of doors.
Which refused to open.
As did the ones behind him, when he backed up. The young couple looked at him through the glass. What did you do?
Oh, fuck me, he thought.
Trapped.
Like a gerbil in a Habitrail.
At that moment, for the first time all weekend, Lennon was glad Bling had been killed. He wasn’t sure how he would have explained this to him.
A short while later, after the police had arrived and Lennon was in cuffs and ready to be led to the nearest squad car, the girl from the grocery store approached him. She looked at him through those clunky glasses like a curious schoolgirl at a science exhibit.
“Next time,” she said, “pick a toy beeper that doesn’t say Fisher-Price on the side.”
She didn’t actually say that. Lennon imagined her saying that. Because that’s how this story was going to end, when it was written up for the newspapers in a couple of hours. The bomb angle, the toy. Guaranteed coverage. And the early editions would wrap up a little after midnight, and sooner or later, a copy would wind up in that Italian bastard’s hands, and Katie would be killed.
“
“Come on. One lousy photo.”
“What, are you whacking off to crime photos over there? It’s just some stupid asshole who tried to knock over a bank with a phony beeper and a napkin from McDonald’s. Happens every day. Read all about it in tomorrow’s
“Come on. One lousy fuckin’ photo, Jonsey.”
“Am I bent over a desk? Are you tickling my colon, you asshole?”
“Come
“You’re a son of a bitch, Saugherty.”
