Slice

“How ya like this jam, boy?” he said to John Monroe, meaning the car he'd borrowed.

“Fucker's tight. Cherry ride absolutely.” It was six-ten and there was already traffic inbound, but they were boogeying out Cypress Road.

“Boy, I can pick ‘em. Big ole Crown Vic. Shit. Be lookin’ for thirty-four hunnert.” He looked over at the dipshit next to him.

“This is, shit, 1900 ‘n somethin', Wend—uh, I mean Bo, they ain't got any numbers on the fuckin’ houses or nothin'.'

“Whatjew call me?'

“Huh?'

“Jus’ now. Whatjew call me then?'

“Bo.'

“Uh huh.” He gripped the wheel like he was strangling it. The voice starting out in almost a whisper, very softly, exaggerated sweet tone of voice, like to a baby, “Lissen up now, John, because iffn’ ya go an’ call me that when weuns inna house, or iffn’ ya go shoutin’ at me across the bank,” the voice changing to a column of steel sticking John in the ear like an ice pick, ‘HEY WENDALL I MEAN BO COMMERE ‘N KICK A COUPLE MORE HOLES IN MY DUMB SHITTER F'R ME.’ why, ya jes’ won't leave me no choice. Ya do understand that, doncha, John?'

“Sorry, man I won't—'

“I mean, there we'll be inna bank an’ shit I'll just draw down on ya and drop your goddamn fucking dumb ass right there in the fucker. DO YA GIT IT? Ya got to screw down your damn head, John, and concenfuckingtrate, all right?” Sorry cracker trash.

“Uh. That's the two thousand block so youuns goin’ in the right direction. Bo. I'm sorry, I won't forgit again.'

“I'm sorry, I won't forgit again,” he mimicked him. “Man, ya can try a person's fucking soul with that shit. Ya GOT to git y'r shit together now.'

“Okay.'

“An’ don’ say NOTHING inna house or the bank. I'll do it. Ya just do what I tell ya.'

“Right.” John Monroe nodded.

“Ya go in back and cut everything ya find like I tole ya. Jes’ like I showed ya yesterday with them bolt-cutters. Right?'

“Right.'

“Cut ever’ fuckin’ thing. Phone lines, air-conditioner, the goddamn antenna thing, the fuckin’ copper water line. I don’ give a rat fuck what it is, CUT that sucker. Right?'

“Right.'

“Then youuns come on back around real fast ‘n come right on inna door behind me. Got it?'

“Gotcha.'

What a fuckin’ lamebrain. He looked over at the imbecile that bad luck had saddled him with in the joint. What a fuckin’ mistake.

“Twenty-one hundred block, Bo.'

Shit, now the dumb fuck was a gonna call out the numbers of every goddamn block to him like it was the countdown f'r a fucking rocket. Well. Fine.

“Real good, pud. Jes’ keep callin’ out them numbers an’ thataway we might git lucky and not drive by the thirty-four hundred block, eh?'

Donald Fields had just looked at the clock. It was six-fifteen a.m. He missed Clara and little Bud. Usually he and Clara had coffee and chatted together in the breakfast nook while they woke up. He never saw the boy before he went to work because he got up so early, but with them at Earline's, he missed the kid's presence in the house and was glad they'd be home by the following night.

After Clara got her heart started, she'd make him another cup and fix them cereal and freshly squeezed orange juice all icy cold, and he'd read the paper until six-forty or so. He liked getting there about five-to-seven. Seven at the latest. Come in a full half-hour before anybody came to work. There'd be the maintenance man and the night guard there and he'd unlock and go on in and arrange his day.

He loved that time and always looked forward to that first half-hour when he'd be in his nice office and it'd be so quiet out front, and he'd sit there arranging the day, getting it all just so. Smooth and prepared. He was going to have to sit down with the boy this morning. “The boy” was what he called his top man. A young hotshot named Joe Gillespie. He was problems. Short-fused. Thought he was the only kid who knew anything about the banking business. He'd had an offer from that asshole at American Fed and he was pressuring Donald for a vice presidency and all the usual. Fields was chewing over in his mind how he'd handle it. He wanted to keep the boy. He was a killer in trust work.

Fields was putting his pocket items in his trousers when he heard the noise downstairs. It didn't startle him that much because he was always bearing noises in the damn house ever since they bought it two years before. There was something wrong with the dining-room lighting fixtures, big white globes that fit into metal retainers on the ceiling. About once a week, BANG, one of the globes would drop down out of the retainer, never dropping all the way out, but good Christ it always scared them to death, because when the globe would catch on the outer metal lip it sounded like glass breaking. He wondered when the damn thing would fall on them during dinner one evening. He'd looked at it a dozen times but the globes looked identical to the ones in the kitchen. He was no handyman. He could barely change the bulbs in them, and he just told Clara to call somebody and see if she could get them fixed so they wouldn't drop out, and this is the prosaic and mundane and trivial thought he could recall going through his mind as he started downstairs to make sure the glass hadn't fallen out and a tall thin vicious-looking stranger was there on the stairs with a gun pointed out at him, saying, “Youuns jes’ be sweet now an’ turn aroun'.” As though in a dream he held his hands up just the way they do on TV and turned and felt one of his hands being pulled back and something going tight around him. Then the other hand went back and—OUCH—it was tight. He heard the door slam. Someone else was coming in. He thought, OH GOD, a whole gang of them, coming in to rob and assault and kill him, and thank God Clara was gone. The other one telling him not to move or try anything and was racing around him and up the stairs. Footsteps were coming up behind him, and a stench, and he heard another voice snarl as it pulled him back down the stairs,

“Yessireesir. Git y'r faggot ass down them stairs, ya’ lily-white pussy boy. Ya’ don’ wanna make me HURT ya,” and on the word “HURT” he felt all the wind shoot out of him and he was down on the carpet with an intense and awful pain in his kidneys and he could feel tears of anger about to well up in his eyes and fear as he wondered what these madmen wanted. If he could just get to the alarm in the front hall, he thought, but he was on his face with his hands behind him, and doors were slamming and he heard the tall, thin man saying to another one, “Pull the car up to the door. Go on.” And he was being rolled and something heavy and bad-smelling was around him and he realized he was being rolled up in a throw rug. Why were they doing this? And then doors slammed and he was lifted up from the floor, and he said, “Please just tell me what you want,” and one of them snarled a response, but he couldn't hear it through the rug. Then he was afraid he was going to suffocate, he was being crammed into something tight and he couldn't breathe and he thought he was being kidnapped and these insane men were going to make Clara pay to get him alive and he never connected it with the bank until several minutes later when the car stopped and they took him out in an open field and explained to him what it was they wanted.

“Now youuns lissen up real good, heah?'

Fields nodded. His hands were bound but he was otherwise unhurt. He wondered how far he'd get if he tried to kick the one in the groin and run. Just take off running into the nearby trees.

“We gonna untie ya, and weuns gonna all go downta the bank. An’ ya'll gonna go in and get me a lotta money, unnerstan'? ‘N iffn’ ya fuck us over we'll drop you right there like a DEAD ROACH, ya git it?'

“Yes.” He nodded that he comprehended.

“We gonna go now.'

“Uh, sir?'