Every night at Buckhead Mercantile, after the federal people make their pickup, whatever was there from the afternoon's business generally went into the seven zippered tellers’ pouches. At close of business there'd been $28,000 and change on the premises. That put a nice, round $4,000 in each of the teller's drawers, not counting the $500 in bait money that each of them always set aside in the special “grab” tray inside their drawer. It was what went in the sack first when a man stuck that Saturday-night special in the girl's face with a note that read, “Put all the money in the sack, this is a robbery,” while the hidden surveillance cameras took some charming shots of him for posterity. The bait numbers were on file with law-enforcement agencies for such a contingency.
Just one of the hassles of a robbery/shooting like this was that they'd have to sit there working late putting all those bills back in order, figuring out which were the bait bills and which were the regular bills, making all those neat rectangular stacks, thumbing through those crisp lettuce leaves fast and sure, the way only a bank teller can do, stacking up all those green dreams.
And what Lee saw when he let the door close behind him was three teller pouches and small bills scattered all over. There was one big stack by itself, like somebody had a fistful of cabbage crammed together and it had been knocked loose, but when it hit the floor the tens and twenties and fifties had somehow stayed together. Lee just swooped the stack up, not thinking, bent over with nobody looking and took it. He was a little hot along the ears the way he got sometimes when he was uptight, but he was ready to explain it, like somebody caught shoplifting a candy bar. He just dropped that great big handful of bucks into a deep, inside jacket pocket, out of range of prying eyes, hidden surveillance cameras, the FBI, and his fat partner. Only James Lee and his maker saw him take the step. And just that easily, he stepped over the line. And by definition he was now one of the bad guys.
And he about exploded with joy. He was so happy. He knew it was wrong, but good GOD, it felt good that little bulge of bills, that happy weight of paper in his pocket. Untraceable, embraceable, irreplaceable pounds and saw-bucks and cee notes. Smiling faces. It was all he could do not to hurry as they wrapped up the initial processing and seizure work and made their way back to the station.
Lee had an envelope always ready in the trunk for whatever might come up—not like he'd anticipated this— but hell, sometimes it helped if one could flog a little coke sample off a dealer for an emergency holdback. A man never knew when it would come in handy—just tuck it down behind the seat of a car for a probable-cause swindle. Something to lay on a snitch as a thank-you for the Big One. A little taste just in case.
He just put the money in the big, thick manila envelope and dropped it into the first corner mail depository he came to. He mailed it to himself care of that post-office box that was always such a cheap insurance policy. And sure enough, that's where the money went. He couldn't even count it. He tried and hit a big stack of solid twenties. A hundred double-saws in a tight stack. Two thousand dollars just in that half-inch or so of money, so he knew he had some serious bucks in there. All those fifties he'd seen had made his ears flaming red, he was sure, but when he glanced up into the rearview mirror they were still the color of yellow jaundice. He was too nervous to count it now. All he could think about was those asshole feebs and IAD and what they'd do to him if they caught him dirty, but as much as it scared him he wasn't about to go give it back. He was glad he'd picked up the lovely green stack of dirty money. The line looked the same from either side.
Donna walked through the room in which Jack was sitting reading some reports, with his back to her. She wore very short white shorts and matching sandals, and not even the voluminous, cantaloupe-colored sweatshirt could disguise her fabulous breasts, which were quite large and unusually high and firm.
She felt a glow of warmth just at the sight of those broad shoulders and the unruly black hair that was now flecking with more than a bit of gray.
“Old man,” she teased gently, her fingers in his hair from behind, “you are getting white up here.'
“Umm,” he said.
“Did I ever tell you that white-haired men turn me on?'
“Hmmmmm.'
“Really. The sexiest thing in the world is a guy with a great head of pure white hair. If you get gray let's dye your hair, okay? Bleach it out real white.” Her hands slid down on the big shoulders. “You need a haircut, by the way.'
“Nag, nag,” he said.
“That's me.” She came around and sat beside him, scrunching up very close. “Nag, nag, nag,” she was whispering right in his ear, and he let the report fall to the floor. “Hope I'm not disturbing you,” she kidded him gently. “Were you reading something?” she asked him with mock innocence.
“Reading? Who, ME?'
“I'm sorry if I bothered you,” she lied as she took the lobe of his left ear in her teeth, then leaned around into his face and kissed him ceremoniously, carefully, as if she were passing a mouthful of sacramental wine to him. Or like people playing a game in which they had to pass something with their mouths and couldn't touch each other with their hands.
He received the kiss in kind with his tips and tongue only, neither of them touching otherwise, finding a new way to say it by mouth-to-mouth exploration, kissing the way they so often did.
“Kiss me forever,” Donna said.
“Yes.” Jack knew what she meant. He wanted to kiss her each time like it was going to be the last time. He would kiss her sometimes while getting ready to leave in the morning and he'd be late to work by ten minutes because they couldn't stop and it would inflame them. They learned to plan around it and he started leaving earlier. They would never let this marriage reach the peck-on-the-cheek stage. Huh uh. Not this one.
“You taste good. Did you just brush your teeth?'
“Hmmm,” she told him. They kissed with the unashamed abandon and sense of fun that marked all of their lovemaking. “You taste good, mmmmmf,” she said, and he shut her up.
Then she began kissing him more gently. Little kisses. Hot, quick, wet smooches around his lips and in the hollow above his chin, and he kissed her softly on the cheeks. Her cheeks always felt so surprisingly smooth to him, so satiny and feminine. He could never get used to the surprise of her wonderfully smooth skin. And he kissed her eyes closed, barely touching the silky lashes, and a hand touched her. The hard point of a breast shot an electrified current through the palm of his hand and his kisses slid off of her face and onto the pulse at the side of her throat and soon clothing was on the floor and he was seeking the source of that strong pulse with his lips and tongue.
He kissed her heartbeat where it throbbed beneath her beautiful chest and worked eastward over to the side of one of her large and ripe breasts, where he mashed his face into a lovely expanse of white skin and told her everything she need know about them in an eloquent statement of adoring, hot kisses. He spent a lot of time right there on the side of the mountain and then he climbed to the top, moving around to the nipple, then back to the other, moving back across the heartland, then climbing the other, just because it was there. He let it excite him the way it invariably did, sucking both breasts then, tonguing nibbling chewing hungrily devouring then going south down through tummyland, south of the border, traveling down with those inflamed kisses and a tongue that was starting to set her on fire. But he didn't make the trip this time because his hardening desire was pulling him back up, and then both of them were back on the sofa, and she was opening up for him and they were coming together like two halves of a puzzle built in separate rooms, assembled independently; then the pieces joined together in a mating that never failed to delight each of them with the perfection of the fit. “I want you,” she said in a hot whisper. “Yes, honey,” he agreed, “I want you too. So much.” But the reality was that he was somewhere else in that part of him where the deepest desire was kindled. He suddenly realized that he had crawled inside himself and was watching his own performance. GRADING himself or something. And the ludicrous discovery softened his ardor just as she heard him say, So much, and she wondered what she had done. She had been accused once of coming on too strong by a previous lover and it had stayed with her, as the fiercest critiques so often will.
