“Yes, ma’am.”
THE BANK TELLER LAY FLAT ON HER BACK, SUMMER DRESS HIKED above the knee, showing a good bit of stocking and garter. She was a looker, too. Lean and lanky, with red lips and marcelled hair, smelling just like sunshine to Harvey Bailey.
“Sweetie?” Harvey asked.
“Yes, sir?”
“Please, turn over,” he said.
The woman-whom Harvey had noted yesterday as Miss Georgia Loving-flipped, face reddened, but no less excited about the show.
“This is a robbery,” he said. “Not an audition.”
Women were often like that during a job. You offered a little politeness, some little gentlemanly presentation, and they’d work with you. It made the whole thing very safe and enjoyable for everyone.
He checked his Bulova.
Harvey moved across the wide marble lobby-polished shoes clicking under him-and looked out the front-door window to see Verne Miller behind the wheel of a stolen flat-black Buick. Miller met his eyes and tipped his hat.
The street was clean. Two minutes to go.
“Done?” Harvey yelled, heading back behind the cages and scooping up great wads of cash and coin, filling a bag.
“Almost,” Clark called from inside the vault.
Underhill stood at the vault door, sweeping his 12-gauge across a dozen or so bank employees and anonymous suckers, face to floor with hands on their necks. He wore a great smile on his unshaven mug, a matchstick in the corner of his mouth, and Harvey knew the bastard was just itching to pull the trigger and let the buckshot fly.
“Head down,” Underhill said, jabbing the end of his gun into the bank president’s fat ass. “Or I blow you a new hole.”
“Easy, boy.”
“He moves again and I’ll kill him.”
“I know.”
“You don’t believe me? I’ll do it. I swear to Christ.”
“No need to do that.”
“Look at his fat apple cheeks. Just like a hog. If I had an apple-”
“Easy.”
The bank president hadn’t time to slip back into his coat, and his wide, fatty back was soaked in sweat. You could see the rolls rippling under linen, and his thinning hair had grown hot and matted against his head. Harvey could hear him breathing clear across the room.
He studied Underhill, knowing the goddamn buffoon had gone screwy again, just like when they broke out of Lansing and he wanted to slaughter Warden Prather just because authority made him itch. A loud clock ticked off the minutes, big black fans creaking overhead trying to sweep away the hundred-degree heat.
There was silence.
And then there was everything. Car engines and men yelling and boots clattering up the great steps to the bank door, rattling the lock.
“Who hit the alarm?” Underhill asked. “Goddamn you, Fat Man.” Harvey held up a hand to calm him and walked around to the cages, running a hand under the ledge and finding the small switch. He shrugged and took a breath.
“Ladies?”
Miss Loving and the other teller crooked their heads from the floor.
“Lucky girls,” he said. “Lucky, lucky little girls.”
The woman craned her neck at him. Harvey winked.
“You can be our hostesses.”
Harvey tossed the bag of cash at Underhill and offered a hand to each teller, hoisting them to their feet. The other gal’s name was Thelma, a blonde with a fine set of cantaloupe bosoms straining the material of her flowered dress. She hadn’t stopped smiling at Harvey since he pointed the gun in her face.
He placed the.38 in the waistband of his blue linen suit and put a palm to each of the women’s backs, ushering them to the door. Both of ’em took a deep breath, and the expanse and ripple of it felt like an electric current.
Underhill went first.
With a touch of a trigger, the
Underhill nodded. Harvey walked down the steps flanked by the two women, just kind of strolling with a Hollywood air.
Clark loaded the cash in the trunk. Underhill covered Miller, who cranked the engine, and Harvey gently escorted the ladies to the running boards, where he told them they better hold on real tight. As he ducked into the car, he heard a gunshot sounding, felt a white-hot stabbing pain in his heel, and he tumbled on inside and told Verne to get going fast.
Underhill squeezed the second trigger, and the women shrieked as the Buick sped away from the downtown. Harvey Bailey, leg hurting so bad it felt damn good, loved it, laughing and turning back only for a moment to see the cops trying to make chase of that big, beautiful Buick growling and downshifting into a comfortable, violent speed.
His heel bled thick and dark into his shoes, and he tied off the wound at the ankle with his necktie.
When they hit the county line, Verne Miller tossed a box of roofing nails from his window and fired up a Lucky, watching the blowouts in his rearview. For just a moment, through all that goddamn smoke, Harvey noted something on Miller’s lips that might’ve been a smile.
Harvey reached out the window with a bloody hand to give Miss Loving’s narrow little ass a nice pat. He knew damn well that the world was a fine place.
6
Kathryn didn’t see George again until twilight. He woke up from a whiskey slumber, scratching himself and coughing, and found his way out to the front porch of her stepdaddy Boss Shannon’s place. After taking a leak, he lit a cigarette and joined her on the stoop, watching that fire sun slipping down like a nickel into the slotted, flat land. She pulled the cigarette from his lips and offered him some of her gin. He took it because it was alcohol, but she knew he didn’t like it. George was the same as every boy she’d known back in Saltillo, Mississippi, who’d been weaned on whiskey.
“You want a quick poke?” he asked.
“Why don’t I poke you in the eye,” Kathryn said.
“Where’s Albert?”
“Boss wanted to show him his mule,” Kathryn said. “He claims it can count.”
“That mule can’t count,” George said. “Boss stands over your shoulder and nods his head to make the dang animal tap its hoof. That doesn’t take much sense.”
“I heard y’all had trouble.”
George shrugged.
