Bank Robbers (7 page)

What if Arthur looked like that?

She shuddered.

That memory her being pressed against the car by him in the dark street, and how young and handsome he had been … did she really want to see how old he'd gotten?

Maybe she could find someone to pick the gun up for her?

Could she trust Teresa with something like this?

It would maybe cost her another fifty.

She winced.

Maybe if she had Arthur wrap it up like a steak or something, maybe Teresa would …

And what if Teresa got caught?

If she wasn't popular with Teresa now … she could see her with that mouth of hers being carted off to jail screaming and cursing the name Dorothy O'Malley Weist. No, if she wanted a gun, she was going to have to go pick it up herself.

That meant facing him.

Did she want him to see what
she
looked like these days? She stopped in front of a clothing boutique and stared at the odd garments in the window.

Clothes.

She couldn't show up in her old clothes. She'd lost so much weight in the hospital and kept it off with the silly exercises they had her doing with weights. They were supposed to build up her bone density or something. Her eyes looked at her reflection. She turned sideways. She stared at her hips and how the dress was belted tightly around her middle. It made her waist seem tiny.

No, she didn't look nineteen, but she had a pretty waist again and hips, and even her legs had gotten back some of their shape, and her skin had tightened up.

As a matter of fact, she looked good. Damned good.

She would need to buy a new outfit. Something light green or red. Red would put color in her face. She'd need new makeup.

And that would make it possible for her to face him.

She did have four hundred dollars left in the bank, and if she was going to jail, what the hell was she saving it for?

She knew she was talking herself into this, and that it was insane to spend her gun money on clothes.

All right, Dottie thought, clearing her head, another point in favor of getting dressed up to see him was that, if she looked good … maybe she could get him to lower the price.

That ploy had worked on men for a millennium. Christ, it had worked for Cleopatra, for Helen of Troy, and Queen Isabella had gotten half a country out of it.

Of course, it hadn't worked for everybody.

Marie Antoinette came to mind.

No, that was too mercenary. And she'd never been the kind of woman who either thought that was proper or thought she could actually get away with it, so that idea was out.

But if she spent the money, then she could see herself, in one of those Chanel-type suits that always made her look good, opening the door to the shop—she imagined there would be a bell that would ring. And the moment she saw that certain look on his face, the openmouthed gaze, and watched his eyes and mind wander over her body …

Dottie felt a sad pain go through her. Her getting all dressed up wasn't about getting him to lower the price of a gun.

It was about him looking at her and then, once he looked at her, maybe he'd … maybe he'd …

Stop her.

Every once in a while over the last day that thought had charged through her. For someone to give a damn enough to stop her.

The hell with it. If she was going to jail, she was going with her hair done.

She began walking quickly up Eighth Street. There was something calming about finally making up one's mind. She wasn't going to be stuck sitting on a bench in Washington Square park like a spectator in life.

She was going to have a wonderful day buying clothes and have her hair done and make herself feel as lovely as she could, like a female version of an ancient Greek warrior preparing himself for battle … or possibly death.

And it was a battle she was fighting.

And once she'd gotten her clothes and had her hair done, she was going up to the Bronx and take Arthur MacGregor by storm—or get a gun.

*   *   *

“Y
OU CALL
me Mother Teresa one more time and I swear I'll smack you.” Teresa crossed her arms over her chest and stared at her son-in-law. She watched his eyes dart over to Tracy, and she could tell Tracy was rolling her eyes.

“And I ain't your mother … Now, explain to me again why someone your age gets amnesia every time they're supposed to buy a carton of cigarettes.”

“It's just that the doctor said—”

“I been smokin' since I was twelve and I ain't gonna give it up now.”

“Mother, you spent a whole month in Sloan-Kettering watchin' Pop die, didn't you learn nothing?”

“Yeah, I learned they got benches out front where youse can smoke; now where the hell are my Marlboros?”

Again the redheaded pain in the ass she called her son-in-law stared behind her. They had been standing in the kitchen of Teresa's apartment for twenty minutes now, arguing. Teresa refused to be taken down to her doctor's appointment until she'd cleared up this crap about her cigarettes.

“Tracy,” he said pleadingly, and Teresa turned to her daughter.

Tracy had Teresa's black hair, which she kept permed and crimped and teased out into volumes. She was skinny as a rail, even under the heavily decorated sweat suit she was wearing. Her nails were long and painted a bright shade of pink to match her lip color. Her lips were now pursing and twitching back and forth the way her father's had when he got angry. She was twisting a large diamond engagement ring around her finger. Her daughter had changed since she'd moved out to the Island. Now all her clothes were by big-name designers, and every time she talked of things it was always what brand name they were, that she and Brian had a big fancy house at some big fancy address … and East Harlem was not good enough anymore.

“Why the hell do you wear sunglasses in the house, huh? You got a problem with your eyes?”

Tracy's smile twisted into a frown and she pulled off the pair of designer glasses and glared at her mother.

“Brian didn't forget your cigarettes, I told him not to put them in the cart, all right? You wanna blame someone for not killing your lungs for twenty-four lousy hours, you blame me.”

There was a silence.

“Whatsa matter, Brian don't have no thoughts on his own?”

“Aw, Christ! There she goes again,” she heard Brian yell out behind her. “I can't win with your mother!”

Teresa's eyes narrowed.

“The doctor told you months ago to stop smoking. What is it, you wanna get sick and die? It's not enough we just had to watch Pop?”

Well, maybe Tracy had changed, but, Teresa thought, she still fights below the belt.

“You want cigarettes? You walk down those six flights for 'em from now on, 'cause we ain't bringing 'em,” Tracy said, staring straight at her.

Teresa grabbed her purse, and glared at them.

“Okay, fine. I'll go out in this neighborhood for my own cigarettes. And when someone stabs me, I'll just tell 'em it's because my daughter couldn't remember to bring me my cigarettes.” Teresa turned and walked into the hallway.

“That's another thing, you shouldn't be living in this dangerous neighborhood by yourself,” she heard Tracy call after her, and she listened to the clacking sound of Tracy's high heels against the stone hall floor. She was going down the stairs as fast as she could.

The sounds of Brian locking the apartment door echoed above Tracy's heels.

“Now don't start in about that!”

“Yeah, I am startin' in about that. Fred's comin' into town next week and we're gonna sit down and discuss you movin'—”

“I ain't movin'.”

“It's dangerous and stupid to live here, especially now that Pop's gone. Fred's got a extra room in his house down in Florida. His wife says she'd love to have you, and you could get to see little Fred and little Joe—”

“And neither of youse would be stuck driving in my groceries twice a week,” Teresa tossed in nastily. She heard a grunt from Tracy, who was right behind her.

“And we're gonna fix it up for you, nice. Really nice. You're going to
love
it,” Tracy said harshly through clenched teeth.

Teresa turned and stopped sharply. Tracy, who was right behind her, knocked into her, startled. She put her hand up to her chest.

“Now listen to me. I ain't moving, I ain't giving up smoking, and I don't care what you or that
jedrool
brother of yours got planned for me. This is my life, not yours, and I'm gonna live it where the hell I want, doing what I want.” Teresa gave her daughter one last look, hard, just to make sure it sank in, then turned around and started down the stairs again.

“Now I'm gonna be late for my doctor's appointment,” Teresa snapped, knowing full well she was the one who had held them up.

*   *   *

A
RTHUR
sat staring over the books and the receipts. His eyes shifted over to his watch.

Ten-fifteen.

It was Wednesday, and every Wednesday was like this. It seemed so slow, as if the hands of his watch were weighted down, so for every minute it registered, it seemed he actually had to live through an hour. Or maybe Wednesday signaled that he'd made it halfway through another week of this misery.

In all his years, he never thought he'd end up like this.

Bored to death in some dark, dank little hole he called an office.

He looked at his watch.

Ten-seventeen.

Great.

Time was just whizzing right by.

He went back to the ledger and added in a receipt for solder, and another one for coaxial cables. He tapped the numbers into a small calculator on the desk.

Maybe he'd do something this weekend. Actually leave his house. Maybe he'd take a ride downtown to Manhattan. Maybe find some of his old haunts, just to blow off steam.

Blow off steam. With whom? Everyone he knew was either dead, in Florida, or in jail.

When he'd first gotten out of jail this last time, he'd traveled down to Florida, to Sarasota, thinking he might just buy himself a condo and retire there.

It looked like a wheelchair-testing division. So Arthur figured maybe it was just not the right part of Florida, up north, so he traveled deep into the state almost to the tip, till he got to Miami.

He was shot at on the first day.

It reminded him of what they said Chicago had been like during the twenties.

So Florida was either depressing or dangerous.

And at this point he had a theory that Florida had become a prison without bars. They were keeping it a secret, so you didn't know that an entire peninsula of the United States was actually a penitentiary.

And the crime you were sent there for?

Being old.

And Jesus, the nuts down there. His first day in Miami he'd watched all these people sitting on the beaches in the beautiful sunshine, wrapped up like mummies or lepers.

He'd sat next to this man who was covered in a sheet, a golf cap, and a blanket. And the one piece of the man still sticking out was his nose, which was spread with this white gunk. Under all the blankets, Arthur assessed that the man was probably near ninety.

“Say, pal,” he'd asked, “why is everybody covered up down here?”

“Because the sun is bad for you and you might get skin cancer.”

And Arthur'd looked at this guy, who was telling him this through his sheets, and two thoughts occurred to Arthur.

Number one, if you're so afraid of the sun, why the hell would you move to
Florida,
“Sunshine Capital of the World,” and two, if he was eighty-eight or ninety, he would not be worried about skin cancer, for Christ's sake, he'd be happy just breathing.

Arthur looked at his watch.

Ten-eighteen.

Yup, his life was just whizzing by.

*   *   *

A
LL RIGHT
, Dottie thought, so he has a braid and green hair. So what? Look at how she'd mistaken the kid in the park. She couldn't go around prejudging people.

No.

She couldn't.

And besides, the sign on the door read “Haircuts $10.” That was her price range.

She had temporarily given up on clothing, since none of the stores seemed open at this hour of the day in Greenwich Village.

She forced her eyes to look back up into the mirror at the young man standing behind the barber's chair. She smiled as broadly as she could at him.

He was picking up strands of hair and frowning and shaking his head. He put both hands, one of them holding a pair of scissors, on his hips. He shook his head so his braid swung out from side to side and the light bounced off the ten small hoop earrings which adorned one ear lobe, and Dottie wondered if there was an actual name for that part of the outer ear.

“I really prefer, um, a conservative cut and color…” she said shakily.

“Well, I ain't gonna give you a Mohawk.” His voice had a heavy workingman's Queens accent.

“Oh, that's good, I'm more of a page-boy type,” Dottie said half-sarcastically. “Can you do something to make it soft, and color it?”

He stepped back, frowned, moving his head from side to side.

“Not for ten bucks … fifty.”

Dottie stared hard at him in the mirror. Every time she turned around it cost her fifty dollars. She watched his face looking at her hair. He was just so scary-looking.

“You do know what a page boy is?”

He grimaced at her, and put his hands on his hips.

“I am a professional.”

Professional what? was what was going through Dottie's mind.

“So?” he said, after a moment.

She closed her eyes, exhaled loudly and said, “Okay, do it.” She felt as if she were about to be operated on.

*   *   *

E
LEVEN-TWELVE
.

Too early to have lunch. Arthur sighed, shifted in his chair, stretched one leg and lifted it onto the corner of his desk, swung his other leg up and crossed it over the first one. He took his unlit cigar out of the ashtray and held it between his teeth. He opened the book and leafed through it until he got to the first page.