THUGLIT Issue Twelve (2 page)

"
I do."

I laughed.
"Me too."

A lot of people smiled at us as we strode through the park. The disguises were truly remarkable.

"Still worried about the cameras?" Madison said.

"
Nope. Looks like we've got them beat."

I was still indulging Madison
's Bonnie and Clyde fantasy, and was actually getting into it. Because I'd come to believe that that was all it was—a silly fantasy. An escape from the drudgery of our daily lives. It was a fun thing to think about, to plot and plan and mull over. We'd even set a date for the heist. A week and a day from today. On a Monday morning.

But of cours
e I knew it would never happen.

In the run up to the big day, Madison talked about her plan ad nauseam. I tuned much of it out, but pretended that I was listening closely. It was important to show Madison that I was as serious as she was. It had turned into a kind of a dare between us, and I wasn
't going to back down. Not yet, anyway. But I knew that if I had to, I would put an end to this thing, even if I had to drag Madison kicking and screaming out of the bank.

I still believed that it wouldn
't get that far, however. I wasn't quite sure when Madison would call it off, but I believed she would. Knowing her, it would probably be at the last minute.

D-day, or B-and-C-Day, as Madison called it, was upon us. We'd both arranged our work schedules so we'd have today off. I was still pretending to be gung-ho about the plan, still waiting to see when Madison would end the charade. But it seemed that she was going to play it right down to the wire. Neither one of us was nervous, which I took to be a sign that this was just a game, a silly thought experiment. I expected to be laughing about it at dinner tonight.

Madison had gotten up early and prepared breakfast. Old fashioned bacon and eggs with toast and coffee. It smelled delicious.

"We'll need energy," she said as she loaded my plate.

To fortify ourselves even further, Madison had poured a couple of Bloody Marys. We were allowed only one each though, since we needed to be sharp.

The plan called for us to hit the bank at precisely 10am. Madison's research into bank security showed that this was the best time—or worst, if you were the bank—for a robbery.

"
Are you sure we can't keep the money?" I asked, playing my role.

"
Positive. There'll be at least one dye pack in the stack of bills and/or a transmitter. We don't want any part of that."

"
How do they work again?"

"
The dye packs? By radio. Once somebody takes one out of the bank, the pack picks up the bank's radio frequency. Then ten seconds later, boom. But we won't have to worry about that because I'm dumping the cash into a trash bin just outside the bank."

"
Can't you just remove them?"

She shook her head.
"They're tiny. Not like the old days. They look like just another bill in the stack. It would take too long."

"
Seems like such a waste."

She shrugged.
"The memories will be priceless. Now drink up, Bonnie, it's almost time."

I smiled. We
'd taken to calling each other by our last names lately. And it was kind of fun. Still, I was looking forward to being Tyler and Madison again.

I finished off my Bloody Mary and smacked my lips.
"Ready when you are, Clyde."

We cabbed it to midtown, getting out a few blocks away from the bank, and grabbed some coffee. We were in full costume. It was a little tricky drinking coffee with the masks on, but we
'd had enough practice to make it look natural. We stood on the sidewalk, going over the plan for the final time.

"
So you'll walk to the bank and mill around outside, waiting for me," Madison said. "Then I'll take a cab from here and tell the driver to wait while I run in."

"
Got it."

"
You follow me in and wait in the lobby. I'll get to the teller's window, pass the note, grab the loot and head outside. As soon as I exit, you start to leave, doddering like an old man. Security will probably be attempting to follow me out and you'll need to slow them down, just enough for me to hop back into the cab. I'll have the driver head downtown for a few blocks, then hit the subway and go home."

"
And I'll meet you there."

"
Correct. And then we'll celebrate."

"
You know, it's a good thing we don't live in a doorman building. The masks would be a problem."

Madison looked at her watch.
"It's time. Ready, Bonnie?"

"
Ready, Clyde."

We hugged.

"Let's do this!"

I stood in the bank, pretending to fill out a deposit slip, and watched as Madison got on line at the teller's window. This thing had become an epic dare, and she was going all the way with it. When she turned and looked at me, I tried to get a read on her eyes. It was hard to tell with her mask on, but they appeared to be calm and confident. This confirmed my feelings that she had no intention of slipping that note to the teller.

When she was next in line, I thought about making my move. I could have simply walked up to her, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her out of there. But I didn
't. Because deep down, I still believed that she wouldn't really go through with it.

She turned to me again and we stared into each other
's eyes. It was a test. We were seeing which one of us would blink first. But neither one of us blinked.

And then it was too late to blink.

It didn't seem real. Even when she passed the note, I was thinking that it wasn't the real note, that it was a fake, a deposit slip or something. Only when I saw the teller's eyes go wide did I realize that I had waited too long. I had let it happen. And now there was no turning back.

There is a definitive line between fantasy and reality, and Madison had just crossed it, something I truly believed she would never do. We were criminals now, bank robbers. For real. I could barely wrap my head around it. I felt a surge of adrenaline course through my veins, felt my knees go weak. A thousand thoughts ran jumbled through my mind.

Then I snapped out of it. Now wasn't the time to think, it was the time to act. I had a job to do. Taking a deep breath, I felt my confidence return, and it was at that moment I realized that, on some level, I had wanted Madison to go through with it. I wanted to rob a bank with her, to share the thrill of doing something that bold and daring and reckless.

I watched as the teller complied with the stick up note, sliding stacks of bills under the window into Madison
's hands. Madison picked up the cash and dropped it into her shopping bag, cool as ice. She headed towards the exit.

I saw the teller hit a button, saw her turn and say something to the teller next to her.

Then all hell broke loose.

Madison had made it to the exit, and so far the plan was working as designed. As expected, two security guards were now hustling to the door. I shuffled like an old man into their path, and one of them nearly knocked me down. From behind me I heard a w
oman scream. I had no idea why.

Until I saw the gun.

It wasn't the security guard's gun. It was in the hand of a man, a bystander.

"
I'm a police officer!" the man shouted as he ran to the door and pointed the gun towards Madison, who was climbing into the cab.

Everything was happening in slow motion. The man with the gun had assumed a firing stance. It appeared as though he was going to shoot Madison in the back. I couldn
't let that happen. "No!" I screamed as I lunged at him, reaching out and knocking his gun hand away.

A shot rang out.

A security guard fell.

My ears were ringing. Blue smoke hung in the air. There was blood on th
e floor. People were screaming.

It was all over.

The case didn't go to trial. There was no point. No lawyer, no matter how expensive, could have saved us from the mess we were in. In addition to bank robbery, we'd been hit with a murder charge. Despite neither of us being armed, a man was killed during the commission of a felony, and Madison and I were on the hook for it.

The federal prosecutor had wanted the death p
enalty. We plea-bargained it down to life in prison.

Lucky us, right?

We're serving out our sentences at a pair of federal penitentiaries, me at Allenwood in Pennsylvania, Madison at Hazelton in West Virginia. The prisons are only about 250 miles apart, but it may as well be a million miles.

I still love Madison. I love her more than anything in this world. And I don
't blame her for what happened. Sure, it was her idea. But I had enabled her to see it through. I was supposed to have been the failsafe, the lifeline, but I had failed to act. I got caught up in the romance of it, and let it happen. And now an innocent man was dead, and there was nothing either one of us could do or say that would bring him back.

The news media had a field day with the story: a young, successful power couple named Bonnie and Clyde attempting to rob a bank
with tragic results. They'll probably make a movie about it someday. But I wouldn't want to see it. Because that movie, the real one, plays in my head over and over again, day after day, whether I want it to or not.

Prison is pretty much what you
'd expect. It's harsh at times, but mostly just boring. I have a lot of time to think—nothing but time, in fact—and I often think back to that dinner date at Le Bernardin.

"
La puissance du destin
," Madison had said.

The power of fate.

She believed that we were destined to be the opposite of Bonnie and Clyde. But what we both failed to realize was that, in a way, we already were. As successful business people, we were putting money into banks, legally, not taking it out illegally. Maybe if I had seen that then, I could have made the argument and squashed this thing right then and there. But I didn't see it then. I see it now. But now's too late.