Bank Robbers (33 page)

“Come on! Step forward. Step forward, you damned coward!” Dottie challenged.

They were silent. Teresa looked stunned.

After a moment, Dottie grabbed Teresa's hand and turned.

“Who are
you?
” a voice called belligerently.

Dottie turned back.

“I am Dorothy O'Malley Weist, that's who.”

“Are you a relative of Mrs. Newhouse?” a female voice shouted from inside the press ranks.

“No,” Teresa spoke up. “This woman sent the lawyer for me.”

There was a collective “Huh?” And Dottie watched the pads rise, pencils and pens poised.

“You hired the lawyer? Are you a friend?”

“Yes, I am.” Teresa looked at Dottie, whose face remained angry.

Scratch, scratch, scratch, went pencils and pens.

“So,” a voice began, and Dottie searched for a face to match the voice. “How do you feel, now that it's come out she lied? Do you feel like you've been duped for your generosity, Ms. Weist?”

“No! Absolutely not,” Dottie answered, blinking incredulously.

“But she lied—”

“God, is that all you are concerned with? I hired her a lawyer because I knew that she was broke and I knew she wouldn't have the money for one. I also knew that her pride wouldn't let her ask for one. It's like that when you get to be our age and you can't feed yourself. You should think about it sometime, maybe even write about it.”

“What exactly were your reasons for confessing to this crime, Mrs. Newhouse?”

Teresa stared at Dottie, grimacing.

“I … I got a lump in my breast, and I don't have any money or medical insurance.”

“Aren't you eligible for Medicaid?” a tall man with curly brown hair challenged.

“Oh, sure!” Teresa smirked. “You ever tried to deal with them? My husband was dying from cancer, and they gave us a hard time about painkillers, for Christ's sake. I couldn't get anyone on the phone—you know, if you have AIDS, Medicaid has seven numbers you could call. You got a lump in your breast, and they don't got one number you can call. So I went to the office. And when I went down there to ask if I could get an experimental procedure for this thing—”

“What procedure?”

“It's a way they can just radiate the lump and not cut your whole breast off. It might not seem like much to you, but it is if you got the breast they're gonna cut off.”

“And what happened?”

“They threw me out on the street.”

“So, why'd you confess?” another voice asked.

“So I could go to jail. Because they gotta take care of you when you're in jail, they gotta feed you, they gotta clothe you, and they gotta get you good medical care, and you don't have to go and beg. It seems like in this country, except for being in the army, jail is the only time the government
gotta
take care of you. Being honest don't matter, being a good citizen don't matter. But if you're a criminal—”

“But you're not. You didn't do the crime.”

“So?” Dottie cut in. “She's like millions of American women in this country today, and whether I committed it or she committed it, or some woman in Brooklyn committed it, it doesn't matter. What matters is that someone wake up. We better start fixing this. And we better start fixing it fast. Because you're
all
going to be this age one day—that means you and you and you—you're all going to be in this position one day, and there are going be even more senior citizens and most of them are going to be women. And maybe, like her, those women didn't work in some fancy job that gave them a nice fat pension and nice expensive medical coverage, and then what? How the hell are they supposed to survive? You think anyone hires people our age? Would your newspaper hire me? Go on, give me a name, I'll call,” Dottie said to the tall reporter with the brown hair. He looked down at his pad.

“Oh, no! We don't discriminate, but … and if you think she's just going to die soon, or I am going to, think again. We're not dying at sixty-three or sixty-five anymore. I read in your paper I'm most likely to die at seventy-eight. That's twenty more years, and my mother died a full ten years after that! Teresa contributed just as much as the cop on the beat, as the fireman down the block.”

“Yeah, like what?” the reporter asked.

“Teresa contributed two full-fledged taxpayers, Charlie, that's what she contributed. That has to be good for at least twenty grand a year for the government. But because that job has no official title or paycheck stub or pension fund, the system can't measure it, so they treat us like we have no value. Well, it doesn't mean that her life has no value. It is the Teresas of this country that keep it going. She raised two good, strong children, she bought from stores in this city, she bought American, she paid her taxes, and she wanted something back. She
deserves
something back. So no, I am not upset because she didn't do it.”

There was silence for a moment.

“Is this true?”

Teresa stared at the reporter and her eyes narrowed.

“What? You don't believe that things could get this bad out here for women like me? I saw a straw, I grabbed it, and I'd do it again. I got no money, I got no insurance, and no one out there is listening.”

Dottie and Teresa locked arms and began to push their way through the reporters.

“Would you testify in Washington to what you've just said?” a voice asked, and Teresa turned around.

“Testify to who?”

“The Senate's holding hearings on the plight of senior citizens next month in Washington,” the tall, curly-haired reporter said.

“Mister, I would tell this to the president's face if I thought any of them in Washington would listen. But they just say it's too complicated for them to do anything about. You know what I think? I think if
their
wives and their daughters and their mothers didn't have no coverage, things would get uncomplicated pretty fast.”

Teresa and Dottie, their arms still linked, stared at them all. Silently, the circle opened up, and with great dignity the two women walked through the throng.

Arthur grinned and held the door open, first for Teresa, then for Dottie. They began their drive back to Rye.

“So, how about Hawaii?” Arthur asked, glancing at Dottie.

“After you give me my money,” Teresa piped up.

Dottie and Arthur turned around and stared at her.

“But they dropped the charges—”

“Only until they either get that other woman, or”—Teresa gave a big smile—“until they find out if I'm shielding anybody.”

Dottie's eyes narrowed. “You are just—”

“Aw, come on! What do I got now? I got nothing. I got no place to live, I got this damn lump—”

“Monday you go to a doctor, a real doctor. We'll take care of that.”

“Uh-huh, so you'll help me with this breast thing, get me all cured, and for what? Then what am I gonna do?”

Dottie looked perplexed for a moment and then a grin spread across her face.

“Like the man said: Let's go to Washington, Teresa.”

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Wiseguys in Love

BANK ROBBERS
. Copyright © 1995 by C. Clark Criscuolo. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

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First Edition: February 1995

eISBN 9781466889477

First eBook edition: December 2014