Dog Day Afternoon (24 page)

“That’s fucking it!” he growled. He knew why he was angry. He knew they were right, that he had to sell out Sam if he wanted to live.

“Fuck-anything stud shit!” Lana spat at him. “Who do you think you are?” Her eyes looked wild, circled with black and wildly flickering lashes. “You think I would really associate with such unreal cheap stuff as you? Do you think that’s all I’ve got to do is dirty myself with rough trade like you, baby? I tolerate you. To-le-rate,” she drawled nastily. “You’re like an insane roach I let live today. I might step on it tomorrow. That’s you, baby. A murderous little Polack roach. You’ve tried killing me before. I’m lucky to be alive. Well, you don’t get another chance at killing me, cheapie. Dragging my name and my body into your cheap little tricks with Sam. Keep me out of it!” Her voice suddenly zoomed into an upper register. She wrenched her arm out of his grip. “You scum! You unreal scum!” She turned and ran across the street, hobbling unsteadily on her platforms.

“Faaa-guht!”

“Fag-got, fag-got, fag-got!”

22

W
hen he walked back into the bank, Joe saw that Marge had turned on the TV set and was trying to make it light up, forgetting there was no electricity. The lobby was thick with heat now, heat and the moisture of people inhaling and exhaling.

Joe stood for a moment with his back to the door, surveying them. They were lighted like actors on a stage caught in the glare of spotlights, or circus clowns pinpointed under the big top by a few hot beams.

Unreal, Lana had said. Everything was turning unreal. And she, who had always been some kind of acted-out wet dream, was as unreal as the rest of it. To think that it was all resting on his shoulders, Littlejoe mused. To think that soon enough they’d all be dead, or rich and free.

He shook his head, realizing that the chances of ending up dead were a lot better than of ending up rich. The telephone started to ring. He let it. He had no more heart for the kind of calls he’d been getting in the past few hours.

The man who wanted him to kill the hostages was bad enough, but there were others, people in bars who wanted to chat, a Jesus freak who had a lot of meaningless crap to unload, Ellen’s husband, who wanted her to say good night to the baby, now and then a call from Moretti, TV reporters, everybody wanting something. It was as if by robbing a bank he had somehow set up a booth with a sign that said:

WANT SOMETHING
?
NOW
’
S THE TIME TO GET IT.

Whatever you wanted was yours, even if it was just to act out a fantasy of torturing and killing helpless people, or, in the case of Ellen’s husband, to get one-up on her, make her feel like shit because she’d been careless enough to get caught in a robbery.

“He’s always hated me working,” Ellen had said forlornly as she hung up the telephone after telling her baby to sleep tight.

“He’s always after me not to work, how does it look to the neighbors, how can the baby grow up without a mother, all that. As if the neighbors’ wives don’t work. You know? He lives in some kind of dream world, my husband, where it’s okay to live on the money I earn while he’ll be looking for work, but any time he can stick it in and twist it a little, he does.”

Sam had finally led her away to stop her from talking, her big eyes wide not with anger or hatred but with vision. Right, Littlejoe told himself. Even for her this is a surprise treat. She’s in danger of having her brains ventilated, but the danger gives her the power to see her life. Christ, the whole city ought to take up a collection for me. I’m giving them the chance of a lifetime.

The telephone kept ringing. Boyle reached for it. “Okay, Joe?” he asked.

Joe watched him for a moment. The guy was still playing the game, still pretending that if he was a good little hostage nobody’d get hurt. “Play manager. Answer it.”

“Boyle speaking.” Eyes up. Eyes right. “Yes, Sergeant.” He handed the telephone to Littlejoe.

“Got the million?” Joe said by way of greeting.

“I called to say good-bye,” Moretti responded.

“We’re leaving? Good.”

“I’m leaving,” the detective explained. “You wanted to deal on the federal level, Joe, you got your wish. From now on, it’s between you and Mr. Baker of the FBI.”

“Hey, hold it,” Joe snapped. “I wan—”

“Joe Nowicki?” Baker’s voice.

“Put Moretti back on the line.”

“You want to talk,” Baker said, “you talk to me.”

Littlejoe felt his face constrict in a movement of disgust. He’d disliked Moretti, but they’d been able to talk on the same level. Even now, at the beginning, he could feel that Baker was dealing down to him from on high. “I got nothing to talk about.”

“Can anyone hear what I’m saying?” Baker asked. “Is anyone on an extension line?”

“No. Is anybody eavesdropping on your end, Feebie?”

“This is just between the two of us, then.”

“The two of us,” Joe agreed, “and your tape recorder.”

“It’s something Sam must not hear,” Baker explained. “This is for your ears only. I’m offering you your life, Nowicki. I’m offering to handle your sidekick for you. Just do what I say and there’ll be no problems.”

“You gotta be out of your shit-eating mind.”

“Don’t say anything the other man will find suspicious,” Baker warned him. “We’ve got your million in cash. It arrived in the past ten minutes. We’ve got your jet. It’s fueled and crewed and waiting on a separate runway all its own at JFK. When I come across the street to tell you this—” He broke off. “Are you getting this?”

“I been lied to by experts. Keep talking.”

“When I come across the street to tell you this, officially,” Baker repeated almost by rote, “you will be hearing it for the first time. You’ll confer with Sam. You’ll convince him this is it. You’ll agree to the deal and we’ll bring in an airport limo Caddy. We’ll park it at the curb in front of the bank. Got that?”

“I’m listening.”

“The order of leaving the bank is as follows. Boyle comes out first with one woman behind him. You’re all in lockstep. Then you. Then two women. Then Sam. Understand? Sam is the last one out. The rest of it doesn’t matter, Nowicki. Just that Sam is the last one in the line. Then you move into the car on the side next to the bank. There are six of you. It’ll be a little crowded in back, because only five can sit there. You take your time getting into the car. We do the rest.”

“What rest?”

“That’s our business. The less you know, the less you have to worry about.”

“It don’t take no genius to figure out the plan.”

“I warned you,” Baker said. “Don’t say something to arouse his suspicions.”

Littlejoe stood there in silence for a long moment. They’d pick off Sam. Some sniper would get him without too much trouble. And if the first shot didn’t take and Sam could still work his .45 Colt automatic, there would be a few more bodies. That was the Feebie way. You relied on experts. No problems. But even experts don’t bat .1000, so there are mistakes. Sorry about that. Doing the best we can. Beautiful.

But there was a way Baker’s plan could be turned against him. He wasn’t God. Even
his
plans had loopholes.

“You still there?” Baker demanded.

“I’m thinking.”

“You’re taking too long. It’s a simple decision, Nowicki. You trade Sam for everybody else, including yourself.”

“Tell me some more about the jet out at JFK. Or is that just bullshit.”

“Damn it!” Baker shouted. “I told you not to get him riled up.”

“Let me handle this. I asked you a question.”

“There’s a plane,” Baker admitted grudgingly. “It exists. It’s fueled and staffed and cleared for takeoff to Casablanca.”

“Casa what?”

“Isn’t that where you wanted to go?”

Joe paused again. Let them think whatever they want. But how could he believe Baker about the plane? “Put Moretti on the line.”

“I told you, I’m—”

“Put him on,” Joe insisted. “You can listen in.”

There were confused sounds over the wire. Then: “What is it, Joe?”

“Moretti, he says the plane’s ready to take off. Why don’t I believe him?”

A silence at the other end. Littlejoe wiped beads of sweat off his face. He turned to Sam. “I think we’re home free, baby,” he whispered.

Sam’s face, wet with perspiration, brightened. His grave eyes looked almost happy for a moment. “No shit, Littlejoe?”

“Maybe. Hey, Moretti, what’s taking so long?”

“Just getting the details. Yeah, it’s real, the plane. They’re charging the Department eighteen grand each way, rental and fuel. That’s real enough. The crew volunteered their time.”

“That on the level?”

“On the level. If you think this is going to earn me that lieutenant’s bar,” Moretti went on slowly, “you got another think coming.”

“And the cash?”

Another moment of confused noise. Suddenly, Lana’s voice, squeaking with excitement. “It’s here, baby. I mean, like, unreal, in tens and twenties.”

Baker’s voice followed at once. “No more playing around, Nowicki. We can skip the official parley on the street. Just confer with your buddy and give me the word now.”

“I’ll call you back.” Joe hung up the telephone.

The people in the lobby looked soggy, tired beyond normal fatigue. Sam’s crisp ice-cream suit had started to soften into mashed potatoes. He had begun by looking elegant and sad. Now he looked messed-up and happy.

All of them look like shit, Joe thought, and so do I, probably. This kind of caper took a lot out of you, starting with the starch.

He began to crave solitude. Too many people had been pressed up against him much too close for too long now. He wanted to be absolutely alone.

It wasn’t just today, it was forever. First his mother, Flo, with her demands, entering his life like some huge tapeworm, curled up inside him sucking goodies from what he ate, wanting to know every little corner of his life, meet all his friends. Flo had a shit life of her own, so it was easy to see why she wanted to live Joe’s for him. Okay, granted. But then there was Tina, slopping her meat all over him, drowning him, demanding, taking, swallowing even the air he was trying to breathe.

And now Lana, a cunt like the rest. No matter what kind of shit she dumped over your head, she was always ready to snuggle in under your armpit and gnaw away at the ribmeat. She was as phony as the rest of them, maybe worse, because she hadn’t been born that way. She’d sort of molded herself into being that way, and, boy, she could show the real women a trick or two, huh? A trick or two in the “gimme” department? Shit, yes.

And now there was Sam, pressing in on him. Using this whole caper for what he wanted out of it, like a vampire sucking it dry. Money, yeah. But the chance to kill even more so.

Christ, these were all sickies. He didn’t want any of them on his back. Lana was finished. No more Lana. She had just fallen off the earth, and good luck to her. Sam?

Baker could take Sam off his back, Joe mused. But Sam betrayed was going to be even harder to handle than the way he was now, trusting and obedient.

“Well,” Littlejoe began. “Here it is. They wheel up a Caddy and we lockstep into it. We’re zipped out to the airport and the plane is waiting to go. Sam, you and I take the loot and Ellen. We board the plane. We take off. She’s our good-conduct pass for the whole trip. Sorry about that,” he added to the girl. “But you already told your kid good night. So you’ll be back tomorrow sometime. With a bonus from the bank. And a bunch of red roses. And two weeks off to rest up. And maybe a deal from the newspapers and TV to pay for your experiences. So, like everybody else in this deal, you’re coming out smelling like a rose. Whadya say, Sam?”

“I say let’s go.”

“One thing.”

“Huh?”

“We’re leaving Lana behind,” Littlejoe said.

Sam’s cupid mouth opened and closed. Then: “Man, you don’t know how happy that makes me.”

“I figured.”

Joe picked up the telephone. But before he could dial, Sam’s voice cut across his thoughts. “Christ, Littlejoe. It’s your old lady!”

Joe turned to stare into the hot searchlights. There was some sort of commotion across the street. Two cops were trying to hold Flo, who was struggling to get free. “Aw, shit!” Joe yelled. “Put Ellen up front in the window, Sam. Hold the fucking gun against her. Keep your eye on me.”

He dashed out the front door. A dozen muzzles zeroed in on his face, his heart, his abdomen. He stopped in his tracks at the curb. “Get her outa here!” he called across the street.

“Fag-got, fag-got, fag-got!”

Joe could feel the animal under his heart stir dangerously. He whirled on the crowd. “Shut up, you motherfuckers!”

“Faaa-guht!”

“Once more!” Joe screamed, “and the girl dies!”

Moretti was running toward him, holding a bullhorn. He reached the center stripe. “Quiet, you people !” His voice thundered down the street. “A woman will die if you don’t shut up!”

The bullhorn’s amplified voice echoed from the sides of the buildings.

“Fag-got, fag-got, fag-got!”

“Quiet!” Moretti shouted. “Quiet down! No more shouting!”

He waved the cops forward. “Shut ’em up!”