The Crossroads (11 page)

She looked sulky and pleading. “It wouldn’t be robbing a bank, exactly. And it would be easy. For us.”

“For me, don’t you mean?”

“Well … you’d have to do the only dangerous part.”

He reached for his cigarettes, noticing that his hand was shaking. Again she was waiting for him to ask. Again he felt as if it would be a further commitment. But he had to ask.

“Honey, you better explain this
easy
method of yours.”

She took one of his cigarettes and he lighted it. He leaned on his elbow. She lay facing him, a sheaf of her black hair partially masking one eye.

“Well … he puts money in the safety deposit box once a month. When he gets his check. Chip takes him to the bank and waits for him. Papa takes a long time. Chip kids him about counting it all every time. There’s a counter near the vault door. That’s where you sign to go in. Past the counter, off to the right, is a room where the little stalls are, where you take your box and shut yourself in and clip coupons or count money or whatever. You can’t see into that room from the front desk or the vault. And there are never very many people going and coming.”

“How do you know all this, honey?”

“Oh, just hearing people talk. Thinking about it.”

“You’re some thinker. Keep talking.”

“Well, suppose you changed to the night shift. Then you get all dressed up and go rent a box in the bank. And then you go there pretty often to get into your box. And you take a sort of little suitcase with you. And you spend a lot of time there every time you go. So they’d get used to you.”

“So they’d remember me real good.”

“And I can find out just when Chip is going to take
Papa to the bank, say, in July. I know he drives up and gets him. With Pete’s binoculars I can see Papa’s cottage plain. When I see them leave, with Papa dressed up for the bank, I call your rooming house. Then you go to the bank. So you’ll be in one of those cubicles when Papa comes along, if you were like in the first cubicle, you could step out behind him and hit him on the head.”

“Fine. Hit him on the head. This is a real B-picture, baby.”

“You could put him in one of those little booths like and shut him in and put the money in the suitcase. You could put your own box back in the vault and just … walk out to your car. I could be in my car somewhere where we planned to meet. It would be a long time before they would get worried about Papa.”

“Maybe a half-hour. Sure.”

“And a long time before they made any connection between you and Papa. Maybe never. He wouldn’t see you.”

“How about Chip? He’d see me.”

“If you sort of changed yourself maybe he wouldn’t know you … all dressed up. We could either … run away then, or hide the money and run away later, darling.”

He stared at her, “You kill me. You really do. Who the hell would think anything like that was going on in that little head?”

“I guess I’ve just been thinking about it.”

“Get it out of your mind. I’m not bashing any old guy on his bald head, honey.”

He turned the light out and pulled her into his arms. She pushed him away violently.

“Now what?”

“If we can’t run away together, then we better stop this. Now.”

“When you first give me the word at the station, you wouldn’t have been looking for a fall guy, would you, Sylvia? Somebody with muscles. And somebody … I’ll tell you something you don’t know … somebody who’s had a little cop trouble in the past.”

“Of course not, darling. No. Don’t touch me.”

“Chrissake,” he said sullenly. He lay on his back looking up at the invisible ceiling.

“It wouldn’t be like robbing a bank …”

“Shut up.”

“If somebody was … too close, you could wait until August. Or September. It’s worth waiting for.”

After a long time he said, “How much you think is there?”

“I don’t know, darling. Pete thinks he’s put in about eighteen thousand dollars a year for eight years, and probably ten thousand a year for five or six years before that. In fifties and hundreds.”

“Quarter of a million,” he said softly. Jackpot.

“There wouldn’t be any fight. He’s so old.”

“Honey, I don’t like this kind of talk. It makes me feel sweaty. It makes my head feel funny. I don’t like this stuff.”

“We’d be together for always,” she said.

“I’d like that, honey,” he said. My friend, we will be together until it’s safe to ditch you.

After a long time he said, “I never wear a hat.”

“What?”

“I’d look different in a hat. And with cotton stuffed in my cheeks. That changes a guy a lot. Changes his voice too.”

“You can make up any name you want when you rent a box. The bank doesn’t care.”

“What bank is it?”

“The Walterburg Bank and Trust.”

“I’ve never been in it.”

When he reached for her she pushed his arm away.

“Listen,” he said angrily, “do I have to tell you right now I’ll do it? It’s a big deal. I’ve got to think it out. I can’t just up and say yes, honey, I’ll steal a quarter million bucks for you.”

“You don’t have to say that. You just have to say you’ll think about it. Hard.”

“I’ll do that. But if I go on a night shift, what’s going to happen to us? That’ll spoil the fun.”

“Won’t it be worth waiting for, darling?” she said,
sliding over against him, her breath hot on his throat, her hands on his body.

“I’ll think about it.”

“That’s all you have to do, darling. So far.”

And he stopped thinking of anything but Pete Drovek’s wife. But her mind was free to wander. Her responses were mechanical. She was only partially aware of Glenn. Up until this moment she had not believed that she could force Glenn or any man to do something he did not want to do. It gave her a curious and not distasteful sense of power. She wondered how Mark had known that Glenn was the one who would agree. Because she knew he would agree. And he would do it. Mark had been right. She felt terrible about Papa Drovek. But he would be all right. As Mark explained, he was a tough old man. This was just a little bump on the head. And it wasn’t as if you were taking his last dollar. What did such an old man need with so much cash?

She was a small lonely boat, adrift amid Glenn’s turbulence, shaping itself, without thought or interest, to the dimensions of the sea. She wished everything was the way it used to be back in another life. So vivid was the yearning for the damp dirty studios, the hot glare of floods and spots, the soiled chromium sky over Manhattan, that when Glenn collapsed gasping against her, his heart galloping, this time and place were less real than her memories. She could not understand how she had arrived at this untenable place, victimized by Mark, used by Glenn, tolerated by Pete. She was badly frightened of what was ahead. But fright was spiced by excitement. She knew she was being Bad. But she did not know how to find her way back to being Good, was not certain, in fact, that she would wholeheartedly take that path back if she could find it.

On Monday, a day of intermittent misty rain with a low gray silent sky, Chip drove into Walterburg with Papa Drovek, in one of the two Ford station wagons that belonged to the corporation. He parked in the bank lot beyond the drive-in windows and they walked quickly
through the rain and into the bank through the side door. Papa wore his shiny dark-blue suit, his sturdy black thick-soled shoes, a white shirt, a bright blue tie pulled into a tiny knot, and an old-fashioned gray felt hat with a wide brim and a rather high crown set squarely on his head. As soon as he was inside the bank, as always, he took his hat off as though entering a church.

Chip looked at his watch. “Papa, I’ve got this meeting about the car agency. I don’t think it will last too long. Just signing papers and so on. When you get your business done, you can sit and wait over there if I’m not ready.”

“Hokay,” Papa said cheerfully. He took his check to Mr. Julius’ window. There was a short line.

“Good morning, Mr. Drovek. Gloomy day, isn’t it?”

“Is nice a little rain sometime.”

“How would you like this, sir?”

“I tink five tens and all the rest fifty this time.”

Mr. Julius had to go to another teller to get more fifties. He slapped the slim banded pack down, then counted out nine more fifties and five tens with deft briskness. Papa loved to watch Mr. Julius count out money.

“Tank you so much,” he said, smiling broadly.

“You’re welcome, Mr. Drovek.”

Papa carefully put the money, all but the tens, in the inside pocket of his blue jacket as he walked toward the safety deposit vault. He stopped at the counter, put the five tens in a bulky old wallet, and took his box key out of his pocket. The pleasant-faced, white-haired woman greeted him with a smile. “Good morning, Mr. Drovek.”

“Good morning, Mrs. Packer. Is nice a little rain like this.”

“Yes, it is.” He followed her into the vault. She took his key and her key and unlocked the box door, Papa pulled the long box out and walked out of the vault and turned left, into a room with a narrow aisle, a soft rug, pleasant lighting, booths on either side. He went into one of the smaller booths, put his hat and his safety deposit box down on the counter, turned and closed the door,
sat in one of the two straight chairs and sighed with pleasure. It was very nice here. Very comfortable.

He took the money out of his pocket, ripped the band off the fifties, put them all together and counted them slowly and carefully three times, licking his thumb from time to time. Then he opened the box.

“Hooo!” he said softly. He took all the packages of bills out and stacked them on the counter. They were fat packages, bound tightly with thick red rubber bands. Inside the center band of each package was a piece of the scratch paper supplied in each booth with the amount printed on it in Papa’s strong angular hand. He counted the completed packages carefully, muttering the total to himself. He said the grand total more loudly, “Two hundert seventy-two tousand.”

And now he had enough fifties to make up a new package and have a few left over. He counted out one hundred fifties carefully, checked it twice, took three heavy red rubber bands from his side pocket and snapped them firmly and tightly around the stack. He wrote $5000 on a piece of scratch paper, wedged it under the center band.

“Two hundert seventy-seven tousand,” he mumbled. “Hoooo!”

There were twelve fifties left over. He repacked the box tightly and carefully and put the twelve fifties in loose. “Two hundert seventy-seven tousand six hundert.” He shut the box and patted it.

He sat for a little while and estimated when he would arrive at tree hundert tousand. Maybe one year from September. If he could live so long. He wanted to live that long. He wished he could listen when they read the will. After the tax money was taken out, the rest would go into a trust fund. The income from that would go to each grandchild, divided equally among them as they reached twenty-one. They would have that income for all their lives. And when the last grandchild died, so long a time from now, maybe seventy or eighty years, the income would go to college scholarships for smart poor kids born in Walterburg County. Ah, the hand of Anton Drovek would reach far into the future.

“Hooo!” he said again. He got up and picked up his box and hat, aligned the two chairs neatly and left the booth.

Chip’s meeting ended at noon. Everything was signed and in order. Once the building was completed, the Crossroads Corporation would enter into an agreement with the Paris Realty Corporation for them to manage the property and collect the rental.

Papa was sitting on a bench over by the front windows, his hat on his knees, looking placid, patient and amiable.

He got up as Chip approached and said, “Is everything work out good?”

“Just fine, Papa. How about you and me having a good lunch here in town?”

“But home it cost us nearly nutting, Charlie,” he said, looking alarmed.

“Come on, you old miser. What are you going to do with all your money?”

As they walked toward the car Papa said, “Maybe sometime I spend it all on young girl. Nice fat one, hey, Charlie?”

On that same Monday, the twenty-fifth day of June, Glenn Lawrenz was having a strange day. Ever since he had awakened, he had been marveling at what had happened. That crazy Sylvia! Dreaming the whole thing up. Wanting him to actually go ahead with it and run away with her. She’s nuts about you, ole Glenn. A lot of others have been, too, but nothing quite as tasty as that little chunk. The more she takes off, the better she looks.

You got to play this cool, boy. Kid her along. Let her really believe you’re going to go ahead with that damn fool operation. Otherwise she cuts off the candy supply.

She’s lost her damn mind.

Funny how little you ever know about what the other guy is thinking.

He went through the motions of his job, moving with the deceptive bustle that kept Marty fooled. That right front tire looks soft, sir. Brush it out for you, ma’am? You’ll want to go east on 82, sir. Go straight through the
underpass and take a right. The Pantry, one half mile south on this side, is a good place for lunch, ladies. It could use a quart, sir. Coke machine is right over there, honey. That’ll be five fifty even, sir. Men’s room around on the left, sonny.
She’s lost her damn mind
. Let me mark the map here for you, ma’am. Your left tail pipe is loose, mister.
Lost her mind
. You can get a good balance and alignment job down at Truck Haven, sir, beyond the underpass on your left. Yes, sir, you can cut through the middle strip there.
Gone crazy
. It’s because you threw your fan belt, lady. Lucky you didn’t burn the engine up.

He wished he could stop thinking about it. Every time he thought about it he got the same feeling in his gut that he used to have before the football game started way back in Oklahoma, before he got thrown out of school for slugging that sarcastic little chemistry teacher.

Okay, so it wasn’t because it was against the law. It was because it was too damn dangerous. Like in Mobile, when he and Ritz and Dud had knocked off that all-night drugstore. Sixty-eight bucks. Twenty-two sixty-six apiece in exchange for risking a five-year rap for armed robbery. A sucker’s racket. This was the best deal. Play the angles. Pump a buck’s worth into an out-of-state drunk, pocket two and ring up one and send him on his way thinking he’s got his three dollars’ worth of high test. Dig for the loose tip every chance you get. One little angle was always good for a quick buck. Say they give you a ten for a two-buck purchase. Run out with eight ones in a big hurry, shove seven at them and drop one beside the car door. If they yelp you say woops, I dropped one. Here you are, ma’am. If they don’t, you’ve got your shoe over it when they drive away. So tie a shoelace. Works best on the island furthest from the station. On the other side of the car. Work that twice a shift and it’s twelve bucks a week free and safe.