Shallow breath now, he told himself, and drew oxygen slowly. The odor of wildflowers, as beside him his brother shifted his bouquet from one hand to the other, was overpowering. The bank opened away from his face like a tremendous bell to be kept absolutely silent. Every surface was capable of ringing.
James had walked past these windows many times in recent weeks, on the other side of the glass, and had thought himself familiarized. But he hadn’t been prepared, somehow, for the largeness of it all, for the insignificance of the people surrounding them, as if this great chamber with its oversized plants and tall, thin fountain of water had been constructed for a race of monsters. He wanted to detain his partners, invite them to get a sense of the place. But it was too late. It was already in progress. Bill Houston went past the high semicircular security desk, the elderly guard elevated by some means — perhaps on a platform-without looking at the man. James was happy with the calm manner in which his brother laid out his flowers on one of the check-writing counters and folded his hands over the package, staring forward at the row of tellers’ windows. Dwight moved to the officers’ area in the rear and, his back to the several desks where a few men and women pored over figures or chatted with customers seeking favors, he put his left hand to the buttons of his Hawaiian print shirt.
James went deliberately to the guard’s C-shaped desk and leaned against it, putting his right: hand at belt-level beneath the hem of his shirt, fingers brushing the Ruger’s grip. The guard, immaculate, silver-haired, and gentlemanly, looked down at James through pale grey eyes, and it seemed to James that they looked straight into each other’s minds, that both of them understood completely the requirements and parameters of this situation. He’d been about to speak inconsequentially — this the bank that gives toasters? don’t I know you from Thursday bowling? — and chat till the signal came down. But now he saw the understanding in this person’s eyes and froze completely: he knows. He knows; he’s going to draw out on me; goddamn it, Dwight, let me see the nod or I’ll start this thing myself—
Dwight nodded once. The weapons came out.
Dwight called out clearly, “Ladies and gentlemen: your money is my money.”
James put the Ruger up against the guard’s nose Bill Houston raised the shotgun high to advertise his power and cried, “We want everything completely quiet!”—although no one had said a word or made a noise of any kind. The single audible sound was the action of water on water as the oblivious fountain ceaselessly fell into its pool — a sound all mixed up with the crashing of blood in James’s arteries, his pulse so urgent he could feel it in the palm of his hand where he gripped the revolver. Most of those present — there were no more than a dozen customers this morning, some in the tellers’ line, a couple at the counters, two or three at the desks with the bank’s officers-found some reason to look away, not yet understanding that they represented hazard to these bandits and would be required to move. One man went on writing in his checkbook next to the torn green wrappings of the bouquet, a multi-hued assortment of wildflowers scattered at his feet, his head lowered — ignoring the armed man who stood with feet braced apart not two yards from his elbow — refusing any connection with this mysterious and violent event.
They were in it.
In the rear, Dwight was briefly manhandling the chiefest officer available, speaking too softly for James to hear. Bill Houston covered the tellers and intervening customers. James pressed the Ruger into the guard’s face, making him smell the stainless steeclass="underline" as soon as the money came out he would have to come around and disarm the man, and then take tellers one and two. Between James and Bill were customers who could not be said to be thoroughly neutralized. They were thin — they had known they’d be thin — but it meant as much as ten thousand dollars each to take the bank without a fourth gun.
Dwight was speaking now: “All right, we’re in Phase Two, control and movement.” To the tellers: “I want no alarms.” To the officers: “I want no alarms.” To the tellers: “I want drawers open. I want money stacked. I want no alarms.” Pointing to the vault behind the officers, he said, “You see that vault there? I want that vault cleaned of cash in three minutes. You, and you, will clean that vault of cash in three minutes. Begin now. All others in this area: on your hands and knees, crawl immediately to the tellers’ area over here to my right. Move now. Hands and knees.” As tellers, officers and customers began doing as they’d been told, he chanted at five-second intervals: “I want no alarms, I want no marked bills. I want no alarms, I want no marked bills.”
The money was coming out. James wanted to check the clock above the tellers’ area, but knew better. He watched the guard’s face as he moved slowly around the desk to accomplish the man’s disarming. And the face was scary. It was smooth and framed with silver hair and absolutely crimson. The grey, nearly white eyes were sightless — he was having some kind of fit, perhaps.
Burris felt his was the hardest job — to watch helplessly from the car.
For the first moments after James had drawn out on the guard, only James and Bill Junior were visible to Burris. And then Dwight came up from the rear of the establishment, herding together some people and putting them down onto the floor, holding aloft the German machine pistol like something he wanted to keep above a rising flood.
The scene appeared to Burris as a moving diagram flattened out against the window, a vision revealing the weak spots in their plan. It was a big bank. As Dwight moved forward, Bill Houston was left to secure nearly half its area by himself. James’s firepower was nullified; he was useless until the guard could be disarmed. In the recesses of the place, where Burris’s vision couldn’t penetrate, men were cleaning the vault virtually without supervision. Burris had been prepared to endure unexpected calamity — a cop might arrive to cash his paycheck, a self-armed citizen might open fire in defense of his savings — but to witness how tenuous was their command of the bank and its customers, to know that almost any degree of resistance would be uncontainable, would ruin everything, would plunge them into chaos — it made him want to run inside and start shooting people. It was fake! This was bunko! They were bluffing here, they intended to create an impression of strength and get away with money by intimidation. We’re not going to make it, he thought. We can’t handle the least go-wrong. Save myself, save myself. This is crazy!
And now their operation did in fact appear to be going crazy. He heard popping noises from inside the bank and saw James, coming around behind the guard’s desk to take his gun, abruptly moving backwards, as if jerked by the belt. The guard was standing up now, and because of the elevation of his desk — designed to give him a sweeping view of the bank, to make him the most powerful figure in it — he seemed taller than a natural man. In his hand he held a black revolver, and the expression on his face was definite and clear to Burris as he fired again, wounding James somewhere in his abdomen. His face was tight and pale, almost the color of his silver hair. James fell backward, and Burris could no longer find his brother in the view.