Polk thought about the billboard he’d seen. “That why your police don’t even carry a gun?”
“The chief? Well, he don’t really need to.”
“Kind of odd, don’t you think?”
“Not for Bibby. The chief used to be the guard, over to our bank? At least until the bank realized it didn’t really need a guard. Seemed a shame to have Harry — that’s his name, ‘Harry’ — be out of a job, so we kind of voted him police chief. Only he don’t have that much chiefing to do, since he don’t have any officers under him. But somebody’s got to process the paperwork those folks over to Austin make us file, and that keeps Harry just real busy.”
Polk sipped his coffee, but he was really tasting all this information. A police chief without a gun or other officers, a bank without a guard. And himself, Polk Greshen, sitting here with a broke-down stolen car, a passing need for money, and a nine mil’ under his tank-top. Omens. Omens just everywhere you looked.
He said, “Sounds like y’all don’t have much crime around here.”
“None, really. Not since we also voted to—”
At which point the cafe door slapped shut again, and fat-fart Harry the Chief returned to the counter, easing his haunches down on the stool he’d left and allowing as how he could use maybe one more cup of Lurlene’s coffee before heading back to the office.
Which sounded to Polk like fine timing. Yes, fine timing indeed.
Polk was kind of clock-watching. Ten minutes since the chief left the cafe and started walking up the street toward his station. The hamburger and fries Lurlene had brought weren’t half bad, though Polk realized his immediate prospects just might’ve brightened the meal some.
The young momma and her kid got up to leave their booth, the old skinny couple in their sweaters having teetered out a little before that. Polk decided he didn’t really want to be Lurlene’s only customer in the cafe. You spend too much time alone with a person, they tend to remember your face that much better.
What Polk figured: I finish up here, cross the street, and slip into the bank. With any luck at all, won’t be no crowd there, given how dead old Bibby seems to be. I flash the nine mil’ under some teller’s nose, then take what they got in cash and run to Sid’s garage. Only a few blocks, and either he’s got the Ford ready, or I boost one of the others. Hell, this town, I could jump in practically any car parked along the street, find the keys still in the ignition.
“More coffee?”
He looked up at Lurlene, poised with the pot over his cup.
“Just the check.”
After leaving a dollar tip — right generous, too — Polk got off his stool and ambled outside, not wanting to appear like he was in a hurry just yet. The young momma and her kid drove by in a Chevy pickup heavy on the primer, but the old skinny couple were sitting on a shaded bench a block toward the gas station. The woman jawing away, the man looking to be falling asleep. “Can’t hardly blame him,” thought Polk.
The rest of the street was almost deserted, Polk having to wait for only one car to go by before crossing to the bank. He entered the double doors, and it was dark enough inside that he had to let his eyes adjust some to the room.
High ceiling, with polished mahogany along the walls. The business counter was made of the same, three of those old-fashioned teller’s cages like... like the bird-thing he’d found in the trunk of the Ford. Another omen.
One colored girl, maybe twenty or so, stood behind the cage closest to the doors. There was nobody else in the place, and no sound, either.
“Well, well,” thought Polk. “All by herself for true, and not even bulletproof glass between us.”
He walked up to the girl’s cage, a little placard with “MARY” on the counter. Goddamn, but this is one well-identified town — Polk remembering Chief Harry saying that name back at the cafe.
“Help you, sir?”
Polk grinned, reaching under his tank-top. “You surely can, Miss Mary. I’ll be needing some cash for my friend here.”
The girl looked down at his side of the counter as Polk brought the gun’s muzzle up, pointed dead center on her chest.
“You getting the picture, Miss Mary?”
“Yessir.”
Said it real calm. Had to give her credit, didn’t seem even a bitty-bit scared.
“All your money, now. And don’t be pushing no alarm buttons, neither.”
“We don’t have none to push.”
Polk couldn’t believe this town. Wished he’d found it sooner in his life.
“The money, Miss Mary.”
He watched as she opened a cash drawer and started stacking bills in front of him. Polk wasn’t the best at doing sums real quick, but he could see lots of twenties and even some fifties in with the others. Might not have to hole-up with his cousin in New Mexico after all.
The girl stopped, closing the drawer.
“That it?” said Polk.
“Less’n you want the coins, too.”
He grinned. Genuine brave, this Miss Mary. “No, they’d just slow me down.” He gathered the cash, stuffing it into the pockets of his jeans. “Now, I’m gonna walk through your door there, and if you just sit tight and don’t do nothing stupid, my partner out front won’t have to shoot you. Got all that?”
“Yessir.”
“Good. Pleasure doing business with you, Miss Mary.”
Polk backed up a few steps, then turned to open the door, sticking the nine mil’ back under his shirt.
From behind him, Mary said, “Sir?”
Polk turned back to see her leveling a pistol at him.
He barely had time to duck before the first round went off, deafening him and grazing his upper left arm, the flesh feeling like it bumped into a branding iron. Yowling, Polk barged through the doors just as a second round from Mary’s pistol lodged in the jamb next to his head.
Outside, Polk drew his own weapon, looking up to see Lurlene at the door of the cafe, the old skinny couple rousting themselves from their bench. No problem, once I...
Out of the corner of his eye, Polk saw Lurlene’s hand come up from the bulging apron, a small black— Goddamn, no!
Her first bullet whistled past his shoulder as he broke into a loose-limbed jog, the boots not really made for it, his legs feeling like they were taking an awful long time to get the message from his brain. He’d gotten about abreast of the old skinny couple when—
No. No, this can’t be.
The man was down on one knee, sighting a long-barreled revolver, while the woman had a cigarette lighter in her— Wait, a derringer?
They opened up on him, too, and Polk felt something like a hammer whack him in the right thigh. He nearly fell, afraid to look down and maybe see his own— No, can’t think like that. Got to get the car.
After what seemed to Polk like a mile of running through sand, Sid was there, just ahead, by one of his gas pumps. Closing the driver’s door of the Ford, as though he’d just rolled it out from the bay.
Already gasping for breath, Polk began waving to him with the nine mil’. “Sid, Sid...”
The mechanic waved back with one hand, dipping the other into one of the sagging pockets in his overalls and drawing a snub-nose belly-gun.
“No!” Polk knew he was screaming as he dived to the pavement, the bullets whining in ricochet around him.
Struggling back to his feet, the pain in his thigh growing bad — real bad — Polk willed himself up the street. He could hear the sound of people coming after him, different kinds of shoes making different kinds of noises. “The police...” he thought. “I make it... to the station... Chief Harry... stop this... crazy...”
Hobbling like a man in a three-legged race, Polk got to within fifty feet of sanctuary when he felt something hit him in the back. More like a baseball bat than a hammer this time, and he pitched forward hard, his weapon clattering a body-length away from his hand.