They watched Doug take up a position across the street, shivering in the little alcove by the antique store.
“Go tell him to at least pull his hood up,” Kevin said. “He doesn’t have to pull his ski mask down yet, but it’s probably best not to walk around bareheaded.”
“Shit, there’s no one around,” said Mitch. “It don’t matter.”
Kevin was bumping his knee repeatedly into the steering wheel, so Mitch said, “Are you getting jumpy?”
“No,” said Kevin, sounding more intense than Mitch had been expecting. “I just think you should go talk to Doug. There’s something wrong with him. He’s not talking and he’s fucking standing in the street bareheaded when we all agreed to wear ski masks. The guy’s been on the verge of fucking this up since day one, you know? First of all, he doesn’t even do the one fucking thing he was given to do, which was buy ski masks, and now we gotta wear these fucking things.” His eyes blazing with rage, Kevin held up the old wool cap with the eye holes cut out, his fingers sticking through the holes derisively.
“All right,” said Mitch. “I’ll go talk to him.” He got out of the car and was aware of his feet crunching in the snow as he crossed the silent street. He wondered if instead of helping, the snow would serve as a hindrance, as it was recording his footprints for the investigators. He made an effort to grind his feet into the slush to make the footprints less distinct.
Mitch went and stood in the little alcove, shivering next to Doug. “You all right, dude?”
“I’m fine.” Doug lit a cigarette and watched as an enormous SUV turned the corner and stopped right in front of them, blocking their view of absolutely everything. There were now two cars on the street, the Impala and the SUV, which was black and had tinted windows and was idling right in front of their little alcove.
“What the fuck is this guy doing?” Mitch asked.
“Dude, I don’t know about this,” Doug said.
Mitch had figured it was coming, but he had hoped that Doug would just keep his reservations to himself until the robbery was over.
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t need money this bad, man. I mean, I can work at Chicken Buckets. I should be at Chicken Buckets right now, handing in my drug test.”
Mitch knew Doug felt this way and he had, in fact, always known. Every sign pointed to it, from the poorly prepared car with two gallons of gas in it to the cut-up ski masks, yet he had been denying it to himself, pretending Doug was still an enthusiastic team player. They should have left Doug out of it and he and Kevin should have been there alone. But it was a team effort and Doug was always part of the team.
“Well, shit, man. I wish you’d have said something before now.” He lit a cigarette, aware that Doug was basically asking him permission to go. He didn’t want him to. If Doug left, Mitch knew that nothing would ever be the same between them, that their friendship would basically be over. “Why’d you let it go this far?”
Doug began shifting his weight from leg to leg, and Mitch could never recall seeing him more uncomfortable. For a moment, they watched the black SUV, in which, Mitch now realized, there was a teenage girl being taught by her mother how to parallel park. Over and over, the SUV lurched awkwardly toward a parking space at an extreme angle, then stopped, then jerked forward.
“I gotta tell you something,” Doug said.
Right then, Mitch heard angels singing. There was a clanking and whirring of the heavy chains on the tires of the armored car as it turned the corner. And there it was, old, battered, and lurching, a monolith of scarred metal, parking right in front of the bank. Mitch could see, behind the windshield wipers, the familiar faces of the old guy and the fat guy. They were right on time, despite the snow. God, you had to love this company’s punctuality.
“There’s the truck. Look, is this about you and Linda?” he asked, hoping to move the conversation along. At the mention of her name, Doug looked like he had been punched. “I know about that,” Mitch added.
“How, how… Does Kevin know?”
“No, of course not. Dude, look, I’ve got to rob this thing, OK? If you want out, go ahead and take off. I’ll see you later.”
Before he could finish the sentence, Doug was running off into the street. Right behind the SUV, which inexplicably accelerated backward, knocking Doug down with a loud bang of metal and a yelp of pain.
“Awwww!” Doug screamed as he fell into snow. The SUV slammed to a halt. Mitch, who hadn’t moved, saw the passenger door fly open, and a middle aged woman hopped out, looking panicked.
“Ohmigod,” she was saying. “I’m so sorry. My daughter is learning to parallel park…”
Still standing in the alcove, Mitch saw the elderly guard come over to help Doug up. And then, right behind him, the fat guard, waddling over. From his vantage point, he could see inside the SUV, where a teenage girl was sitting with her head in her hands and appeared to be crying. But he wasn’t thinking about that. He was thinking about the fact that both guards were helping a groaning Doug to his feet.
His legs moved before he could think about it. He darted along the side of the building, his feet crunching in the snow as he pulled his ski mask down. There they were-two big brown leather bags, just sitting in the truck with the door open. Mitch reached inside, wrapped his arms around them both, pulled them towards him, and, clutching them to his chest, ran over to the Impala.
“Go, go, go!” he yelled at Kevin, who was sitting in the idling Impala, wearing a ski mask. Mitch opened the back door of the Impala, threw both bags of money into the backseat, and climbed into the front passenger seat. Behind him, he heard someone scream, “Hey!”
“What about Doug?” asked Kevin as he put the Impala in drive. The Impala sputtered and lurched forward.
“Go, go, go!”
Kevin punched the Impala and they shot out into the street, where Mitch could see both guards running toward them. The fat guard was fumbling with the gun on his holster. Kevin drove right by him. The older guard slipped and fell in the street.
“Ouch,” said Kevin as he drove by the old man. He pulled up next to Doug, who was standing next to the woman who had been in the passenger seat when the SUV hit him.
“Get in the fucking car!” Mitch screamed. He leaned into the backseat and tried to open the back door for Doug. The woman he had been talking to about the accident was staring into the Impala, now looking even more horrified than she had a few seconds before as she regarded two men in ski masks.
“British accents!” Kevin was yelling.
Doug didn’t seem to be understanding that he should get in the car, so Mitch leaped out and in one smooth movement grabbed his coat, opened the back door of the Impala, and started to shove him in.
There was a gunshot and a yelp of pain.
“Jesus!” Mitch screamed. He looked over at the fat guard, who was crouching in a combat position back where the Impala had driven by him, a smoking pistol in his hand. Mitch knew that he hadn’t been shot. Had Doug? Where had the yelp come from? He shoved Doug all the way in and slammed the door.
“Go, go, go!” Mitch shouted. Kevin gunned the accelerator and they skidded up to a stop sign. Mitch could feel the car sliding, tractionless, in the snow.
“Don’t stop! What the fuck are you doing? This is a getaway!”
“I’d rather not be hit by someone coming the other way,” Kevin said calmly, talking through the ski mask. He accelerated through the intersection.
“Owwww,” Doug moaned.
“Dude, did you get shot?” Mitch stuck his head into the backseat, where Doug was lying on the bags of money, clutching his leg. He didn’t answer.
“Man, I think Doug got shot,” Mitch said to Kevin.
Kevin pulled up his ski mask. “No fucking way,” he said.
“That fat bastard was shooting at us. I heard a shot.”