“Asshole,” I said. “You shoulda taken the fifteen hundred.”
I walked past him and out the door.
On the way home, I pulled in next to a dumpster. I removed the picture from the sleeve of the DVD case and tore it into small bits. Then I snapped the DVD into pieces and threw it all away.
I wanted to see her again. I wanted to kiss her, hold her, love her. But I knew I wouldn’t. I’d failed her. And she’d be humiliated because of it. I knew from experience that you can live through humiliation, but she didn’t.
Until she figured that out, if she ever did, she’d remain lost to me.
I called her on the phone. She listened to my words and hung up quietly. I stayed on the line a little longer, listening to the dial tone until it became an insistent, harsh beep. Then I hung it up and was alone with the thickness in my throat and the unbidden tears.
Shae & Laddie
Shae
“My name is Charity and welcome back to the program.” The woman’s voice on the radio was silky sweet. “We have another caller on the line. Micah, is it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” a younger woman, maybe even just a girl, answered.
“Welcome to the show. What song did you want to request?”
There was some hesitation. Maybe a sniffle.
I scratched the stubble on the side of my face and took a sip of whiskey from the glass in my other hand. I held the liquid in my mouth, listening.
“Micah?” the hostess asked. “You all right, honey?”
The sniffle turned into a short sob.
I swallowed. The liquid burned my throat.
“I’m sorry,” Micah told the hostess. “It’s just…oh, I hate Valentine’s Day.”
I stared down into my glass and the bag of money beside it. I knew how she felt.
The job was supposed to easy, and quick. They all are. Somewhere between what they’re supposed to be and what eventually happens, things get fucked up. Usually it’s something small and I’m able to adapt to it. Like some general on the History Channel said, no plan ever survives contact with the enemy. A true soldier adapts.
Shae was a go with the flow type of woman anyway. When I laid out the plan for her, she only half-listened to me. I had to raise my voice twice to get her attention and even then, I don’t think she really heard every detail. For her, it was easy. Walk in, point the gun, get the money, and walk out. Everything else was flexible.
Well, it wasn’t.
I’d like to say the whole thing would’ve gone like clockwork if we’d just stuck to my plan, but that would be a lie. Things came up that I hadn’t planned for. I mean, how do you account for what customers will be in a bank at any given time? You can’t. And if one of those customers happens to be a police detective in plain clothes, depositing his paycheck, how do you plan for that?
Go with the flow, baby. That’s what Shae would’ve said.
The flow.
It was a flow of bad shit, that’s what it was.
For starters, Shae lost her mask. I bought two plastic masks with elastic straps. Mine was Darth Vader and hers was one of the white Stormtroopers. She laughed at me at first when I brought them home from the costume shop. But when I showed her the eyes, with the large, darkened plastic lenses, she smiled broadly.
“Good vision, baby,” she said, her thick Irish accent arousing me. “Nice choice.”
Then she went and forgot the thing in the car. We arrived at the door of the bank, ready to rock, and she snapped her fingers. I asked her the problem and she told me.
The car was safely parked around two corners, a right and a left. It was about forty seconds away at a dead run and out of sight of any external bank cameras.
“Go get it,” I told her. “I’ll wait.”
She smiled and shook her head. “Feck it, Laddie. Let’s just do it.”
With that, she threw her long hair back over her shoulders and strode into the bank like she was the Queen of England.
I slipped on my mask and hurried after her.
The next thing that went wrong was the security guard. It wasn’t the old guy that was there all three times I cased the place. It was a younger guy, though he was fatter than the regular mope. He was looking at Shae, admiring her form as she headed to the nearest teller. I was almost on him when he turned and saw my mask.
He was fast, I’ll give him that. He managed to get his.38 out of the holster before I clubbed him with my sap.
“Nobody feckin’ move!” screamed Shae, the silver Beretta in her hand and sweeping across all the customers and employees. Her thick brogue made the words sing.
Of course, everybody did move and it took me pointing my.45 at several of them and barking orders to back them away from the door.
Then the second security guard came out of the vault area at a dead run, his gun clasped in both hands. His tie flew back over his shoulder as he sprinted into the lobby. When he slammed on the brakes, he slid several feet on the tile floor. Then he pointed the gun at my Shae, which was a mistake.
I snapped off two rounds, catching him just below the armpit about an inch apart. He grunted and fell over without even looking my direction.
The screams broke out again and I wheeled around, pointing my gun everywhere and bellowing for them to shut up, just shut the fuck up.
Shae’s eyes were alight with excitement and after I dropped the second guard, she gave me a look of pure lust from beneath hooded eyes and touched the tip of her tongue to her lip.
I opened my mouth to tell her to get moving, but before I could say a word, she turned and grabbed the nearest teller. The brunette woman with blonde tips shook her head in small shakes when Shae pointed the silver pistol at her.
“Be a dear,” she said, holding out the shopping bag “and fill it up. None of those feckin’ dye packs, neither.”
She walked from teller station to station, making sure that the woman left the dye packs in the drawer, didn’t hit an alarm button, or pull out the special bill that was tucked in an alarmed slot.
I forced myself to keep an eye on the customers and checked my watch every few seconds.
“Let’s go,” I urged her. I was pretty certain no one had punched the alarm, but I couldn’t be sure. Plus the gunshots might have been heard outside the bank and someone could have called the cops. We needed to get out of the bank with the money inside of the police response time.
When the brunette had pushed the last bundle of bills from the last drawer into the bag, Shae flashed her a smile. “Thanks. Now, down on floor with ye.”
The teller sank to the floor with a whimper.
Shae vaulted over the counter and strode toward me. The bag swayed heavily in her grasp. We hadn’t even considered hitting the vault. There was enough in that bag for a clean start. We weren’t greedy.
She reached me and held out the bag. “Be a gentleman for once, why don’t ye?”
I reached for the bag.
More shots rang out.
Shae’s eyes widened in surprise. Her mouth fell open and a light gurgle escaped. Confusion, then sadness, came into her eyes. She collapsed to the floor. All of that happened in less than a second, but it was burned into my memory for a thousand years.
I wheeled around, firing in the direction of the shots. Customers screamed in panic. Some crawled toward a wall or a desk, while others scampered toward the back of the bank, hunched over and shuffling their feet as quickly as they could.
The shooter was a man in his forties. He was thin and resolute. I learned later that he was a cop and looking back, I should have made him right away. But he had blended right in with the other customers. Now he was crouched and duck-walking toward one of the desks.
“You motherfucker!” I screamed and fired directly at him. The bullet struck low in front of him, ripping out a chunk of tile and whizzing off. Before I could fire again, he reached the desk and took cover.