Whatever he had to do for Carol, for his children, he was going to do. Even if it meant robbing a bank…
Although he had been able to put up a good front for Shrini, the idea of the bank robbery terrified him. Except for pocketing a candy bar from a drug store when he was a kid, he had never stolen anything – never broken the law, never resorted to violence, never really even been in much of a fight since eighth grade, and here he was planning a bank robbery. Actually, he had planned a bank robbery. He and Shrini had already worked out the details. Now it was simply a matter of putting it all in motion.
The plan seemed to have taken on a life of its own, carrying Dan and Shrini along with it. Neither of them were capable of backing down. Both probably wanted to, at least Dan did. At least he would have if it weren’t for the fact that his retinas were deteriorating. When he lost his job, he also lost his long-term disability insurance. Without that insurance he was screwed. Unless he followed through with the robbery, he would be sentencing his family to a life on welfare. Robbing that bank was going to require nerve and somehow he was going to have to find a way to muster that nerve within himself.
In the meantime he would have to keep from getting overwhelmed by the whole thing. Focus on one step at a time. He tried telling himself that. He broke out laughing. The problem was he was a damned good software engineer and was always searching for mistakes in his logic. Now he was doing the same, playing out the worst-case scenarios in his mind. He tried to slow down his thoughts, tried to simply concentrate on the road. A knotting in his stomach almost doubled him over. His hands ached as he gripped the wheel. He had to get himself under control before he arrived at Joel’s house, otherwise the plan was dead. Joel had the uncanny ability to smell fear on people.
God, he wished he had brought an extra shirt with him. The one he was wearing was already wet with perspiration. He was going to have to stop off at a mall along the way. He couldn’t meet Joel feeling the way he did, especially with a shirt drenched in sweat. Somehow he was going to have to muster up some sort of confidence, some nerve.
2
Gordon Carmichael sucked in his gut as he studied himself in the bathroom mirror. At fifty-eight he still had a full head of thick blond hair, and as far as he could tell, not a single gray hair in the mix. He moved his face from side to side as he examined his skin for wrinkles. Satisfied, he took a step back. He pushed his bottom lip out, raised his chin, and patted the flesh under his jaw. If it weren’t for those damned jowls he could pass for his early forties. He pushed the flesh back with his hand, seeing what he would look like without them. Mid-thirties, maybe. If he could only afford the surgery to take care of them there was no reason why he wouldn’t be able to pass for a much younger man.
He gave himself one more look in the mirror before turning away. He had already shaved five years off his resume and was going to need to shave a few more off to get his age under fifty. Forty-seven seemed as good a target as any, jowls or not!
Gordon sighed. He made his way out of the bathroom, through a cramped bedroom, and to a third room that served as a combination dining room, living room and computer room. There wasn’t much to his condo – only four hundred and twenty square feet. At one point he had it paid off. During his three years of being out of work he had taken all the equity he could out of the place. He had tried making his monthly living expenses by trading stock put and call options, but a bad few months had cut his savings down to under five thousand dollars. Now he had a stack of home equity loan bills that were past due and last week received his first foreclosure notice. If things didn’t turn around soon he was in deep shit. He sat down in front of his computer, brought his resume up and gave it a facelift by changing some of the dates while slicing four more years off his tenure at Vixox Systems. He felt a twinge of regret as he looked over his cosmetically updated resume. One of the few accomplishments that meant anything to him was his twenty-one years at Vixox. Now, after two adjustments, those twenty-one years had been reduced to ten. For some reason, the thought of that made him feel a bit empty inside.
He posted his updated resume on several high-tech job sites. Before turning off the computer, he checked his email and saw he had something new from Elena. The letter simply stated that she could no longer contact him because she was marrying someone from Oregon. Even though the letter was only two short sentences he had to read it several times before it registered. When its meaning finally hit home, he sat frozen for a long moment, wanting nothing more than to put his fist through the computer screen.
“That’s it!” he yelled to his empty condo. “I’m out of here!”
He grabbed his car keys and made it to his front door before stopping. What he wanted to do was get in his car and drive until he hit the Jersey shore. Not that he knew anyone there or even liked being in Jersey, but it was far enough away that he could distance himself from his problems. As he was about to head out he remembered he had agreed to meet Dan the next day for a few beers. He thought about blowing Dan off but decided it wasn’t in his best interest. So the Jersey shore was out, at least for the time being.
Still, he had to get out of there. For the hell of it he decided to visit Peyton. The two of them had been friends for over twenty years, even longer than he had been friends with Dan. At the peak of the tech market craziness – right before the tech crash of ’01 – Peyton had struck it rich. The startup where he was working had been bought for a ridiculous amount of money and Peyton had cashed out at the top, clearing almost eight million dollars.
Gordon drove to Peyton’s house, if you could call it a house. To Gordon it seemed more like a collection of ill-fitting structures. Like some sort of three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle gone awry. Peyton had owned what was for the most part a small shack before becoming a multi-millionaire and, instead of moving into a larger home, had instead added one extension after the next. The original dwelling was no longer recognizable and the monstrosity that was left in its place didn’t fit in with the simple farmhouses making up the rest of the street.
Gordon felt somewhat uneasy as he pulled up to the house. The last couple of years he had been seeing Peyton less and less. No real reason, other than that he was beginning to feel like a leech when around his old friend. He parked in the driveway and, after ringing the buzzer a few times, Peyton answered the door wearing a robe.
“Hey, hey, what’s up, man?” Peyton asked.
“Not much. I was driving by and thought maybe we could go out for a couple of beers?”
“Hey, you know I’d like to, but, well…” Peyton hesitated, flashing a sheepish grin. “The kids are out of the house and I’m entertaining my wife right now, if you catch my drift.”
“Oh jeez, sorry I interrupted you.”
“No sweat, man. Maybe next week I’ll get us tickets for a Sox game. Maybe I’ll even be able to pick up a couple of Green Monster seats. Sound cool?”
“Sure, sounds like fun. Uh, I wanted to tell you about an email I got from Elena.”
“Now’s not really a great time, but next week, okay, Gordon?”
“Uh, sure, next week. Um, I’ve been thinking more about that restaurant idea.”
“Yeah, man, so have I. Probably not the best idea to mix business with friendship, you know what I mean? But we’ll talk about that next week. Cool, man?”
“Sure, uh, cool. And give my best to Wendy.”