He started to open his mouth but she raised a finger, warning him. “Don’t say everything’s going to be okay. Please! I’ll scream if you say that!”
He wavered, then lifted his hands in a sign of surrender and left the room.
The fight with Carol wiped him out. There was so much blame, so much disappointment simmering inside her. Deep down he knew he still loved his wife, but it was getting so damn hard to be in the same room with her. That would change after he got his cut from the bank robbery. Of course, that was if the robbery was still on. Joel hadn’t made his decision yet and there was still Gordon to talk to. If either of them turned it down, the robbery was dead and finished.
He turned on the set and was surprised to see the ten o’clock news had already started. He remembered he owed Shrini a call.
No one answered. He started to leave a message when Shrini picked up.
“Hey, man,” Dan said, “sorry about the time. I should’ve called you earlier.”
“No problem,” Shrini said in an exaggeratedly serious tone. “I’ve been tied up most of the night working on my cardiovascular.”
Dan heard a girl giggling in the background. “You got company. Damn, I’m really sorry about bothering you now.”
“No problem, dude, we’re taking a break. A well-deserved break, believe me.” There was some more giggling and Shrini left the phone for a moment. When he came back, he said, “Give me a one-word answer, yes or no, so I am not held in suspense all night.”
“The word would have to be maybe. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Okay, dude, tomorrow.”
Dan sat back in the chair and watched the news for a few minutes, then flipped through the channels until he came to a new reality show called Bank Job. He sat transfixed, not believing what he was watching. The point of the show seemed to be to have the participants plan a bank robbery. The robbery would be staged after two months of planning in a building that used to be a real bank. Everyone would be in on it. There would be no real bullets or anything, but if the members were successful they would get to keep the million dollars that was going to be placed in the vault. Dan just started cracking up. He couldn’t help himself. At some point Carol came in. She looked exhausted as she stood in the doorway.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Dan said, wiping tears from his eyes. “Just this stupid reality show.”
“If it’s stupid, why don’t you turn it off?”
“I will, I just need to veg for a few minutes.”
“I’m going to bed now,” she said. “Would you like to join me?”
“In a little while. I need some more time to clear my head.”
“I’ll meet you upstairs. Could you turn the set down? It’s really loud.”
The volume was barely audible, but he lowered it anyway. He wasn’t sure whether she was becoming hypersensitive to noise or if she was just busting his balls, but they’d been having too many fights as it was.
“I’ll see you soon,” he said. She nodded and left the room.
The eleven o’clock news came on. After that, Dan flipped between the different late night talk shows. Later he found The French Connection on one of the movie channels. Sometime during the movie he drifted off.
7
The phone woke him the next morning. Groggy, his neck stiff, he realized that he had slept the night on the recliner. He heard Susie answer the phone and then yell out to him.
He pushed himself out of the recliner, his back stiffer than his neck. Hobbling like an old man, he found Susie in the kitchen.
“It’s for you,” Susie said, handing him the handset, her eyes rolled slightly upward to make sure he knew how trying it was having to answer the phone for him.
Joel was on the line. “You took your sweet time,” he complained.
“You woke me up.”
“Woke you up? It’s nine thirty, pal. Look, I’m in Nashua right now. Meet me at ten in the north end of the mall parking lot.”
“Nashua’s a half hour away. I need to take a shower, brush my teeth-”
“I’m at a payphone, I don’t have time for your nonsense. Your breath don’t smell fresh enough for me, guess what, I don’t care. You meet me at the mall parking lot at ten, understand?”
Joel hung up, not bothering to wait for an answer.
Dan placed the handset back on its base. He checked to make sure he had his car keys and wallet on him, and left the house.
Dan spotted Joel leaning against his red Ford Escort. He pulled up and Joel got into the passenger seat.
“First of all, you’re full of shit,” Joel said.
“Nice to see you too.”
“I mean it. If you wanted a software job bad enough then you would’ve found one.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, there are people our age still working in the field,” Joel argued, his mouth compressing into a tight oval.
“Not as many as there used to be. And that’s only because they’re already in their positions. Let’s see them get through today’s interview screening.”
“You’re still full of shit.”
Dan laughed sourly. “You’re sounding a lot like my wife.”
“Yeah, well, she’s a smart girl. Even if she married a schmuck like you.”
“Then why aren’t I working?”
“Because you’re burnt out.” Joel’s eyes narrowed to thin slits as he appraised his friend. “And more than that, you’re pissed off. After everything you’ve done in the industry you’re now at the mercy of these condescending smug little pricks interviewing you. But if you really wanted a job you could retrain yourself and get one.”
“You’re wrong.”
“You’re lying to me again.”
A numbness had set into Dan’s forehead, almost as if ice had been pushed into his skull. “Why’d you waste my time having me drive here?” he asked, his words sounding hollow in his head. “Why didn’t you just tell me over the phone that you don’t want to do this?”
“Who said anything like that?” Joel hesitated as he pulled at his bottom lip, pinching it with his thumb and forefinger. “I’m just being honest with myself, that’s all. Something you should try. I don’t look at this as my only way out. But I got to tell you, I’m sick of writing software. And there are certain things about your plan that appeal to me.”
“So you’re telling me you’re in?”
“Maybe. I got conditions. Number one, my buddy Eric Hoffer be included.”
“Eric Hoffer?”
“You met him at my second wedding.”
Dan had a vague recollection of a mostly bald stocky man with small pig-like eyes. “That’s your friend who got arrested,” he said.
“Yeah, that’s right. He got screwed in a setup. Did four months for a bullshit charge.”
“Something about attempted rape?”
“No, nothing like that.” Joel showed a thin smile as he shook his head. “Lewd and lascivious behavior. The idiot had a hooker in his car. He had already unzipped when the hooker spots a police cruiser pulling up alongside them and tries to save her own butt by yelling rape. That little incident cost Eric his wife, family and job, not to mention his time in county lockup. He’s been out three years since then and still hasn’t bounced back. He needs this.”
“Sorry, Joel, but we don’t need five people for this robbery.”
“Says who?”
“I already worked out the details-”
“Yeah, you’re an expert all of a sudden in robbing banks? You’ve got Gordon and your Indian buddy along, huh? Fuck that. If I’m doing this, I’m doing this with someone I can trust. Someone I know who’ll back me up.”
“Your friend, Eric, he’s been arrested. They’ve got his fingerprints on record.”
“So? We’ll be wearing gloves, won’t we? And your plan has us in disguise, right?”
Dan started massaging his forehead, trying to rub the numbness out. “I don’t like this,” he muttered.
“Yeah, well, guess what, I don’t like having that loon Gordon involved, but I’m willing to trust you that you can control him for ten minutes. Besides, my guns can be traced, Eric’s can’t. We need him. This is non-negotiable. So what’s it going to be? Are we doing this or are we calling it quits right now?”