The handcuffs are still on the seat of my car. I hide them in the glove box. I still have a spare key for Jo’s car, and I try it in the ignition, but the lock is too badly damaged for it to fit snuggly. The screwdriver still works. At least I can still use the keys to lock and unlock the car. Being in Jo’s car mingling with other traffic is surreal. I look at drivers and pedestrians and I wonder what they think of me. Can they see who I am? Can they see what I’ve become? What I’m now fighting for? Then those thoughts are reversed as I look at their faces. Who are these people? I don’t know any of them. I don’t know what they’re capable of. Murder? Sure, statistically some of them have to be capable of that. But how do you know which ones?
The trip to the bank takes me past flooded gardens and lawns with new swimming pools that suggest the sun hasn’t been out all day. The streets are bone-dry and make for safe driving. There’s no consensus about what to wear-some people are out in shorts and T-shirts, others in raincoats carrying umbrellas. I figure they’re all right. I park next to a beaten-up Holden with half of its hubcaps missing.
The bank is a plain-looking building in a row of other plain-looking buildings in the middle of town, a few blocks from the police department and a few hundred yards away from the Christchurch Cathedral, a touristy church right in the middle of town. There’s a guy out front of the bank handing out sandwich vouchers. He hands one to me and it makes me feel hungry, almost hungry enough to eat the voucher. The glass doors open with a hissing sound. Potted palm trees guarding the entranceway almost reach the ceiling. A whole lot more potted plants are scattered around inside. Maybe it’s supposed to make the fee-paying customers feel more at ease. Me, I feel like I’m back in a forest. I look around for a river, but the closest thing is a water cooler in the corner. It has an out-of-order sign because somebody has broken the plastic tap. I wait in line. Earlier this summer, just before Christmas, this bank was held up. People were waiting in line then just like they are now. People were shot and killed. I look at everybody closely in case there are those in here who think holding up banks is a pretty good idea.
It takes five minutes to get to the counter. I present my withdrawal slip to an old guy named George who will surely die before he retires, and even then still try to show up for work. His wrinkled face takes on a puzzled expression when he reads the amount on the slip, and he adjusts his bifocals to make sure he’s read the amount correctly as if the thick lenses have added an extra zero. Then he adjusts them again to make sure he’s seeing me correctly, as if the thick lenses have added an extra bruise. He asks me to step aside while he wanders off to chat to a few people, and a minute later a woman around my age comes from somewhere deep within the bank and leads me down a carpeted corridor into a small office.
Her name is Erica, and Erica is the sort of woman I would be flirting with if I didn’t appear and feel half-dead and think the woman I possibly still love might be dead. The small cream office has no window so the only view is the single door we came through, an aerial photo of Christchurch hanging on the wall and a vase filled with plastic roses. I look at the photo and wonder where I was when it was taken. More people were alive then. On the opposite wall is a photo of a guy in his forties or fifties. It has his name and two years listed beneath him, one must be his year of birth, the other is last year-it must be the bank manager who was killed during the robbery.
A long desk with a computer and stacks of paper and office clutter sits close to the middle of the room with a chair on each side. It feels like an interrogation room, and when she starts asking me questions to prove my identity I look around for two-way mirrors. I wait for her to ask where I was on Sunday night, but she doesn’t. I can see her desire to inquire about my bruises and cuts, but she can’t bring herself to do so. She keeps brushing her hair back behind her right ear in a nervous way. She knows something isn’t right, but what can she do? She can think and she can suspect. But it’s my money. A small necklace with a silver crucifix hangs around her neck. I feel like letting her in on the big secret.
After fifteen minutes of signing papers Erica agrees to hand over my money. It takes the staff another fifteen minutes to get the cash from their vault, and they count it out in front of me in a timid way that makes me think that they think I might be one bad-hair day away from shooting them all. They pack it into a small linen bag. I look for the huge dollar sign on the side to make it more obvious, but don’t see one. I thank Erica, then before leaving, I take out the wads of notes and stuff them inside my jacket and pants pockets. It’s a tight fit.
I walk a few blocks to the north, skirting around a crane and some cement mixers and several workmen who don’t appear to be doing anything. In Christchurch there are always workmen working on shops. All the time. I do what I should have done six months ago, and buy a prepay cell phone. Then I walk to a nearby army surplus store. The walls are painted camouflage green, which makes the building stick out more. Mannequins in the window are wearing desert and jungle uniforms. Plastic people off to war. I walk inside. The lighting is dim and the air is warm. Uniforms and outfits are hanging from wire coat hangers. Stacked all over the place are army storage containers with yellow and white lettering stenciled on them. Old medals in glass cases. Old gas masks. Old everything. I look at a counter full of knives. I find a hunting knife with a sharp blade and with ridges along the top.
The guy behind the counter stands around six and a half feet and has large, flabby arms covered in White Power tattoos. He wears a black leather vest with a black T-shirt beneath it. The T-shirt says Guns don’t kill people. Grenades do. His head is shaved and he has a long, gray beard. A name badge attached to his vest says Floyd and it looks out of place on his huge chest. He tells me the knife is called a KA-BAR.
I put the knife aside and keep looking. Floyd follows me around. It makes me feel uncomfortable. He asks if he can help. I tell him I’m after some fatigue gear. He shows me where it is. It’s new, not like most of the stuff in here. I wonder if anybody died in any of these uniforms. I pick up a vest with lots of pockets and army pants and an army jacket and boots too. I grab a pair of compact 8 x 20 binoculars that can fit in one of the many pockets in the vest.
I put them with the knife then look through a small display of Swiss Army knives. I point to one that looks like it could do everything from repairing sunglasses to gutting a fish. He pulls it out and puts it next to the KA-BAR. The KA-BAR looks massive in comparison. I pull out my wallet. Floyd says nothing as he looks me up and down. He looks like he could break every bone in my body so I smile at him and make no conversation.
“You going hunting?” he asks.
“Yep.”
“What you hunting for?”
“Deer.”
“Uh huh. The two-legged type?”
I pay for the gear. He gives me my change.
“No. The four-legged type.”
“Okay,” he says.
“I’m thinking,” I tell him, “that it may be easier to shoot deer than stab them. Is that right?”
“What kind of trouble are you in, mister?”
I hand him five hundred dollars. “The kind that needs a gun. Where can I get one?”
He stares at the money. Then he stares at me. “You’re about halfway to me telling you how that can be done.”
I count out another five hundred and put it on the counter next to the first five hundred. He sweeps his hands across it and it all disappears. Then he gives me a name, tells me to go and see this guy tomorrow.