Written by RF Wilson – MATURE THEME – Success ~ “We did it,” Sami said, keeping an eye on the rear view mirror. “We damn well did it.”
They’d been silent in the car for the past ten minutes, tense, waiting, watching, headed west on US 19-23 out of Asheville. No sirens behind them, nobody coming up on them.
“We robbed a goddam bank! I told you we could do it. Didn’t I. I told you.”
“Yeah,” Jordan said. “You told me. I’ve been here all along, haven’t I?”
“Yeah, but you really weren’t sure you wanted to, were you? You were a doubter. A Doubting Thomas. That’s you. Doubting Jordan, didn’t think we could do it.”
“I wanted to be sure we did it right, you know. I mean bank robbery’s nothing you want to screw around with.” He waited a minute before he asked, “Sure you don’t want me to count it?”
“No, man. Keep it out of sight. It’d be our luck that somebody going by glances over after hearing the news on the radio that a bank got robbed. Or, you know, it could have one of those exploding things, an ink bomb. You could, however,” she said, “get me a joint out of my purse.”
Preparation
Jordan had been out of work two weeks before Sami got her pink slip. Despite each drawing Georgia’s maximum unemployment benefit, it wouldn’t be long before their saving were gone.
One sunny Saturday morning, still spring, not too hot, sitting around talking about what they were going to do over the weekend, she suggested going up to Asheville for a weekend.
“Asheville? Why Asheville?”
“Beer City. Don’t you know that? Lots of music. I’ve gotta get out of this town for a day or two.”
They drove up the mountain, four hours, spectacular scenery, endless blue sky. They charged a motel, had dinner at some place that served octopus and pork belly. He’d just as soon had barbecue. Lying on the bed that night, “Bonnie and Clyde” came on the TV.
“We could do that,” Sami said when the movie was over.
“What?” Jordan asked. “Get shot all to hell?”
“No. Rob a bank. They got greedy. That was their mistake. And they got too many people involved.”
“You’re crazy,” Jordan said.
“And this surprises you?” Sami asked.
The next day they drove around town scoping out places, seeing how easy it would be to get in and out of them, whether the parking lots lent to quick getaways.
On Monday, they made their bi-weekly pilgrimage to the unemployment office. Filled out their paper work, agreed with their counselors that, yes, of course, they’d look for work. Sami used to think that everybody down there would be bums and hobos but found out they were all just like herself and her husband. Working people. That made sense. You had to have been employed before you could be unemployed. Still, it surprised her.
Afterward they went out for Mexican and a beer.
“Seventy-five hundred dollars,” she said. “That’s the average take.”
Jordan looked at her. It took a minute to register. He leaned close. “From a bank robbery?”
“Yeah. I looked it up. And if you’re going to rob something, banks are the way to go.”
“So, what makes you think I’m going to rob something?”
“Just saying. If you were. If we were.”
“Been thinking about it, have you?”
They’d finished their beers before the food came. He ordered another one.
While they ate, she said, “Here’s how I see it.”
How she saw it was that, unless they found work, which seemed more and more unlikely, they were going to have to seriously cut back on their standard of living. Sell the house, for one.
“I don’t want to sell the house,” Jordan said.
“Me neither. So, we need more income. Any diddly part-time job, making seven bucks an hour, whatever, they just take that off the top of the your unemployment check.”
“You see robbery as the hope of the future.”
“I do. Not just any robbery, though.”
“Of course not. Bank robbery. Something that interests the Feds, I understand.”
“Not necessarily,” Sami said. “Depends on the bank. Even so, you do it right, you can get away with it.”
“Without killing anyone?”
“Without killing anyone. Might want a gun, ‘though. It increases your take. Statistically.”
It should be a bank out of town, of course. Big enough to have serious money on hand, not so big that they’d have super security. Asheville seemed like a good place. Unlikely to see anyone who knew them. Even at home, they didn’t do a lot of socializing. Nobody to whom they might have to explain their absence for a day. They went up one more time, scouted the place. At a party store back near home they found realistic wigs, and a beard and mustache for him.
The Job
They decided on a branch of a regional bank. Drove up that morning, parked at the back of a convenience store where he removed the license plate, put on the disguise. He wore extra layers of clothes under overalls to make him look bigger, heavier-set.
At the bank, she idled the car in a space with the front of the car facing the building, near an exit onto a side road.
“You gotta be outa there in five minutes,” she said. She had on her wig, sat smoking a cigarette, the motor running.
Didn’t seem like long enough to get anything done. But once he started, five minutes took forever, and was over before he could think. Nobody gave him any shit. Just gave him their money, like Sami said they would. The getaway was a little hairier. He came out walking fast, hopped in the passenger side, as another car pulled in front of them leaving the parking lot. The tension was like if you’d lit a bomb, waiting for it to go off. The other car took off headed to the highway. They went the other way. He pulled a heavy gray plastic bag from under his seat, put the money in it and returned it to the space out of sight.
When they were confident no one was on their tail, she pulled to the side of the road. He re-affixed the license plate, undid the cover over the spare, removed the tire. Sami threw the cash into the empty well. He replaced the cover, put the tire on top. Anybody asked why the tire was there, he’d say he was too lazy to put it back. They put the disguises in a paper bag. Sami pulled up to the dumpster at the first gas station they came to. Jordan hopped out and tossed the bag in.
They took lesser traveled roads until they hit Waynesville, where they stopped to eat. They talked about whether to go on to Cherokee. Tourist place. Big casino on the reservation. He was afraid they’d gamble everything away.
“No, man. We don’t even take it in with us. Play a few nickel slots, stay in the hotel. If anybody’s chasing us they’ll never find us there. We park in the garage, our little Honda looks like a million others parked in a sea of cars.”
She called her mother from their motel room. “I know, Mama, you called six times. We’re up here in Cherokee… No, we’re not losing everything else we own. Had to get out of town for a little. Played some nickel slots. Yeah. . . . Jordan won fifty bucks. We’ll be back tomorrow.”
“I can’t believe we haven’t even looked to see how much we got,” Jordan said when she got off the phone. “I’m gonna go down and get it. Nobody’ll know what it is.”
“Don’t do that. If we see that money, we might decide we can afford to sit at some of those tables, you know, play a little blackjack or something. Just leave it. It’ll be a surprise for us when we get home. Whatever it is, it’s more than we came up here with.”
The Cops Pay Attention
Detective Jared Robley looked at the surveillance tape again.
“There’s not much to go on. White. What do you think, six-two, two-hundred pounds? Long hair and beard that may or may not be his own. Camo overalls. What was the take?”
Sgt. Bradley Wilford said, “Sixty-two hundred and change.”
“Not bad for a few minutes work. The car’s no help, either. Little gray sedan, Honda, Toyota, whatever. You talk about they all look alike. And from the tape, it didn’t look like it had a license plate. I bet it does now. Maybe even its own. Clever. I’m assuming they’re not from around here. He didn’t really try to hide his face. And they didn’t look like the desperado-type, somebody pickin’ up a few bucks to get some drugs. Although not professional, either.”
“The teller said he seemed real nervous,” the Sergeant reported.
“I guess it’s kind of a nerve wracking business, holdin’ up banks.”
“You think they’ve done this before?”
“Not around here. We’ll check. I haven’t heard about anything like it.”
Aftermath I
As soon as they got back in the house, they split up the money, counted it, then did it again. Sixty-two hundred and seventy.
“Where’s your seventy-five hundred?” he asked.
“It’s an average,” she said.
The next night, over dinner at the Pizza Palace, while he was on his third beer, she asked if he thought he could cut down on his drinking.
“What about your pot?” he asked.
“Why don’t we move to Colorado or Washington where it’s free?” she asked. “Probably a lot cheaper.”
“Yeah. I want to hear you tell your mother that. ‘Mama, we’re moving out west where I can get pot easier.”
The next week, he had an interview with a plant out on the west side.
“They offered me a job on the line at fourteen bucks an hour,” he told Sami when they were eating their supper. “I said, ‘no thank you.’”
“Better than unemployment,” Sami said. “Benefits, too, I imagine.”
“You want it, go on out there and apply.”
“Don’t you have to take it or else lose unemployment?”
“Nah, you don’t have to take anything that’s less than, I don’t know, 80, 90 percent of what you used to make. Shit, Sam. I was making twenty an hour.”
A week later, watching “Duck Blind” on TV, he said, “We’re gonna have to do it again, aren’t we?”
“You’re kidding?”
“Nope. Don’t see a way around it.”
“Not if you’re not gonna take the jobs you’re offered.”
“Job. One job. A shit job. And I don’t see you bustin’ your ass trying to find something.”
He waited for a smart-ass reply. Instead, she said, “Actually, I’d been thinking the same thing. But we need to go somewhere else.”
“A different bank?”
“No, idiot. A different town. Somewhere they aren’t waiting for us to show up again.”
“You think they are?”
“Waiting for us? I don’t know. But if we go somewhere else, it’ll make it harder for the cops to put things together. You know, before they figure out it’s the same team on a spree.”
“Two robberies make a spree?” Jordan asked.
“You know what I’m saying, asshole. They’re waiting for us to screw up. Somebody’s got our file on their desk. They’d love us to give ’em some more stuff for it.”
“Where do think we should we go?”
“What’s three, four hours in the exact opposite direction from Atlanta as Asheville?”
“Montgomery?”
Sami got her iPad, looked at the map of Atlanta and the surrounding area. “Bingo.”
“But won’t they think, ‘Maybe they’re operating out of Atlanta since that’s what’s right in the middle of the two places.”
Sami scrutinized the map, looked at her husband. “You may not be so dumb after all.”
They decided on Chattanooga, agreed that this time she should be the one to go in.
Job II
Instead of making a separate trip to reconnoiter the place, they went up early on a Thursday and scouted the town. They figured Friday was a good day for their line of work, assuming the banks would have a lot of green since they’d be cashing payroll checks.
She wore a black wig, a shapeless, floor-length cotton dress, boots with lifts, a wide-brimmed straw hat. It was another clear day, but windy, and she had to hold on to her hat, afraid it and the wig would blow away.
The getaway went better than the first time. No one cut in front of them in the parking lot. At the first convenience store they came to, Jordan slid open the door on a green bin when a voice behind him said,
“Hey. That’s not a public dump.” Jordan turned around to confront a guy who could have played tackle on a pro football team. Big guy.
“It’s just a paper bag with some trash, man. We’re on the road. What’re we supposed to do.”
“Use a trash can, man.”
“Doesn’t that stuff wind up in the dumpster, anyway?”
“Hey,” the guy said. “You can’t use the dumpster. Got it?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
Jordan walked back to Sami, stuck his head through the open car window. “I gotta throw it in the trash can,” he said and walked toward the front of the store, lifted the top of a waste can next to the double-doors and dropped the bag inside.
“What an asshole,” he said to Sami.
“Let’s just not draw too much attention to ourselves, OK?”
They shared a joint on the way out of town. He wanted a beer but agreed that, if they got stopped for some reason, it wouldn’t be a good idea if he smelled like alcohol. Cops might want to poke around, see what else there was in the car. He was anxious to count the haul, hoping to head straight back to the city. She wanted to do Cherokee again. Maybe they could play a little more this time, she said, take more chances, now that they’d gotten good at this bank robbing thing.
“So, that your idea of the future? Rob banks and gamble?”
“Oh, come on. We can have a little fun. There’s no reason to do this if we can’t have a little fun. Or, we can just sit around waiting for our unemployment checks, I suppose. That what you want to do?”
They were approaching the split in I-75 where they would have to choose. He moved the car into the left lane, which would take them north, away from Atlanta.
“I’m just saying that – ”
“I know what you’re saying, and I get it. We aren’t going to be Bonnie and Clyde. We’re going to be a couple of people stuck in the ‘burbs, hanging out with boring people, watching boring TV. I still think we ought to move to Colorado. I mean, nothing’s keeping us.”
“Except your mother.” He maneuvered into the lane to get on US 64, east toward North Carolina.
“Oh, jeez. My mother. Just leave her out of this, would you?”
“I’d love to. But you know she’d never stand for it, her baby moving away.”
“At least my mother talks to me.”
The speedometer was close to 80 when she said, “Hey, slow it down. We sure as hell don’t want to be stopped by the cops. It won’t be long before they put it together that a small, gray sedan was involved in two robberies. They may not know it’s a Honda and they don’t have a plate number, so we probably won’t be stopped on account of they spot the car. But if they stop us for something else. Well, that’s a different story.”
Jordan took his foot off the accelerator, let the car slow to 70. He didn’t say anything.
“Hey,” Sami said. “I’m sorry about that crack about your mother. But it’s true. I know mine can be a bitch. So, wouldn’t it be nice to get away from her?”
“Be interesting to see you try it.”
“Looks like you’ve decided to go to Cherokee.”
“Yeah. It might be fun,” he said, thinking of the fifty bucks he won the last time.
“Might? Of course, it’ll be fun. I think I want to learn how to play blackjack.”
Cops II
After Special Agent Howard Burgess read the email about the Chattanooga bank robbery he called Det. Jared Robley at the Asheville PD.
“Look familiar?” he asked.
“Same M.O. But a lady instead of the gent. Maybe we’ve got a regular Bonnie and Clyde team running around,” Robley said.
“We’ve got a BOLO out on a older gray sedan, foreign, with a couple, probably mid-20’s to mid-30’s. Probably North Carolina or Tennessee or Georgia plates. Pretty soon the bills they snatched are going to show up. We’ll get a better idea of where they are. If they’re smart, they’ll be making small purchases, restaurants, clubs, that kind of thing. Spread the wealth, so to speak. Maybe buy some money orders if they’re relying on this money to pay their monthlies.”
The Casino
The hotel didn’t flinch at taking cash for the room, although they had to pay a deposit for the phone, which they doubted anybody used anymore, and “incidentals,” whatever they were. They were using cash from their last haul, not wanting to break into the “new” money until they got home, in case something exploded when they opened one of the packets of bills. They’d been surprised that hadn’t happened with the first robbery.
They went to the room where she fired up a joint. He took a beer from the refrigerator.
“You know that beer’s gonna cost a small fortune,” she said.
“What? You’re getting ready to throw your – our – money away and bustin’ my ass for buying a beer?”
She bought $100 worth of chips at the blackjack table. Within a half-hour, she was up $25. He was ready to go.
“Come on, man,” she said. “I’m on a roll, here.”
“On a roll? You got lucky a couple of times. That’s all it is.”
“Yeah. And my luck is good right now.”
He got another beer, his third. She went up $60. He went back to the slots. When he checked on her a half-hour later, she’d almost doubled her money.
“I guess you’re not ready to leave now, are you?” he asked.
“No way.”
“How much will you have to lose before you’re done.”
“Not gonna lose,” she said. He thought she had a little slur to her words.
“Then how much do you have to win before you quit?”
“Hey, back off,” the man now sitting next to her at the table said. “The lady’s doing fine.”
Jordan looked over at the guy. “And who the fuck are you?”
“I’m just sayin’ man. She’s on a streak. Leave her alone.”
“And who the fuck are you?” Jordan repeated.
The man was probably in his forties, nice looking, better dressed than a lot of the people here who had arrived by bus from some small mountain town.
“Don’t have a cow, man. I’m just a guy playing next to her.”
“His name’s David,” Sami said as she signaled to the dealer for another card.
“Well, fuck you, David. She’s my wife. And I get to say whatever I want to her.”
“No, you don’t,” Sami said as she rapped her knuckles on the edge of the table, sitting with an ace and and eight.
After getting a queen to follow a seven and a six, David was out and when the dealer busted at 22, Sami scraped in the chips.
“Whoo hoo,” she said, throwing in her ante for the next hand.
“I’m going to get something to eat,” Jordan said. He found his way to a food court, got a burger and fries, had another beer. Thought about the bank robbing business. Thought he probably should work harder at getting a real job. But, damn. There weren’t a lot of real jobs. And he wasn’t going to flip any burgers at Mickey D’s, that was for goddam sure. He got another beer and wandered back onto the gaming floor.
Sami and David were shoulder to shoulder when he arrived at the table. Sami looked up, straightened.
“You about goddam done?” he asked.
“She can’t leave now,” David said. “I’ve caught her good luck.”
“Yeah,” Sami said, “Too bad I had to lose it.”
“So then what the fuck, it’s time to go.” He hadn’t meant to yell but that’s how it came out.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the dealer said, “I’m going to have to ask you to keep it down and watch your language.”
Now he thought he might lose it altogether. He stared at her. “You coming?”
“Nah. Think I’ll stay here.” He noticed the drink glass next to her. She never, hardly ever, drank anything but one beer. Couldn’t hold it; why she smoked weed.
“How much have you had to drink?”
“Oh, I don’t know. How much you think, Davy?”
“Davy? Now he’s fucking Davy?” He had to work hard to keep himself under control.
A security person, who had apparently been standing near him since the dealer had warned him, said,
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave the table.”
Jordan wanted to say, “I’m not at the fucking table.” Instead, he said to Sami, “I’m going to the room.”
Sami gave him a finger wave, said, “Bye bye.”
FBI on the case
It was the end of the day before Special Agent Burgess got the full report of the Chattanooga robbery. $7452. Not a bad haul for that size bank. The robber had intimated that she had a gun under her dress although she never showed one. No one hurt. The video wasn’t much help. Her hat protected most of her face from the camera’s eye. He figured her for five-six, five-seven, a hundred and thirty pounds. The parking lot view was no better except to confirm that a gray mid-sized car had driven away with what appeared to be two people in it. They’d find out if they had a match to any of the prints they’d lifted from the Asheville job. The only things she touched, like the guy on the previous caper, were probably the doors. Burgess doubted they’d get anything helpful since a hundred people had touched those door handles both days. Not a lot to go on. He knew this wouldn’t be the couple’s last job and they’d screw up soon enough somewhere along the way. Talking to the detectives in both Asheville and Chattanooga, they all agreed that those towns would probably never see the perpetrators again.
The Road Home
When he woke up, the clock showed 9:15. Dark out, must still be night. He was alone. Where the fuck was she? He went into the bathroom, peed, splashed water on his face and went back downstairs. She wasn’t at the table. He walked around the floor, didn’t see her. If she went back to that guy’s room, he’d kill her. Kill him, too. Asshole. He checked out the restaurants. There they were, in one of the pricier places, being lovely-dovey in a booth. He walked over.
“Come on, let’s go.”
“What?”
“I said let’s go.”
“You can’t jus’ say ‘let’s go’ if I don’t wanna go.”
“I’m leaving. Going home. You don’t wanna go, you’re gonna have to find another way home. I doubt this guy,” he said, thrusting a thumb toward her gambling companion, “is gonna want to drive you to Atlanta.”
Sami cringed and said, “Oooh. We’re not supposed to say that,” then giggled.
“Jesus Christ. Are you coming or not?”
He reached down to grab her arm. She flinched. David said, “Leave the lady alone.”
“Fuck you, asshole. This lady, if that’s what you want to call her, is my wife. She’s not your fucking girlfriend. She’s my wife.” He caught himself, his voice rising, lowered it to almost a whisper. He held her arm, gently pulled on it. “Come on. It’s time to go home.”
“OK, OK, hold your water. I’m coming.” She stood up, wobbly. Turned toward the other man, gave him the same finger wave she’d given Jordan earlier. “Bye, Davy. Maybe see you again.”
Sami fell asleep almost as soon as the car started moving. There was barely any moonlight along the back roads he took to get them back to I-75 where they’d head south. An hour into the drive, Sami said, “I’m going to be sick.”
Jordan scanned the road. Rock faces on one side, drop offs on the other.
“Really. I’m gonna puke.”
“Shit,” he said, pulling as far to the right as he could. He hit the flashers, went around and helped her out onto the ground on her knees. She unloaded, and kept unloading until there was nothing left and she was dry heaving. All of a sudden, blue lights came on, flashing.
“Oh, shit, and double shit. It’s the fucking cops, Sam.”
Before he could do or say anything else, a flashlight glared in his eyes.
“Trouble?” the voice said, a low, not unhelpful-sounding male.
“Yeah, my wife got carsick.”
“These roads’ll do that. She going to be OK?” The light was now shining on Sami.
“Sami,” Jordan said, “this cop – ”
“Trooper,” the man interjected.
“Sorry. This trooper wants to know if you’re going to be alright.”
After retching one more time, she said, just loud enough to be heard, “Yeah. I’ll be OK.”
“You done pukin’?” Jordan asked.
“Yeah. Can you help me back into the car?”
The trooper leaned down as Jordan did. Each took an arm.
“Maybe lie her down on the back seat?” the trooper said.
“What do you think? Wanna lie down?”
She nodded.
The trooper held her up as Jordan opened the door. Jordan went around to the other side, the trooper helped her sit down. Jordan reached in and pulled her along the seat until she was stretched out.
“Thanks, man.”
“You’re welcome,” the trooper said, then added, “You’ve been drinking, haven’t you?”
“A while ago. I’m OK to drive, ‘though.”
“I’m sure you are. But I am going to have to test you. But first I’ll need to see your ID.”
“Aw, shit man.”
“I can take you in right now to give you a breathalyzer if you want to be difficult.”
“No, man. It’s just, it’s been a long day, know what I mean?”
“Could get longer.”
Jordan gave the guy his ID, his registration, did the vision thing with the finger in front of your eyes and showed he could keep his balance. The trooper’s radio squawked. He told Jordan to wait a minute. “Don’t even think about driving off.”
When he came back he said, “It’s your lucky night. I’ve gotta be somewhere. You did OK on those tests so I’ll give you a pass on the breathalyzer. Just be careful. These roads are treacherous, especially in the dark.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To be continued …
RF Wilson writes in Asheville, NC, where he lives with his wife, Beth Gage. He is the author of the novel, “Killer Weed,” recently published by Pisgah Press. His short story, “Accident Prone,” appears in the anthology “Carolina Crimes” published by Wildside Press, which has been nominated for an Anthony Award as Best Mystery Anthology of the Year.
He will be reading from his new novel, Deadly Dancing, at 3:00 pm Saturday, Sept. 3 at Blue ridge Books in Waynesville and October 15, at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva.