Bank Shot

12

Murch’s Mom stood smiling and blinking in the sunlight in front of Kresge’s holding her purse strap with both hands, arms extended down and in front of her so that the purse dangled at her knees. She was wearing a dress with horizontal green and yellow stripes which did nothing to improve her figure, and below that yellow vinyl boots with green laces all the way up. Above the dress she wore her neck brace. The purse was an ordinary beige leather affair, which went much better with the neck brace than with the dress and boots.

Standing next to a parking meter, peering at Murch’s Mom’s image in an Instamatic camera, was May, dressed in her usual fashion. The original idea was that May would be the one in the fancy clothes and Murch’s Mom would take the pictures, but May had absolutely refused to buy the kind of dress and boots Dortmunder had in mind. It also turned out that Murch’s Mom was one of those people who always take pictures low and to the left of what they were aiming at. So the roles had been reversed.

May kept frowning into the camera, apparently never being quite content with what she saw — which was perfectly understandable. Shoppers would come along the sidewalk, see Murch’s Mom posing there, see May with the camera, and would pause a second, not wanting to louse up the picture. But then nothing would happen except that May would frown some more and maybe take a step to the left or right, so the shoppers would all finally murmur, “Excuse me,” or something like that, and duck on by.

At last May looked up from the camera and shook her head, saying, “The light’s no good here. Let’s try farther down the block.”

“Okay,” said Murch’s Mom. She and May started down the sidewalk together, and Murch’s Mom said under her breath, “I feel like a damn fool in this get-up.”

“You look real nice,” May said.

“I know what I look like,” Murch’s Mom said grimly. “I look like the Good Humor flavor of the month. Lemon pistachio.”

“Let’s try here,” May said. Coincidentally, they were in front of the bank.

“Okay,” Murch’s Mom said.

“You stand against the wall in the sunlight,” May said.

“Okay.”

Murch’s Mom backed up slowly across the brick rubble toward the trailer, and May backed up against the car parked there. This time, Murch’s Mom held the purse at her side, and her back was against the trailer wall. May took a fast picture, then stepped forward two paces and took a second one. With the third, she was at the inner edge of the sidewalk — too close to get all of Murch’s Mom in the picture and with the camera angled too low to include her head.

“There,” May said. “I think that’s got it.”

“Thank you, dear,” Murch’s Mom said, smiling, and the two ladies walked around the block.