Trouble in Paradise

Fifty-Six

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Macklin said, holding the 9-mm almost negligently at his side, “as you no doubt have figured, the shit has hit the fan, and it is time for us to go. We thank you for your patience, and your valuables.”

The bank employees stood silent, standing close together as if for warmth. Behind him, Fran was carrying the last duffel bag out of the vault toward the stairs to the street where JD held the van with its motor running.

“Okay,” Macklin said. “We need some hostages for a while.”

He looked at Crow. “Gimme five women. They’re less trouble.”

Crow moved in among the employees and cut out the five hostages. They moved numbly, not knowing what else to do.

“We won’t need them for too long,” Macklin said. “We’ll let them go when we leave. The rest of you want to run around after we’ve left and free some of your friends and neighbors,” Macklin said, “go right ahead.”

He grinned and scanned them.

“Any questions?”

No one spoke.

“Hasta la vista.”

He turned and nodded at Crow and the two of them walked from the vault. No one in the vault moved. Macklin and Crow walked upstairs and through the empty bank, moving the women before them the way dogs move sheep. Crow’s van was parked at the bank entrance right behind Macklin’s Mercedes. JD and Fran were leaning on the van. Both had shotguns, and both men had a pinched look to their faces. Marcy was sitting on the floor in the back of the van. Crow herded the five women into the back of the van with her.

“What are they for?” JD said.

“Hostages,” Macklin said.

“We already got her,” JD said, nodding at Marcy.

“Can’t have too many,” Macklin said.

In the back of the van, crouched on the floor among the loaded duffel bags, a very young plump woman with a lot of frizzy blond hair began to cry. An older woman with gray hair in a tight perm, and horn-rimmed glasses on a strap around her neck, put her arm around the young woman and patted her shoulder. Marcy watched silently. You’ll get used to it, she thought. She was, after all, a veteran hostage. She had several hours experience on these women.

“It’s going to be all right,” the older woman said. “It’s going to be fine.”

Maybe, Marcy thought, and maybe not. Macklin looked at JD and Fran.

“Are we having fun yet?” he said.

“How long you think, Jimmy, before the cops get here?” Fran said.

“Long as it takes to get a big chopper up here and put a SWAT team on it.”

“What if they do it quick?” Fran said.

“That’s why God made hostages,” Macklin said.

He looked at the Mercedes.

“Got to leave you here, old buddy,” he said to the car. “Good-bye.”

He raised the 9-mm and turned his head away as if in grief and shot through the hood of the car. He laughed loudly. Fran glanced at Crow. Crow’s face showed nothing.

“Come on,” JD said. “Let’s get to the boat.”

Macklin looked at his watch.

“We’re too quick,” he said. “Got four hours still to high tide.”

“We got to sit here and wait four hours?” Fran said.

“Sit someplace,” Macklin said. “You feel better sitting by the rendezvous, fine with me.”

“So let’s go,” Fran said. “Stop standing here out in the open.”

Macklin looked at Crow and said, “These boys just haven’t learned how to have fun.”

“Scared,” Crow said.

“No pain, no gain,” Macklin said.

Crow nodded and laid the shotgun crossways on the dashboard and got in behind the wheel. JD and Fran scrambled into the backseat and Macklin, after a last look around, like a tourist leaving a favorite resort, climbed into the passenger seat and closed the door. The women crouched in the cargo space behind them. The one who had been crying was silent now.

“How much you think we got?” JD said, as the van moved along the empty street.

“The houses? The retail stores? The bank? The safe deposit boxes?” Macklin said. “Six, eight million maybe? Whaddya think, Crow?”

“I think we need to count it when we got time,” Crow said.

“What if Freddie’s not there?” Fran said.

“He’ll be there,” Macklin said. “Freddie always does what he says. It’s what makes him such a bad hard-on.”

Macklin was drumming his fingertips lightly on the tops of his thighs. His eyes were bright and seemed to be opened wider than normal. His toes tapped the floorboards of the van in time with his fingertips.

“But what if he’s not?” Fran said.

Macklin shifted a little in the seat so he could look straight at Fran.

“Fran, we just pulled off the mother fucker of all heists, you understand? This is a time to be cool and feel it and kick back and like it. This ain’t a time to be whining.”

“Fran’s got four kids,” Crow said.

“Shoulda thought about that when I invited him in,” Macklin said.

“I did,” Fran said.

“Then shut the fuck up,” Macklin said.

“You don’t have to talk to me that way, Jimmy,” Fran said.

“I’ll talk to you anyway I want,” Macklin said.

“Got to understand,” Crow said gently. “Jimmy isn’t doing this for the money. That’s just the way he keeps score.”

“You don’t have to talk for me, Crow,” Macklin said.

“The real thing he does it for is this, the charge, the danger, the goose it gives him, you understand? He does it same reason people do downhill skiing or sky diving. This is like getting laid for Jimmy, and right now when he’s just ready to come, you’re spoiling the feeling.”

“What the fuck are you, Doctor Spock?” Macklin said.

Crow paid no attention to him.

“We’ll pull this off or we won’t,” Crow said. “And worrying out loud about it ain’t going to do you any good, and it’s going to piss Jimmy off really bad.”

“And that won’t do you any fucking good either,” Macklin said.

Crow didn’t say anything else. Fran was silent and so was JD. Macklin resumed his finger drumming and toe tapping as they left the little downtown and swung onto Sea Street.