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from the spot where the bank man was to meet him. Just as he set the brake and grabbed a briefcase from the back seat, Hawley’s Caddy hung an erratic turn off Ventura and slowed. Rice checked his fake mustache in the rearview mirror. Mr. Solid Citizen out for a stroll. The bank man was acting like Mr. Solid Citizen on a trip to Panic City. Rice walked toward the bank parking lot, watching Hawley scrape bumpers as he parallel-parked his Caddy, plowing into the curb twice before squeezing into an easy space. When he finally got out and stood by the car, he was shaking from head to toe.
Rice approached, swinging the briefcase casually. Hawley frantically eyeballed the street. Their eyes locked for an instant, then Hawley turned around and checked out his blind side. Rice grinned at his protective image and came up on the bank manager and tapped him on the shoulder. “Bob, how nice to see you!”
Hawley did a jerky pivot. “Please, not now. I’m meeting someone.”
Rice clapped Hawley on the back and spun him in the direction of the bank, keeping an arm around his shoulders as he hissed, “You’re meeting me, dick breath. We’re going straight to the tellers boxes, then straight back to your car.” He dug his fingers into the bank man’s collarbone and gouged in concert with sound effects: “Chop, chop, chop.” Hawley winced with each syllable and let himself be propelled toward the bank. At the front door, Hawley inserted keys into the three locks while Rice stood aside with one eye cocked in the direction of Ventura Boulevard. No patrol cars; no unmarked cruisers; nothing remotely off. The doors sprung open and they stepped inside. The bank man locked a central mechanism attached to the floor runner and looked up at the robber. “F-fast, please.”
Rice pointed toward the teller area, then stepped back and let Hawley lead the way. When the manager’s back was turned, he opened his briefcase and took out a pint bottle of bourbon and stuck it into his right front pants pocket. Hawley stepped over a low wooden partition and began unlocking and sliding open drawers. Rice glanced down and saw rows of folding green, then looked closer and saw that it was off-green—fancy traveler’s checks done up in a Wild West motif. “The cash,” he hissed. “Where’s the fucking money?”
Hawley stammered, “T-t-time-locked. The vault. You said on the phone you wanted—”
Ignoring him, Rice opened the rest of the drawers himself, finding nothing but fat stacks of B. of A. “Greenbacks” in denominations of twenty, fifty and a hundred. Replaying his casing job in his mind, he snapped to what 490
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happened. Hawley was pilfering the traveler’s checks. The paperwork he saw him doing was some sort of ass-covering. Seeing the banker outlined in red, he said, “There’s no cash in these drawers?”
“N-nn-no.”
“You’ve been ripping off traveler’s checks?”
Shooting a panicky glance at the window, Hawley said, “Just for a while. I’ve got bad gambling debts, and I’m just trying to get even. Please don’t kill me!”
Rice held the briefcase open, thinking of Chula Medina and twenty cents on the dollar tops. When Hawley started stuffing the rows of Greenbacks inside, he said, “Talk, dick breath. Give me a good line on your scam, and maybe I’ll let you slide.”
Hawley fumbled the packets into the briefcase, his eyes averted from Rice, his voice near cracking as he spoke. “The Greenbacks are tallied by the week. I’ve got duplicate bankbooks for two old lady customers—they’re senile—and I transfer cash from their accounts to the bank and take it out in Greenbacks. I can’t do it for much longer, it’s wrong, and the paperwork juggling has got to come back on me.” He opened the last drawer and transferred its contents to the briefcase, then held up supplicating hands and whispered, “Please, fast.”
Rice took in the bank man’s “scam,” feeling it sink in as truth, knowing that Eggers’s pilfer scene was probably something similar—he was a fool to think bank pros would leave cash out overnight. Noting wraparound tabs on the Greenbacks, he flashed a psycho killer smirk and held his jacket open to show off his .45. “I know about exploding ink packets, dick breath. You ink me and I’ll come back and chop-chop your whole family.”
Hawley shook his head and mashed his hands together. “We do ink only on cash, only on payroll days. Please. ”
He looked up doglike for instructions. Rice closed the briefcase and said,
“Back to your car. Stay calm. Think about your golf game and you’ll be cool.”
Hawley moved toward the front doors in spastic steps; Rice was right behind. When they hit the street and the manager locked the door behind them, he threw his left arm over his shoulders and shifted the tranq gun from his waistband to his right jacket pocket.
They approached the Cadillac from the street. Rice pointed to the driver’sside door, and Hawley got in behind the wheel. Terror hit his face as he saw Rice reach into his waistband, and he squeezed his eyes shut and began murmuring the Lord’s Prayer.