The Nearness of You Page 6

  And that was because he couldn’t stop gambling.

  It didn’t matter if it was cards, dice, horses, dogs, or even a wager over whether it would rain or shine, Randall couldn’t resist the lure of a bet. But unlike his success at opening locked safes, where Lady Luck always seemed to be perched on his shoulder, fortune rarely seemed to smile on him when he gambled. Thousands of dollars had passed through his hands over the years, all of his misbegotten earnings and then some. Randall could never set foot in Arkansas again, thanks to some unpaid debts he’d left behind in Little Rock. Wiser men might’ve taken the hint, found another way to spend their time and money, but the siren’s call of the bet enthralled him. He was convinced that the next hand of cards, roll of the die, or pick of the ponies would be a winner. But still he lost.

  And now he needed a big score. Something that would balance his ledgers, get him back in the game. That was why he was here, in upstate New York, scoping out a little bank in Hooper’s Crossing.

  It was also why he wasn’t here alone.

  Randall opened the door to the bank, held it as an older gentleman exited onto the sidewalk, then stepped inside. The Hooper’s Crossing Bank and Trust was like dozens of others he’d seen in small towns all over the country. It was decorated with a handful of chairs and a desk, the marble floor covered with a few well-worn rugs. A quartet of teller windows faced the high-ceilinged vestibule. Just behind those was a good-size vault; the safe door wasn’t even halfway shut, which made Randall almost shake his head in disbelief. Offices were over to the side, with blinds drawn over their windows; odds were high that the fattest cat in this rinky-dink town sat inside, counting his money. He didn’t see a guard.

  Robbing this place was going to be easier than he thought.

  Two of the teller windows were staffed and both were serving bank patrons; at one, a farmer in overalls who smelled like he’d been rolling around in his livestock’s shit guffawed at his own joke, while at the other, a wrinkled prune of a woman was counting out coins one at a time. Randall got in line behind a businessman and took in every detail he could. He imagined what he was about to do, how it had to be done, imagining potential obstacles. Preparation made perfect, like Tom Muntz used to say.

  When the farmer waddled away and the businessman took his place, Randall stepped forward. He was next. Now that he had on unobstructed view, he took a longer look at the tellers. Both were women, which wasn’t surprising. In Randall’s experience, men in banking counted the big bills in the office; they couldn’t be bothered to hand out change up front. Neither of these ladies was much to look at. Both were getting long in the tooth, whatever passed for their best years already in the rearview mirror. He figured they were either deep into spinsterhood or unhappily married, whatever interest their husbands had in them far in the past. The one helping the businessman looked unfriendly, bitter even, her lips pursed in a caterpillar of wrinkles as she went about her business. The other teller at least had a sliver of light in her eyes, even if it was dim. That was the one he wanted. Seconds later, when the grandmother finally finished depositing her spare change, he got his wish.

  Here we go. Time for the show to start.

  “Can I help you, sir?” the woman asked as friendly as could be when Randall approached her window.

  “I sure hope so, ma’am,” he answered with a sincere smile, the kind seen just as easily in his eyes as on his mouth. It was different from the one he’d given Lily; neighborly was the way he would have described it, letting the teller see that she didn’t have a thing to worry about. “I’ve got a little problem I was hoping you could fix for me.”

  “And what’s that?” she asked, right on cue.

  Without his eyes leaving hers, Randall slowly reached his hand into his trouser pocket. “Well, I’ve got something I’ve been carrying around with me all day,” he explained, “and this seems like the right time to put it to use.”

  If only it was my gun.

  He slapped a ten-dollar bill down on the counter. “Could I change this for some silver coins? Got a buddy who collects ’em.”

  “I think I have enough,” she said pleasantly.

  “Peace are fine, but Morgans if you have ’em,” Randall added as he watched her go about her work, making a note of where she kept things. He noticed that her fingernails were all bitten down to the quick. Meant she was nervous.

  “Are you in town for the festival?” the teller asked, making small talk.

  “Yep,” he replied cheerfully. “My first time here.”

  “You’ll love it. Everyone does.”

  “That’s the plan,” Randall said, their conversation unspooling almost exactly as he’d expected. As they talked, he took a long look at the safe over the woman’s shoulder. It was a York, a little fancier than he might have expected from a backwater town like this, but hardly a challenge for his considerable skills; he’d broken into that make plenty of times before. Odds were, the people running the bank were so comfortable in their daily routine that they didn’t bother spinning the tumbler after they opened it in the morning, which would make one number easy, at least. Heck, the whole thing was probably written down somewhere close in case they forgot it. “How about you?” he asked, carrying on his charade. “Will you get to have some fun or do you have to work the whole time?”

  “My nights are free, but I should get an afternoon off, too,” she explained. “Fortunately, the bank always hires extra help during the festival.”

  “That much more business?”

  “Oh, yes,” the teller said as she began to count out his coins. “What with hundreds of people coming to town, everyone will bring money to spend. Why, some years businesses and vendors are lined up out the door to make deposits.”

  “You might need a bigger safe,” he joked.

  “Maybe,” she said, then held up a single coin. “Sorry, just the one Morgan.”

  Randall took it from her. The silver dollar had passed through a lot of hands over the years, the image on its face worn smooth in parts. He deftly maneuvered the coin across his knuckles, raising one finger at a time to roll the silver dollar along, flipping it over and over, one way and then back again, a sleight of hand he’d learned years ago in a Philadelphia bar. It always impressed the ladies.

  “That’s quite the trick,” the teller said, no exception to the rule.

  “Just a way to pass the time,” he said, slipping the coin, along with all the others, into his pocket. If Randall had been wearing a hat, this was when he would’ve tipped it to her. “Thanks for the help, darlin’.”

  “Enjoy the festival,” she told him.

  I plan to. You can bet every last cent in this bank on it…

  “You were doin’ it again.”

  Leo Burke drove the Plymouth down Main Street toward the park. It looked as if the whole damn town was there putting the finishing touches on the festival. The afternoon air was filled with the sounds of hammers and saws, workers directing the installation of signs and lights, even a policeman with a whistle routing traffic this way and that; when Leo went by, he gave the cop a friendly raise of his fingers from atop the wheel.

  “Doin’ what?” Randall asked, slouched in the passenger’s seat.

  “Flippin’ the coin across your knuckles. We talked about that, remember?”

  The younger thief shrugged. “So what?”

  Before he answered, Leo glanced at himself in the car’s rearview mirror. He was in his mid-forties, and crow’s-feet marred the corners of his icy-blue eyes, a deep crease ran across his forehead, and a smattering of gray was sprinkled in at the temples of his otherwise black hair. Compact, muscular, a bit rough around the edges, he wasn’t the sort of man who made others feel comfortable. Usually, it was the opposite.

  “So if you keep doin’ it, someone is gonna notice,” he explained, his voice rising as he struggled to keep a lid on his temper. “That’s the sort of detail a teller might remember. If she tells the cops or some newspaper reporter…”<
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  “Who cares if she remembers?” Randall responded dismissively. “Mine’ll be just another face in a long line of strangers coming to town. Pretty, sure, but not all that different from dozens of others. Besides,” he added, “it ain’t like she’s gonna be there when we rob the place. She’ll be celebrating with everyone else. You’re making somethin’ out of nothin’, old man.”

  Just like Randall, Leo made his living by taking from others. But where his fellow criminal specialized in safes, Leo excelled at masterminding jobs. Poring over building plans, hours spent watching a security guard’s patterns to find that one weakness, staking out a Brinks truck’s route on a cold February morning: these were the ways Leo went about his work. Get in, get out fast, and triple-count your take. Over the years, he’d hit banks, theaters, restaurants, racetracks, anywhere that was fat with cash for the taking.

  But he was getting older now. Leo had come to the realization that stealing was a younger man’s game. What a buck like Randall might lack in wits or wisdom, he more than made up for in physical talents. Running into a cornfield to escape the police wasn’t as easy as it used to be. Leo had become convinced that if he kept traveling down the same road as always, he was bound to slip up and go to jail. Maybe even worse. He needed a big score, enough money to allow him to coast, to retire from the game.

  And so Leo had come up with the idea of robbing the Hooper’s Crossing Bank and Trust.

  For years, the thought had been bouncing around in his head, tempting him. He’d heard talk about this little town in the middle of nowhere with a fall festival that drew a huge crowd, everyone flush with cash, most of which would get deposited in one spot, a bank without much for security, ripe for the plucking. Under the cover of darkness, while the town enjoyed Halloween, a couple of skilled thieves could break into the safe, fill their sacks with loot, and disappear back into the crowd before anyone got wise to their heist. There were risks involved, just like any job, but the potential rewards made them worth taking.

  Because Leo knew he couldn’t do it alone, he’d brought in Randall. The kid had come highly recommended by Larry Galvin, a guy Leo had worked with a couple of times before. The way Larry made it sound, there hadn’t been a safe invented yet that Randall couldn’t crack, which had better be true, since Leo was starting to get fed up with the way the kid handled himself.

  “What were you doin’ talkin’ to that blonde on the sidewalk?” he pressed. Leo had been outside doing his own reconnaissance of the bank, and had seen the whole thing. It looked as if the kid had bumped into her on purpose, and then started hitting her up for a date.

  “Lily,” Randall answered flatly. “Her name was Lily.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Leo spat. “What did you do, introduce yourself?”

  “Yeah, I gave her my real name and told her I was plannin’ on robbin’ the bank,” he answered sarcastically. “Give me a little credit, huh?”

  “All I’m sayin’ is that you’re takin’ too many risks.”

  “And what I’m sayin’ is that you’re acting like an old woman. Relax. I may be twenty years younger than you, but this ain’t my first time on the merry-go-round. I know what I’m doing.”

  Leo took a deep breath, struggling to put a leash on his frustration, something he seemed to be doing a lot of these days. The kid was goading him, but he didn’t want to take the bait. “Did you see what you wanted in the bank?” he asked.

  “The vault’s a York,” Randall answered, looking out his window. “Thirty years old at least but nothing I haven’t encountered before.”

  “Can you crack it?”

  “Does a bear shit in the woods?” the younger man replied, then laughed halfheartedly at his own stale joke. “You get us in the door, I’ll open the safe, and if there’s as much cash as you say there’ll be, we’ll be set up like Howard Hughes.”

  The kid might have been exaggerating, but Leo knew that if everything went the way he’d planned, both of them would be plenty rich. Maybe he would even have enough to leave this life for good, retire to Arizona, Utah, or California, somewhere warm, find a fishing hole, and enjoy whatever years he still had ahead of him. But first things first. He had work to do before Halloween.

  And who knew what could go wrong between now and then.

  Chapter Six

  BOONE STOOD AT the door to his apartment, fishing in his pocket for his keys. He lived in an old building on 109th Street, near Amsterdam Avenue and west of Central Park. His place was on the fifth floor; without a lift, he had to trudge up the stairs that were hotter than an oven in summer, cold like an icebox in winter. Since the magazine kept him hopping around the globe snapping pictures, he wasn’t home much, and thought of his apartment more as a place to store his stuff than somewhere to live. There was, however, one notable exception.

  “Daisy!” he hollered once he’d let himself inside. “I’m home!”

  Immediately, the excited sound of racing footsteps pounded down the hallway toward him. An instant later, a yellow Labrador retriever raced into the room, heading straight for Boone. Her pink tongue lolled from her mouth and her tail wagged faster than windshield wipers on a rainy day; it was clear that the dog was happy to see him.

  “Hey, girl,” Boone said, rubbing her head. “I’m glad to be back, too.”

  Daisy had shared his life for a little more than three years now. Boone had come across a dirty, malnourished puppy while on assignment in Tijuana and had been instantly smitten with the dog. Even as he’d snapped pictures, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. And so, bound and determined not to let the animal die on the streets, Boone had smuggled her back home. He’d named her Daisy to be cute; she was nothing like a delicate flower. Fortunately, Mrs. Rodriguez, an older widow who lived on the second floor, was a dog lover; whenever Boone was traveling for Life, she took Daisy for afternoon walks and made sure the dog had food and water.

  Suddenly, the dog ran off but quickly returned with a rubber ball, which she dropped at Boone’s feet.

  “I don’t get some time to relax?” he asked.

  The dog tilted her head as if to say, Are you kidding?

  Boone chuckled. “I didn’t think so.”

  He picked up the ball and sent it flying down the hallway. Daisy raced after it, a tornado of panting, drool, claws, and fur.

  Even as he watched her go, Boone realized that for the first time since he’d left Walter Bing’s office, he wasn’t thinking about the utter unfairness of his punishment. The whole walk to the subway, each jarring stop on the ride, and every step since, he’d been grumbling to himself, wishing that the damn longshoreman had minded his own business, still in disbelief that he had to go to Hoover’s Junction and take pictures of a bunch of rubes prancing around in their Halloween costumes. It was beneath him, plain and simple. But Walter had made it clear: either he went or he was out on his ass. No Life magazine job. No Havana. No nothing.

  So Boone was going, whether he wanted to or not.

  Before he had left the office, Boone called Clive Negly, the writer he was supposed to babysit. As soon as Clive picked up he’d launched into a gushy speech about how excited he was to be paired with such an experienced photographer, how he was sure they were going to produce the best story possible, blah, blah, blah. Boone had quickly cut the man off, given directions to his apartment, then hung up.

  After playing awhile longer with Daisy, he went into his bedroom and started packing a suitcase. He picked the smallest one he had, since he didn’t plan to be in Harper’s Corner for long. He threw in a couple of days’ worth of clothes, his toiletries, a map, and a few other odds and ends.

  “You get to come this time, girl,” Boone told the dog. Daisy rose from the doorway and trotted off as if she’d understood and needed to pack her things, too.

  Boone next went to the hallway closet. His Perkeo camera was right where he’d put it. Since the longshoreman had busted up his new Mycro, he had no choice but go back to the older model.

  �
�One more time, huh, old buddy?” he muttered.

  He was about to shut the closet door but then paused. Rows of bottles lined the shelves, full of chemicals he used developing pictures. Briefly, Boone considered leaving them behind; after all, he was just going to zip upstate, snap a handful of shots, and then be on his way. He could always develop them once he got back to the city. But something nagged at him. He suspected that it would be better to have them and not need them than the other way around. He sighed, then started grabbing bottles.

  When he was finished, Boone looked at his watch. He still had a couple of hours before Clive showed up, more than enough time to go over the finer points of his plan, to correct any mistakes. He was sure it would work.

  Walter would get what he wanted.

  Clive could go back to writing about cats stuck in trees.

  And he wouldn’t have to spend twenty-four hours in Hillman’s Corner. If he played his cards right, this would be over before it had really even started.

  Daisy was in the Chrysler’s backseat panting and fogging up the windows, the rest of his things in the trunk, when Boone saw Clive Negly making his way down the sidewalk almost twenty minutes late. The young writer was struggling along, overburdened by three large suitcases; as Boone shook his head, Clive dropped a pair of them to the ground with a clatter.

  “Why in the heck did you pack so much stuff?” Boone demanded.

  Clive shrugged. “I couldn’t make up my mind so I decided to bring it all.”

  “This isn’t a damn safari!”