Since We Fell

by Dennis Lehane

  Brian, lying on the backseat under a painter’s tarp, said, “So?”

  “Just trying to picture him.”

  “Dark hair, young guy, works out.”

  “You said he was middle age.” She scratched her nose again and spoke into her palm and felt ridiculous.

  “I said almost middle age. He’s, like, mid-thirties. What do you see in the lot? Pretend you’re talking on your cell.”

  Ah. He had mentioned that.

  She lifted her cell to her ear, spoke into it. “The two cars by the front door. Four other cars in the center of the lot. Five employee cars against the slope at the far end of the lot.”

  “How do you know they’re employee cars?”

  “They’re all grouped together at the edge of the lot when there are plenty of closer spaces. That usually means the section is for employees.”

  “But Manfred’s car is by the doors?”

  “Yup. Beside the employee of the month’s.”

  “Seven employee cars? That’s too many for a bank this small. You see any heads in any of those cars?”

  She looked. The knoll backed up to a great red maple that had probably been there when the first Puritans arrived. Its branches were long, its leaves abundant, and the five cars sitting underneath it could have been sitting under a bridge for all the sunlight that reached them. If there was a suspicious car among them, she would say it was the center car. The driver had backed into the spot. The other four cars were parked nose-in. The grille emblem told her it was a Chevy. By the length of it, she’d guess a four-door, but the interior was impossible to discern under the cover of that shade.

  “Hard to tell,” she said to Brian. “They’re in the shade.” She reached for the gearshift. “Should I drive over?”

  “No, no. You’re already parked. It’ll look weird. You sure you can’t see into the cars?”

  “Pretty much. And if I stare too long and there is somebody in one of those cars, won’t it look suspicious?”

  “Good point.”

  She let out a long, steady breath. Her blood slithered through her veins; the tom-tom beat of her heart echoed in her ear canals. She felt like screaming.

  “I guess there’s nothing to do but gut it out at this point,” he said.

  “Great,” she said into the phone. “Great, great, fucking great.”

  “There could also be someone inside the bank. Someone just sitting around leafing through brochures or something. They could have flashed a fake badge, told the bank they were staking it out because of blah-blah-blah. That’s what I’d do anyway.”

  “Will the person inside be smart enough to spot a wig?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Will they be smart enough to recognize me under a disguise?”

  “I. Don’t. Know.”

  “Is that all you got? A Hail Mary and I-don’t-knows?”

  “That’s what most cons are made up of. Welcome to the club. Dues payable at the end of every month and don’t park on the lawn.”

  “Fuck you.” She got out of the car.

  “Wait.”

  She reached back in for her bag. “What?”

  “Love ya bunches,” he said.

  “You’re an asshole.” She slung her bag over her shoulder and shut the door.

  As she walked toward the bank, she resisted the urge to look across the parking lot where the five cars sat under the shade of the maple. By the position of the sun, she guessed she might catch the light right just as she reached the door, but she couldn’t conceive of a casual way to turn her head that far left. She caught her reflection in the front door—honey blond hair that fell to her shoulders and looked completely unnatural to her, though Brian assured her this was only because she wasn’t used to it yet; bright blue, alien eyes; dark blue skirt, peach silk blouse, black flats, the uniform of a supervisor at a medium-size software development company, which is what Nicole Rosovich claimed paid her bills. Her bra matched the color of the blouse; they’d decided on a push-up bra with just a hint of cleavage, not so much to be obvious, but not so little Manfred Thorp would refrain from stealing a glance every now and then. If it helped keep him from looking too closely at the rest of her, she would have agreed to waltz in there naked.

  Ten steps from the front door now and all she wanted to do was turn and run. The recent history of panic attacks had at least prepared her for a body awash in hysteria—the Saharan tongue, the spastic heart, the electrified blood, every sight too sharp, every sound too loud—but she’d never had to function normally with a panic attack. But now if she didn’t fake calm at an Oscar-caliber level, she would die or be arrested. Wasn’t really a Door Number Three that she could see.

  She entered the bank.

  The history of the bank was documented on a plaque just inside the front door and in a series of photographs within the bank itself. Most of the photographs were tinted sepia even though the bank had been established in 1948 as opposed to 1918. There it was as two men in ill-fitting suits and too short, too florid ties cut a ribbon. There it was surrounded by miles of farmland. There it was surrounded by tractors and other farm machinery on what looked to be some kind of holiday.

  The door to Manfred Thorp’s office was as old as the first photo. Its wood was thick and painted a reddish brown. The office’s glass walls gave way to wooden or faux-wooden blinds that were closed. No way to tell if Manfred was even in there.

  The bank had no customer service station. She had to stand in line behind an elderly woman who sighed a lot until the two tellers dispatched both their previous customers at roughly the same time. The male teller, dark skinny tie over a red plaid shirt, nodded to the elderly woman. The female teller said, “Help you, miss?”

  She shot Rachel a vague smile as she approached and emitted the air of someone who was rarely present in a conversation but who’d learned her lines enough to imitate someone who was. She was about thirty, in a sleeveless top, the better to show off well-toned arms and a spray-on tan. She had straight brown hair that fell to her shoulders, a rock the size of a Prius on her left ring finger, and she might have been pretty if the skin weren’t stretched so tight against her face it gave her the unfortunate look of someone who’d been struck by lightning during an orgasm. She flashed eyes as bright as they were dead and said, “What can we do for you today?”

  Her name tag identified her as Ashley.

  Rachel said, “I need access to my safe deposit box.”

  Ashley crinkled her nose at the counter. “Do you have ID?”

  “Yes, yes.” Rachel produced the Nicole Rosovich license and dropped it into the tray beneath the glass partition.

  Ashley pushed it back out with two fingers. “I don’t need it. You’ll need it for Mr. Thorp, when he’s available.”

  “And when will that be?”

  Ashley gave her that nothing smile again. “I’m sorry?”

  “When will Mr. Thorp be available?”

  “You’re not the first customer of the day, ma’am.”

  “I never claimed to be. I’m just wondering when Mr. Thorp will be available.”

  “Mmmm.” Ashley gave her another smile, this one tight with waning patience. She crinkled her nose again. “Shortly.”

  Rachel said, “Is that ten minutes? Fifteen? How would you define it?”

  “Please take a seat in the waiting area, ma’am. I’ll let him know you’re here.” She dismissed her by looking past Rachel’s shoulder and saying, “Help you, sir?”

  Rachel’s spot was overtaken by a guy with snow-white hair and a shy, apologetic gaze that he dropped as soon as she stepped away from the counter.

  She sat in the waiting area with a twentysomething woman with a blue-black dye job, a few New Age neck and wrist tattoos, and sapphire eyes. She wore high-end biker boots and high-end wrecked jeans and a black tank top over a white one, both under a white cotton shirt that was perfectly pressed but two sizes too big. She leafed through a local real estate magazine. After a few gl
ances, Rachel ascertained that she was quite pretty under the dye job and had the kind of posture one associated with supermodels and finishing-school grads.

  Not the kind of person one would assume worked for Cotter-McCann and spent her days staking out a bank. In fact, she’d barely looked at Rachel, her eyes locked on the pages of the real estate magazine.

  But it was a suburban real estate magazine, the homes on the cover of the small Cape, starter home variety, and this girl didn’t give off that vibe at all. She was downtown loft space all the way. Then again, Rachel herself had leafed through plenty of literature that she’d normally never pick up in a variety of waiting rooms over the years; once, while waiting for her car to be serviced, she’d read an entire article on the best after-market chrome accents for your Harley, fascinated by the similarities between that article and one she’d read in a hair salon a few weeks prior on the best ways to accessorize your spring wardrobe.

  Even so, the way this girl read the real estate magazine, her brow furrowed, her eyes studiously—conspicuously?—glued to the pages made Rachel wonder why she could be sitting there. The accounts manager, Jessie Schwartz-Stone, sat in a typical glass-enclosed office, tapping on her desktop keypad with the eraser of a pencil, and both tellers were currently unburdened of customers. The office of Vice-President Corey Mazzetti, also glass-enclosed, was empty.

  She’s waiting for the same guy you are, Rachel told herself. Maybe she has a safe deposit box as well. Not something you usually see in the possession of a twentysomething at a hick bank twenty miles from a medium-size city, but the box could have been passed down through generations.

  Who passes a safe deposit box down through generations, Rachel?

  She glanced at the girl again only to find her staring directly back at her. She shot Rachel a smile—of confirmation? of triumph? of simple acknowledgment?—and went back to her ridiculous magazine.

  The brown door opened and Manfred Thorp stood in the doorway in a light pinstripe shirt, red skinny tie, dark suit pants. As Brian had said, he looked quite fit. He had dark hair and dark eyes she didn’t like—they seemed hooded, although that could be because his eye sockets were slightly large for his face. He looked at the two women in his waiting area and said, “Miss . . .” He looked down at a scrap of paper. “Miss Rosovich?”

  Rachel stood and smoothed the back of her skirt, thinking, Okay, so who the fuck is she waiting for?

  She shook Manfred Thorp’s hand as he ushered her into the office. He shut the door behind her and she imagined the girl in the waiting room diving into her bag, grabbing her cell phone, and texting Ned or Lars: She’s in the bank.

  Ned and Lars, if they were watching the parking lot from one of the cars under the great sugar maple, would now search the parking lot. They’d find Brian easily enough—lying on the backseat of a car under a tarp was hardly foolproof. One of them would open the door, place the muzzle of that silencer to his forehead, and—pop!—lather the backseat with his brain matter. Then all that would be left to do would be to wait for her to exit the bank.

  No, no, Rachel. They’d need Brian alive to get the money wired back into their account. So they wouldn’t kill Brian.

  But what did they need her for?

  “Now how can I help you?”

  Manfred was looking at her funny, waiting for her to speak.

  “I need to access my safe deposit box.”

  He opened a drawer. “Of course. Can I see your driver’s license, please?”

  She opened her bag, fumbled inside for her wallet. She retrieved it. Opened it. Pulled out the fake license and handed it across the desk to him.

  He didn’t look at it. He was too busy staring at her. She hadn’t been wrong about his eyes—they were, if not cruel, callous and entitled. He’d never formed an opinion about himself and his place in the world that wasn’t flattering.

  “Have we met?” he said.

  “I’m pretty sure,” she said. “My husband and I rented this box about six months ago.”

  He tapped a few keys, looked at his computer screen. “It was five months ago.”

  Like I said, she thought, about six months ago, dick.

  “And you have all-access privileges.” Another click on the keyboard. “So if all’s in order, we can take you down there.” He held her license up to the screen—comparing signatures, she assumed—and his eyes narrowed. He sat back in his chair, pushed the chair an inch or two back on its wheels. He flicked his eyes at her and then back at the screen and then down at the license in his hand.

  Her throat closed.

  Followed by her nasal passages.

  No oxygen coming in, no oxygen going out.

  The office was unreasonably hot, as if it sat on a thin ledge of shale over the mouth of an active volcano.

  He dropped her license to the floor.

  He leaned sideways in his chair and picked it back up, tapped it off his knee. He reached for the phone and she thought of pulling the gun from her bag, pointing it across the desk at him, and telling him to take her to the fucking safe deposit box right fucking now.

  She couldn’t imagine a world in which that scenario ended well.

  “Nicole,” he said, the phone in his hand.

  She heard herself say, “Uh-huh?”

  “Nicole Rosovich.”

  She realized she’d sucked her lower lip so deeply into her mouth it probably looked like she’d vacuumed up her chin in the process. She opened her mouth and looked across the desk at him, waiting.

  He shrugged. “Cool name. It’s got a good hard sound to it.” He pressed a button on the phone. “You work out?”

  She smiled. “Pilates.”

  “It shows.” He said into the phone, “Bring the keys over to the office, Ash.” He hung up. He handed her license back to her. “Should be just a minute.”

  The relief flooded her body like a broken fever until he reached into a drawer and said, “Just a quick signature.”

  He slid a signature card across the desk to her.

  “You still use these things?” she said lightly.

  “As long as the old man is still with us.” He looked up at the ceiling. “And thank God he is, as I say every day.”

  “Well, he built all this.”

  “He didn’t build it. My grandfather did. He just . . .” His voice trailed off. “Whatever.” He unclipped a Montblanc from his shirt pocket and handed it across the desk to her. “If you’d do the honors.”

  Thankfully she hadn’t returned her license to her wallet. It was on the desk by her elbow. She’d learned last night through two hours of practice that even when the signature was right side up—particularly when it was right side up—the only way to duplicate it was by seeing it as a shape. Last night, she’d also done best when she’d taken it all in with one quick glance and then plunged straight into duplicating it without pause. But that had been last night, at the kitchen table in Woonsocket, without any stakes.

  I am enough.

  She looked at the license, drank in the signature, and put the tip of the Montblanc to the signature card. She was halfway through the signature when the door flew open behind her.

  She didn’t look back. She finished writing.

  Ashley came around to Manfred’s side of the desk and handed him a key ring. She remained by his side and stared down at Rachel as if she knew her name wasn’t Nicole, as if she could see the clips that held her wig in place.

  Manfred went through the key ring until he found the one he liked. He noticed Ashley beside him.

  “Are you on break?”

  “Sorry, Manny?”

  “Thank you for the keys, but we have a bank to run.”

  Ashley smiled at him in such a way that Rachel knew he’d pay for it later, and just like that Rachel knew they were fucking, which may or may not be news to the blank-faced wife in the pictures, but probably would be to the two hopeful, pudgy boys in the same photos. As Ashley left, Rachel decided Manny cheated on the wife because
of her blankness, but he cheated on his sons because they were fat. And you don’t even know it, do you, you son of a bitch? Because you have no integrity. So vows—the ones you made in a church or the ones you should have made to yourself—mean nothing.

  He didn’t even glance at the signature card before he came out from behind the desk. “Let’s go then, shall we?”

  When they exited the office, the girl had left the waiting area. Had she been waiting on a boyfriend or girlfriend, perhaps? They’d agreed to meet here because her lover had some banking to do before they could pop over to the Chili’s across the road. She wasn’t in the bank any longer, at least not the parts Rachel could see. So that was it—boyfriend or girlfriend came to meet her and they were now ordering the Tequila Lime Chicken across the road.

  Or scenario number two: She’d ID’d Rachel, texted Ned, Lars, or men like them, and now she was driving home with plausible deniability in her pocket should the police ever question her about the woman in the blond wig who’d been assassinated in the parking lot around 10:15 that morning.

  Manny stopped before an eight-foot-high vault door. He stepped in close to a keypad and punched some numbers onto it. He took one step to his left and pressed his thumb to another pad. The vault door clicked open. He pulled it back. Now they faced a gate. He unlocked that with one of the keys on his ring and then led her into the vault.

  They stood there, surrounded by safe deposit boxes, and she realized she’d never asked Brian for the number.

  And he’d never told her.

  How do you spend hours teaching someone how to fake a signature, weeks, if not months, prepping for this worst-case scenario, make fake IDs, fake passports, pick the perfect bank . . . and still not tell your wife the actual fucking number of the actual safe deposit box?