Stealing Sturgis

by Matthew Iden

  “Lee!” Randy called from the front of the house. “Quit trying to get that girl’s pants off and get back here.”

  Lee got to his feet and grabbed Becky, looking into her face. “I’m going to find a way out of this. I promise you.”

  Becky looked at him then looked down, shaking her head. “That’s nice you think so, Lee,” she said in a whisper. “But it’s not going to happen.”

  “I’ll make it happen,” he said, not knowing how to even begin.

  “Look at the lovebirds,” Randy said. He and Baby Boy had moved into the kitchen to talk.

  Baby Boy looked over as Becky and Lee shuffled back into the living room. “I knew that sumbitch wasn’t any good for my sister. I should shoot him right now.”

  “Don’t make no never mind to me,” Randy said. He opened the refrigerator and looked inside at the empty shelves, then closed the door in disgust. “I’m thinking more about that girl. Wouldn’t mind seeing what’s under them jeans.”

  “I don’t care what you do with her, as long as it’s all done when I’m ready to leave.”

  “You don’t want a piece of that?” Randy said.

  “Nah, she’s too skinny for me,” Baby Boy said, thinking about DNA evidence and some other things Dougie had taught him to be wary of. “Help yourself. But not until we’re done getting the money. Don’t want her freaking out while we’re at the bank.”

  Randy nodded, then walked into the living room. “All right, kids. We’ve got a game plan. Hey!” He kicked the bottom of Jason’s boots. “Wake up, dammit. That’s better. Here’s the deal. What bank do you use?”

  The question was directed at Becky. “Wells Fargo,” she said, uncertainly.

  “What about you?” Randy said, spinning in place and pointing at Jason.

  “First Western,” he said.

  “All right,” Randy said. “We’re going to take you”—he nodded to Becky—“to the main branch of Wells Fargo in town. You’re going to withdraw ten thousand in cash from your account, then wire the rest to an account we’ll give you.”

  “Then we’ll take you”—he nodded to Jason—“to the First Western where you’ll do the same thing.”

  “Then what?” Jason asked. “You’ll let us go?”

  Baby Boy cleared his throat. “That’s the plan.”

  “Just like that?” Lee asked.

  “Yep,” Randy said, grinning. “Just like that.”

  Chapter Twenty

  It looked like some kind of strange family outing. Baby Boy and Randy led Becky, Jason, and Lee out to Baby Boy’s truck, squeezing in, with Lee driving. Baby Boy sat in the passenger’s seat next to him and the other three maneuvered themselves into the tiny jump seat in the back. Baby Boy had left the shotgun in the house, leaning it against the fireplace like a hunting piece, but had his SIG Sauer resting in his lap, while Randy covered the two in the back with his Glock.

  “Just like a field trip back in school,” Randy said, bright-eyed and grinning. They drove down the hillside, heading for Route 90 back to Sturgis. Everyone was quiet until Baby Boy tapped Lee on the shoulder.

  “Slow down and do the limit,” Baby Boy said. “Last thing we need is to get pulled over for speeding.”

  Lee let the truck coast down to the limit and moved to the right-hand lane. He glanced in the mirror from time to time trying to catch Becky’s eye, but she stared at the floor, her face pale and her mouth pinched. Jason’s face was waxy and he seemed dazed.

  In about fifteen minutes, they saw signs for Sturgis. Lee looked over at Baby Boy. “You know where it is?”

  Baby Boy squinted, trying to remember from the map of town he’d seen in the phone book when he’d been looking for hotels. “Just head for town. We’ll find her.”

  Lee got off at the main Sturgis exit, following signs to downtown and slowing for the steady stream of bikers, latecomers to the party, or day-trippers coming back from their morning ride to the Black Hills or Mount Rushmore. They crawled along, following the traffic and checking street signs.

  “Nice and easy,” Baby Boy said. “Cruise along until we see it, Wells Fargo. Shouldn’t be too hard.”

  A few minutes later they saw the neoclassical columns and brass front doors of the bank, green from time and weather. “Pull in front—no, wait, take that spot,” Baby Boy said, pointing. “We don’t want some meter maid busting the deal.”

  Lee pulled into the parking space. Baby Boy leaned over and pulled the keys out of the ignition, tucked them into his pocket, and looked around at the sidewalk traffic before climbing out. He opened the passenger’s-side back door and pulled Becky down from the truck. With one hand on her arm, he leaned back inside and looked at Randy. “You stay in the back so you can cover. Shouldn’t take more ’n ten, fifteen minutes.”

  “Hey,” Randy said.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I just don’t want this to get screwed up.”

  “That’s why I’m the one going in the bank.” He plucked a pair of sunglasses from a coat pocket and put them on. He turned and, with one hand still resting lightly on her arm as though to protect her, Baby Boy guided Becky across the street and into the bank.

  “This is, ah, highly unusual, Miss Winters,” the teller said. He was a thin, prissy-looking man in his late thirties with a black tie and green pullover sweater. He held her driver’s license at arm’s length, peering at it like it was a foreign object. “I mean, this is, um, an enormous sum of money to be withdrawing. Not to mention, asking to wire everything out of your account. Are you sure you won’t reconsider?”

  “I understand the oddity of the situation…Bobby,” she said, eyes searching for his nameplate. “I really do. But I’ve just recently been asked to contribute to a charity fund-raiser. It was a bit of a surprise to me, but when I heard about the good cause, I just had to jump in.”

  “Wouldn’t they take a cashier’s check?” he persisted.

  “I don’t know,” Becky said, biting her lip and looking at Baby Boy.

  He shook his head. “I don’t think so, Miss Winters. They said cash. I’m not sure why.”

  “What charity is it?” the teller asked, his face pinched.

  “The, uh—”

  Baby Boy leaned in. “The Boys Club of America.”

  “Yes, that’s right, the Boys Club.”

  The teller’s forehead creased. “Didn’t you just run one of these things just the other night? I thought I saw a poster of you…”

  “Yes, you did, for the muscular dystrophy auction,” she said. “But I didn’t contribute anything. I was just an MC. Truth is, I felt a little guilty at not donating anything but my time. I’m sure you understand.” She flashed him the charm smile.

  It appeared to wash the doubt away. He smiled back toothily and said, “I’ll have to alert the manager, of course, Miss Winters, but since this is Rally week—cash influx and all that—he may be more cooperative than normal.”

  “Wonderful,” she said at the man’s back as he turned to go to the back room. She kept her hands at her sides like she’d been told, but ached to jot down a message on a deposit slip. Surely, she’d have to sign a form or something to get their attention.

  As if reading her mind, Baby Boy leaned over, inches from her ear. “Don’t do anything stupid, honey. I can shoot you and still walk out of this backwater in ten seconds. And don’t forget about both of your boyfriends back in the truck.”

  She swallowed and tried to appear normal, though her heart was pounding and she felt her stomach doing funny things. She looked around the bank, wondering how far she’d get if she just started screaming and running. But she did nothing. Baby Boy—what a name—might look like Herman Munster, but there was something about him that felt more dangerous than Randy’s crazy, good-old-boy act. Randy might shoot somebody in a rage, and that was scary enough, but Baby Boy seemed capable of killing someone slowly, professionally. If Randy were behind her with a gun and she tried to run, she could see him shooting the place to
pieces and running out with her. But with Baby Boy, she could imagine him calmly taking aim and putting a bullet in her back before strolling outside.

  Bobby the teller returned with an officious-looking man in a short-sleeved white dress shirt with brown tie. His face was flushed red around a bristly, Kaiser-style mustache.

  “Miss Winters?” the other man said, looking at her through the cage bars, then at Baby Boy, then quickly back down at a form in his hands.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Frank Ramsay, the bank manager. This is…well, let me say that this is one humdinger of a request. Ten thousand dollars in cash and then emptying your account via wire? I’ve never seen this done before. It’s a hell of a thing.”

  “I know it’s a lot—” she began.

  “Hell of a thing,” he said, shaking his head and speaking as though she wasn’t there. “Don’t you at least want a cashier’s check for the ten thousand, instead? It would be much safer, more secure.”

  “I’m afraid a check won’t do, Mr. Ramsay,” she said. “I’d like to be able to present the funds to the charity, the uh, Boys Club representative today.”

  “A check would work just as well,” he said, a stubborn note in his voice. “With cash, anyone can—”

  “Is this her money or not?” Baby Boy said, speaking over her shoulder and glaring at the man.

  The man’s face went from a flushed red to a bright strawberry color. “Of course it’s her money. I didn’t mean to say anything to the contrary. I simply meant to say—”

  “And she’s allowed to withdraw from her account anytime she feels like it, right?”

  “Within reason, naturally—”

  “Then get the damn cash, wire the damn money, and let her go about her damn business,” Baby Boy said. “Miss Winters has better things to do than argue with bank managers all day.”

  The man’s mouth clamped shut and he shoved the form into Bobby’s hands. “All right, then, do it.” He turned to Becky and Baby Boy and said, in a defiant tone, “You know, this will be noted. We can’t transfer this amount without a report being made.”

  “I’m certain it will, Mr. Ramsay,” Becky said. He stomped off, muttering.

  Barely hiding a smile, Bobby filled out several of the boxes on the transfer sheet and then slid it through to her. “Just sign in those three places where I’ve marked, Miss Winters.”

  She picked up the pen to sign and dropped it with a clatter. She picked it up again and felt Baby Boy move a little closer. She could smell the leather of his jacket and feel his breath on the side of her face, he was so close. Carefully, she signed her name three times, then pushed the paper under the bars.

  “Shouldn’t be but a few minutes, Miss Winters,” he said. “Would you like to sit in the lobby?”

  “We’ll stand, thanks,” Baby Boy said.

  Bobby shrugged, then went to the back again. Now that her part was done, Becky’s knees started to wobble in a way she hadn’t felt since her first audition. The reality of the situation began to sink in and she realized that she might be able to count how long she’d be alive in a matter of hours. Why not scream and run—what did she have to lose? But each time she thought about it, playing the scenario through her head, all she could think of was the impact of the bullet, burying itself in her back.

  As she stood there, she noticed two women in their twenties with identical long, straight chestnut hair and tight jeans glancing at her from the line. One was chewing gum. She blew bubbles and cracked it with loud, annoying pops. They whispered and nudged one another until the one without the gum finally summoned the courage to come over.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, but…are you Becky Winters?” she asked, biting her lip.

  Becky tried to smile, but she knew it showed as a strained stretching of her lips, nothing more. “That’s me.”

  “Ohmigod, it is you,” the woman said excitedly. She turned to her friend and nodded. Her friend took that as a sign to come over.

  “I’m sorry if this is a problem, but would you mind giving us your autograph?” the first woman said.

  “I don’t really have anything—” Becky said. She felt dizzy and distracted. She was maybe a few hours away from being shot and these two wanted autographs.

  “Here, use this deposit slip. It’s not a poster or anything, but it’ll do,” the second woman said, reaching into the tray that held the bank forms. “I just loved you in Goodbye, My Dominatrix!”

  “Yeah, you were awesome,” her friend said.

  At that moment, Bobby returned from the back with a large green envelope and a sheaf of papers that he tucked into a manila envelope. He made a neat stack of the two and slid it under the bars. “There you go, Miss Winters. The Boys Club is very lucky—”

  “We’re already late for that event, Miss Winters,” Baby Boy interrupted, laying a hand on her shoulder. “I think we’ll have to run to make it.”

  The two of them left the cashier’s window, with Baby Boy’s hand resting possessively on Becky’s back, steering towards the front door.

  “Hey,” the autograph-seeker said, “what about our autographs?”

  Becky shot them a look of desperation over one shoulder, feeling oddly sorry to disappoint them, then was hustled through the door.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  It took them half an hour to get to the First Western office. Close to the bars, vendors, and events, it was swarming with people and at first Randy wanted to call it off, maybe come back the next day, but Baby Boy overruled him. Because of the Rally, there wouldn’t be any time of day when there wasn’t a crowd or street traffic passing to and fro in front of the bank. It was now or never.

  So they rearranged seats again, with Becky in the front seat this time. Baby Boy didn’t grab Jason’s arm as he had Becky’s, but he put a hand on the actor’s chest before they were entirely free of the truck, and leaned in close.

  “You know better than to screw around, don’t you, Mr. Ford? In all this confusion, I could shoot you twice and walk away. A half million people would be running around, with no idea what happened. Right?”

  Jason looked at him, his eyes wide. “No screwing around. Right. Got it.”

  “Good.” Baby Boy smiled and patted him on the chest. “S’long as we understand one another.”

  They walked across the street and into the bank. Security was tighter than at the other bank, with one guard in the front, pacing back and forth to one side of the doors, crescent sweat stains under his arms. He nodded politely at Jason and Baby Boy as they walked in. Inside were two more security guards, looking bored and nearly asleep. They made excuses to pass by the pretty tellers who worked the desks, cracking jokes and making comments about the clientele. Jason and Baby Boy chose one of the windows, talked to the cashier, and Jason asked for his balance.

  “What do you mean, there’s only twenty thousand in my account?” Jason said, trying to sound indignant. “Do you know who I am?”

  “Yes, Mr. Ford,” the teller said. She was a plump, middle-aged woman with thick rims on her glasses and a beaded cord dangling from the stems. A knit shawl was around her shoulders and she wore a chunky, multicolored necklace. A nameplate on the counter said Anne Lamont. “I’m sorry, that’s what your account reads.”

  “Could there be a mistake? There must be a mistake.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Ford, there’s no mistake on our end. Perhaps you were expecting funds to be transferred or deposited and they didn’t make it?” She didn’t sound convinced.

  “But I’ve promised this money to the…charity thing. Fund-raiser,” he said, desperate. He expected Baby Boy to pull his gun and shoot him right there.

  She managed a tight, unsympathetic smile. “Again, I’m sorry, Mr. Ford.”

  “Get the ten thousand,” Baby Boy growled. “And wire the rest. The Boys Club will have to be happy with that.”

  The teller looked at them over the rims of her glasses. “Is that what you’d like to do, Mr. Ford?”

>   “Sure. Yes, that’ll have to do,” he said, babbling.

  “You understand you may have to pay penalties at your home banking institution if you have a balance of zero. And I’ll have to report this to the IRS.”

  “Yes, that’s fine.” His voice broke on fine.

  “How do you want your withdrawal? Do you have a preference?”

  “Just get the fucking money, Anne, okay? Would you, please?” Jason nearly shrieked.

  One of the security guards walked over in time to hear the last sentence. “Is there a problem here, gentlemen?”

  The two of them turned their heads to look at the security guard. “No problem,” Baby Boy said, trying to smile. “We’re just a little stressed. Mr. Ford has to make a charity donation later today and we’re running into some problems.”

  The guard glanced at Anne who shrugged. He turned back to Jason and Baby Boy. “All right, folks. Just take it easy. Anne will take care of you, if you let her.”

  “Thanks,” Jason said. He could feel the sweat roll down his spine and get blotted by his waistband. The teller had given him an idea. If he could just convince the two lunatics that he’d been expecting a deposit that hadn’t made it, he could spin any line of bull their way to keep them from shooting him in the head. What would they know about how Hollywood worked? Hell, the one guy—Randy—didn’t even know his butt from a hole in the ground.

  Anne had him sign some forms, which he did so carefully, knowing Baby Boy was looking over his shoulder. The teller was about to say something, annoyed that Baby Boy was standing so close to a customer, but then closed her mouth. Several minutes and forms later, she passed an envelope over the counter to Jason which, aside from his house and bike, contained very close to all the assets he owned in the world.

  They walked out of the bank, Baby Boy nodding to the security guards who nodded cautiously back. Jason and Baby Boy were about to cross the sidewalk to the truck when they heard someone call Jason’s name.